ls, she seemed to him like an animated sunbeam sporting
among the shadows.

"Why should life," he murmured aloud, "beginning in radiance, proceed
in ever deepening gloom, and end at last in black night? Why, but for
the false education in evil which is inflicted upon us! The joys, the
unbounded bliss of childhood, do indeed gush from its innocence--its
innocence of the blighting belief in mixed good and evil--innocence of
the false beliefs, the undemonstrable opinions, the mad worldly
ambitions, the carnal lust, bloated pride, and black ignorance of men!
It all comes from not knowing God, to know whom is life eternal! The
struggle and mad strife of man--what does it all amount to, when 'in
the end he shall be a fool'? Do we in this latest of the centuries,
with all our boasted progress in knowledge, really know so much, after
all? Alas! we know nothing--nothing!"

"Come, Padre," cried Carmen, returning to him, "we are going to just
try now to have all the nice thoughts we can. Let's just look all
around us and see if we can't think good thoughts about everything.
And, do you know, Padre dear, I've tried it, and when I look at things
and something tries to make me see if there could possibly be anything
bad about them--why, I find there can't! Try it, and see for
yourself."

Jose knew it. He knew that the minds of men are so profaned by
constantly looking at evil that their thoughts are tinged with it. He
was striving to look up. But in doing so he was combating a habit
grown mighty by years of indulgence.

"When you always think good about a thing," the girl went on, "you
never can tell what it will do. But good _always_ comes from it. I
know. I do it all the time. If things look bad, I just say, 'Why look,
here's something trying to tell me that two and two are seven!' And
then it goes away."

"Your purity and goodness resist evil involuntarily, little one," said
Jose, more to himself than to the child.

"Why, Padre, what big words!"

"No, little one, it is just the meaning of the words that is big," he
replied.

The girl was silent for some moments. Then:

"Padre dear, I never thought of it before--but it is true: we don't
see the meaning of words with the same eyes that we see trees and
stones and people, do we?"

Jose studied the question. "I don't quite understand what you mean,
_chiquita_," he was finally forced to answer.

"Well," she resumed, "the meaning of a word isn't something that we
can pic