We all looked up in her face, something in us leaping and answering to what she said. And I know that we understood.
"Oh," Mary Elizabeth whispered presently to Betty, "hurry home and tell Margaret Amelia. It'll make it so much easier when she comes out to her supper."
That night, on the porch, alone with Mother and Father, I inquired into something that still was not clear.
"But how can you tell which things are wicked? And which ones are wrong and which things are right?"
Father put out his hand and touched my hand. He was looking at me with a look that I knew—and his smile for me is like no other smile that I have ever known.
"Something will tell you," he said, "always."
"Always?" I doubted.
"Always," he said. "There will be other voices. But if you listen, something will tell you always. And it is all you need."
I looked at Mother. And by her nod and her quiet look I perceived that all this had been known about for a long time.
"That is why Grandma Bard is coming to live with us," she said, "not just because we wanted her, but because—that said so."