“That I was unkind and unsympathising.”
“Oh, you never could have been—”
“Indeed I never meant to be, but I am afraid it seemed so to my young sisters. I can quite see how you thought you were acting kindly.”
“Oh, that is so good of you.”
“And perhaps I, being only an elder sister, you would not feel that I was the only authority the poor girls have to look to; and that it would have been kinder to help them to be content with me.”
“I did not know what you could be,” said Mena, greatly soothed and surprised by her caresses.
“We often do go on in ignorance, and get on a wrong tack; but you know God pardons our mistakes, and I do believe that you will be wiser for all this sorrow, and better able to rise to your work. I am sure, however it ends, that is the reason that such blows are sent to us.”
Mena went back sorrowful and chastened, but tenderly hopeful. If Miss Prescott could forgive, surely Mr. Flight could, and One still greater.
CHAPTER XI—ADRIFT
“She splashed, and she dashed, and she turned herself round,
And heartily wished herself safe on the ground.”Jane Taylor.