“‘I don’t wonder he was sorry to have it dry up, then,’ said Mark.
“‘No, it was very natural; though if one drank too much of the water it was apt to make him sick. But the other spring——’ and the widow paused, while her cheek flushed and on her lips weeping and rejoicing were strangely mingled.
“‘There was ‘a great Rock,’ and from this ’the cold flowing waters’ came in a bright stream that you could rather hear than see; yet was the cup always filled to the very brim if it was held there in patient trust, and no one ever knew that spring to fail,—yea in the great droughts it was fullest. And the water was life-giving.
“‘But this man often preferred the lower spring, and would neglect the other when this was full; and if forced to seek the Rock, he was often weary of waiting for his cup to fill, and so drew it away with but a few drops. And he never learned to love the upper spring as he ought, until one year when the very grass by the lower spring was parched, and he fled for his life to the other. And then it happened, Mark,’ said his mother looking down at him with her eyes full of tears, ’that when the water at last began slowly to come into the lower spring, though it was very lovely and sweet and pleasant it never could be loved best again.’
“‘Mother,’ said Mark, ‘I don’t know exactly what you mean, and I do know a little, too.’
“‘Why my dear,’ said his mother, ‘I mean that when we lack anything this world can give, we must fetch the more from heaven.’
“‘You love heaven very much, don’t you mother?’ said Mark, looking up at her quite wonderingly.
“‘More than you love me.’
“Mark thought that was hardly possible; but he didn’t like to contradict his mother, and besides they were now at the church-door, and had to go right in and take their seats. Mark thought the clergyman chose the strangest text that could be for Thanksgiving-day,—it was this,—