"I am not." And Gatty shook her head sadly. "But, Mrs Dorothy, what does it mean?" "Dear," said the old lady, "when we do truly abide in Christ, we desire first of all that His will be done. We wish for this or that; but we wish more than all that He choose all things for us--that He have His own way. Our wills are become His will. It follows as a certainty, that they shall be done. We must have what we wish, when it is what He wishes who rules all things. `Ye shall ask what ye will.' He guides us what to ask, if we beg Him to do so." "Is any one thus much perfect?" inquired Gatty, doubtfully. "Many are trying for it," said Mrs Dolly. "There may be but few that have fully reached it." "But that makes us like machines, Mrs Dolly, moved about at another's will." "What, my dear! Love makes us machines? Never! The very last thing that could be, child." "I don't know much about love," said Gatty, drearily. "About love, or about being loved?" responded Mrs Dolly. "Both," answered the girl, in the same tone. "Will you try it, my dear? 'Tis the sweetener of all human life." Gatty looked up with a surprised expression. "_I_ can't make people love me," she said. "Nor can you make yourself love others," added Mrs Dorothy. "But you can ask the Lord for that fairest of all His gifts, saving Jesus Christ." "Ask God for a beau! O Mrs Dorothy!" exclaimed Gatty in a shocked tone. "My dear, I never so much as named one," responded Mrs Dorothy, with a little laugh. "Sure, you are not one of those foolish maids that think they must be loveless and forlorn without they have a husband?" Gatty had always been taught to think so; and she looked bewildered and mystified. A more eligible husband than old Lord Polesworth was the only idea that associated itself in her mind with the word love. "But what else did you mean?" she asked. "Ay me!" said Mrs Dorothy, as if to herself. "How do men misunderstand God! Child, wert thou never taught the first and great commandment? `Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength?'" "Oh, of course," said Gatty, as if she were listening to some scientific formula about a matter wherein she was not at all concerned. "Have you done that, my dear?" "Done what?" demanded Gatty in a startled tone. "Have you loved God with all your heart?" Gatty looked as if she had been suddenly roused from sleep, and was unable to take in the circumstances. "I don't know! I--I suppose, so." "You suppose so! Dear child, how can you love any, and not know it?" "But that is quite another sort of love!" cried Gatty. "There is no sort but one, my dear. Love is love." "Oh, but we can't _love_ God!" said Gatty, as if the idea quite shocked her. "That means--it means reverence, you know, and duty, and so on. It can't mean anything else, Mrs Dorothy."