“Edna, you must not stay; you look far too tired,” remonstrated Bessie; “and we shall have plenty of time for talk to-morrow.”
“But I like fireside talks best,” replied Edna willfully; “and I am not inclined to sleep yet. I do hate the night!” with sudden petulance. “It is so stupid to lie awake and watch the fire go out, and count sheep jumping through a gap in the hedge; anything to cheat one’s self into oblivion. Do you sleep well, Bessie?”
“Yes, always; trouble never keeps me awake. I always think of Hatty when I lie down, and wonder what she is doing, and what the angels are teaching her, but I fall asleep in the middle of a thought, and it is morning before I wake.”
“Oh, you have a good conscience,” replied Edna bitterly; “you have no remorseful thoughts to goad you into wakefulness. If one could only have one’s life over again, Bessie? I want you to help me while you are here, to think what I had better do. I cannot go on like this. Is there anything that I can do? Any work? If it were not for mamma, I would go to some hospital and learn nursing; it is too dreadful living like this just to amuse one’s self, and try to forget. I must do something, something for the good of myself, if not for my fellow-creatures.”
Bessie listened to her with some surprise. Edna’s manner was excited; she looked feverish; her voice had a hard ring in it.
“Tell me what I must do,” she said, fixing her large eyes on Bessie.
“Dear, you must get well first,” replied Bessie tenderly. “You are far from strong; your mother is right, Edna.”
Edna shook her head impatiently.
“It is nothing—a cold; what does it signify? How can one feel well with all these worrying thoughts? It is work that I want, Bessie—work that will take me out of myself and make me forget.”
“Are you sure that God wishes you to forget?” asked Bessie softly. “Oh, my dear,” stroking her hand, “you can never say again that I do not know what trouble is, that I cannot feel for you; but I have learned that we must not run away from our trouble; girls so often talk like that,” she went on, “about going into a hospital, but they do not know what they want. Nursing is too sacred a work to be done from such a motive. What good would such a work, undertaken in a selfish, self-seeking spirit, do them? Edna, when God wounds He heals, but it must be in His own time, and in the proper place; and even troubles caused by our own recklessness must come under this head.”