us should ask you some day."

"No, my love. I never got an answer ready for anything lest one of my
children should ask me. But it is not surprising either that children
should be puzzled about the things that have puzzled their father, or that
by the time they are able to put the questions, he should have found out
some sort of an answer to most of them. Go on with your catechism, Wynnie.
Now for your puzzle!"

"It's not a funny question, papa; it's a very serious one. I can't think
why the unchanging God should have made all the most beautiful things
wither and grow ugly, or burst and vanish, or die somehow and be no more.
Mamma is not so beautiful as she once was, is she?"

"In one way, no; but in another and better way, much more so. But we will
not talk about her kind of beauty just now; we will keep to the more
material loveliness of which you have been speaking--though, in truth, no
loveliness can be only material. Well, then, for my answer; it is, I think,
because God loves the beauty so much that he makes all beautiful things
vanish quickly."

"I do not understand you, papa."

"I daresay not, my dear. But I will explain to you a little, if Mr.
Percivale will excuse me."

"On the contrary, I am greatly interested, both in the question and the
answer."

"Well, then, Wynnie; everything has a soul and a body, or something like