In my secret heart I believed that he was taking much too lofty a view
of the matter; but I had no desire to argue against so flattering a
delusion, if it were one, and only wished that I could share it with
him.

"She is sleeping still," he said presently, "perhaps without pain, like
Yoletta here, and her sleep will now probably last for some hours."

"I pray Heaven that she may wake refreshed and free from pain," I
remarked.

He seemed surprised at my words, and looked searchingly into my face.
"My son," he said, "it grieves me, at a moment like the present, to have
to point out a great error to you; but it is an error hurtful to
yourself and painful to those who see it, and if I were to pass it over
in silence, or put off speaking of it to another time, I should not be
fulfilling the part of a loving father towards you."

Surprised at this speech, I begged him to tell me what I had said that
was wrong.

"Do you not then know that it is unlawful to entertain such a thought as
you have expressed?" he said. "In moments of supreme pain or bitterness
or peril we sometimes so far forget ourselves as to cry out to Heaven to
save us or to give us ease; but to make any such petition when we are in
the full possession of our faculties is unworthy of a reasonable being,
and an offense to the Father: for we pray to each other, and are moved
by such prayers, remembering that we are fallible, and often err through
haste and forgetfulness and imperfect knowledge. But he who freely gave
us life and reason and all good gifts, needs not that we should remind