“Oh, Flossie, I know what’s the truth, but I don’t know how to tell about it very well; but everything about you that seems not to be the image and likeness of God is a lie; and He doesn’t see lies, and so He doesn’t know these mistakes you’re thinking; but He does know the strong, well girl you really are, and He’ll help you to know it, too, when you begin to think right.”

The sincerity and earnestness in her visitor’s tone brought a gleam of interest into Flossie’s eyes.

“Just think of being well and running around here with me, and think that God wants you to!”

“Oh, do you believe He does?” returned Flossie doubtfully.  “Mother says it will do my soul good for me to be sick, if I can’t get well.”

Hazel shook her head violently.  “You know when Jesus was on earth?  Well, he never told anybody it was better for them to be sick.  He healed everybody, everybody that asked him, and he came to do the will of his Father; so God’s will doesn’t change, and it’s just the same now.”

There was a faint color in Flossie’s cheeks.  “If I was sure God wanted me to get well, why then I’d know I would some time.”

“Of course He does; but you didn’t know how to ask Him right.”

“Do you?” asked Flossie.

Hazel nodded.  “Yes; not so well as mother, but I do know a little, and if you want me to, I’ll ask Him for you.”

“Well, of course I do,” returned Flossie, regarding her visitor with grave, wondering eyes.

In a minute Miss Fletcher, watching the children through a window, beheld something that puzzled her.  She saw Hazel roll Flossie’s chair back under the elm-tree, and saw her sit down on the grass beside it and cover her eyes with both hands.

“What game are they playing?” she asked herself; and she smiled, well pleased by the friendship that had begun.  “I wish health was catching,” she sighed.  “Little Hazel’s a picture.  I wonder how long it’ll be before she finds out who I am.  I wonder what Richard’s idea is in not telling her.”

She moved about the house a few minutes, and then returned, curiously, to the window.  To her surprise matters were exactly as she saw them last.  Flossie was, holding both dolls in the wheeled chair, and Hazel was sitting under the tree, her hands over her eyes.

A wave of amazement and amusement swept over Miss Fletcher, and she struck her hands together noiselessly.  “I do believe in my heart,” she exclaimed, “that Hazel Wright is giving Flossie one of those absent treatments they tell about!  Well, if I ever in all my born days!”

There was no more work for Miss Fletcher after this, but a restless moving about the room until she saw Hazel bound up from the ground.  Then she hurried out of the house and walked over to the tree.  Hazel skipped to meet her, her face all alight.  “Oh, Miss Fletcher, Flossie wants to be healed by Christian Science.  If my mother was only here she could turn to all the places in the Bible where it tells about God being Love and healing sickness.”