“But O, there is a great gulf fixed; and on one side one, and on the other another, and they loved each other.”
Her face paled,—it always pales, I notice, at the mention of this mystery,—but her eyes never lost by a shade their steadfast trust.
“Mary, don’t question me about that. That belongs to the unutterable things. God will take care of it. I think I could leave it to him even if he brought it for me myself to face. I feel sure that he will make it all come out right. Perhaps He will be so dear to us, that we could not love any one who hated him. In some way the void must be filled, for he shall wipe away tears. But it seems to me that the only thought in which there can be any rest, and in that there can, is this: that Christ, who loves us even as his Father loves him, can be happy in spite of the existence of a hell. If it is possible to him, surely he can make it possible to us.”
“Two things that He has taught us,” she said after a silence, “give me beautiful assurance that none of these dreams with which I help myself can be beyond his intention to fulfil. One is, that eye hath not seen it, nor ear heard it, nor the heart conceived it,—this lavishness of reward which he is keeping for us. Another is, that ‘I shall be satisfied when I awake.’”
“With his likeness.”
“With his likeness. And about that I have other things to say.”
But Old Gray stopped at the gate and Phœbe was watching for her butter, and it was no time to say them then.
XII.
July 22.
Aunt Winifred has connected herself with our church. I think it was rather hard for her, breaking the last tie that bound her to her husband’s people; but she had a feeling, that, if her work is to be done and her days ended here, she had better take up all such little threads of influence to make herself one with us.