“Well, I am content to be sitting here. I doubt I shall do little else for the rest of my life. I must be a useless body, I’m afraid,” added she, with a sigh.
Mr Snow smiled.
“You know better than that,” said he. “I don’t suppose it seems much to you to get back again; but it is a great deal for the rest of us to have you, if it is only to look at.”
“I am content to bide my time, useless or useful, as God wills,” said his wife, gravely:
“I was willing you should go—yes, I do think I was willing you should go. It was the seeing you suffer that seemed to take the strength out of me,” said he, with a shudder. “It makes me kind of sick to think about it,” added he, rising and moving about. “I believe I was willing, but I am dreadful glad to see you sitting there.”
“I am glad to be here, since it is God’s will. It is a wonderful thing to stand on the very brink of the river of death, and then to turn back again. I think the world can never look quite the same to eyes that have looked beyond it to the other side. But I am content to be here, and to serve Him, whether it be by working or by waiting.”
“On the very brink,” repeated Mr Snow, musingly. “Well, it did look like that, one while. I wonder if I was really willing to have you go. It don’t seem now as if I could have been—being so glad as I am that you did not go, and so thankful.”
“I don’t think the gladness contradicts the willingness; and knowing you as I do, and myself as well, I wonder less at the willingness than at the gladness.”
This needed further consideration, it seemed, for Mr Snow did not answer, but sat musing, with his eyes fixed on the distant hills, till Mrs Snow spoke again.
“I thought at first, when the worst was over, it was only a respite from pain before the end; but, to-day, I feel as if my life was really coming back to me, and I am more glad to live than I have been any day yet.”