"Try to please them," his wife replied. "Praise them a little; be agreeable yourselves, and see if they don't improve in that respect. Meet a person with a glum face, and if that person is sincere and sensitive, you are not likely to get smiles in return."
Aurelia leaned toward her aunt, put an arm around her, and whispered, "Dear auntie, you're an angel; but please don't say any more."
"I do not like to hear men and women criticise each other," the doctor said calmly, introducing a switch into the track of the conversation. "They are neither of them fitted to think for and judge the other. They, in the moral universe, are like earth and sea in the physical. And as air is common to earth and sea, so spirit, and all higher influences, are common to man and woman alike."
"Yes," Miss Hamilton said, "and while the earth has gold, and silver, and iron, and gems, the sea has only pearls, and they are tears, woman's proper parure. And while the earth maintains its place, and is not moved, the sea goes moaning about, breaking itself on rocks, and climbing even to heaven, only that it may fall again upon the land."
"Blessed showers!" said the doctor, who had watched her smilingly while she spoke. "Be sure, Margaret, sooner or later those for whose sakes you and your sisters have climbed to heaven with such toil and pain will see some heavenly likeness in you, and hail you as welcome messengers. Don't lose courage, dear. Don't join the bitter waves that break themselves against the rocks, or the sly, insidious waves that steal away the land and drag it down. But let your part be with those who visit us by the way of heaven. Wouldn't you rather we should look up when we want you, though it were seldom, than look down, though it were often?"
She looked up, bright and blushing for a moment, like her old self, trembling with gladness, she knew not why. It seemed to be a prophecy of good tidings.
Into the silence that followed a deep sigh broke. They all looked up, then rose, speechless, changed suddenly into a group of mourners. For Mr. Southard stood before them with that in his countenance which showed how much more plainly than even their living faces he saw the shadow of one who was gone for ever.
Pallid with sickness, fatigue, and trouble, he came forward to receive their almost voiceless welcomes.
"God knows," he said, "that if the choice had been with me, my place, rather than his, should have been made vacant."