Now he had learnt a different lesson. He found one beautiful summer day, that there was another life beyond this one, that these short years are but as a drop in the ocean of eternity. He found that God had allowed him to be a sufferer; and the same God who had sent him such pain and weariness had given him also an assurance that He loved him.
Loved him! Was it possible this could be love? Could the bitterest trial that could enter little Tom's imagination be sent in love?
He found out that it was, it must be. He who had sent this blow to Tom had also given up His own Son to die for him. Greater love could not be; and he believed that love, and rested in it, and found peace.
So from that time, little Tom had been a different boy. If ever the old repining feeling came over him, he would remember words which had often comforted him, and would again repeat them over to himself.
One day he gave Nellie a shilling, and asked her in a whisper to buy him a little set of scales. She did so, wondering what he could want them for. He did not explain; but a few days afterwards, she found him busy covering two match-boxes with white paper, and painting them to imitate corded packages.
She examined one, and saw painted on the side "L. A."; and turning to the other, took it up, and found to her surprise, it was quite heavy.
"What are you making, Tom dear?" she asked.
He smiled slightly, and leaning over to a little box on his table, produced the scales, and placing one package in one side, and the other package in the other side, asked her to hang them up for him somewhere where he could see them.
"But what for, Tom dear?" she said, rising to get a nail. "What is the meaning of the letters on the parcels?"
"'L. A.' is my luggage now," said Tom, "and 'W. G.' is my luggage by-and-by."