"You are always right, my brother, and I will yield to your wise advice, although my heart cries out to hasten at once to his side. When will you return to him?"
"Immediately. There will be little time to wait. With the quickening of the morning light we will be here. My brave-hearted, wise little sister, the delay will be to you neither sorrowful nor long."
He arose, and, bending over me, dropped a kiss lightly on my brow, and in a moment he had passed from my sight.
"How strange," I thought, "that even in this matter, so near to my heart, I am able to yield unmurmuringly! Father, I thank Thee! I thank Thee for the glad reunion so near at hand; but, even more than that, for the sweet submission in all things that has grown into my life; that I can yield to Thy will even when Thou wouldst permit it to be otherwise."
I bowed my head upon my hand and gave myself up to mingled sad and happy thoughts. Was he, this dearly loved one, indeed insensible to his suffering? Would the Father mercifully spare him even the pang of the parting? Oh, that the morning were here! How could I wait even that brief while for the sight of the beloved face!
Suddenly a soft touch rested upon my bowed head, and a Voice I had learned to recognize and love beyond all things in earth or heaven said: "Have I not said truly, 'Though he were dead, yet shall he live again'? What are now the years of separation, since the meeting again is at hand? Come, and let us reason a little together," the Master said, smiling down into my uplifted face. He took my extended hand into his own, and sitting down beside me, continued:
"Let us consider what these years have done for you. Do you not feel that you are infinitely better prepared to confer happiness than when you parted from him you love?"
I nodded in glad affirmation.
"Do you not realize that you stand upon a higher plane, with more exalted ideas of life and its duties; and that, in the strength of the Father, you two henceforward will walk upward together?"
Again I gladly acquiesced.