Sara winced. During all this struggle she had been cruelly hampered by her feeling that, possibly, she was acting entirely against what was likely to have been her dead father's wishes, and now this fear rose so strongly again as almost to paralyze her.
"If he were only here—if I could put the responsibility into his hands—if I had any one," she was saying to herself, when there came a thought that calmed her, as the mother's voice calms a frightened child. "I have a Father; why don't I put it in his hands?"
Her rigid face relaxed into a lovely smile, and, looking at her brother with the winning sweetness she could assume at times, she said,—
"I will say no more about this matter, Morton; you have only our heavenly Father to answer to now. Decide as you think is right. Uncle Jabez, will you give him till to-morrow?"
"Sartain, sartain; and, see here, my boy: I'm free to say I've urged ye to go, fur I need a clipper-built little feller like you; but I say naow, ef I hed as good a sister's you've got, I'd think twicet afore I went agin her, an' thet's the truth."
There was no mistaking his earnestness; and as he picked up his old tarpaulin, and shook hands with Sara in farewell, the respect and friendliness of his manner thrilled her with pleasure and surprise. After he had gone she talked lightly about other matters, had a frolic with Molly and the baby, helped Morton with his examples, and mended a coat of his which had come to grief, all as if there were not a care upon her mind, and indeed there was none; she had cast it on the Lord.
Morton was very quiet all the evening, but just before he mounted the steep steps to his chamber in the loft he came to her side.
"Sara," he said.
She looked up sweetly.
"I've decided." "Yes, Morton?"