Ethel, who had daily been watching for the moment, took out the parcel from the drawer, with the address in the childish writing, the date in her own.
Large tears came dropping from Leonard's eyes, as he undid the paper, and looked at the work, then said, 'Last time I saw that pattern, my mother was working it! Dear child! Yes, Miss May, I am glad you did not give them to me before. I always felt as if my blow had glanced aside and fallen on Minna; but somehow I feel more fully how happy she is!'
'She was the messenger of comfort throughout to Ave and to Ella,' said Ethel, 'and well she may be to you still.'
'I have dreaded to ask,' said Leonard; 'but there was a line in one letter I was shown that made me believe that climate was not the whole cause.'
'No,' said Ethel; 'at least the force to resist it had been lost, as far as we can see. It was a grievous error of your brother's to think her a child who could forget. She pined to hear of you, and that one constant effort of faith and love was too much, and wasted away the little tender body. But oh, Leonard, how truly she can say that her captivity is over, and that it has not hurt!'
'It has not hurt,' musingly repeated Leonard. 'No, she is beyond the reach of distracting temptations and sorrows; it has only made her brighter to have suffered what it breaks one's heart to think of. It has not hurt.'
'Nothing from without does hurt!' said Ethel, 'unless one lets it.'
'Hurt what?' he asked.
'The soul,' returned Ethel. 'Mind and body may be hurt, and it is not possible to know one's mind from one's soul while one is alive, but as long as the will and faith are right, to think the soul can be hurt seems to me like doubting our Protector.'
'But if the will have been astray?'