The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

50 The Gates Ajar.
hard it is. And you have been Learing it
alone so long! I am going to help you, and
you must tell me all you can."
The strong, decided words, "I am going to
help you," gave me the first faint hope I have
had, that I could be helped, and I could tell
her- it was not sacrilege -the pent-up story of these weeks. All the time her hand
went softly to and fro across my hair.
Presently, when I was weak and faint with
the new comfort of my tears, "Aunt Winifred," I said, " I don't know what it means to
be resigned; I don't know what it means "
Still her hand passed softly to and fro
across my hair.
" To have everything stop all at once! without giving me any time to learn to bear it.
Why, you do not know, -it is just as if a
great black gate had swung to and barred
out the future, and barred out him, and left
me all alone in any world that I can ever live
in, forever and forever."
" My child," she said, with emphasis solemn
and low upon the words, -"my child, I do
know. I think you forget - my husband."
I had forgotten. How could I? We are
most selfishly blinded by our own griefs. No