Alick looked distressed. Should he never Christianize this pagan? "Don't say that, dear," he remonstrated. "We must not call in question His will."
"Things are things," said Leam with her quiet positiveness. "If they are bad, they are bad, whoever sends them."
"No. God cannot send us evil," cried Alick.
"Then He does not send us disease or sorrow," answered Leam. "If He does, it is silly to say they are good, or that He is kind to make us ill and wretched. I cannot tell stories. And all you people do."
"Leam, you pain me so much when you talk like this. It is bad, dear—impious and unchristian. Ah! can I never bring you to the true way?" he cried with real pain.
"You cannot make me tell stories or talk nonsense because you say it is religious," replied Leam, impervious and unconvinced. "I like better to tell the truth and call things by their right names."
"And you cannot feel that we are little children walking in the dark and that we must accept by faith?" said Alick.
She shook her head, then answered with a certain tone of triumph in her voice, "Well, yes, it is the dark: so let it be the dark, and do not pretend you understand when you do not. Do not say God made you ill in one breath, and in another that He is kind. It is silly."
"Now, my boy, don't excite yourself," said Mrs. Corfield, bustling into the room and noting how the thin cheek had flushed and how bright and feverish the hollow eyes of her invalid were looking. "You know the doctor says you are not to be excited or tired. It is the worst thing in the world for you."
"I am neither, mother: don't alarm yourself," he answered; "but I must have a little talk with Leam. I have not seen her for so long. How long is it, mother?"