It was not grief alone which worried her. She was amazed and rebellious, and sought to see nothing beyond the desolation of being left without her sister. She was very selfish in the first shock of surprise and pain, and it was an hour of bitterness that she passed beneath the cedars by the brook; and, alas for her! she took both pain and bitterness home with her again.
Remembering her own time of trouble, Eunice had patience with her, knowing that light and help would come. She waited long, but she waited patiently, and help came at last.
“Fidelia,” said Mrs Stone, one night soon after this, “are you thinking of going to conference meeting to-night?”
“No; I can’t say I am. Mr Runkin is not at home.”
“Unless he came this morning, which is not likely. But there’ll be somebody there to lead the meeting, I expect.”
“Deacon Ainsworth, I guess,” said Fidelia, with a shrug. “I don’t feel as if it would pay to go to hear him.”
“No, I don’t suppose it would pay to go to hear him, if that were all you went for, or to hear anybody else. But don’t you know that to ‘two or three gathered together’ in His name the promise is given?”
“There will be two or three and more there, without me; and I shouldn’t help much, Aunt Ruby.”
“But you might be helped if the Lord Himself were there. I’d guess you’d better go. If you go, you’d better take down this book to the doctor. He left it here by mistake, I expect, since it is in a strange tongue. I presume he thinks he lost it out of his chaise, and he’ll be glad to get it again. If you do go, Jabez’ll be along at the right time to come home with you.” All this Mrs Stone said, seeing, but not seeming to sea, the cloud that lay darkly on Fidelia’s face.
One thought which had a little hope in it had come to Fidelia that day under the cedars—“Dr Everett will know. I will ask Dr Everett.” But she had never done so; and Mrs Stone’s insistence about the meeting and the doctor’s book gave the needed impulse; and she said she would go.