“That is well,—although I am foolish as to pity, and like best to keep my troubles to myself. But if to know all this helps you to do right, to know what the courage which comes from God means, I shall not have suffered in vain.”
“Thank you!” He began to comprehend her courageous reticence, and was appalled at this insight into the anguish and struggle of this calm, self-contained life, which went laughing on its way to death.
“Kiss me,” she said, “and mind this is between us two. I try usually not to pain others with my pain. Except to help you, I would not have made you suffer for my suffering. No one knows why there is so much torment in the wide world of man and beast, but some of it is clear enough. I have made your young heart ache to-night; but this suffering has a meaning, and ought to have a use.”
“Thank you, dear Aunt Anne!”
“Don’t cry any more,” she said. “I shall love you better than ever because we have trusted each other. Now I think you know what to do. Don’t wait,” and she laughed pleasantly; “procrastination is the thief—of what, Jacky?”
“Oh, of time.” And he laughed.
“No, no, stupid!—of all the virtues. Your father is in the room. Kiss me.”
The boy rose up and went straight into the cabin. With his head in air, and a little flushed, he walked up to his father, and stood as the latter looked up from his book.
“I am sorry, sir, for what I did yesterday. I was wrong.”
Lyndsay put out his hand, and the mother also looked up from her book.