The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

232 The Gates Ajar.
could bear anything which God who loved us
all - who surely loved us all - should send.
So then, after I had grown still, she began
to tell me about it in her quiet voice, and the
leaves rustled, and Faith had sung herself to
sleep, and I listened wondering. For there
was no pain in the quiet voice, - no pain, nor
tone of fear. Indeed, it seemed to me that
I detected, through its subdued sadness, a
secret, suppressed buoyancy of satisfaction,
with which something struggled.
" And you?" I asked, turning quickly upon
her.
"I should thank God with all my heart,
Mary, if it were not for Faith and you. But it
is for Faith and you. That's all."
When I had locked the front door, and was
creeping up here to my room, my foot crushed
something, and a faint, wounded perfume came
up. It was the little pink and purple chain.