"Elsie is inconsolable, although Doctor Phelps assures her that Tim would undoubtedly have broken down before the close of the year, from the mere strain of school life; she is such a delicate little thing."
"Just a month to-day since Tim left. It will be a full year before she is well and strong again, Doctor Phelps says, and maybe longer. He was invited to speak in the chapel, this morning, and I wish you could have heard what he said on the influence of the imagination. He told some comical stories of patients he had had, who could imagine themselves possessed of a new disease every week.
"Then he spoke of clairvoyants, and mediums, and fortune-tellers of every kind. 'It is one of the kindest provisions of Providence,' he added, 'that we are allowed to see only one minute at a time. Suppose that we could look ahead into the years, and see some terrible calamity coming upon us, with the deadly certainty that every nightfall was bringing it one step nearer. What an agony of apprehension we would be in as the month approached—then the week, the day, and finally the hour! What man could stand the strain of such prolonged torture?
"'Or, suppose it were some joy that we looked forward to. When it came it would be robbed of its bloom by those long years of constant anticipation. It is the unexpected good fortune, the bits of happiness that come to us as complete surprises, which give us the keenest thrills of enjoyment.'
"'ASKED ME TO HUNT UP ALL THE REFERENCES'"[ToList]
"Whatever Doctor Phelps says is law and gospel with Elsie Gayland, and as she never does anything half-way, I was not surprised when she walked into my room with her book on chiromancy, and put it in the fire. As she stood, grimly watching it burn, she said: 'I thought I should go through the floor when Doctor Phelps called me into the library just now. He gave me this big concordance, and asked me to hunt up all the references in my Bible under the words "hand" and "path," and all the promises for guidance and safety that are given to those who commit themselves into the Eternal keeping. He wants me to read them to Timoroso sometime soon, for he says that nothing but an abiding consciousness that she is in the hollow of an Omnipotent hand will bring her the peace of mind that is essential to her recovery.'"
Olive gathered the letters together, and as she tied them with the white and scarlet ribbons, Helen came back from her frosty drive.