“Well,” he said, not very logically, “that narcissus has nothing but air around it; my thought of the narcissus has mind around it.” “Then a thought is better than a thing because it has thought round about it?” “Well, yes.” “Did the thing come there of itself, or did it come of God’s thinking?” “Of God’s thinking.” “And God is always the same?” “Yes.” “Then God’s thought is about the narcissus still--and the narcissus is better than your thought of it!” Walter was silent. “I should so like to understand!” said Molly. “If you have a thought more beautiful than the narcissus, Walter, I should like to see it! Only if I could see it, it would be a thing, would it not? A thing must be a think before it be a thing. A thing is a ripe think, and must be better than a think--except it lose something in ripening--which may very well be with man’s thoughts, but hardly with God’s! I will keep in front of the things, and look through them to the thoughts behind them. I want to understand! If a thing were not a thought first, it would not be worth anything! And everything has to be thought about, else we don’t see what it is! I haven’t got it quite!” Instead of replying, Walter rose, and they walked to the house side by side in silence. “Could a thought be worth anything that God had never cared to think?” said Molly to herself as they went. CHAPTER V. FLUTTERBIES. Mr. Colman and his adopted daughter were fast friends--so fast and so near that they could talk together about Walter, though but the adoptive brother of the one, and the real son of the other. Richard had inherited, apparently, his wife’s love to Molly, and added to it his own; but their union had its root in the perfect truthfulness of the two. Real approximation, real union must ever be in proportion to mutual truthfulness. It was quite after the usual fashion, therefore, between them, when Molly began, to tell her father about the conversation she had had with Walter. “What first made you think, Molly, of such a difference between thoughts and things?” asked Mr. Colman. “I know quite well,” answered Molly. “You remember our visit to your old school-friend, Mr. Dobson?” “Of course; perfectly.” Mr. Dobson was a worthy clergyman, doing his weary best in a rural parish. “And you remember Mrs. Evermore?” “Yes.” “You thought her name a funny one; but you said it ought to have been _‘Nevermore,’_ because she seemed never to get any further!”