"Yes it would. So you see how good God is to us--to go on working, that
we may be able to love each other."

"Then if God works like that all day long, it must be a fine thing to
work," said Willie.

"You are right. It is a fine thing to work--the finest thing in the
world, if it comes of love, as God's work does."

This conversation made Willie quite determined to learn to knit; for if
God worked, he would work too. And although the work he undertook was a
very small work, it was like all God's great works, for every loop he
made had a little love looped up in it, like an invisible, softest,
downiest lining to the stockings. And after those, he went on knitting
a pair for his father; and indeed, although he learned to work with a
needle as well, and to darn the stockings he had made, and even tried
his hand at the spinning--of which, however, he could not make much for
a long time--he had not left off knitting when we come to begin the
story in the next chapter.




CHAPTER III.


HE IS TURNED INTO SOMETHING HE NEVER WAS BEFORE.

Hitherto I have been mixing up summer and winter and everything all