"Ye’ll make ’er that tender and fearsome she won’t be fit to stand up to the world"—his enemy, Mrs. Goodenough, had many a time said to him.
He had hated her for her warning and had spurned it, thinking that he had plenty of time to harden her to the world in future. But was it fair now that he had made her tender, that he should leave her to stand up to the world before she was fit?
The thought troubled him sore, and on this Sabbath evening, as the cruel bells sang their cruel tune: “It ain’t ’er fault no ways, Tom,” it troubled him more than ever.
What was she doing?—who was making the day of rest sweet to her?
And instead of asking himself bitterly why God had saved her from death that He might take her from him after all and leave him desolate, he asked himself why he had snatched her from the river that he might forsake her in her helplessness the very next day? And a heartbreaking picture rose up before him of his little maid thin and sad, hungering for love, pining for him—unconsciously made to feel, in her childish sensitiveness, that she was different from other children; set apart by something that she could not understand, to be less loved—perhaps even to be shunned, despised, neglected! His pretty Daisy—his good little maid—who had never done any harm!
The last bell was dinning it into his ears: “All gone—all gone!” But there was silence at last. The folks were all safe in church, and he was alone in the quiet evening.
Alone, but not at peace; though the land that lay stretched below him, miles upon miles of serene pastures, studded with browsing cattle and brown with tender shades, might well have brought him some measure of serenity.
Mechanically he thought of the words that the parson would speak when the service was ended: “And the peace of God which passeth all understanding.”
Was it because no one could understand, that it was never to be found? It was no use going to church to find it—for he had tried that ... “parson” he could not grasp, and the sight of the neighbours and the knowledge that they guessed his grief, put peace further from him than ever. Where was it to be found? He did not know ... but something within him knew, and whispered to him that it was to be found doing the right; yes, and again—that it was to be found in the heart of his little maid.
She had known it; she had breathed it forth from her sunny innocence; she had brought it to him often and often. Would she not bring it again? Was she changed because others had sinned?