"But tell me, Connie," I said, "why you are _afraid_ you enjoy hearing the
wind about the house."

"Because it must be so dreadful for those that are out in it."

"Perhaps not quite so bad as we think. You must not suppose that God has
forgotten them, or cares less for them than for you because they are out in
the wind."

"But if we thought like that, papa," said Wynnie, "shouldn't we come to
feel that their sufferings were none of our business?"

"If our benevolence rests on the belief that God is less loving than we, it
will come to a bad end somehow before long, Wynnie."

"Of course, I could not think that," she returned.

"Then your kindness would be such that you dared not, in God's name, think
hopefully for those you could not help, lest you should, believing in his
kindness, cease to help those whom you could help! Either God intended that
there should be poverty and suffering, or he did not. If he did not
intend it--for similar reasons to those for which he allows all sorts of
evils--then there is nothing between but that we should sell everything
that we have and give it away to the poor."

"Then why don't we?" said Wynnie, looking truth itself in my face.

"Because that is not God's way, and we should do no end of harm by so
doing. We should make so many more of those who will not help themselves