"The best I can possibly make, Ik, and she shall look as she did when she called you a true, noble-hearted gentleman."
Van Berg now found no difficulty in bringing about a friendship between Ida and Jennie Burton, and the two maidens spent the greater part of Sabbath afternoon together. Ida hid nothing in her full confidence, not even the crime that had been in her thoughts, and which might have destroyed the life that now was growing so rich and beautiful. When her pathetic story was completed, Jennie said:
"Mr. Van Berg has told me some things in your favor that you have omitted. I cannot flatter myself now that my love is stronger than yours, but you are stronger, you are braver. What is the secret of your strength? Your religion seems to do you more good than mine does me."
"Well, Jennie," said Ida musingly, there seems to me this difference. "You have a God, I have a Saviour; you have a faith, I have a tender and helpful Friend. Jesus Christ has said to those who love and trust him: 'Let not your hearts be troubled.' He said these words to men who were to suffer all things, and did so, Mr. Eltinge told me. It's just the same as if he said, You don't know, I do; leave everything to me, and it shall all be for the best in the end. See how all my trouble this summer has just prepared for this happiness, and I believe, Jennie, that your eternity of happiness will be made all the richer for every sad day of your unselfish life. The souls of such men as Harrold Fleetwood are God's richest treasures, and he whose name is Love surely kindled such love as yours and his. The God that the Bible reveals to me will not permit it to be lost," and with Jennie's head on her bosom she sang low and sweetly:
No hope, 'tis said, though buried deep,
But angels o'er it vigils keep;
No love in sepulchre shall stay,
For Christ our Friend has rolled away
The heavy stone of death.
"Oh, sing me those words again," sobbed Jennie: "sing them again and again, till they fill my heart with hope."
Ida did so.
"O Ida! God's good angel to me as well as to Harold Van Berg," said Jennie, smiling through her tears. "I bless you for those hopeful words. They will repeat themselves in my heart till all is clear and our souls that God mated are joined again. My Harrold was not one who said 'Lord, Lord' very often, but I know that he tried to 'do the will of his Father which is in heaven.' I am going to your Friend, Ida, for if ever a poor mortal needed more than mortal help and cheer, I do. I shall just give up everything into his hands, and wait patiently."
"The life he will give you again, Jennie, will be infinitely richer than the one you have lost."
Early in the following week Miss Burton returned to her college duties. Before parting she said to Ida: "I do not think I shall ever give way again to my old, bitter, heart-breaking grief."