Mrs. La Grange shook her head.
"I am a dyed-in-the-wool Presbyterian, and I've fought, bled, and died for my religion in a family who believe that God created the Church of England first and then turned His attention to the creation of the earth, so you can't expect me to welcome a new fad, can you, my dear? But I beg your pardon, Carol. What were you going to say?"
"It was only this," said Carolina, gently. "That even if Flower's baby is blind to mortal sight, he is not blind in God's eyes. There he is perfect, for God, who is Incarnate Love, never created a blind or dumb baby."
Tears rushed suddenly to the old woman's eyes.
"Are you thinking of poor little Teddy Fitzhugh?" she whispered.
"Yes, I was."
"Oh, Carolina! If you could have seen his mother's anguish all these years! But you would have to be a mother yourself before you could even apprehend it."
"Yes, I suppose I would."
"And now," said the older woman, with that patient tightening of the lips with which so many Christian women prepare themselves to bear the heart-breaking calamities which they believe a tender Heavenly Father inflicts on those He loves, "I suppose I must steel my heart to see poor Flower writhe under a worse agony. Indeed, Carol, God's ways are hard to understand."
"Yes, God is such a peculiar sort of parent," observed Carolina. "He seems to do things with impunity, which if an earthly father did, the neighbours would lynch him."