This was three weeks later. Dot was asleep, and Pattie had come to the sitting-room, leaving the new nursery-maid in charge. Mrs. Cragg broke out with the above remark. "But Dot does love you. I am sure she does. Dot is such a loving little thing." "She don't care to have me with her. I can see that plain enough. I can see the difference when you come in." "A little child's love is so easily won. Haven't you found it so?" "I don't know. I suppose I haven't taken the trouble. I've been too busy—thinking about other things." "You will never be too busy again for Dot—your own little Dot. Think how much you ought to be to her—and how much you have to teach her!" "You said so once before. I've not forgotten. I don't think I can forget. It frightens me sometimes. Pattie, did you really mean what you said—quite all that?" "All what?" "The other day. Don't you remember? You said to me—you said something— something about—about Dot having to know what God is, through me. It frightened me then, and it frightens me now, when I think of what you said." "It was true. Of course it was true. Don't you see?" "No, I don't." "But you can't help it. God has given little Dot to you, just that you may teach her about Him—that you may show her what He is. No one in all the world can teach her as you can." "I can't! I don't know how." "You have to learn how. You ought to be able. Other people can talk to her about God; but you can show her what the talking means, by what you are to her yourself. There's no love in the world so near to the love of God as a mother's love. And Dot can never have another mother,—so it all depends upon you." "Pattie—you don't mean—" "I mean just what I'm saying," Pattie replied quietly. "If you don't show her what is meant by the love of God, she may learn it in some other way; but she can't learn it in the best way of all. It isn't so much a question of what you say or don't say to Dot, as of what you are to her. She ought to feel that she can always turn to you in everything—that she can always be sure of your truth and your love. She ought to know that, if all the world went wrong, you could never fail her. And then that would help her to understand what is meant by the love and the truth of God and of Christ. Don't you see now?" "Doesn't sound as if I ever could!" muttered the other. "But if it is right, you can. There's always a 'can' where there's an 'ought.'" "I do mean to try." Mrs. Cragg was looking down and twisting a corner of the tablecloth. "And I want you to help me. I know you can—more than anybody." "I'd do anything I was able."