"And oh, Harold, how infinitely more is His love worth than mine!"
But her eye fell upon Walter's letter lying forgotten in her lap. She took it up, glanced over it, then read it more carefully, pausing often to wipe away the blinding tears. As she finished, Mr. Travilla came in.
"Here is a letter from Walter, Edward," she said, in tremulous tones, as she handed it to him.
"Then the report of his death was untrue?" he exclaimed inquiringly, a glad look coming into his face.
"Only too true," she answered, with a fresh burst of tears; and Harold briefly explained.
"Shall I read it aloud, wife?" Mr. Travilla asked.
"If Harold cares to hear. There is no secret."
"I should like it greatly," Harold said; and Mr. Travilla read it to him, while Elsie moved away to the farther side of the room, her heart filled with a strange mixture of emotions, in which grief was uppermost.
The letter was filled chiefly with an account of the writer's religious experience. Since his last visit to the Oaks he had been constantly rejoicing in the love of Christ, and now, expecting, as he did, to fall in the coming battle, death had no terrors for him. And he owed this, he said, in great measure to the influence of his brother Horace and Elsie, especially to the beautiful consistency of her Christian life through all the years he had known her.
Through all her grief and sadness, what joy and thankfulness stirred in her breast at that thought. Very humble and unworthy she felt; but oh, what gladness to learn that her Master had thus honored her as an instrument in His hands.