The girl was still a long time, and then she said timidly:
"Yes, Mother, he is wonderful! More wonderful even than I have told you yet or you have seen. But Mother, you think I let him get that ring just to protect me from gossips, just to let others see that I had not been a fool! But I didn't, Mother. I truly didn't! I couldn't have done that not even to protect you from all the shame and disgrace of having people find out just what really did happen. I couldn't have unless I had loved him. You think perhaps it couldn't be true love so soon after I thought I was dying for that other man, but it is, it is. It seems as if I had never really known love before.
"Why, Mother, when Nelson began to tell me how he felt toward me, and what I was to him, it opened a whole new world to me. I hadn't known what love was before. I hadn't dreamed what it could be. It seemed as if the other had just been a cheap imitation of it. It showed up the other experience. I began to see in contrast how selfish Rufus—I mean Mr. Oliver—had been, how all he talked about was a good time, something to amuse—how he did not seem to care about whether I was pleased or not, only to bend me to his will. It hadn't seemed that way at all before. But Mother, I've been thinking about it all the evening, trying to see how I could make you understand, and I believe I was just proud to think a man as wise and experienced as I thought he was, had stooped to notice me, and I was frantic when I thought I had lost him.
"But Mother, I didn't know the deep sweet joy I feel now in Nelson. I didn't know there was such joy. Truly, Mother and you know it isn't as if I had just met Nelson—he's been dear always—always—since I was just a little girl, only he never opened this door to his soul before and let me see how he had put me in his heart on a throne. And it has just carried me into heaven, Mother, but I know you think I haven't any right—not a bit of right to it—since—since—"
"Yes, you have, my dear. I do think you have. I have watched your face. You are a different girl. You have met the real thing at last and recognized it. I couldn't have hoped it would come to you so soon. I was fearful what might happen to you in the interval, till our new friend showed me that I might trust you with my heavenly Father. And somehow, my precious child, I believe He let this come to you so soon just to show us both how He can heal, and how He will lead and save and bless those who trust Him entirely with their lives."
Said the girl, laying her hot cheek against her mother's soft one:
"Oh, Mother! You are the most wonderful woman in the world! And Mrs. Dunlap is next. What should we have done without her? Suppose I had gone on and had my own way! Suppose—suppose—I had lost Nelson! Just think! Even if the other man hadn't been what he was—suppose I had missed knowing Nelson's love! Oh, Mother! You don't know how wonderful Nelson is! I can never make you understand. He is—different! He is—wonderful!"
"I believe it!" said the mother fervently. "And now let us kneel down and thank God for the wonderful way in which he has led us."
A little later, while her mother was preparing for the night, Marguerite took out her little Bible that always traveled with her when she went anywhere because it was a part of the fittings of the bag which her mother had given her the Christmas before. Opening it, she paused with startled eyes. At last she said:
"Mother, listen to this. I opened right to it, Isaiah 42.16, 'I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do to them, and not forsake them.' Mother, that was what He did for me. I was blind!"