It was, indeed, a wretched home! The eldest son a prisoner, and the mother's conscience telling her, but too plainly, that she was very far from being free from blame in the matter. Added to this, her husband's accident, and the long illness of her blind child, from which she now knew Gracie would never recover.
The doctor had told Mrs. Hardy plainly, when he last came to see Gracie, that the little girl would never be well again. She might linger for several months, he said; and as the small room in which she lay was both confined and damp, he advised that the child's bed should be removed into her mother's room, which was much larger, and the walls of which were dry. So Gracie's bed was moved only a few days before her father's accident.
Her kind Sunday-school teacher had been to see her the day she was removed, and Grace had asked her to tell her the truth whether she would ever get well again; for the child had overheard something that the doctor had said to her mother during his last visit. Gently, very gently and lovingly did the kind teacher break the truth to Gracie; and she was almost surprised at the calmness with which the little girl heard that she must die. But God had dealt very mercifully with Gracie, and she had no fear of death. She knew that her Saviour had died for her, and that for His blessed sake her sins would be forgiven her; and God had given her grace to love and trust in her Redeemer, and to look far beyond this fleeting world.
"There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God." How much that word comprises, every child of God can tell. Rest from toil; rest from pain; rest from sorrow; rest from strife; and, greatest blessing of all, rest from sin—from the constant warning against temptation, which is the lot of every Christian during his mortal life. So when her teacher spoke of that heavenly rest, Grade pointed upwards, and a happy smile lighted up her pale face.
"All will be rest up there, teacher; rest and peace; no quarrelling; no bad words! O teacher! I am quite, quite ready to go; only if father would but learn to love me before I went, I should die happier."
"Pray to God, Gracie dear," said her teacher at parting. "He will hear you, and grant your prayer in His own good time."
A few days afterwards, when she had heard of Hardy's accident, and found that he and his little dying child would be likely to pass some time together in the same room, she felt as if God had already answered the blind child's prayer, and was bringing about what she had so longed for. And so it proved.
When John Hardy was first brought in to his cottage, helpless and suffering, and was laid upon his bed, he made use of dreadful language, wishing he had never been born, and saying such sad words that Gracie trembled as she lay in her little bed in one corner of the room. For some time she was afraid to speak, and then some feeling within her led her to make an effort, painful though it was to her.
"Is it very bad to bear, father?"
The words were few and simple, but the little weak voice was full of pity.