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?"

"Well, my dear, you have been ill for over ten weeks," she said as she
went to the window with a sudden gasp.

"Ten weeks gone out of my life!" he replied.

"We have all been sorry," said Leam a little vaguely.

His eyes grew moist. He was weak and easily moved. "Were you very
sorry?" he asked.

"Very," she answered, for her quite warmly.

"Then you did not want me to die?" He said this with a yearning look,
raising himself again on his elbow to meet her eyes more straightly.

"Want you to die?" she repeated in astonishment. "Why should I want
you to die? I want you to get well and live."

He took her hand again. "God bless you!" he said, and turned his face
to the pillow to conceal that he was weeping.

Again that gray look of remembrance, passed over her face. She knew
now what he had meant. "No," she said slowly, "I do not want you to