“I have lost something; I don’t dare try to find it for fear that God has taken it away from me.”
“How did you lose it?”
Tessa raised her head, paused, then spoke impressively: “I lost it through carefulness.”
“Ah! I have heard of such a thing before.”
“Oh, have you? Is any one in the world like me? I thought that no one ever made such mistakes as I do, or needed the discipline that I need!”
“My dear, all hearts are fashioned alike.”
“But all lives are not alike.”
“Not so different as you imagine; in my girls I live over my old struggles, longings, mistakes; in the history of lives lived ages ago I find the same struggles, longings, mistakes, the same need of the same discipline.”
“Oh, if you can help me; if you can only help me! You study the Bible, isn’t every thing in the Bible? Didn’t Paul mean that every thing was in it when he said that through the comfort of the Scriptures we have hope? I can not find any thing to suit me; you find something.”
The gaslight was more than she could bear, she dropped her head again, covering her face with both hands.