"And she will fly away from us one of these days, Maude; I can see it—I am sure of it."
"Oh, Guy, Guy, can you really think so? And yet you can't give up before such an awful sorrow comes on us!" And Maude burst into tears, as her brother thus confirmed the fears she had not found courage to utter.
"Why, what do you mean, sister? How could my 'giving up,' as you call it, make any difference?"
"It might, oh indeed it might, Guy. Don't you see this? God loves our mother, and hears her prayers; and she prays,—oh, I have heard her when she thought I was asleep,—she prays that the loss of your earthly inheritance may be far more than compensated by the inheritance that can never be taken away, and that under the privation of your own way and pleasure, you may be drawn to feel the need of God's lovingkindness in the way and according to the means He sees best."
"Well," said Guy, "and what then?"
"Why, you see, God will give her her heart's desire, because He has said so. 'Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desire of thine heart.' She 'delights' in Him, she just lives with Him. And if words won't do, you know what children must expect; and if one blow won't do, another blow must come, for God says, 'As many as I love I rebuke and chasten.' Rebuke first, then chasten. Oh, brother, can't you see now what I mean?"
Guy had turned to look wonderingly at his sister, usually so quiet and gentle, and now her countenance flushed with unusual animation.
"I never knew that you thought all these things, Maude," at last he said; "you seem to have got suddenly almost as wise as—as—" He stopped. "As our mother—" he had nearly said, but that would have been a positive admission that she was right.
"Dear Guy," said she, "haven't I been learning in God's school lately, and 'who teacheth like Him?' I only want to be His willing, obedient scholar, and to have my brother with me. And oh, if we could together say, 'Thy will be done,' we might together ask that our darling mother might be spared to us. But what if our hearts are so naughty and rebellious and so angry at not having things our own way, that our heavenly Father will be obliged to strike harder yet?"
"Not you, Maude, not you," said Guy, in a half-suffocated voice.