"We, like those sailors, sorrowful, and helpless, and thirsty, are longing to get to port, that we may be satisfied and lose our misery; and there, all the while, is the life-giving water close to us, only waiting for us to let down the bucket of our faith, and drink, and find that He satisfies every need."
[CHAPTER XX.]
CROSSES.
AFTER this Christina went home, and Ada gradually resumed her old ways, so far as they could be taken up without the one who had been the moving spring of the house. There were times when she felt the misery of being motherless was almost more than she could bear; times when everything went wrong; when the children were cross, and there was no one to settle the quarrels; when Nellie wished things done which she considered unreasonable; when Arthur was wretched, and she could offer no comfort; when Tom was suffering, and there was no one to appeal to about him.
At these times Ada would chafe bitterly against the cruel blow which had ruined her happiness, and she would add to the general discomfort by going about with a cloud on her face, and irritation in her whole manner.
Such days as these were hard to bear. Nellie at times well-nigh fainted under their difficulty. But when things seemed at the worst, words would come back to her, and the blessed Spirit would remind her: "When my heart was overwhelmed within me, then Thou knewest my path;" and the thought that God knew, and was ready to help, was sure consolation, and Nellie took courage again.
"There cannot be a need greater than He can supply, dear," her father said to her one day, when he found her mending a great heap of stockings, and looking lonely and desolate.
She could only kiss his kind face, and go on with her work, blinded with tears. Her dear, unselfish father!