“After all, Bathsheba, I am forced to give it up,” he said. And if he had been anybody but Cyrus, I should have said there was a sob in his throat.
“Give what up?” I asked, stupidly. And it occurred to me that I had never seen him look so long and “gawky” as he did standing there dejectedly, hanging his fine head—it was a fine head!
“Haven’t you seen?” he said, patiently, although with a trace of suppressed irritability in his tone. “I have proved that I have not a talent for business. It has all gone to the bad. The prospects are so poor that the creditors cannot be induced to give us an extension of time. We shall be sold out under the hammer before very long.”
“Cyrus, don’t feel so!” I cried, for there was a white line around his mouth—in our family we all show that when we suffer intensely. “It isn’t—no one can say that it is your fault!”
“No, only my incapacity,” said Cyrus, bitterly.
“And the dull times,” I added, quickly.
“I think the finger of Providence pointed me clearly to the vocation that I was adapted to. I think I was called, as Loveday would say, and I hadn’t sufficient courage and faith to obey the call. I thought I must trust in myself. My heart has never been in this work, and only where your heart is will your real success be,” said Cyrus, reflectively.
“One cannot be sure always which way the finger of Providence points,” I retorted. “You meant to do your duty.”
“Did I?” said Cyrus. “I felt like a machine that goes because it must. Sometimes there seemed to be scarcely anything about me that wasn’t mechanical, except the bitterness.”
“But it will all work together for good! You will see!” I cried, eagerly. “You will be a minister yet!”