and said his prayers naked.  When he got into bed he was so cold that for some time he could not sleep, but when he did, it was so soundly that Mary Ann had to shake him when she brought in his hot water next morning.  She talked to him while she drew the curtains, but he did not answer; he had remembered at once that this was the morning for the miracle.  His heart was filled with joy and gratitude.  His first instinct was to put down his hand and feel the foot which was whole now, but to do this seemed to doubt the goodness of God.  He knew that his foot was well.  But at last he made up his mind, and with the toes of his right foot he just touched his left.  Then he passed his hand over it.

He limped downstairs just as Mary Ann was going into the dining-room for prayers, and then he sat down to breakfast.

“You’re very quiet this morning, Philip,” said Aunt Louisa presently.

“He’s thinking of the good breakfast he’ll have at school to-morrow,” said the Vicar.

When Philip answered, it was in a way that always irritated his uncle, with something that had nothing to do with the matter in hand.  He called it a bad habit of wool-gathering.

“Supposing you’d asked God to do something,” said Philip, “and really believed it was going to happen, like moving a mountain, I mean, and you had faith, and it didn’t happen, what would it mean?”

“What a funny boy you are!” said Aunt Louisa.  “You asked about moving mountains two or three weeks ago.”

“It would just mean that you hadn’t got faith,” answered Uncle William.

Philip accepted the explanation.  If God had not cured him, it was because he did not really believe.  And yet he did not see how he could believe more than he did.  But perhaps he had not given God enough time.  He had only asked Him for nineteen days.  In a day or two he began his prayer again, and this time he fixed upon Easter.  That was the day of His Son’s glorious resurrection, and God in His happiness might be mercifully inclined.  But now Philip added other means of attaining his desire:  he began to wish, when he saw a new moon or a dappled horse, and he looked out for shooting stars; during exeat they had a chicken at the vicarage, and he broke the lucky bone with Aunt Louisa and wished again, each time that his foot might be made whole.  He was appealing unconsciously to gods older to his race than the God of Israel.  And he bombarded the Almighty with his prayer, at odd times of the day, whenever it occurred to him, in identical words always, for it seemed to him important to make his request in the same terms.  But presently the feeling came to him that this time also his faith would not be great enough.  He could not resist the doubt that assailed him.  He made his own experience into a general rule.

“I suppose no one ever has faith enough,” he said.