"I fear I am, dearest friend; at least, what you think proud."
"Is it right, Guy, to deny yourself as you are doing, to rob your mother of your society, and wander homeless about the world, and all for money?"
"Oh it is not so, Mrs. Hazelwood."
"It is like it, Guy. Has your old fancy revived of buying back the Moat?"
"No, no, no. That covetous thought has never disgraced me since the day when—"
"When you saved the life of its new master, and I honoured you for a glorious self-conquest. Then why? Trust me, dear boy; let me know the truth before I go hence."
Then Guy bent his lips to the kind listening ear, and told into it his heart's secret hopes and fears; and Mrs. Hazelwood laid her hand on his bowed head, and blessed him with a blessing that he prayed might go with him the journey of life through. She had understood him better even than he had himself, and her delicate tact and wise advice once more set him on the path of hope, and possible success at last.
Soon afterwards she exchanged the couch of pain for the arms of the angel band waiting to bear her to the Eternal Presence.
Of the funeral it is needless to tell; it was what many a good woman's funeral has been since the Dorcas days of old, and will be while such women live "not unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again;" until "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, and there shall be no more pain."
It is pain and sorrow and death that make God's servants what they are, when they obey their sweet vocation; the pain and sorrow and death of their beloved atoning Saviour for them first, and then the following of His gracious steps in a ministry of sympathising love amidst the wants and woes around them. The same Spirit imparted to the members through living union with the Head prolongs the witness, and proclaims "whose they are and whom they serve."