“How so?” demanded Rhoda, who was not deterred from gaining information by any delicacy in asking questions.
“There was a time once, my dear, that I might have married a gentleman of title, with a rent-roll of six thousand a year.”
“Mrs Dolly! you don’t mean that?” cried Rhoda. “And why on earth didn’t you?”
“Well, my dear, I had two reasons,” answered Mrs Dorothy. “One was”—with a little laugh—“that as you see, I preferred to be one of these same ill-conditioned, lonely, disappointed old maids. And the other was”—and Mrs Dorothy’s voice sank to a softer and graver tone—“I could not have taken my Master with me into that house. I saw no track of His footsteps along that road. And His sheep follow Him.”
“But God means us to be happy, Mrs Dolly?”
“Surely, my dear. But He knows better than we how empty and fleeting is all happiness other than is found in Him. ’Tis only because the Lord is our Shepherd that we shall not want.”
“Mrs Dolly, that is what good people say; but it always sounds so gloomy and melancholy.”
“What sounds melancholy, my dear?” inquired Mrs Dorothy, with slight surprise in her tone.
“Why, that one must find all one’s happiness in reading sermons, and chanting Psalms, and thinking how soon one is going to die,” said Rhoda, with an uncomfortable shrug.
“My dear!” exclaimed Mrs Dorothy, “when did you ever hear me say anything of the kind?”