Agnes laughed—a low, soft, musical laugh, which struck pleasantly on the ear.
“My father would be ill off for shirts if I could not,” she answered. “You see, Mr Louvaine, things have to be done. ’Tis to no good purpose to be impatient with them. It doth but weary more the worker, and furthers not the work a whit.”
“Would you not like to lead a different life?—such a life as other young maids do—amid flowers, and sunshine, and jewels, and dancing, and laughter, and all manner of jollity?”
He was curious to hear what she would say to the question.
Agnes answered by a rather wondering smile. Then her eyes went out of the window, to the steeple of Saint Andrew’s, and the blue sky beyond it.
“I might well enjoy some of them,” she said slowly, as if the different ideas were passing in review before her. “I love sunshine, and flowers. But there is one thing I love far better.”
“And that is—?”
A light “that never was from sun nor moon” flooded the grave grey eyes of Agnes Marshall. Her voice was very low and subdued as she answered.
“That is, to do the will of God. There is nothing upon earth that I desire in comparison of Him.”
“Is not that a gloomsome, dismal sort of thing?”