Johannes and his aunt returned home very well pleased. Aunt Seréna was rejoiced over her willing and appreciative votary, and Johannes over this well-conducted experiment in philanthropy. If this were to be the way, all would be well. In a high state of enthusiasm he sped to the garden to dream away the quiet afternoon amid the richly laden raspberry-bushes. "Aunt Seréna," said Johannes, at table that noon, "that poor boy in the back street, with the inflamed eyes and that ulcerated leg--is he a religious boy?" "Yes, Johannes, so far as I know." "Then is the Lord his Shepherd, too?" "Yes, Johannes," said his aunt, more seriously now, having in mind his former remark. But Johannes spoke quite innocently, as if deep in his own thoughts. "Why is it, then, that he lacks so much? He has never seen the dunes nor the ocean. He goes from his bed to his chair, and from his chair to his bed, and knows only that dirty room." "The Lord knows what is good for us, Johannes. If he is pious, and remains so, sometime he will lack for nothing." "You mean when he is dead?... But, Aunt Seréna, if I am pious I shall go to heaven, too, shall I not?" "Certainly, Johannes." "But, Aunt Seréna, I have had a fine time in your home, with raspberries and roses, and delicious things to eat, and he has had nothing but pain and plain living. Yet the end is the same. That does not seem fair, does it, Aunt Seréna?" "The Lord knows what is good for us, Johannes. The most severely tried are to Him the best beloved." "Then, if it is not a blessing to have good things, we ought to long for trials and privations?" "We should be resigned to what is given us," said Aunt Seréna, not quite at her ease. "And yet be thankful only for all those delicious things? Although we know that trials are better?" Johannes spoke seriously, without a thought of irony, and Aunt Seréna, glad to be able to close the conversation, replied: "Yes, Johannes, always be thankful. Ask the dominie about it." Dominie Kraalboom came in the evening, and, as Aunt Seréna repeated to him Johannes' questions, his face took on the very same scowl it always wore when he stood up in the pulpit; his wry mouth rolled the _r's_, and, with the emphasis of delightful certainty, he uttered the following: "My dear boy, that which you, in your childlike simplicity, have asked, is--ah, indeed--ah, the great problem over which the pious in all ages have pondered and meditated--pondered and meditated. It behooves us to enjoy gratefully, and without questioning, what the good Lord, in His eternal mercy, is pleased to pour out upon us. We should, as much as lies in our power, relieve the afflictions that He allots to others, and at the same time teach the sufferers to be resigned to the inevitable. For He knows what we all have need of, and tempers the wind to the shorn lamb."