"Ha!" says Marguerite, when I repeat my thoughts to her, "the great God is so rich that He can bring the large things out of the small. We others, we can only bring the small out of the large." "That sounds like spoiling things," said I. "Men are very apt to spoil what they touch," she answered. "The good Lord never touches anything that He does not leave more beautiful. Has He not blessed childhood and manhood, by becoming Child and Man? Is not the earth fairer since He dwelt on it? and the little children dearer, since He took them in His arms and blessed them? Ah, He might have cared for me, and felt with me, just as much, if He had never been a Man: but it would not have been the same thing to me. And He knew it. When we love one very much, Damoiselle, we love what he has touched: and if he touch us, ourselves, it sends a delicious thrill through us. The good Lord knew that when He took on Him our nature, with all its sufferings and infirmities,—when He touched us every where—in sorrow, and weariness, and poverty, and hunger, and pain, and death. We can suffer nothing which He has not suffered first,—on which He has not laid His hand, and blessed it for His chosen. Thanks be to His Name! It is like honey sweetening everything. And the things that are bitter and acid want the most sweetening. So the good Lord chose poverty and pain. Ease and riches are sweet of themselves. I have heard Father Eudes read of one or two feasts where He was: He blessed joy as well as sorrow,—perhaps lest we should fancy that there was something holy in pain and poverty in themselves, and something wicked in being comfortable and happy. Some people do think so, after all. But I have heard Father Eudes read a great deal more of funerals than feasts, where the blessed Lord was. He seemed to go where people wanted comforting, much oftener than where they were comfortable. He knew that many more would sorrow than rejoice." What strange eyes Marguerite has! She can look at nothing, but she sees the good God. And the strangest thing is, that it seems to make her happy. It always makes me miserable. To think of God, when I am bright and joyous, is like dropping a black curtain over the brightness. Why cannot I be like Marguerite? I ought to be a great deal happier than she. There is something wrong, somewhere. Then of course there must be something holy in poverty—voluntary poverty, that is—or why do monks and nuns take the vow of poverty? I suppose there is nothing holy in simply being poor, like a villein. And if our Lord really were poor, when He was on earth, that must have been voluntary poverty. I said as much to Margot.