"Oh, yes, sir!" she said, plaintively. "I do hear such words, often, often. I try not to; but I can't help it, you see; and it makes me so sorry. But I thought those poor men and boys could not know how to read, and had never been taught better, or perhaps they did not know what God had said in His commandments. But I did not think gentlemen said such things; and I liked you so much."
And did she like him less now? He, the gentleman, the rich man, felt that he could not wish to lose the respect and liking of this little child whom he thought so far beneath him, and he was ashamed and sorry. He knew that it was not impertinence, but only her innocent simplicity and truthfulness, which had caused her to say what she did. But to know that he was in the wrong and to acknowledge it, were one and the same thing with this true-hearted man.
"You are right, Margaret," he said, forgetting how fast the moments were flying. "Gentlemen should not say such things, especially before ladies and children. It is bad manners; but I forgot myself just then."
She took her hands from her face and looked up at him. There was an unspoken question in the clear, earnest eyes, and it was plain that she was not yet satisfied.
"Well," he said smiling at her, "what troubles you still? Let me have it all."
"I was only thinking what difference could it make, sir."
"What difference could what make?"
"Whether it was ladies and children who heard it, sir," she answered timidly. "God hears it all the same, doesn't He? And it can't make any difference to Him who else hears it."
She looked up as she spoke at the blue sky overhead, and the look and the words brought to him a sudden sense of God's constant presence and nearness. He had known it well enough before,—that the Almighty Eye saw him always; that the Almighty Ear heard him always; but he had never felt it as he did now. The gentle, timid reproof had gone far deeper than the little giver had intended, and her hearer felt ashamed that he had confessed to her that he would pay a respect to a woman or child which he did not feel it needful to pay to his Maker. He could make her no answer.