[CHAPTER II.]
OLD FRIENDS.
MRS. MORGAN shut the bureau as she spoke, saying with a smile: "Emily will know in a minute, that somebody has been to her drawers."
"I had better confess beforehand then. Are you going to sew now?"
"Yes, I'll be ready presently."
Ina few moments, Mrs. Morgan joined her cousin in the pleasant sitting-room. But before I tell you what they talked about, I wish to explain who these two ladies were.
Mrs. Morgan was the wife of a gentleman of good fortune connected with the great Express lines from north to south. They were both members of the Episcopal Church; and it was their earnest prayer that they might be not professors only, but possessors of vital godliness. During the first years of their married life, they went much into company, attended balls and concerts night after night. By this means, they lost much of the fervor of their religion.
Indeed, so conformed were they to the world and its pleasures, that they could scarcely be distinguished from the world's people. But their Father in heaven was watching over them. He saw into their hearts, and he knew that even while involved in this round of gayety, they were not satisfied. He knew there were times when they turned with loathing from all this hollow friendship, and longed for the quiet happiness they once enjoyed. God in his abounding kindness had a purpose of mercy toward these his wandering children; and he took means to bring them back to himself.
He removed first a beautiful babe who had scarcely opened its eyes in this world, to his paradise above. Then, when this did not wean the mother from circles of fashion, from the theatre and opera, he took another child, a darling boy, the pride of both parents, to swell the song of infant worshippers before his throne. A few months later, and while their hearts were still bleeding with sorrow, Emily their first-born and best-beloved was seized with scarlet-fever, and lay for days hovering between life and death.
Now, when the waves and the billows of trouble were rolling over them, they began to call upon God for help. But to their aching hearts, he did not seem a refuge near at hand. He appeared to be afar off, so far that their cry could not reach him. But if not to their heavenly Father, to whom could they go in their deep distress? Then they began to feel that they had sinned.