“Yes,” she answered, “self-control and patient endurance. I have known those whom I would give the world to be like, just because they possessed the fortitude to crush down and bury their heartaches.”
“I should judge that you possessed that faculty, if you had any to bury.”
“I? No, I wish I did. There is a hungry feeling so often comes up in my heart that I almost cry out in despair, though my sorrows are nothing compared to many another.”
“There are some sorrows that never can be crushed—that will exist while life lasts.”
“Yes,” she answered, looking up at the soft twilight sky, with a face full of tender emotion, “and God pity those who are helpless.”
“There is a skeleton in our home that can never be removed, a disgrace which can never be blotted out, 274 and I have sworn to have revenge on the villain who threw the dark shadow over our lives.”
“Revenge can avail you nothing, and might bring still greater misery upon you,” said Miss Elsworth.
“That is true, but you cannot realize how hard it is to crush down a bitter feeling toward one who has injured you.”
“Perhaps not, but this I know, that the hardest battles are fought with our own hearts.”
“That is true, and the man who ruleth his own spirit is mightier than the one who taketh a city. Had the enemy captured us in any other way, I might have been more easily reconciled, but Bessie was our idol, the pride of our home, and she was the baby, too, you know.”