“Suppose you tell me all about it.”
“All about it,” repeated Tessa in a muffled tone. “I could not if I wanted to; but I can tell you where the despair comes in.”
“That is all I want to know.”
“Well,” raising her head again and speaking clearly and slowly. “It was an opportunity to get something that I wanted. I thought I had it, I thought it was laid in my hand and I had but to clasp my fingers tightly over it to keep it forever and forever; I cared so much that I hardly cared for any thing else. I do not think that I would lose it again through caring too much. Do you think that it is just as hard for God to see us too careful as too careless?”
“How were you too careful?”
“Oh, in being wise and doing things in my own way. What I want to know is this: did He ever give any body another opportunity? If He ever did, I will hope that He will be just as tender towards me.”
“Christ came down to earth to seek the lost; a lost opportunity is one of the things that He came to find. I think if you seek it for His sake, and not for your own, that He will find it for you.”
“For His sake, not for mine,” repeated Tessa, wonderingly. “How can I ever attain to that? I am very selfish.”
“Do you remember about David, whose heart was fashioned like yours, how careful he was once and what happened?”
Miss Jewett was speaking in her brisk, working voice; the troubled face had become alight.