Aloud he replied: “She needs a wise head like yours. What would you advise her to do?” “To be _natural_; just her own self, and she isn’t. I believe she’s afraid.” “So will you be when you are as old as she is.” “I don’t know what to be afraid of.” “May you never know. Is that all you are in the dark about?” he questioned, seating himself in his study chair, and wheeling around to face the girl in the bay window. A girl in blue, as she was when she sat in the bay window in Summer Avenue and wrote letters to Aunt Affy; the same trustful eyes, loving mouth, and yellow head. Now, as then, she did not know what to be afraid of. It was only this last month that she had brought her questions to Roger. Marion had not grown ahead of her to answer her. And Aunt Affy had been so absorbed in Aunt Rody this last year that she had feared to trouble her with questions. “I have a book-full of questions laid up for you; rather the answers would be a book-full. Life seems full of questions. There’s always something to ask about everything I read.” “Ask the next book.” “The next book doesn’t always know.” “The next person may not always know.” “I can easily find out,” she laughed. Then she became grave, and, after a moment’s silence, said: “I wish I knew why we couldn’t have _an idea_, as we pray a long time for something, whether it were going to be given us or not.” “Something that you have no special promise for?” “Yes; something in the ‘what-so-ever.’ It does seem so hard to have it grow darker and harder, and not to know whether you may keep on or not; whether giving up would be in faith—or despair.” “Judith, you’ve touched a sensitive point in many a heart that keeps on praying.” “Do _you_ know?” she asked. “I can tell you a story.” His story was all she desired. “You know when Jairus came to the Lord to plead for his daughter, he fell at his feet and besought him greatly, saying: ‘My little daughter lieth at the point of death.’ Then Jesus went with him. We do not know what he said, but he went with him. Then, as they went together, the crowd came to a stand-still that the Lord might perform a miracle and answer the prayer of a touch. But, by this time, Jesus had been so long on the way that news came of the death of the little daughter. It was too late. She was dead. They said to the father: ‘Why troublest thou the Master any further?’ He might as well go home to his dead child, the Master had not cared to hasten—this woman was not at the point of death, she might have been healed another day. But think of the comfort: _as soon as_ Jesus heard the message, he said to the father: ‘Be not afraid; only believe.’ Is he not saying that every hour to us who are fainting because he is so long on the way?” “Yes,” said Judith, “but he did not _say_ he would raise her from the dead. Perhaps the ruler did not know he had power to raise from the dead.” “No; he only said: Be not afraid: only believe. Is not that assurance enough for you?”