“They are,” said Fan. “It may be heterodox, but it is true all the same.”
“That is just it,” and Mrs. Whitcomb gave her sweet, tender smile that was worth a week of June sunshine. “God knew how tiresome they would be, or he would not have given such continual lessons of patience and love, of working and waiting. Think of the mustard seed and the corn, and the candle; the piece of money and the one lost sheep. It is nearly all little things. And when He saith—‘If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen.’ It is the home love that is going to save the world. Stephen saw it here, and it roused his dormant affection.”
“You see it would not do for us to quarrel,” said Fan drolly. “We are packed in like peas in a pod, or birds in a nest, or bricks in a sidewalk. There isn’t any room.”
“I am glad you have learned that. I think too, it is the lesson you are all to teach the world.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Fan with a blush of real humility.
“We must be poor and barren indeed, if we do not teach something. And the influence last summer did a great deal for Louis. It was the beginning of his salvation. It was the beginning of Stephen’s higher life, also. Before that he would have saved his brothers for pride’s sake, now he will endeavor to do it for God’s sake, because he has been redeemed in the love, as well.”
“It is sermons in everything,” said Fanny.
“Mrs. Whitcomb,” I began presently, “do you know anything about—Louis when he came home?” Somehow I could never have asked Stephen, much as I wanted to know.
“It was late in the afternoon, just growing dusky. I did not know him when he asked for Mr. Duncan, but before I had crossed the hall I guessed, so I took him to the library, and summoned Stephen from his room up stairs. They talked for a long while and then Stephen asked that tea might be brought to them. Louis lay on the sofa while I spread the little table. I could hear the sound of tears in Stephen’s voice at every word he spoke. At nine, perhaps, he took Louis up to the chamber that had been prepared for him. When he came down I was busy putting the library in order. I just asked—‘Is it all right?’ and he answered—‘It is the beginning of right.’ And then he added—shall I tell you Rose?—‘I think Louis and I will owe something of what is best in our lives to Rose Endicott!’”
“I wish they wouldn’t;” I cried in distress. “But it is all made up between them?”