We have a lovely and dear home, and friends to fill it when we want them; we have happy errands to many who get some happiness through our hands; we have travelled together, and seen glorious and wonderful things; we read and think, we sing and sew, we laugh and talk and are silent together; we do not let each other miss or want. But, for all this we have each—and both together—our troubles to bear, that would not have been worthy to be called troubles if they had stirred in us so slightly as to have been forgotten long ago.
We only bear them as things grown tender to us by their very pain and pressure, because of Some One who will say to us when we go home to Him:
“Did my dear child wear it all the day for My Sake?”
AFTERWARDS.
Once, down in the night, but a blinded thing:—
Now, the great gold light and the beautiful wing!
