“This quiet island. Look out now, and see if you can call it dreary. Why, madam, there can hardly be a brighter glory, or a more cheerful glow among the sons of God about the throne, than there is at this moment over sea and shore, and near at home up to the very stone of my threshold. Madam, I could never think this island dreary.”
“It is not always sunset, nor always summer time,” said Lady Carse, who could not deny nor wholly resist the beauty of the scene.
“Other beauty comes by night and in the winter,” observed the widow, “and at times a grandeur which is better than the beauty. If the softness of this sunshine nourishes our peace of mind, yet more does the might of the storms. The beauty might be God’s messenger. The might is God Himself.”
“You speak as if you did not fear God,” said the lady, with the light inexperience of one to whom such subjects were not familiar.
“As a sinner, I fear Him, madam. But as His child— Why, madam, what else have we in all the universe? And having Him, what more do we want?”
“He has made us full of wants,” said the lady. “I, for one, am all bereaved, and very, very wretched.—But do not let us talk of that now. One who is alone in this place, and knows and needs nothing beyond, cannot enter into my sorrows at once. It will take long to make you conceive such misery as mine. But it will be a comfort to me to open my heart to you. And I must live within view of the harbour. I must see every boat that comes. They say you do.”
“I do. They are few; but I see them all.”
“And you save a good many by the spark in your window.”
“It has pleased God to save some, it is thought, who would have perished as some perished before them. He set me that task, in a solemn way, many years ago; and any mercy that has grown out of it is His.—Do you see any vessel on the sea, madam? I always look abroad the last thing before the sun goes down. My eyes can hardly be much older than yours: but they are much worn.”
“How have you so used your eyes? Is it that hair-knitting?”