I had. But it was sweet to kneel down with Aunt Gretel again, with her arms and her warm dress folded around me, and say the words after her, the Our Father, and the prayer for father and Roger and all. But when I came to ask a blessing on Cousin Placidia, my lips seemed unable to frame the words. "Thou didst not pray for thy cousin, Olive," said Aunt Gretel. "She is so very difficult to love, Aunt Gretel," said I; "she often makes me do wrong. And I bit her finger this morning." Aunt Gretel shook her head. "Poor little one," said she, "ah, yes! It is always hardest to forgive those we have hurt." "But she pinched my arm where no one could see," said I. "It will not help thee to think of that, poor lamb," said Aunt Gretel, "what thou hast to do is to forgive. Think of what will help thee to do that." "I can't think of anything that helps me," said I. "Dost thou wish anything bad to happen to thy cousin?" said Aunt Gretel, after a pause. "If thou couldst bring trouble on her by praying for it, wouldst thou do it?" "No, not from God," said I. "Of course I could not ask anything bad from God." "Then wouldst thou ask thy father to send her away, poor neglected orphan child that she was?" "No, no, Aunt Gretel," I said, "not that. But I should like to see her punished by Aunt Dorothy." "How much?" said Aunt Gretel. "I am not sure. Only as much as she quite deserves." "That would be a good deal for us all," said she; "perhaps even for thee a little more than going to bed one night without supper." "Then until she was good," said I. "Thou wishest thy cousin to be good, then?" said Aunt Gretel. "Then thou canst at least pray for that." "It would make the house like the Garden of Eden, I think," I said, "before the tempter came, if Placidia were only not so provoking." "Would it?" said she, gravely. "Art thou then always so good? Then, perhaps, thou canst ask that thy cousin's trespasses may be forgiven, even if _thou_ canst not forgive her, and hast _none of thine own_ to be forgiven!" "O, Aunt Gretel." said I, suddenly perceiving her meaning, "I see it all now! It is the bit of ice in my own heart that made everything dark and cold to me. It is the bit of ice in my own heart!" She smiled and folded me to her heart. And then she prayed once more for Placidia the orphan, and for me, and Roger, "that God in His great pity would bless us and forgive us, and make us good and loving, and like Himself and His dear Son who suffered for us and bore our sins." And after that I did not so much care even whether Roger brought the answer he promised from Oxford or not. And it flashed on me for an instant, as if the answer to Roger's other puzzle might come somehow from the same point; as if it answered everything to the heart to think that light and not darkness, love and not necessity, are at the innermost heart of all. For love is at once perfect freedom and inevitable necessity.