"If it wasn't for confounded Yankees!" he said.
"Yankees are pretty good to you, Preston, I think, just now.
What if they were to desert you? Where is your generosity?"
"Shot away. Come, Daisy, I had no business to speak as I did.
I'll confess it. Forgive me, won't you?"
"Entirely," I said. "But you gave me great pain, Preston."
"You are like the thinnest description of glass manufacture," said Preston. "What wouldn't scratch something else, makes a confounded fracture in your feelings. I'll try and remember what brittle ware I am dealing with."
So that was over, and I gave him his tea; and then went round to do the same by others. I had to take them in turn; and when I got to Mr. Thorold at last, there was no more time then for talking, which I longed for. After the surgeon's round, when all was quiet again in the room, I sat at the foot of Mr. Thorold's bed with a kind of cry in my heart, to which I could give no expression. I could not kneel there, to pray; I could not leave my post; I could not speak nor listen where I wanted a full interchange of heart with heart; the oppression almost choked me. Then I remembered I could sing. And I sang that hour, if I never did before. My sorrow, and my joy, and my cry of heart, I put them all into the notes and poured them forth in my song. I was never so glad I could sing as these days. I knew, all the time, it was medicine and anodynes and strength - and maybe teaching - to many that heard; for me, it was the cry of prayer, and the pleading of faith, and the confession of utmost need. How strong "Rock of Ages" seemed to me again that night; the hymn, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds," was to me a very schedule of treasure; my soul mounted on the words, like the angels on Jacob's ladder; the top of the ladder was in heaven, if the foot of it was on a very rough spot of earth. That night I sang hymns, in the high-wrought state of my feelings, which the next day I could not have sung. I remember that one of them was "What are these in bright array," with the chorus, "They have clean robes, white robes." "When I can read my title clear," was another. Sometimes a hymn starts up to me now, with a thrill of knowledge that I sang it that night, which yet at other times I cannot recall. I sang till the hour, and past it, when I must go to my room and give place to the night watchers. I longed to stay, but it was impossible; so I went and bade Preston good-night, who said to me never a word this time; spoke to one or two others; and then went to Mr. Thorold. I laid my hand on his. He grasped it immediately and looked up at me with a clear, sweet, bright look, which did me untold good; pulling me gently down. I bent over him, thinking he wished to speak; then I knew what he wished, and obeying the impulse and the request, our lips met. I don't know if anybody saw it; and I did not care. That kiss sent me to sleep.
The next day I was myself again. Not relieved from the impression which had seized me when I first saw Mr. Thorold; but quietly able to bear it; in a sort raised above it. To do the moment's duty; to gather, and to give, every stray crumb of relief or pleasure that might be possible for either of us; better than that, to do the Lord's will and to bear it, were all I sought for. All at least, of which I was fairly conscious that I sought it; the heart has a way of carrying on underground trains of feeling and action of its own, and so did mine now. As I found afterwards. But I was perfectly able for all my work. When next I had an opportunity for private talk with Mr. Thorold, he asked me with a smile, if the resentment was all gone? I told him, "Oh, yes."
"What was the 'self-will' about, Daisy?"
"You remember too well," I said.
"What?"