Surely Heaven would answer the blessings whispered over Maddy by the

delighted old man, and the young girl taking so cheerfully the burden

from which many would have shrunk, should be blessed by God.

With her grandfather's hand upon her head, Maddy could almost feel

that the blessing was descending; but when, in her own room, the one

where she had lain sick for so many weary weeks, her courage began to

give way, and the burden, magnified tenfold by her nervous weakness,

looked heavier than she could bear. How could she stay there, going

through each day with the same routine of literal drudgery--drudgery

which would not end until the two for whom she made the sacrifice were

dead.

"Oh, is there no way of escape, no help?" she moaned, as she tossed

from side to side, "Must my life be wasted here. Surely---"

Maddy did not finish the sentence, for something checked the words of

repining, and she seemed to hear again her grandfather's voice as it

repeated the promise to those who keep with their whole souls the

fifth commandment.

"I will, I will," she cried, while into her heart there crept an

intense longing for the love of him who alone could make her task a

light one. "If I were good like grandma, I could bear everything," she

thought, and turning upon her pillow, Maddy prayed an earnest,

childlike prayer, that God would help her do night, that He would take

from her the proud spirit which rebelled against her lot because of

its loneliness, that pride and love of her own ease and advancement in

preference to others' good might all be subdued; in short that she

might be God's child, walking where He appointed her to walk without a

murmur, and doing cheerfully His will.

Aikenside, and school, and the Catskill Mountains were easier to

abandon after that contrite prayer; but when she thought of Guy, the

fiercest, sharpest pang she had ever felt shot through her heart,

making her cry out so quickly that the little hired girl who shared

her bed moved as if about to waken, but Maddy lay very quiet until all

was still again, when turning a second time to God she tried to pray,

tried to give up what to her was the dearest idol, but she could not

say the words, and ere she knew what she was doing she found herself

asking that Guy should not forsake her. "Let him come," she sobbed,

"let Guy come some time to see me".

Once the tempter whispered to her, that had she accepted Dr. Holbrook

she would have been spared all this, but Maddy turned a deaf ear to

that suggestion. Dr. Holbrook was too noble a man to have an unloving

wife, and not for a moment did she repent of her decision with regard

to him. She almost knew he would say now that she was right in

refusing him, and right in staying there, as she must. Thoughts of the

doctor quieted her, she believed, not knowing that Heaven was already

owning its submissive child, and breathing upon it a soothing

benediction. The moan of the winter wind and the sound of the snow

beating against her little window ceased to annoy her. Heaven,

happiness, Aikenside and Guy, all seem blended into one great good

just within her reach, and when the long clock below the stairs struck

three, she did not hear it, but with the tear stains upon her face she

lay nestled among her pillows, dreaming that her grandmother had come

back from the bright world of glory to bless her darling child.




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