The ride home in the brightness of the winter day was not unpleasant. Father Morgan, whether subdued by his long waiting, or by the white world glistening in the sunlight, certainly had nothing to say that was jarring, and seemed not dissatisfied with the condition of things. Dorothy stole little glances at him from under her wrappings, and wondered whether he would ever know that everything was different to her from what it had been last Sunday, and what he would say if he ever did know. And then suddenly, like the leap of a new emotion into her heart, came the desire that he knew for himself what it all meant. Oh, how she wished that father was a Christian!
Where did the sudden, intense desire come from? She had never felt anything like it before. Sometimes, indeed, she had drearily wished that they were more like other people—went to church regularly, even went occasionally of an evening as the Stuarts did, who lived no farther away, and had the social appointed at their house. But it had been a dreamy, far-away sort of wish, little desire about it, nothing in the least like this sudden longing.
Then there rolled over Dorothy the sweetness of the thought that she could actually pray for her father, and that may be—oh, may be!—because of her prayer, the father would, some day, when she had prayed for him a great many years, come to know of this experience by personal knowledge. Will there ever be more happiness put into Dorothy's life than surged over her with the possibilities involved in that thought? Still, Deacon Belknap troubled her. When was she to expect all this brightness to go away? And, also, why must it go? Why had not Lewis said something to her about it—warned her, when she frankly admitted to him this morning that she had never been happy before in her life? And oh, how long had the feeling stayed with him? He knew about it, for he had told her that he understood just how she felt; he remembered well his own experience. Then a sudden, bewildering doubt of Deacon Belknap's theories came over Dorothy, for she was confronted with the thought that she did not believe the feeling ever left Louise; it was this which made her different from others. Still, Deacon Belknap ought to know. And, besides, what might not Louise have had to go through before the joy came to stay? Dorothy's brain was in a whirl. Well for her that Louise, standing at one side, had heard every word of Deacon Belknap's well-meant and honest caution. She saw the instant clouding of Dorothy's face, and watched for her chance to remove the thorn. It came to her just after dinner, when Dorothy was upstairs hunting for her apron. Louise, meeting her in the hall, said,—
"So Deacon Belknap thought he ought to caution you against being happy in Christ?"
"What did he mean?" Dorothy asked, her cheeks glowing. "Does the happy feeling all go away? Must it?"
"What does it spring from, Dorrie dear?"
"Why, I think," said Dorothy, hesitating and blushing violently, "it seems to me that it comes because I love Jesus and because he loves me."
"Yes. Well, if Deacon Belknap had told me that I must not expect to be as happy with my husband in the future as I am now, because there would be trials and difficulties of one sort and another to encounter, and that therefore his love and mine would not burn as brightly, I think I should have considered myself insulted."
"I should think so! Do you mean—O Louise, I mean do you think they are a little alike?"
"He calls the Church his bride, dear; it is his own figure; but of course it falls far below the real, vital union that there may be between us and Christ."