"Dear aunt Lucy--dear aunt Lucy--I wish you would!--I am sure you would be a great deal happier--"
But the mixture of feelings was too much for Fleda; her head sank lower on her aunt's bosom and she wept aloud.
"But I don't know anything about it!" said Mrs. Rossitur, as well as she could speak,--"I am as ignorant as a child!--"
"Dear aunty! that is nothing--God will teach you if you ask him; he has promised. Oh ask him, aunt Lucy! I know you would be happier!--I know it is better--a million times!--to be a child of God than to have everything in the world--If they only brought us that, I would be very glad of all our troubles!--indeed I would!"
"But I don't think I ever did anything right in my life!" said poor Mrs. Rossitur.
"Dear aunt Lucy!" said Fleda, straining her closer and with her very heart gushing out at these words,--"dear aunty--Christ came for just such sinners!--for just such as you and I."
"You,"--said Mrs. Rossitur, but speech failed utterly, and with a muttered prayer that Fleda would help her, she sunk her head upon her shoulder and sobbed herself into quietness, or into exhaustion. The glow of the firelight faded away till only a faint sparkle was left in the chimney.
There was not another word spoken, but when they rose up, with such kisses as gave and took unuttered affection, counsel and sympathy, they bade each other good-night.
Fleda went to her window, for the moon rode high and her childish habit had never been forgotten. But surely the face that looked out that night was as the face of an angel. In all the pouring moonbeams that filled the air, she could see nothing but the flood of God's goodness on a dark world. And her heart that night had nothing but an unbounded and unqualified thanksgiving for all the "gentle discipline" they had felt; for every sorrow and weariness and disappointment;--except besides the prayer, almost too deep to be put into words, that its due and hoped-for fruit might be brought forth unto perfection.