"She says that when we love Jesus Christ it is easy to please him."
"And do you love him, Elfie?" Mr Carleton asked after a minute.
Her answer was a very quiet and sober "Yes."
He doubted still whether she were not unconsciously using a form of speech the spirit of which she did not quite realize. That one might "not see and yet believe," he could understand; but for affection to go forth towards an unseen object was another matter. His question was grave and acute.
"By what do you judge that you do, Elfie?"
"Why, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with an instant look of appeal, "who else should I love?"
"If not him "--her eye and her voice made sufficiently plain. Mr. Carleton was obliged to confess to himself that she spoke intelligently, with deeper intelligence than he could follow. He asked no more questions. Yet truth shines by its own light, like the sun. He had not perfectly comprehended her answers, but they struck him as something that deserved to be understood, and he resolved to make the truth of them his own.
The rest of the voyage was perfectly quiet. Following the earnest advice of his friend Capt. Beebee, Thorn had given up trying to push Mr. Carleton to extremity; who on his part did not seem conscious of Thorn's existence.
Chapter XIII.
There the most daintie paradise on ground
Itselfe doth offer to his sober eye,--
-----The painted flowres, the trees upshooting hye,
The dales for shade, the hills for breathing space,
The trembling groves, the christall running by;
And that, which all faire works doth most aggrace,
The art which all that wrought appeared in no place.