“But I don’t know what you mean by best!” she said, presently.
“Don’t you?” said Christie, smiling a little. “Well, I am not good at explaining things. I don’t mean what is pleasantest just now, but what is really best for us all, now, and—and afterwards.”
“Do you mean to say that you are better off here as Claude’s nurse than you would be if you were to live at home, or go to school, as you were wishing you could the other day? If you had your choice, is that what you would choose?”
“Oh, I don’t speak about a choice. I am content not to choose; at least, almost always I am content. I know it is best for me to be here, or I shouldn’t be here.”
“But, do you know, that seems to me quite absurd. Why, according to that, everybody is just in the right place. No one ought to have any wish to change, even to be better. All the world is just as it ought to be.”
“I can’t tell what is best for all the world and everybody,” said Christie, gravely. “I was only speaking of myself and Effie, and the rest at home.”
“But I suppose what is true for you is true for other people also—for me, for instance! Don’t you think I have anything left to wish for? Do you think I am in the very best place I could be in for my happiness now and always?”
“I don’t know,” said Christie, looking wistfully into her face. “I hope so. I cannot tell.”
“But what makes you so sure in your own case, then, if you can’t tell in mine? I think few people would hesitate as to which of us is most happily placed. What makes you so sure of yourself?”
Christie did not reply for a moment. She was slowly turning over the leaves of her Bible. When at last she stopped, it was to read softly: