some day, won't he, Padre
dear? But now let us talk in English; you know, I haven't spoken it
for such a long time."

Jose gazed at her in rapt silence. What a rare interpretation of the
mind divine was this child! But he wondered why one so pure and
beautiful should attract a mind so carnal as that of Diego. And yet--

"Ah!" he mused, "it is again that law. Good always stirs up its
suppositional opposite. And the most abundant good and the greatest
purity stir up the most carnal elements of the human mind. All history
shows it. The greater the degree of good, the greater the seeming
degree of evil aroused. The perfect Christ stirred the hatred of a
world. Carmen arouses Diego simply because of her purity. Yet she
knows that he can not harm her."

His eyes met the girl's, and she answered his unspoken thought in the
tongue which she was fast adopting. "We _have_ to love him, you know,
Padre dear."

"Love whom? Diego?"

"Why, yes, of course. We can't help loving him. Oh, not the 'him' that
the human mind looks at, but the real 'him,' you know--the 'him' that
is God's image. And you know there just isn't any other 'him,' now is
there?"

"God above!" murmured Jose, "if I could but keep my thought as
straight as she does!"

"But, Padre dear, your thought _is_ straight. You know, God's thought
is the only thought there really is. Any other thought has the minus
sign, and so it is zero. If we will always think of the real Padre
Diego, and love that, why, the unreal one will fade away from our
thought."

"Do you suppose, _chiquita_, that if we love him we will make him
repent?"

The child pondered the question for a moment. Then:

"Padre, what did you tell me once about the word 'repent'?"

"It comes from the Greek word '_metanoia_.'"

"Yes," she reflected; "but what did you say that--"

"Oh, yes, I told you it meant a complete and radical change of
thought."

"Well!" she exclaimed, her eyes brightening.

Jose waited expectantly. It was heaven to have this girl before him
and to drink in the naive expressions of her active mind.

"Padre dear, when John the baptiser said, 'Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand,' did he mean to tell the people that they must have
a complete change of thought?"

Jose laughed. And then he grew serious. "_Chiquita_," he answered, "I
have no doubt he meant just that. For you have taught me that there
can be no salvation without such a complete and radical change."

"