“I have come to learn of you, my saint.”
“What have you come to learn, my sinner?”
“I’m confused—I’m bewildered—I’m all in a tangle. People say, ‘pray about it’; you say that yourself; and I do pray about all the trials in my life and yet—I can not understand—I am groping my way, I am blind, walking in the dark. Do you know that I believe that praying for a thing is the hardest way in the world to get it? I would rather earn it a thousand times over; I know that you think me dreadfully wicked, but do not stop me, let me pour it all out; hard praying, never ceasing, night and day, is enough to wear one out soul and body, because you must expect to get what you ask for, and if you do not after praying so long the disappointment is heart-breaking. There now! I have said it and I feel better. I have no one except you to talk to and I wouldn’t dare tell you how wicked I am. About something I have prayed with all my strength—I will not be ashamed to tell you—I know you will understand; it is about loving somebody. I have been so ashamed and shocked at girls’ love-stories and I wanted one so true and pure and unselfish and beautiful, and I have prayed that mine might be that, and I have tried so hard to make it that, and yet I get into trouble and break my own heart, which is nothing at all, and more than break some one else’s heart and do as much harm as Sue Greyson does, who is as flighty as a witch! I would rather go without things than pray years and years and be disappointed every day, or go farther and farther into wrong-doing as I do; I don’t believe that the flightiest and flirtiest of your girls does as much harm as I do, or is as false to herself as I am! And I have been so proud of being true!”
“My dear child.”
“Is that all you can say to comfort me?”
“Why do you pray?”
“Why do I pray?” repeated Tessa in surprise. “To get what I want, I suppose.”
“I thought so.”
“Isn’t that what you pray for?”
“Hardly. I pray that I may get what God wants.”