what comes to all babies--the instinct to say,
_Abba--Father_?"

"Say, Lois," Cousin Amy Dawes requested, in her loud, commanding voice,
"just save me a mite of this cold duck for old Sally Gibbs. It'll be
tasty for the poor soul. I'll take it to her as we go up the hill. What
do you pay your cook?" Without waiting for an answer she continued like
an oracle, "I don't believe she's worth it."

Thor leaned across the table. "What I want to know is this: suppose the
instinct to say _Abba--Father_ does come to us, is there anything there
to respond that will show us a better way--personally and nationally, I
mean, than the rather poor one we're finding for ourselves?"

"Can't give you any guarantees, Thor, if that's what you're after. Just
got to say _Abba--Father_, and see for yourself. Nothing but seeing for
oneself is any good when it comes to the personal. And as for the
national--well, there was a man once who went stalking through the land
crying, 'O Israel, turn thee to the Lord thy God,' and I guess he knew
what he was about. It was, 'Turn ye, turn ye! Why will ye die?' They
didn't turn and so they died. Inevitable consequence. Same with this
people or any other people. In proportion as it turns to the Lord its
God it'll live; and in proportion as it doesn't it'll go to pot." He
veered around to Lois as to one who would agree with him: "Ain't that
it?"

She responded with a sweet, absent smile which showed to Thor at least
that her thoughts were elsewhere. As a matter of fact, Thor's questions
and Uncle Sim's replies, which continued in more or less the same
strain, lay in a realm with regard to which she had few misgivings or
anxieties. Her heart-searchings being of another nature, she was doing
in thought what she had done when in the afternoon she had gone to her
room and shut the door. She was standing before her mirror, contrasting
the image reflected there with Rosie Fay's worn, touching prettiness.

How awesome, how incredible, that Thor, her great, noble Thor, should
have let his heart go--perhaps the very best of his heart--to anything
so insignificant, so unformed, so unequal to himself! It was this
awesomeness, this incredibility, that overwhelmed her. Her mind fixed
itself on it, for the time being, to the exclusion of other
considerations. Thor was like meaner men! He could be caught by a pretty
face! He was so big in body and soul that she had thought him free from
petty failing--and yet here it