Missy could scarcely wait to get her dusting and other little “chores” done, so that she might go to the piano.
However, she hadn't got half-way through “One Sweetly Solemn Thought” before her mother appeared.
“Missy! what in the world do you mean? I've told you often enough you must finish your practising before strumming at other things.”
Strumming!
But Missy said nothing in defence. She only hung her head. Her mother went on:
“Now, I don't want to speak to you again about this. Get right to your exercises—I hope I won't have to hide that hymn-book!”
Mother's voice was stern. The laundress's defection and other domestic worries may have had something to do with it. But Missy couldn't consider that; she was too crushed. In stricken silence she attacked the “exercises.”
Not once during that day had she a chance to let out, through music, any of her surcharged devotionalism. Mother kept piling on her one errand after another. Mother was in an unwonted flurry; for the next day was the one she and Aunt Nettie were going to Junction City and there were, as she put it, “a hundred and one things to do.”
Through all those tribulations Missy reminded herself of “Thy rod and Thy staff.” She didn't yet know just what these aids to comfort were; but the Psalmist had said of them, “they shall comfort me.” And, somehow, she did find comfort. That is what Faith does.
And that night, after she had said her prayers and got into bed, once more the grace of God rode in on the moonlight to rest upon her pillow.