!"

"It's His own fault," said Juliet bitterly. "Why did He make us--or why
did He not make us good? I'm sure I don't know where was the use of
making me!"

"Perhaps not much yet," replied Dorothy, "but then He hasn't made you,
He hasn't done with you yet. He is making you now, and you don't like
it."

"No, I don't--if you call this making. Why does He do it? He could have
avoided all this trouble by leaving us alone."

"I put something like the same question once to Mr. Wingfold," said
Dorothy, "and he told me it was impossible to show any one the truths of
the kingdom of Heaven; he must learn them for himself. 'I can do little
more,' he said, 'than give you my testimony that it seems to me all
right. If God has not made you good, He has made you with the feeling
that you ought to be good, and at least a half-conviction that to Him
you have to go for help to become good. When you are good, then you will
know why He did not make you good at first, and will be perfectly
satisfied with the reason, because you will find it good and just and
right--so good that it was altogether beyond the understanding of one
who was not good. I don't think,' he said, 'you will ever get a
thoroughly satisfactory answer to any question till you go to Himself
for it--and then it may take years to make you fit to receive, that is
to understand the answer.' Oh Juliet! sometimes I have felt in my heart
as if--I am afraid to say it, even to you,--"

"_I_ shan't be shocked at any thing; I am long past that," sighed
Juliet.

"It is not of you I am afraid," said Dorothy. "It is a kind of awe of
the universe I feel. But God is the universe; His is the only ear that
will hear me; and He knows my thoughts already. Juliet, I feel sometimes
as if I _must_ be good for God's sake; as if I was sorry for Him,
because He has such a troublesome nursery of children, that will not or
can not understand Him, and will not do what He tells them, and He all
the time doing the very best for them He can."

"It may be all very true, or all great nonsense, Dorothy, dear; I don't
care a bit about it. All I care for is--I don't know what I care for--I
don't care for any thing any more--there is nothing left to care for. I
love my husband with a heart like to break--oh, how I wish it would! He
hates and despises me and I dare not wish that he wouldn't. If he were
to forgive me quite, I should yet feel that he ought to despise me, and
that would be all the same as