"And to think that she should have lived to be happy again!" the latter exclaimed. "She looked so cheerful this afternoon. I'm sure I thought she had lived an ordinary, uneventful life, and instead of that she must have suffered as few women are called upon to do. To lose husband and four little children at once, and in such a heartrending manner! Oh, I wonder it did not kill her!"
"That is what I said to Mrs. Barker," Marigold put in; "but she said Mrs. Adams was not one of the sort to lie down and die."
"What did she mean by that remark, my dear?" Miss Holcroft asked.
"I think she meant that Mrs. Adams trusted in God, and knew it was His will," Marigold answered reverently. "I suppose she felt like mother did when father died—only, of course, mother had all of us left," the little girl added.
"How did your mother feel?" Miss Pamela questioned abruptly.
"First of all as though she did not want to live without father, and then she thought that it was very selfish to wish to die, when perhaps God had so much work for her to do, and she remembered she was only parted from father for a time, and it was wicked to be sorry because he had finished the fight."
"'Finished the fight?'" Miss Pamela repeated inquiringly.
"Yes—the good fight of faith," Marigold explained.
There was a brief silence, broken by the little girl's remarking—
"It must be dreadful not to be able to read. Poor Mrs. Barker never went to school in her life, so she never learned; of course it is not her fault, but it does seem a great pity, does it not? Barker reads to her every other Sunday when she goes home, and then she has something to think about afterwards."