trying) to learn God's holy will, in order
to bring up Leonard into the full strength of a Christian--I who have
taught his sweet innocent lips to pray, 'Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;' and yet, somehow, I've been longing to
give him to his father, who is--who is--" she almost choked, till
at last she cried sharp out, "Oh, my God! I do believe Leonard's
father is a bad man, and yet, oh! pitiful God, I love him; I cannot
forget--I cannot!"

She threw her body half out of the window into the cold night air.
The wind was rising, and came in great gusts. The rain beat down on
her. It did her good. A still, calm night would not have soothed her
as this did. The wild tattered clouds, hurrying past the moon, gave
her a foolish kind of pleasure that almost made her smile a vacant
smile. The blast-driven rain came on her again, and drenched her hair
through and through. The words "stormy wind fulfilling His word" came
into her mind.

She sat down on the floor. This time her hands were clasped round her
knees. The uneasy rocking motion was stilled.

"I wonder if my darling is frightened with this blustering, noisy
wind. I wonder if he is awake."

And then her thoughts went back to the various times of old, when,
affrighted by the weather--sounds so mysterious in the night--he had
crept into her bed and clung to her, and she had soothed him, and
sweetly awed him into stillness and childlike faith, by telling him
of the goodness and power of God.

Of a sudden she crept to a chair, and there knelt as in the very
presence of God, hiding her face, at first not speaking a word (for
did He not know her heart), but by-and-by moaning out, amid her sobs
and tears (and now for the first time she wept),

"Oh, my God, help me, for I am very weak. My God! I pray Thee be my
rock and my strong fortress, for I of myself am nothing. If I ask in
His name, Thou wilt give it me. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray
for strength to do Thy will!"

She could not think, or, indeed, remember anything but that she
was weak, and God was strong, and "a very present help in time of
trouble;" and the wind rose yet higher, and the house shook and
vibrated as, in measured time, the great and terrible gusts came from
the four quarters of the heavens and blew around it, dying away in
the distance with loud and unearthly wails, which were not utterly
still before the sound of the coming blast was heard like the
trumpets of the vangu