CHAPTER VII.
"Her fancy followed him through foaming wares
To distant shores."
—Cowper.
Violet in her night-dress and with her beautiful hair unbound and hanging about her like a golden cloud, stood before her dressing-table, gazing through a mist of unshed tears upon a miniature which she held in her hand.
"Ah, where are you now, love?" she sighed half aloud.
Her mother's voice answered close at her side, in gentle, tender accents, "In God's keeping, my darling. He is the God of the sea as well as of the land."
"Yes, mamma, and his God as well as mine," Violet responded, looking up and smiling through her tears. "Ah, what comfort in both assurances, and in the precious promise, 'Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest.' It is his and it is mine."
"Yes, dearest. I feel for you in your loneliness," her mother said, putting her arms around her. "Elsie is very happy in her husband and baby, Edward in his wife; they need me but little, comparatively, but you and I must draw close together and be a comfort and support to each other; shall we not, my love?"
"Yes, indeed, dearest mamma. Oh, what a comfort and blessing you are to me, and always have been! And I am happier and less lonely for having my husband's children with me, especially my darling little Gracie. I feel that in caring for her and nursing her back to health I shall be adding to his happiness."
"As no doubt you will," her mother said. "It will be a pleasure to me to help you care for her, and the others also. Now, good-night, daughter; we both ought to be in bed."
Violet presently stretched herself beside the sleeping Gracie with a murmured word of endearment drew the child closer to her, and in another moment was sharing her slumbers.