With her keen intuition, which had been sharpened by pain, Tryphosa divined her thought.
‘I am going to give you a new beatitude,’ she said, brightly. ‘Blessed be drudgery, for it is the grey angel of success.’
‘That is a hard gospel, my lady.’
‘Perhaps, but ease and victory are for ever incompatible. The Father loved the Son, yet He surrendered Him to a life of toil, and Christ Himself gave His chosen ones the heritage of tribulation, crowned with the sweet, bright gift of peace. It is the tried lives that ring the truest. The idea runs all through the Bible. “Silver purified seven times,” and “gold tried in the fire,” and “polished after the similitude of a palace.” Have you ever thought of the friction that involves? The finest diamonds bear the most cutting, and it is the mission of the diamond to reflect the light. If we would have our lives a success, we must seek not happiness but harmony.’
‘Harmony! With what, my lady?’
‘The will of God, dear child. We are out of tune when God finds us. He puts us in tune with our great keynote Jesus, and then we are like an Æolian harp. The west and the east winds make music through it, and the shrieking storm the sweetest music of all. But remember, little one, it is the “joy of the Lord” which is our strength. We must sit in the sunshine if we would reflect the rainbow.’
That night Pauline spent upon her knees.
‘It is ridiculous,’ exclaimed Mr Davis, when, the next morning, she announced her decision to the family. ‘I will send a nurse down by the early train, but it is not fit work for you, my child, and besides we cannot spare you.’
Her eyes filled.
‘It is so good of you to say that! But my Father has called me, and I must go.’