strong to bear, and wait--if you can make home bright, and not
care, or not seem to care if he slights it and you, for weeks--months,
maybe years--it takes so much longer to undo, than to do--there is _every_
hope. He couldn't do this, but a woman--a real woman, is strong enough,
with God on her side."

The dullness left her face, and an unselfish light dawned in its place.
As she rose to go, she leaned over the other figure, and he looked up at
her, with something of the old-time love.

I replenished the fire after they had gone--they went out together--and as
I sat there thinking of it all, I heard a sudden rushing sound in the
street.

I ran to the door, just in time to see a farm wagon, drawn by two strong
horses, go pell-mell past my house, and overturn, as the frightened
animals dashed around the corner. The neighborhood was agog in a moment,
and I joined the rest in trying to help the occupants of the broken
vehicle. We brought them into the house--the man and woman and a little
child.

As soon as they were in the light, I knew them; they were some of my
people--a German family, by the name of Abraham, who lived on a little
farm just outside our suburb. They had been to me typical
representatives of a stupid class, who have all the hardships of life,
and none of its soft lights and shades. They were the kind that plant
their pig-sty on the lake side of their house--put the pig-sty betwixt
them and every other beauty, it seemed to me. What can life hold for
such people? They know nothing of love, or any other joy. Merely an
animal existence is theirs.

We fetched a doctor as speedily as possible--the parents were merely
bruised, but the little child was badly hurt. At first we feared she was
dying, and it was a relief to be told that she would probably live.

I went out of the room to get some bandages, and the doctor followed me.
Returning suddenly, I ran upon an unexpected scene; up to that time,
before us all, the parents had seemed perfectly stolid; but just as I
opened the door, the wife and mother rose from her knees by the bed, and
I have seldom seen a look more expressive of tender love than that with
which her husband took her in his arms.

We have many things to learn in the next world; one of these, I am sure,
will be, not to judge by the life upon the surface. There is a deep
fount of feeling beneath, and often it is those whom we least suspect,
who dip down into it.

I was still busy with th