"Sometimes, not having what we want means only waiting for it—till God's time. And that time may not be in this world . . . I often love to think how wonderfully all our longings will be satisfied, and all our emptinesses will be filled, there—in the life to come."
Prue made no answer in words. She bent slowly forward, and was folded in her mother's a long close tender embrace. One or two tears might have dropped unseen: but when she sat up, she was smiling. "That always does me good," she said.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
A DISCOVERY.
LETTICE, away in her western home, had no such comfort as Prue; no loving mother-arms to enfold her; no gentle mother-lips to kiss away heart-ache. Those who have never known this sweetest of all earthly comforts cannot realise the emptiness of not having it; and the grief of conscious loss is not theirs. But Lettice did sorely feel the need of some such love and sympathy.
She had comfort: the highest comfort: a love deeper than even mother-love; a tenderness exceeding even mother-tenderness; because the love and the tenderness were Divine. But while Divine comfort is in a sense all-sufficing, it cannot do away with the human need for human sympathy.
The Son of God Himself, as Man of Sorrows, though He had angels to comfort Him, yet experienced this lonely human craving; and so much the more fully He can understand its strength in the "children of earth." True, we never need stand where He stood; because, while He was absolutely cut off from all human sympathy, while there was literally "none" among His brother-men to comfort Him. We may have always, in unlimited measure, the most Human sympathy of Christ,—our Lord and Master, yet truly our Brother-Man! But the full realisation of this fact is not to many so vouchsafed, as that it shall entirely take the place of need for other human sympathy.
And Lettice was very lonely. Dr. Bryant's confidence in her had broken down under the stress of Theodosia's discovery. He now looked upon Lettice as guilty of the theft.
It was to him a bitter grief: scarcely less, if indeed not more, than to Lettice. For she had the full consciousness of innocence to bear her through; while he had the pain of believing himself utterly disappointed in her.
Once only he spoke on the subject; and that was on the morning after their excursion. Gravely and sadly, he avowed his fixed belief, refusing to hear denial.