"Oh, how?"
"One way is always to expect joy instead of pain. When you are looking for joy you find joy and when you are looking for pain you find pain. I rather think that you have been looking for pain recently."
Ethel hung her head.
"I was a coward at the fire at our house, and I'm so ashamed it doesn't seem to me I can ever see my father again. He's a soldier and I know he'd be mortified to death."
"He might be sorry; I don't believe he'd be mortified," said the Bishop, and somehow the half-agreement soothed Ethel. "They say that when soldiers go into battle for the first time they often are so frightened that they are nauseated. I dare say your father has seen cases like that among his own men, so he would understand that a sudden shock or surprise may bring about behavior that comes from nervousness and not from real fear. I rather think that that was what was the matter in your case."
Ethel drew a sigh of exquisite relief.
"Do you remember my two reasons for cowardice? I should think it was quite possible that in the sudden excitement of the fire your imagination worked too hard. You saw yourself smothered by the smoke or roasted in the flames. Didn't you?"
"I didn't really think it; I felt it," Ethel nodded.
"And you didn't stop to say to yourself: 'I'm going to do all I can to help and I'm going to be careful, but if anything does happen to me I'll be able to bear it.'"
"No, I didn't think that; I just thought how it would hurt. And Ethel Brown saved Dicky and wasn't afraid at all."