"Well, I would not say it till He does, child. But what did you pray for?"

"I said all the collects over."

"Very good things, my dear; but were they what you wanted? I thought you had a special trouble at this time."

"But what could I do?" asked Gatty, apparently rather bewildered.

"Dear child, thou couldst sure ask thy Father to help thee, without more ado. But 'bide a wee,' as my old friend, Scots Davie, was wont to say.

There is a great deal about prayer in the Word of G.o.d. Let us look at a little of it." Little Mrs Dorothy trotted to her small work-table, which generally stood at her side, and came back with a well-worn brown Bible. Gatty watched her with a rather frightened look, as if she thought that something was going to be done to her, and was not sure whether it might hurt her.

"Now hearken: 'Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto G.o.d.' Again: 'Whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name, that will I do.'

These are grand words, my dear."

"But they can't mean that Mrs Dorothy! Why, only think--if I were to ask for a fortune, should I get it?"

"I must have two questions answered, my dear, ere I can tell that. Who are the _you_ in these verses?"

"I thought it meant everybody."

"Not so. Listen again: 'If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.' 'Tis not everybody doth that."

"But I don't know what that means, Mrs Dorothy."

"Then, my dear, you have answered my second question--Are you one of these? For if you know not even what the thing is, 'tis but reasonable to conclude you have never known it in your own person."

"I suppose not," said Gatty, sorrowfully.

"You see, my dear, 'tis to certain persons these words are said. If you are not one of these persons, then they are not said to you."

"I am not." And Gatty shook her head sadly. "But, Mrs Dorothy, what does it mean?"

"Dear," said the old lady, "when we do truly abide in Christ, we desire first of all that His will be done. We wish for this or that; but we wish more than all that He choose all things for us--that He have His own way. Our wills are become His will. It follows as a certainty, that they shall be done. We must have what we wish, when it is what He wishes who rules all things. 'Ye shall ask what ye will.' He guides us what to ask, if we beg Him to do so."

"Is any one thus much perfect?" inquired Gatty, doubtfully.

"Many are trying for it," said Mrs Dolly. "There may be but few that have fully reached it."

"But that makes us like machines, Mrs Dolly, moved about at another's will."

"What, my dear! Love makes us machines? Never! The very last thing that could be, child."

"I don't know much about love," said Gatty, drearily.

"About love, or about being loved?" responded Mrs Dolly.

"Both," answered the girl, in the same tone.

"Will you try it, my dear? 'Tis the sweetener of all human life."

Gatty looked up with a surprised expression.

"_I_ can't make people love me," she said.

"Nor can you make yourself love others," added Mrs Dorothy. "But you can ask the Lord for that fairest of all His gifts, saving Jesus Christ."

"Ask G.o.d for a beau! O Mrs Dorothy!" exclaimed Gatty in a shocked tone.

"My dear, I never so much as named one," responded Mrs Dorothy, with a little laugh. "Sure, you are not one of those foolish maids that think they must be loveless and forlorn without they have a husband?"

Gatty had always been taught to think so; and she looked bewildered and mystified. A more eligible husband than old Lord Polesworth was the only idea that a.s.sociated itself in her mind with the word love.

"But what else did you mean?" she asked.

"Ay me!" said Mrs Dorothy, as if to herself. "How do men misunderstand G.o.d! Child, wert thou never taught the first and great commandment?

'Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thine heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength?'"

"Oh, of course," said Gatty, as if she were listening to some scientific formula about a matter wherein she was not at all concerned.

"Have you done that, my dear?"

"Done what?" demanded Gatty in a startled tone.

"Have you loved G.o.d with all your heart?"

Gatty looked as if she had been suddenly roused from sleep, and was unable to take in the circ.u.mstances.

"I don't know! I--I suppose, so."

"You suppose so! Dear child, how can you love any, and not know it?"

"But that is quite another sort of love!" cried Gatty.

"There is no sort but one, my dear. Love is love."

"Oh, but we can't _love_ G.o.d!" said Gatty, as if the idea quite shocked her. "That means--it means reverence, you know, and duty, and so on.

It can't mean anything else, Mrs Dorothy."

Mrs Dorothy knitted very fast for a moment. Phoebe saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

"Poor lost sheep!" she said, in a grieved voice. "Poor straying lamb, whom the wolf hath taught to be frightened of the Shepherd! You did not find that in the Bible, my dear."

"Oh, but words don't mean the same in the Bible!" urged Gatty. "Surely, Mrs Dorothy, 'twould be quite unreverent to think so."

"Surely, my dear, it were more unreverent to think that G.o.d does not mean what He saith. When He saith, 'I will punish you seven times for your sins,' He means it, Mrs Gatty. And when He saith, 'I will be a Father unto you,' shall we say He doth not mean it? O my dear, don't do Him such an injury as that!"

"Do G.o.d an injury!" said Gatty in an awed whisper.

"Ay, a cruel injury!" was the answer. "Men are always injuring G.o.d.

Either they try to persuade themselves that He means not what He says when He threatens: or else they shut their hearts up close, and then fancy that His heart is shut up too. My dear, He did not tarry to offer to be your Father, until you came and asked Him for it. 'He _first_ loved you.' Child, what dost thou know of the Lord Jesus Christ?"