"Such sorrows are blessings and honors," cried Benoni, and his pale face brightened as he said it.
"But what are sorrows," thought poor Sophy, "that come upon us, not because we have followed the Lord, but because we have wandered from him?" She had listened to the preceding conversation in silence, bitterly conscious that the wounds which festered in her heart were not those received in Christian warfare, but rather, in part at least, the consequences of her early folly and neglect of religion. Sophy knew too well how entirely her mind had been set on the world. A gay ribbon or dress, a gaudy bead necklace, a Sunday "lark," or a dance, had been more to her silly, sinful heart than all the truths contained in the Bible. She had not given up one folly for the sake of her Lord; she had not through sense of duty ever renounced the smallest gain; her dangerous pleasures had been torn from her,—not yielded up of her own free will; she had clutched them as long as she could; she had been made poor, desolate, and blind; but this had been because her waywardness had rendered chastisements needful, not because her faithfulness to God had led her into persecution or trouble. And yet Sophy was far more disposed to repine than were Isaacs and his son; she was more tempted to distrust God's love, though her very afflictions were a token of it. Sophy had been a wandering sheep, straying upon the mountains of sin and folly, now near to the brink of the precipice, now close to the den of the lion who lurketh in wait for souls to destroy them. She would not then hear the voice of the Shepherd: she chose her own dangerous path. When her friend, Norah Peele, under the influence of her uncle, had begun to try in earnest to lead a new life, Sophy had done all in her power to hinder and keep her back; had first laughed at her good resolutions, and then quarrelled with Norah because she could not be persuaded to break them. It was in mercy indeed that sorrow and sickness had been sent to Sophy, like the rough sheep-dog after the straying lamb to frighten or drag it back to the fold; Sophy, if left to herself, must have been lost forever. It is not always that trials are blessings, but such they had been to her. Sophy had been suddenly checked in her mad career, shut out by blindness from many temptations which she had never been able to resist,—love of dress, of flattery, of folly,—temptations which were drawing her farther and farther away from her God. Sophy in her misery had learned to pray, but she had not yet learned to praise; as a penitent she was sincere, but as a believer she was weak. She reverenced the Lord as her king, had hope in him as her Saviour; but she did not cling to him with rejoicing trust as the Friend, the loving Friend who bids us cast all our care upon him, because he careth for us.
"Shall we never go back to Colme, father?" asked Benoni, after along interval of silence, during which the boy's thoughts had been wandering back to what he considered the pleasantest spot upon earth.
"There would be no opening in a village like Colme, for a jeweller like me," replied Benjamin Isaacs. "I finished the business that took me there,—that of arranging and getting into order the curiosities and gems at the Hall. My patron, Sir Lacy Barton, is dead, and his heir knows nothing about me. I would never go to Colme to be a burden upon the kindness of Ned Franks and his wife,—better enter a poor-house, or starve!" There was an independence of character in the Jew which he carried almost to a fault; Benoni knew that his father would suffer the extremity of want rather than beg or borrow from a friend.
"It is long, very long, since we have heard either from the Frankses, or from my dear friend Norah," said Sophy.
"They know not where a letter would find us, my daughter; I have twice changed our lodgings since last I wrote, which I did when returning money most kindly offered. Franks has his own family to care for; I accept nothing but from those who are my relations by blood."
"Or by adoption," added Benoni, glancing kindly at Sophy, and then at her basket of knitted goods.
"You and Sophy are alike my children," said Isaacs; "our purse shall always be one; our good or bad fortune we share together. So," he added more cheerfully, "take yon loaf, my boy, and divide it between your sister, yourself, and me. 'Better the dinner of herbs where love is, than the stalled ox and hatred therewith.' We'll thank God for the bread which he gives to-day, and trust him to send more on the morrow."