"I am a dyed-in-the-wool Presbyterian, and I’ve fought, bled, and died for my religion in a family who believe that God created the Church of England first and then turned His attention to the creation of the earth, so you can’t expect me to welcome a new fad, can you, my dear? But I beg your pardon, Carol. What were you going to say?"
"It was only this," said Carolina, gently. "That even if Flower’s baby is blind to mortal sight, he is not blind in God’s eyes. There he is perfect, for God, who is Incarnate Love, never created a blind or dumb baby."
Tears rushed suddenly to the old woman’s eyes.
"Are you thinking of poor little Teddy Fitzhugh?" she whispered.
"Oh, Carolina! If you could have seen his mother’s anguish all these years! But you would have to be a mother yourself before you could even apprehend it."
"And now," said the older woman, with that patient tightening of the lips with which so many Christian women prepare themselves to bear the heart-breaking calamities which they believe a tender Heavenly Father inflicts on those He loves, "I suppose I must steel my heart to see poor Flower writhe under a worse agony. Indeed, Carol, God’s ways are hard to understand."
"Yes, God is such a peculiar sort of parent," observed Carolina. "He seems to do things with impunity, which if an earthly father did, the neighbours would lynch him."
Aunt Angie La Grange sat up with a spring of fright.
"Why, Carolina Lee! What sacrilege! You will certainly be punished by an avenging God for such blasphemy. You shock me, Carolina. You really do."
"Forgive me, Aunt Angie. I only meant to imply that the God I believe in is a God of such love that He never sends anything but good to His children."
"Then how do you get around that saying, ’Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth?’"
"There is authority for translating that word ’chasteneth,’ ’instructeth.’ But even if you leave it ’chasteneth,’ it doesn’t mean a life-long disfigurement or crippling of innocent babies. Supposing Peachie should disobey you, or even disgrace you, would you deliberately infect her with smallpox to destroy her beauty or send her into a train wreck to lame her or paralyze for life?"
Mrs. La Grange only looked into Carolina’s eyes for reply, but her hands gripped the arms of her chair until her nails were white.