With all her philosophy, inborn, and lately taught by Mr Trail, she could not help considering her lot a severe one; but she called to mind the good minister’s reply, on her observing, in the words of the Psalmist, “I thought to understand this, but it was too hard for me.”
“Yes,” he had said, “too hard for us to understand; but look to the words that follow: ‘until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood! the end of these things.’”
She rose and resolved on seeking the good teacher; but ere she had moved many paces along the turf, Frankfort stood beside her.
Love, charity, and tenderness of heart had triumphed over all selfish considerations; the power of this patient, suffering, wronged creature happy superseded all other sentiments.
The power of making others happy! How few estimate this divine and lofty attribute as they should! How few understand or prize the possession of it!
Again Eleanor and Frankfort met together beside the little fountain, which glittered like silver in the emerald glass; day was declining ere they thought of moving. They had sat, hand clasped in hand, their hearts too full for utterance save in whispers, till the shadow of the corallodendrums lengthened on the sward.
They rose to return to the house.
“Let us go to my father and mother,” said Eleanor,
Hark, a sound!—something whirred past them, and descended so swiftly that they saw nothing till the long, slender shaft of an assegai quivered upright in the ground, within a few paces of their feet. May, who had, unobserved by them, been gathering water-cresses immediately below the Devil’s Kloof, started up before them. He had not from the hollow observed them; the three stood for a minute or two utterly confounded.
Frankfort drew the weapon out in haste, and hurried Eleanor to the house; they met Marion and Ormsby, mirthful as ever.