“Then how do we know that God is God?” “Because He must be God. Because everything He has made is so wonderful.” “But Miss Vance seems to know all about Him, and when I ask her how she knows she gets stiff and funny, and says there are things that little girls can’t understand. Isn’t God very fond of children, Miss Eve, dear?” “Very.” “Doesn’t it seem funny, then, that He shouldn’t come and play with me as daddy does?” “God’s ever so busy.” “Is He busy like mother?” “No; not quite like that.” All this was rather a breathless business, and Eve felt as though she were up before the Inquisition, and likely to be found out. Lynette’s eyes were always watching her face. “Oh, Miss Eve, where do all the little children come from?” “God sends them, dear.” “Bogey, our cat, had kittens this morning. I found them all snuggling up in the cupboard under the back stairs. Isn’t it funny! Yesterday there weren’t any kittens, and this morning there are five.” “That’s how lots of things happen, dear. Everything is wonderful. You see a piece of bare ground, and two or three weeks afterwards it is full of little green plants.” “Do kittens come like that?” “In a way.” “Did they grow out of the cupboard floor? They couldn’t have done, Miss Eve.” “They grew out of little eggs, dear, like chickens out of their eggs.” “But I’ve never seen kittens’ eggs, have you?” “No, little Beech Leaf, I haven’t.” Eve felt troubled and perplexed, and she appealed to Canterton. “What is one to tell her? It’s so difficult. I wouldn’t hurt her for worlds. I remember I had all the old solemn make-believes given me, and when I found them out it hurt, rather badly.” He smiled with his grave eyes—eyes that saw so much. “Do you believe in anything?” “You mean——” “Do you think with the nineteenth-century materialists that life is a mere piece of mechanism?” “Oh, no.” “Something or someone is responsible. We have just as much right to postulate God as we postulate ether.” “Yes.” “Could you conscientiously swear that you don’t believe in some sort of prime cause?” “Of course I couldn’t.” “Well, there you are. We are not so very illogical when we use the word God.” She looked into the distance, thinking. “After all, life’s a marvellous fairy tale.” “Exactly.” “And sometimes we get glimmerings of the ‘how,’ if we do not know the ‘why.’” “Let a child go on believing in fairy tales—let us all keep our wonder and our humility. All that should happen is that our wonder and our humility should widen and deepen as we grow older, and fairy tales become more fascinating. I must ask Miss Vance to put all that Old Testament stuff of hers on the shelf. When you don’t know, tell the child so. But tell her there is someone who does know.” Her eyes lifted to his. “Thank you, so much.”