“O Heliet, Heliet, she was all I had!”
“I know it, beloved. But how if He would have thee to make Him all thou hast?”
“Could I not have loved God and have had Rosie?”
“Perhaps not,” said Heliet, gently.
“I hope He will take me soon,” said Clarice. “Surely He can never leave me long now!”
“Or, it may be, make thee content to wait His will.”
Clarice shook her head, not so much with a negative air as with a shrinking one. Just in that first agony, to be content with it seemed beyond human nature.
Heliet laid her hand on that of her friend. “Dear, would you have had Rosie suffer as you have done?”
For a moment Clarice’s mental eyes ran forward, over what would most likely, according to human prevision, have been the course of Rosie’s after life. The thought came to her as with a pang, and grew upon her, that the future could have had no easy lot in store for Vivian Barkeworth’s daughter. He would have disposed of her without a thought of her own wish, and no prayers nor tears from her would have availed to turn him from his purpose. No—it was well with the child.
“Thou art right,” she said, in a pained voice. “It is better for Rosie as it is. But for me?”