"It's a long while that I have not seen you, dear not since you went to Mrs. Marshman's. And what a day you have chosen to come at last!"
"I can't help that," said Alice, pulling off her bonnet, "I couldn't wait any longer. I wanted to see you dolefully, Mrs. Vawse."
"Why, my dear? what's the matter? I have wanted to see you, but not dolefully."
"That's the very thing, Mrs. Vawse; I wanted to see you to get a lesson of quiet contentment."
"I never thought you wanted such a lesson, Miss Alice. What's the matter?"
"I can't get over John's going away."
Her lip trembled and her eye was swimming as she said so. The old woman passed her hands over the gentle head, and kissed her brow.
"So I thought so I felt, when my mistress died, and my husband, and my sons, one after the other. But now I think I can say, with Paul, 'I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.' I think so maybe that I deceive myself; but they are all gone, and I am certain that I am content now."
"Then surely I ought to be," said Alice.
"It is not till one looses one's hold of other things, and looks to Jesus alone, that one finds how much he can do. 'There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother;' but I never knew all that meant till I had no other friends to lean upon; nay, I should not say no other friends; but my dearest were taken away. You have your dearest still, Miss Alice."