“I have not done it. No, I did not do it, no, no!” Cornelli cried aloud.
“But Cornelli, only reflect! You are blushing and your conscience is giving you away,” Miss Grideelen here remarked. “It would be so much better for you to say humbly: ‘I have done it and I am sorry; I shall never do it again!’ ”
“No, no! I have not done it. No, no!” Cornelli cried out louder still. Her cheeks were glowing red from anger and excitement.
“Do not make such a noise,” ordered the cousin. “One might think there was an accident. It is not worth while to lose so many words. You should not have made things worse by denying it; if you had not, everything would be all settled. You have misbehaved and you shall not do so any more. Remember!”
“No, I did not misbehave. No, no! And I shall not say yes when it is not true,” Cornelli now cried, quite beside herself.
“Go to your room, Cornelli, and smooth out your forehead before you come to dinner. Your little horns are protruding quite plainly when you act that way. Just look at yourself in the mirror and see yourself how repulsive you look. If you think that there is anybody in the world who can still like you when you have black horns on your forehead, you are mistaken. Go, now, and return with another face.”
Cornelli went.
Reaching her room, Cornelli put her hand up to her brow. Right on her forehead were two protruding points. Should horns be really growing there? The child had a sudden horrible fright at this thought. She was sure that everybody could see them already, for she could feel them quite distinctly. She could not stand it any longer, so she ran away to old Martha.
“No, I did not do it, Martha. I never did it,” she called out, running into the little room. “When I tell them no, no, they ought to believe that I did not do it. I never, never did it. They shall know it! But they won’t believe me even if I say it a hundred times and—”
“Stop a little, Cornelli!” said old Martha kindly. “You see, you are all out of breath. Sit down here on your stool and tell me quietly what has excited you so. You know that I believe your words. I have known you since you were small, and I know that what you say is true.”
It was impossible for Cornelli to speak calmly about what had happened, but it soothed her, nevertheless, to be able to pour out her heart and to know that Martha believed her. She told of the accusation which had been brought against her, and how she had not been believed despite all her assurances. She was certain that both ladies would always believe forever and ever that she had done it and had denied it. At this thought Cornelli again became quite red from excitement and was on the point of breaking out again. But Martha put her hand on the child’s shoulder, quietly restraining her.
“No, no, Cornelli, that’s enough,” she said soothingly. “It is only to your advantage that it is so and not as they have said. You have been accused wrongly and cannot prove it, but God knows the truth. He has heard everything. You can be calm and happy and look up to Him with a clear conscience. You can say to yourself: ‘God knows it, and I do not need to be afraid or frightened.’ If you had really done wrong and had denied it, you would have to be afraid that the truth would be revealed. Then you could not look up calmly to the sky, for you would be frightened at the thought that up there was One who knew everything and from whom nothing could be hidden. A wrong accusation does not stay with us forever. Even if it takes ever so long, it generally is revealed in the end, and you certainly will not need to bear it in all eternity, because God already knows how it is.”
Cornelli had really grown calm at the thought that there was One who knew how it all was. When her trouble began to weigh upon her, she could always say: “You know it all, dear Father in Heaven, You have seen and heard everything.”
“If He could only tell them! They would then know it, too. God could easily do that,” Cornelli said.
“Yes, but that is not the way things happen. We do not know better than He what is good for us,” Martha said, shaking her head quite seriously. “If we could rule, everything would come wrong. We never can see ahead of the hour and we never know what is good for us because the next moment always brings something we did not know about. Otherwise we would always be trying to undo what we have strained to do the day before; we should only make ourselves miserable over and over again. But if God ordains anything that we do not understand, we must believe firmly that something good will come out of it. We must be patient, and if our troubles are too heavy, we must console ourselves and think: God knows what good will come from it. But we are forgetting the time, Cornelli. You must hurry home to your dinner, now. I am afraid it is already late.”
Cornelli’s black frown had disappeared during Martha’s soothing speech, but now a deep shadow flew across her face.
“Oh, Martha, if I only did not need to go home any more! I hate to go back and sit at table. I would not mind dying of hunger, if I could only stay here with you.”
Cornelli, glancing at
