"And then who on earth would care for me any more!" said Hester, with mock mournfulness, which brought a glimmer of the merry light back to the major's face. "But really, Hester," he persisted, "this is most imprudent. It is your life, not your beauty only you are periling!" "Perhaps," she answered. "And the lives of us all!" added the major. "Is the small-pox worse than a man-eating tiger?" she asked. "Ten times worse," he answered. "You can fight the tiger, but you can't fight the small-pox. You really ought _not_ to run such fearful risks." "How are they to be avoided? Every time you send for the doctor you run a risk! You can't order a clean doctor every time!" "A joke's all very well! but it is our duty to take care of ourselves." "In reason, yes," replied Hester. "You may think," said the major, "that God takes special care of you because you are about his business--and far be it from me to say you are not about his business or that he does not take care of you; but what is to become of me and the like of me if we take the small-pox from you?" Hester had it on her lips to say that if he was meant to die of the small-pox, he might as well take it of her as of another; but she said instead that she was sure God took care of her, but not sure she should not die of the small-pox. "How can you say God takes care of you if he lets you die of the small-pox!" "No doubt people would die if God forgot them, but do you think people die because God forgets them?" "My dear cousin Hester, if there is one thing I have a _penchant_ for, it is common sense! A paradox I detest with my whole soul!" "One word, dear major Marvel: Did God take care of Jesus?" "Of course! of course! But he wasn't like other men, you know." "I don't want to fare better, that is, I don't want to have more of God's care than he had." "I don't understand you. I should think if we were sure God took as good care of us as of him--" But there he stopped, for he began to have a glimmer of where she was leading him. "Did he keep him what you call safe?" said Hester. "Did he not allow the worst man could do to overtake him? Was it not the very consequence of his obedience?" "Then you have made up your mind to die of the small-pox?--In that case----" "Only if it be God's will," interrupted Hester. "To that, and that alone, have I made up my mind. If I die of the small-pox, it will not be because it could not be helped, or because I caught it by chance; it will be because God allowed it as best for me and for us all. It will not be a punishment for breaking his laws: he loves none better, I believe, than those who break the laws of nature to fulfil the laws of the spirit--which is the deeper nature, 'the nature naturing nature,' as I read the other day: of course it sounds nonsense to anyone who does not understand it."