Ten years they lived there together, ten happy years untouched by grief, but for the day when they laid up on the hillside under the pines her little girl, her very replica in exquisiteness of beauty. Then shadows came. Her strength began to fail and though her high courage kept the truth from her husband the knowledge of it grew in the hearts of them both and shadowed their lives with a nameless fear of what might be. CHAPTER II “And what’s ‘fore-ornained,’ Mother?” The hazel grey eyes searched the face, pale and luminous as if with an inner light, leaning toward him. “What’s ‘fore-ornained?’” “‘Fore-ordained,’ darling? Why, it means—well, let me see—why, well—it’s a little hard to explain, darling.” “I’m glad it is, Mother, because I don’t want to be stupid. I’m glad you don’t know either.” “Oh, well, I don’t quite say that, Paul, but it is a little difficult. You see it is difficult to explain about God.” “Oh, no! Not difficult about God. Why! I know God just as well as—anything.” “Do you, dear?” “Yes, and I often see Him——” “See Him, darling?” The mother’s voice was a little shocked. “What _do_ you mean? When do you see Him?” “Oh, lots of times. But mostly when I lie down on my back under the big pine trees away up on the hill here, Mother, and look away up between the big tops into the clouds—no, I mean behind the clouds—way up through the little blue holes—I see Him looking down at me, quiet, quiet, oh, awful quiet—just like He was watching and thinking—you know, just like you sometimes when you look far, far away over the river and away far behind the mountains, at something you don’t see. That’s the way He looks down through the clouds and between the trees, and He sees me too but He never says anything out loud—just looks and looks, and whispers—just like little winds.” “And what does He look like, darling? I mean what—who does He make you think of?” asked the mother. “Oh, I don’t know azackly. Oh, yes, a’course—why, I never thought before, Mother—it’s you, a’course. Only He’s a man an’ bigger—oh, much bigger, and stronger.” The little boy paused a moment or two, then said shyly, “An’ I like Him, Mother, awful well.” “Do you, darling? And why?” “Oh, I dunno. He’s always nice and pleased looking. An’ I think He likes me. But, Mother, you didn’t answer me about that word ‘fore-ornained.’” “‘Fore-ordained?’ Well, let me see—what does it say? ‘The decrees of God are His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby for His own glory He hath fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass.’ Well, that just means, Paul, that God has arranged beforehand everything that happens in the world.” “Everything? To everybody? Every single thing?” “Yes. Yes, dear. Now, we’ll go on.” “But everything, Mother? To Blazes too?” insisted the boy, his eye upon the nondescript mongrel stretched at ease on the grass in the shade of the verandah. “To Blazes? Why—I suppose so—yes.”