"It is full of beauty still," said Almeria, looking out into the golden and perfumed glories of a June day.
"Not to the prisoner and the slave," said Emily.
"All are such, whom God hath not made free;" and Almeria gently ventured to explain the hopes of larger span which enable the soul that can soar upon their wings to disregard the limitations of seventy years.
Emily listened with profound attention. The words were familiar to her, but the tone was not; it was that which rises from the depths of a purified spirit,—purified by pain, softened into peace.
"Have you made any use of these thoughts in your life, Almeria?"
The lovely preacher hesitated not to reveal a tale before unknown except to her own heart, of woe, renunciation, and repeated blows from a hostile fate.
Emily heard it in silence, but she understood. The great illusions of youth vanished. She did not suffer alone; her lot was not peculiar. Another, perhaps many, were forbidden the bliss of sympathy and a congenial environment. And what had Almeria done? Revenged herself? Tormented all around her? Clung with wild passion to a selfish resolve? Not at all. She had made the best of a wreck of life, and deserved a blessing on a new voyage. She had sought consolation in disinterested tenderness for her fellow-sufferers, and she deserved to cease to suffer.
The lesson was taken home, and gradually leavened the whole being of this spoiled but naturally noble child.
A few weeks afterwards, she asked her father when Mr. L—— was expected to return.
"In about three months," he replied, much surprised.