"No, papa," cried Willie; "I shouldn't stop loving, I'm sure."
"Indeed you would, Willie."
"Not you and mamma."
"Yes; you wouldn't love us any more than if you were dead asleep without dreaming."
"That would be dreadful."
"Yes it would. So you see how good God is to us—to go on working, that we may be able to love each other."
"Then if God works like that all day long, it must be a fine thing to work," said Willie.
"You are right. It is a fine thing to work—the finest thing in the world, if it comes of love, as God's work does."
This conversation made Willie quite determined to learn to knit; for if God worked, he would work too. And although the work he undertook was a very small work, it was like all God's great works, for every loop he made had a little love looped up in it, like an invisible, softest, downiest lining to the stockings. And after those, he went on knitting a pair for his father; and indeed, although he learned to work with a needle as well, and to darn the stockings he had made, and even tried his hand at the spinning—of which, however, he could not make much for a long time—he had not left off knitting when we come to begin the story in the next chapter.