"Well, as I was telling you," continued Mrs. Groody, with a weary sigh, "that summer was too much for me. I got to be a very dragon. I hadn't time to read my Bible, or pray, or go to church, or scarcely eat or sleep. I worked Sundays and week days alike, and I got to be a sort of heathen, and I've been one ever since," and a gloom seemed to gather on her naturally open, cheery face, as if she feared she might never be anything else.
Mrs. Lacey gave a deep, responsive sigh, showing that her heavy heart was akin to all other burdened souls. But direct, practical Edith said simply and gently:
"In other words, you were laboring and heavy laden."
"Couldn't have been more so, and lived," was Mrs. Groody's emphatic answer.
"And the memory of it seems to have been a heavy burden on your conscience ever since, though I think you judge yourself harshly," continued Edith.
"Not a bit," said Mrs. Groody sturdily, "I knowed better all the time."
"Well, be that as it may, I feel that I know very little about these things yet. I'm sure I want to be guided rightly. But what did our Lord mean when He said, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'?"
Mrs. Groody gave Edith a sort of surprised and startled look. After a moment she said, "Bless you, child, how plain you do put it! It's a very plain text when you think of it, now, ain't it? I always tho't it meant kind o' good, as all the Bible does."
"No, but He said them," urged Edith, earnestly. "It is a distinct, plain invitation, and it must have a distinct, plain meaning. I have learned to know that when you or Mrs. Lacey say a thing, you mean what you say, and so it is with all who are sincere and true. Was He not sincere and true? If so, these plain words must have a plain meaning. He surely couldn't have meant them only for the few people who heard His voice at that time."
"Of course not," said Mrs. Groody, musingly, while poor Mrs. Lacey leaned forward with such an eager, hungry look in her poor, worn face, that Edith's heart yearned over her. Laura came and sat on the floor by her sister's chair, and leaning her elbow on Edith's knee, and her face on her hand, looked up with the wistful, trustful, child-like expression that had taken the place of her former stateliness and subsequent apathy. Edith lost all thought of herself in her eagerness to tell the others of the Friend and Helper she had come to know.