All this her first glance took in with a sense of pleasure. Then she looked deeper, and perceived friendship, ease, security, all that make the soul of home. Deeper yet, then, to the vague longing for a love, a security, a rest exceeding the earthly. One who has suffered much can never again feel quite secure, but shrinks from delight almost as much as from pain.
She turned to Mr. Southard, who sat beside her. "I am thinking how miserably we are the creatures of circumstance," she said, in her earnestness forgetting how abrupt she might seem. "When we are troubled, everything is dark; when we are happy, everything that approaches casts its shadow behind, and shows a sunny front."
He regarded her kindly, pleased with her almost confidential manner. "There is but one escape from such slavery," he said. "When we set the sun of righteousness in the zenith of our lives, then shadows are annihilated, not hidden, but annihilated."
When Margaret went up-stairs that night, she knelt before her open window, and leaned out, feeling, rather than seeing, the brooding, starless sky, soft and shadowy, like wings over a nest. Her soul uplifted itself blindly, almost painfully, beating against its ignorance. There was something out of sight and reach, which she wanted to see and to touch. There was one hidden whom she longed to thank and adore.
"O brooding wings!" she whispered, stretching out her hands. "O father and mother-bird over the nest where the little ones lie in the sweet, sweet dark!"
Words failed. She knew not what to say. "I wish that I could pray!" she thought, tears overflowing her eyes.
Margaret did not know that she had prayed.
Chapter IV.
Just Before Light.
The days were well arranged in the Granger mansion. Breakfast was a movable feast, and silent for the most part. The members of the family broke their fast when and as they liked, often with a book or paper for company.