The winds moaned and the snow came and went; the "frost-king" fettered and unloosed; then the spring appeared and with it changes not only in the outward world but into the little circle of murmuring ones. The father must go to sea; a summer voyage was before him. It was harder now than ever to leave his almost helpless boy without a mother's love to comfort and cheer him; but it must be done!
"I will take as good care of him as I can," Fanny remarked one evening as the father's solicitude broke out into words.
"To be sure I shall have a great deal more to attend to now, but I suppose Phebe can help me more than she has done. She is a great stout girl and might make herself useful if she had a mind to do so. She ought to be made to understand that she is dependent and should do something to earn her own living! I cannot afford to keep her for nothing!"
"This home is yours, I am fully aware, Fanny," replied Mr. Evans with some warmth; "and if you wish it I will take my children out of it and find them another." Fanny burst into tears and arose to leave the room.
"I will endeavor to be a sister to both of them," she stopped to say in a subdued tone, and the father was alone.
"I must believe her," he thought at last; "she cannot be cruel to her poor brother at least!" So in a few days, before the early flowers decked the garden walks, the father and protector was away upon the waves, and the home was once more desolate!
Ah, there are sad times in life when even hope seems arrayed in the sombre habiliments of mourning. The future grows darker and darker as we gaze upon it; there is no light because we are powerless to penetrate the clouds that are hanging over us. Who shall lead us out? Timid and shrinking we stretch our trembling hands out into the gloom when to the surprise of the fainting heart we feel the gentle grasp of love, while the way brightens and the faltering feet gain a firmer tread as they step forward where the shadows are broken and the rugged road appears in full view.
If Phebe had been a strange child when she entered the cottage, the intimate companionship of the thoughtful studious cripple had not made her less so. The events of each passing day had imparted their impress upon her susceptible nature. Her mind had been an open chalice into which her foster-brother had poured the hoarded wealth of his own; and she was learned beyond her years. The little "dumpy figure" was now tall and well-proportioned for her age, and Willie looked upon her with pride and admiration. More than this, her heart with its far-reaching mysteries had been guided close to the cross and around it the tendrils of its unsolved longings twined themselves. Her dreams of the unreal were no less, but her realizations of the sterner demands of life were more. Willie had early learned to tell the pitying Redeemer his tales of sorrow and deprivations, and where he found comfort and sympathy the restless Phebe had been led. How kind in the potter to prepare the clay for his grand purposes of use, although sometimes with a rough as well as masterly hand! And how can its powers be manifested without the "fashioning process" or its durability secured in the absence of the "mouldings" and the fire? The master understood his work and Phebe lay passively in his hands.
Down by the lake where the wild honeysuckle yielded up its luscious fruits to the children when the blossoms had disappeared, was a little arbor where tender fingers had woven the slender branches of the whispering pines together, and in this sweet bower Willie and his companion sat every day when the snow and frosts were gone and talked of the absent mother, wishing that the gentle spirit might be ever near to check the turbulent winds and smooth down the angry waves.