of all His gifts, saving Jesus
Christ."

"Ask God 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 associated 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
God! Child, wert thou never taught the first and great commandment?
`Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 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 God with all your heart?"

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

"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_ God!" 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 God 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 God an injury!" said Gatty in an awed whisper.

"Ay, a cruel injury!" was the answer. "Men are always in