imself, but he could hardly help muttering something about
its being "very provoking."

Mrs Parmelee was silent for a while, until the peevishness of her child had
a little time to subside, and then she said--

"My dear child, I am sorry that you should feel so; for you not only make
yourself unhappy, but you are finding fault with God, and you know that is
very wrong. God had something to do with your sickness. He could very
easily have prevented it, if he had chosen to do so. But he did not choose
to prevent it, and--"

"Well, why didn't he prevent it, mother?"

"Hear me through, my child. If he allowed you to be sick, when he could
have kept you well, then it is certain that, on the whole, he would rather
you would be sick. You see this, don't you, Julian?"

"Yes, ma'am. God made me sick, didn't he?"

"There's no doubt that all diseases are under his control."

"Then, mama, I am sure that God--"

"Not quite so fast. I want you to see what you was doing, when you was
so peevish a little while ago. You was very much out of humor. Indeed, I
think you showed some anger."

"Oh, no, mother, I was not angry."

"Perhaps not, my child; but what would you call that spirit, if it was
not anger?"

"I was--I was--provoked--I mean vexed, mama."

"Well, who vexed you?"

"Nobody; it was the whooping-cough."

"I'm very sorry that my child should get into such a passion--or
vexation, whichever it may be--with the whooping-cough; for you say that
you suppose the disease was under the control of God, so that it must
have been rather an innocent sort of thing, after all. If you should
fall into the mill-pond, and a man standing on the shore should let you
struggle a while before he helped you out, you would get vexed, wouldn't
you?"

"I guess I should."

"You would certainly have as much reason for vexation as you have had
this morning. But would you be likely to get vexed with the water?"

"Why, no, mama. I should be provoked with the man, because he didn't
help me out."

"I thought so. Well, then, don't you think you found fault with God, in
this matter of the whooping-cough?"

"It may be so."

"It must be so."

Little Julian was a thoughtful child. He saw that this spirit of
peevishness was very wrong, and that he had murmured against God. He
told his mother that he hoped he should not do so any more. He was
silent for some minutes, and then said--

"There is one thing I would like to know about, mo