How different, how holy the mood that brings us in tearful gratitude to dedicate our lives to His service, when having abandoned all hope, His healing hand lifts us out of long agony into unexpected rest?
When an ignominious death stared this woman in the face, she had cried to her God: "Though You slay me, yet will I trust You!" and to-night she bowed her head in prayer, thankful that the uplifted hand held no longer a dagger, but had fallen tenderly in benediction.
Far away in the heart of the city, the clock in its granite tower was striking two; yet Beryl knelt at her oriel window, with her arms crossed on the wide sill, and her eyes fixed upon the shimmering sea, where a soft south wind ruffled it into ridges of silver, beneath a full May moon. Beyond those silent waters, hidden in some lonely, snow-girt eyry, where perhaps the muffled thunder of the Pacific responded to the midnight chants of his oratory, dwelt Bertie; and to touch his hand once more, to hear from his own lips that he had made his peace with God, to kiss him good-bye seemed all that was left for accomplishment.
Poor and unknown, she lacked apparently every means requisite for this attainment; but faith, patience, and courage were hers. Daily work for daily wage was the present duty; and in God's good time she would find her brother. How, or when, so expensive and difficult a quest could be successfully prosecuted, disquieted her not; she had learned to labor and to trust; she remembered: "Their strength is to sit still."
The symphony of her life was set in minors, yet subtle and perfect was the harmony that dwelt therein; and because she had sternly shut love out of her lonely heart, she kept votive lights burning ceaselessly on the cold altar of duty. The solitary red rose of happiness that might have brightened and perfumed her thorny path, she had cut off, ere the bud expanded, and offered it as a loyal tribute to broaden the garland that crowned Miss Gordon. At the mandate of conscience, she had unmurmuringly surrendered this precious blossom, but memory was tantalizingly tenacious; and in sorrowful hours of sore temptation, the brave, pure soul came swiftly to the rescue of famishing heart: "What? Is it so hard for us to keep the Ten Commandments? Do we covet our neighbor's lover?"
In the garden of earthly existence, some are ordained to bloom as human plantae tristes, shedding their delicate aroma like the "Pretty-by-nights", only when the glory of the day is done, and twilight shadows coax open their pure hearts.
To-night she seemed cradled in the arms of peace, soothed by an unfaltering trust that whispered:
"Would I could wish my wishes all to rest;
And know to wish the wish, that were the best."
While her lips moved in a prayer for Bertie, she fell asleep; like a child at ease, after long paroxysms of pain. When she awoke, the lilacs were swinging their purple thuribles filled with dew, in honor of the new day; a silvery mist, tinged here and there with the pale pink hue of an almond blossom, wavered and curled over the quiet lake, and a robin red-breast, winging his way from the orange and jasmine boughs of the far sweet South, rested on the ivied wall, and poured out his happy heart in a salutatory to the rising sun.