"No, no. It will make me much worse not to hear it all now." "Well, I will tell you. Be still, my darling, I won't be long. In the time of the old sacrifices, when God so kindly told his ignorant children to do something for him in that way, poor people were told to bring, not a bullock or a sheep, for that was more than they could get, but a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons. But now, as Crashaw the poet says, 'Ourselves become our own best sacrifice.' God wanted to teach people to offer themselves. Now, you are poor, my pet, and you cannot offer yourself in great things done for your fellow-men, which was the way Jesus did. But you must remember that the two young pigeons of the poor were just as acceptable to God as the fat bullock of the rich. Therefore you must say to God something like this:--'O heavenly Father, I have nothing to offer thee but my patience. I will bear thy will, and so offer my will a burnt-offering unto thee. I will be as useless as thou pleasest.' Depend upon it, my darling, in the midst of all the science about the world and its ways, and all the ignorance of God and his greatness, the man or woman who can thus say, _Thy will be done_, with the true heart of giving up is nearer the secret of things than the geologist and theologian. And now, my darling, be quiet in God's name." She held up her mouth to kiss me, but did not speak, and I left her, and sent Dora to sit with her. In the evening, when I went into her room again, having been out in my parish all the morning, I began to unload my budget of small events. Indeed, we all came in like pelicans with stuffed pouches to empty them in her room, as if she had been the only young one we had, and we must cram her with news. Or, rather, she was like the queen of the commonwealth sending out her messages into all parts, and receiving messages in return. I might call her the brain of the house; but I have used similes enough for a while. After I had done talking, she said-- "And you have been to the school too, papa?" "Yes. I go to the school almost every day. I fancy in such a school as ours the young people get more good than they do in church. You know I had made a great change in the Sunday-school just before you came home." "I heard of that, papa. You won't let any of the little ones go to school on the Sunday." "No. It is too much for them. And having made this change, I feel the necessity of being in the school myself nearly every day, that I may do something direct for the little ones." "And you'll have to take me up soon, as you promised, you know, papa--just before Sprite threw me." "As soon as you like, my dear, after you are able to read again." "O, you must begin before that, please.--You could spare time to read a little to me, couldn't you?" she said doubtfully, as if she feared she was asking too much. "Certainly, my dear; and I will begin to think about it at once."