"Certainly not, dear child. I am very thankful for the mist which my Father hath cast as a veil over my eyes." "But if you could see what would come, is it not very likely that there would not be some things which you would be glad and relieved to find absent?" "Very likely. The things of which we stand especially in fear often fail to come at all. But there would be other things, which I should be very sorry to find, and much astonished too." "I wonder sometimes, what will be in my life," said Phoebe, dreamily. "That which thou needest," was the quiet answer. "What do I need?" asked Phoebe. "To have thy will moulded after God's will." "Do you think I don't wish God's will to be done, Mrs Dorothy?" Mrs Dorothy smiled. "I quite believe, dear child, thou art willing He should have His way with respect to all the things thou dost not care about." "Mrs Dorothy!" "My dear, that is what most folks call being resigned to the will of God." "Mrs Dolly, why do people always talk as though God's will must be something dreadful? If somebody die, or if some accident happen, they say, `Ah, 'tis God's will, and we must submit.' But when something pleasant comes, they never say it then. Don't you think the pleasant things are God's will, as well as the disagreeable ones?" "More so, Phoebe. `In all our affliction, He is afflicted.' `He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.' Pleasant things are what He loves to give us; bitter things, what He needs must." "Then why do people talk so?" repeated Phoebe. "Ah, why do they?" said Mrs Dorothy. "Man is always wronging God. Not one of us all is so cruelly misunderstood of his fellows as all of us misunderstand Him." "Yet He forgives," said Phoebe softly: "and sometimes we don't." "He is always forgiving, Phoebe. The inscription is graven not less over the throne in Heaven than over the cross on earth,--`This Man receiveth sinners.'" There was a pause of some minutes; and as Phoebe rose to go, Mrs Dorothy said,-- "I will tell you one thing I have noted, child, as I have gone through life. Very often there has been something looming, as it were, before me that I had to do, or thought I should have to bear,--and in the distance and the darkness it took a dread shape, and I looked forward to it with terror. And when it has come at last, it has often--I say not always, but often--proved to be at times a light and easy cross, even at times an absolute pleasure. Again, there hath often been something in the future that I have looked forward to as a great good and delight, which on its coming hath turned out a positive pain and evil. 'Tis better we should not know the future, dear Phoebe. Our Father knows every step of the way: is not that enough? Our Elder Brother hath trodden every step, and will go with us through the wilderness. Perfect wisdom and perfect love have prepared all things. Ah, child, thy fathers were wise men to sing as they sang--