Chapter Seventh.
"Heaven, the perfection of all that can
Be said, or thought, riches, delight, or harmony,
Health, beauty: and all these not subject to
The waste of time, but in their height eternal."
—Shirley.
"We have no need to weep for her, my darling," Mr. Dinsmore said, softly stroking Elsie's hair as she lay sobbing in his arms, an open letter in her hand.
"No, papa, not for her, I know; but for the others. See, Annis's letter is all blistered with her tears, and she says it seems at times as if her heart would break. And Don; oh, she says Don is almost wild with grief; that he tells her he can hardly bear to be in the house, it is so lonely and desolate without Fan."
"Yes, I have no doubt they miss her sorely; yet time will assuage their grief; they will come to think less of their own loss and more of her blessedness."
Elsie lifted her face and wiped away her tears. "Is it not wonderful, papa," she said, "that Fan, always so timid and retiring, always clinging so to her mother and home, should be so willing and even glad to go?"
"Yes," he said; "it shows what the grace of God can do. She must have been given a very strong sense of her Saviour's love and presence with her as she passed through the valley of the shadow of death. It helps one to stronger faith in the precious promise, 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be.'"