"Nay," he said. " 'The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants; and none of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.' "
"But their lives are empty sometimes?"
"That they may be more full, then. Depend on it, the promise is sure, - they shall not want any good I thing."
"One must let the Lord judge then," I said somewhat sorrowfully, "what are the good things."
"Will we not?" said Mr. Dinwiddie. "Do we know? We must agree to his judgment, too; and then we shall find there is no want to them that fear him. The Lord is my Shepherd! - I shall not want. But the sheep follow the shepherd, and never dream of choosing out their own pasture, Miss Daisy."
My voice choked a little and I could not answer. And all the rest of the day I could not get back my quiet. The talk of leaving the choice of my life out of my own hands, had roused my hands to cling to their choice with a terrible grasp lest it should be taken away from them. The idea that Thorold and I might be parted from each other, made my heart leap out with inexpressible longing to be with him. It was not till we got home to the Mount of Olives again, and I was watching the glory of the sunset, turning Jerusalem to gold and bringing out rosy and purple and amethyst hues from the Moab mountains, that my heart leapt back to its rest and I heard the voice of nature and God again above the din of my own heart.
As soon as the season was far enough advanced, and Mr. Dinwiddie could make his arrangements to be with us, we left Jerusalem and its surroundings and set off northwards. It was hard to go. Where many a sorrowful traveller has left his little mound of farewell stones on Scopus, I stood and looked back; as long as papa would wait for me. Jerusalem looked so fair, and the thought and prospect of another Jerusalem lay before me, fairer indeed, but so distant. And I fancied storms and some rough travelling between. And here, in the actual Jerusalem, my life had been very sweet; peaceful with a whole flood tide of peacefulness. I resolved I would not lose nor forget this ungratefully; but as long as I could I would be happy. So I turned my face at last to enjoy every foot of the way to Nablous.
During our stay at Jerusalem and on the Mount of Olives, of course letters and papers had been received regularly; and sometimes a bit of news from America had made all our hearts stir. Mine, with a new throb of hope and possible exultation; for what we heard was on the side of Northern successes. Still, papa and Mr. Dinwiddie agreed these were but the fortune of war, and could not - in the nature of things last. The South could not be overcome. So they said, and I feared. But a thrill of possible doubt came over me when I heard of Fort Donelson, and the battle of Pea Ridge, and the prowess of the little iron-clad Monitor. And a great throb of another kind heaved my heart, when we got the news of President Lincoln's Message, recommending that assistance should be given by Congress to every Southern State which would abolish slavery. A light broke in upon the whole struggle; and from that time the war was a different thing to me. Papa and Mr. Dinwiddie talked a great deal about it, discussing the subject in almost all its bearings. I sat by and said nothing.
I would not read the papers myself, all this time. In America I had studied them, and in Switzerland and in Florence I had devoured them. Here in the Holy Land, I had made an agreement with myself to be happy; to leave the care of things which I could not manage, and not to concern myself with the fluctuations on the face of affairs which I could not trace out to their consequences, do what I would. So. I heard the principal points of news from papa's talk and Mr. Dinwiddie's; I let the papers alone. Only with one exception. I could not help it. I could not withhold myself from looking at the lists of wounded and killed. I looked at nothing more; but the thought that one name might be there would have incessantly haunted me, if I had not made sure that it was not there. I dreaded every arrival from the steamers of a new mail budget.
From Mr. Thorold I got no letter. Nor from Miss Cardigan. From Mrs. Sandford one; which told me nothing I wanted to know. To mamma papa had writ- ten, describing to her the pleasure we were enjoying and the benefit his health was deriving from our journey, and asking her to join us at Beyrout and spend the summer on Lebanon.