He was cheerful, and possessed of some of that supreme happiness which brightens the soul, and accompanies it through immortality.
He had said: "Why endure pain?" But it was with the same senses that he now enjoyed pleasure.
He had said: "Why suffer physically?" "Why," he thought, "if that little child did not feel, and had not experienced the pangs of hunger, it would now be dead; so would I, if, when I was wrapped in thick smoke, the foul gases had not irritated my bronchial tubes and my eyes.
"As for the remainder, I am satisfied to leave it to Him who has cared for and protected me so far through life. Perhaps the day will come when I shall also know the why and wherefore of things which I almost dared to accuse an all-wise Providence of having sent into the world."
While her husband was soliloquizing thus, Mrs. Mathers was busily engaged in stitching a smart little pinafore of diaper.
Grandpapa was resting upon the sofa with little Adèle seated on his knee.
He held both the child's hands in his, the left one he held in his left hand, and the right one he held in his right hand. Taking Adèle's right-hand forefinger and placing it in her left hand, he began to tell her a little story about a lark, which he remembered his mother used to recite to him when he was a little boy.
"A little lark built its nest there," he began.
"We shall suppose the little bird did so," answered Mr. Rougeant. "It passed this way, and the thumb caught it."
"This finger plucked its feathers, this one cooked it, and--this one ate it."
"And the little one," said Adèle, pulling impatiently on her grandfather's sleeve, "you have not told me what the little one did."
"Indeed! well, the little one was left without a single crumb."
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Silver Lining, by John Roussel