"Yet you are only her earthly--her human--her finite mother. How much greater capacity has the Infinite Heart for love!"
"It is beautiful," she breathed, "but--disquieting. It upsets all my old beliefs."
"’And good riddance to bad rubbish,’ as we children used to say," said Carolina, smiling. Aunt Angie smiled in answer, but a trifle dubiously.
"Carolina," she said, "Moultrie told me--but of course you never said such a thing and I told him then that he must have misunderstood you--that Gladys Yancey was cured by Christian Science! Now, what _did_ you say?"
"I said just that. She _was_ cured by Christian Science."
"I don’t believe it!" cried Aunt Angie. "Excuse me, dear child, for saying so. I know that you are truthful and that you believe it, but _I_ don’t. I’d have to see it done."
"If you saw Teddy Fitzhugh taught to speak plainly, would you believe?"
"My dear, I’d leave the Presbyterian Church and join the Christian Scientists so quickly my church letter would be torn by the way I’d snatch it."
Carolina laughed and squeezed Aunt Angie’s hand, who added with a smile:
"I suppose you think I am as good as caught already, don’t you?"
"I hope you are. You can’t imagine how much peace it brings."
"Peace! It’s something I never have had, child."
"What does your religion compel you to give up? Peachie absolutely refuses to join the church because it won’t allow dancing, and the child loves to dance better than anything in the world. They tell me, too, that she dances like a fairy." Aunt Angie pronounced it "fayry."
"Why, that is one of the best things about Christian Science. It requires you to give up no innocent pleasure. It only cautions one against indulging to excess in anything. Dancing, card-playing, games,--why, some of the best card-players I know are Christian Scientists, but they don’t lose their tempers when they lose a game and they don’t cheat to win. In fact, one of the most graceful things I have ever seen done was when two ladies tied for the prize--a beautiful gold vase--at a bridge party Addie gave just before she closed her house, and the lady who won had played coolly, well, and won by merit. The other flung herself back in her chair with an exclamation, showing by her suffused face and clenched hands every sign of ill-temper. My sister-in-law brought the prize to the winner, who, with the prettiest grace imaginable, thanked her and then presented it, by Addie’s permission, to the vexed lady who had lost. You should have seen the recipient’s face! Surprise, humiliation, and cupidity struggled almost audibly for supremacy. She protested feebly, but ended by taking it. A number of others gathered around, attracted by the unusual scene, and suddenly the owner of the vase said to the giver of it: ’I would like to know what church you go to.’ ’Well, as none of you know, you may guess,’ she answered. They guessed Baptist, Methodist, Unitarian, Episcopal, and finally the recipient of the vase said: ’No, you are all wrong. I believe she is a Christian Scientist, because no one but a Christian Scientist would give up a gold vase!’"