Then, suddenly arousing herself, she detached a beautiful pink rosebud from the lapel of her jacket, saying, brightly: "Do you love flowers, Dorothy? will you let me fasten this on your coat? It is fresh from the greenhouse and will last some time yet. There—see!" as she deftly pinned it in place. "What a pretty contrast it makes against the dark-blue cloth."
"It is lovely," said the girl, bending forward to inhale its perfume. "How perfect it is! Do you ever wonder, Miss Minturn, why God makes the flowers and things that grow so perfect and beautiful, and people—so many of them—imperfect and ugly?"
"My dear," Mrs. Seabrook here smilingly interposed, though a quickly repressed sigh arose to her lips, "I hope you are not going to involve Miss Minturn in a metaphysical discussion during this first meeting! Dorothy has acquired a habit of philosophizing and asking profound questions that are not always easily answered," she explained to Katherine.
"Surely, dear, you do not think that God ever made anyone, or anything, imperfect or ugly?" Katherine gently inquired.
The child hesitated a moment, as if pondering the question.
"Well," she presently asserted, with a positive intonation and nod of her head, "there are a lot of deformed, sick and ugly people in the world, and the Bible tells us that He made everything."
"The Bible tells us, in Genesis, that 'everything that God made was good'; and, in Psalms, that 'all His ways are perfect,'" quoted Katherine.
"Yes, I know it; that was in the beginning, though," said Dorothy; "but if He could make things perfect in the first place I don't see why He didn't keep them so if He is God."
"Come, come, dearie; I think we must go on now—we are keeping Miss Reynolds and Miss Minturn from their walk," Mrs. Seabrook again interposed, with a note of gentle reproof in her tone, as she stooped to tuck the robe more closely around the girl.
A sunny smile, like a burst of sunshine from under a cloud, suddenly broke over Dorothy's face, at once dispelling its unnatural gravity and perplexity.