[CHAPTER XIII.]
The Tide turns.
Be what thou seemest: live thy creed,
Hold up to earth the torch divine;
Be what thou prayest to be made;
Let the great Master's steps be thine.
—Bonar.
ow Benny lived through the next few weeks he never knew. It seemed to him as if the world had become suddenly dark. The one little being who had been the sunshine of his life was buried up in the damp cold grave, and now there seemed nothing to live for, nothing to work for, nothing even to hope for; for what was all the world to him now his little Nell was gone?
He missed her everywhere, and was continually fancying he saw her running to meet him as he drew near the church where they had regularly met for so long a time; and sometimes he would turn round with a sudden start, and with the word "Nelly" on his lips, as he fancied he heard the pattering of her little feet behind him.
He grew despondent, too. While Nelly lived there was some one to work for, some one to bear rebuffs and insults for; but now what did it matter whether he sold his matches or not? He could go hungry; he did not mind. In fact, he did not seem to care what became of him. There seemed to him nothing to fight the world for—nothing.
But for Joe he would have moped his life away in some dark corner where no one could see him. But Joe taught him to believe that his little sister was not lost, only gone before, and that perhaps she looked down upon him from heaven, and that it might grieve her to see him fretting so.