“'Let them alone; in mercy let them alone!' pleaded the pitying spirit. 'They have enough to bear—enough of joy; enough of grief.'
“'Nay, nay. They are but imperfectly endowed. They look about them at the waves that lap the beach on which they stand, and look backward o'er the sands of Time, but send never a glance forward over the great misty ocean of the Future.'
“Then down from the other world there shot a gleam of golden light that rested on a shadow, and willy-nilly—not knowing, not caring, possibly resisting had they fully comprehended—mankind was endowed with another gift, and its name was Anticipation. One face was dazzling in its radiance—that they called Hope; the other was deep with gloom, and that was Dread. With the coming of this gift the veil that hung athwart the future was pierced, and mankind saw as the gods see, not only what was, not alone what had been, but what was to be as well.
“And on a day when all went fair they clung to these three gifts—Realization, Memory, and Anticipation—and thanked the gracious gods, but on another day, when Life pressed hard, they tried to fling them off and cried in bitter reproach: 'Why didst thou burden us with double-faced, tormenting creatures? Why wore they not a single face, and that a happy one?'
“Then down through the immeasurable quivering ether that veils eternity came the answering murmur, tender and pitiful as a strain of music upon a broken heart:
“'Thou canst not know—not yet—some day; for “now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.”'”
And when the story was told Nannie was weeping, for all at once she knew where she stood—all at once looked backward and saw what she had done; looked forward and saw what was to come.
But betwixt herself and Constance there was a high stone wall, called Misunderstanding, and Constance did not scale this wall, and so lost one of the sweetest pleasures known to mortals—helping a fellow-being out of the dark into the light.
And Nannie hungered and went home unfed.