“I would ask you to notice that Jesus founded all he has to say on one great fact:  the love of your Heavenly Father for you individually.  Are you struggling with poverty, perhaps?  Your Heavenly Father knoweth.  Try, if but for a day, to put aside your anxiety and fix your thought on this.  The things you need shall be given, and you shall find strength for another day of trust.

“Have you been wronged? do you find it hard to forgive? are you bitter?  Your Heavenly Father knoweth.  He will take care of your cause.  Leave it to Him; do not be afraid to forget it.  Seek, ask, knock, that you may obtain entrance into the Kingdom of love.

“Are you crushed by sorrow or physical pain?  Your Father knoweth.  Cease to fight against it.  Come into His Kingdom.  Suffering endures but a little while; and if you will have it so, out of it will come a diviner joy.

“Is the world full of dark problems?  Your Heavenly Father knoweth.  It is His world.  Your part is to do, not to despair.

“Are you full of youth and hope and glad anticipation?  Your Father knoweth.  He made you so, and in a special sense the Kingdom belongs to you.  The simple-hearted, the teachable, the joyous,—­of such is the Kingdom.  Enter in, and immortal youth shall be yours....  Oh, if I might help you to know the beauty, the joy, the peace of the Kingdom into which we may enter now and here, if we will.  Yet we go on our way, oppressed by care, warped by envy and hate, our eyes blinded by what we call worldly wisdom.”

Something like this was what came to Celia; and as she listened, forgetful of her surroundings, it linked itself in her thought to the Forest secret.

It was not so much the words as the aspirations they stirred,—­the new belief in the possibility of high and joyous living, the new courage that thrilled in her veins.  She was still under the spell when after the benediction Miss Betty asked, with a certain timidity, if she had liked the sermon.

Celia looked at her blankly for a second before she replied, “Oh, so much!  It was beautiful.  I should like to know him.”  She turned away with a smile; she was not ready to discuss it yet.  She wanted to think.

“He held my attention, I grant, but I don’t call it a sermon; it was too elementary,—­it was nothing but a talk,” she heard Mrs. Molesworth saying.

“If it wasn’t a sermon, it was something better,” answered cheery Mrs. Parton.

“Most magnetic speaker,” the colonel was remarking to some one.

And now Rosalind and Belle claimed Celia’s attention, demanding to know what she thought of the detective; and she must come back to earth and listen and reply and enter into their gayety—­an easier matter, to be sure, than responding to the comments of grown people.

The next morning, on her way to class, Celia met Miss Betty and Dr. Hollingsworth walking up the hill toward the Gilpin house, and Miss Betty stopped and presented her companion.