“O mother, why would you not let us come near you?” exclaimed Maria, as she, too, shared in the fond embrace.
“For your own sakes, my darlings; only for your own sakes. I had called on Mrs. Peters, as I had promised, on my way; and not till I had entered into her cottage did I know that her only son was then lying there dangerously ill of the scarlet fever.”
“Poor Robin!” cried the little girls, full of sympathy for the trouble of their neighbour. “Is not that fever terrible and infectious?”
“Most infectious, my children; and I own that I felt grieved and frightened at having entered the house. I fear not for myself. Were it not for you I should have offered to remain to help to nurse the poor boy: but I dreaded lest I might be carrying here death in my very clothes—that I might be bringing misery into my own happy home; and not till I had laid aside my bonnet and large cloak did I dare to embrace my children. You met me so eagerly at the door that I was obliged to call out very hastily, or you would have been in my arms before I could stop you; and I had no time for explanations then.”
“Mother had good reasons,” said Maria to herself: “how strange it was that I ever could doubt her!”
“And how is poor Mrs. Peters?” inquired Mary, as her mother took a chair near the fire, and her little daughters seated themselves at her feet. “She is so fond of her son!—she could not live without him. How does she bear this terrible trial?”
“Like a Christian,” replied her mother—“like one who knows that all events are in the hands of an all-wise Being, who does not willingly afflict His children. All her hopes and her fears are laid before Him in prayer; and having used all human means to preserve her son, she now rests humbly on the infinite mercy of the Lord, who ordereth all things well. She has been given that trusting, confiding spirit which is so pleasing in the sight of Heaven.”
“Ah, that is what I want!” murmured Maria, hiding her head on her parent’s knee. “Mother, I have learned a lesson to-day from the pain which it cost me to doubt your love, and the shame that I feel now that I ever could have done so. Mary deserved your first kiss, mother. I can love, very greatly love; but she can both love and trust.”
Trust in the Lord with all thy heart
While sunshine glitters o’er thee;