"And now I want to be a different sort of girl," continued Paulina. "I mean to try to be good for all I am worth, and you must help me, Nan. I am afraid I shall never be a real Christian, though."
"You are surely not going to be a sham one," I said. "You cannot be if Christ has you in His keeping."
"That is true," said Paulina. "Oh, Nan, life seems so much more to me now! I have such new hopes and plans and I am so happy!"
"And I am happy too," I cried.
Indeed I felt as if I could never be troubled again. I could only wonder that I had ever allowed myself to be ruffled by trifles. The things which had so lately disturbed my peace seemed now of slight importance, since there came to me a blessed conviction that my life, and the lives of those I loved, were in the keeping of a God of Love, who would make all things work for our good. What a difference it makes whether one regards one's life as ruled by a hard, blind, inexorable Fate, or as guided by the Hands of Love! My mood at that hour might have found expression in Mrs. Browning's well-known lines:
"And I smiled to think God's greatness
Flowed around our incompleteness,
Round our restlessness, His rest."
Paulina and I did not utter many words as we paced the path together. Our hearts were too full of deep emotion. That sacred confidence cemented between us a lasting friendship. We lost all sense of time as we wandered to and fro, now in the clear moonlight and now in the shade of the trees, till at last Aunt Patty's voice was heard from the farther end of the lawn.
"Girls—girls I Where are you? It is time to close the house. Do you mean to spend the night in the garden? Nan, you forget that Paulina is an invalid."
"That I am not!" cried Paulina stoutly, and, laughing, we ran indoors.