f. He made no reply to her querulous accusations and regretful
wishes until she said:

"I trust that when we act foolishly and turn our backs on happiness
God will not condemn us to our own choice. I wonder if I pray to God
to send me once more the good I refused, if He will hear me?"

"We must never pray merely selfish prayers, Yanna," answered Peter
sadly. "God might be angry enough to grant us our prayers. It is
better to say, 'Thy will be done.'"

Then she rose up hastily and went out of the room, but still more
hastily returned, and lifting her father's head--which was bowed upon
his hands--said: "My dear, dear father! My precious father!" And Peter
stood up then, and kissed her, and blessed her, and said: "Let the
light of His Countenance be upon you, my dearest!"

Was she happy then? Ah, no! Her heart was wounded all over. She felt
as if it were bleeding. As she entered her room the picture of the
thorn-crowned Saviour met her eyes, and she went close to it, and
looked thoughtfully at the Man of Sorrows. Resignation, mournful and
simple, yet full of lofty heroism, spoke to her; and the personality
of which it was the ideal seemed to fill the room; but she was not
comforted. She undressed herself slowly, feeling at length the tears
she had so long restrained dropping upon her fingers as they trembled
about their duty.

But when she laid her head upon her pillow, and the room was dark and
still, suddenly her grief found a voice that she could understand; and
she sobbed, "Oh, mother! mother! If you were here this night! If you
were only here! You would know how to pity me!" And so sobbing, she
went to sleep; and in her sleep she was comforted. For the golden
ladder between heaven and earth is not removed; and the angels going
to and fro must meet on their road many mothers called earthward by
their children's weeping, and hastening to them "with healing on their
wings."

CHAPTER V

"All, then, has come to an end; and I feel as if I had buried every
sweet day we lived together!" These were Adriana's first thoughts in
the morning. However, she had slept heavily, as God often permits
those to sleep for whom sorrow lies in wait; and she was stronger to
bear the burden of the days before her. They were very dreary and
monotonous for many weeks; for the fall was a wet and sunless one. Yet
it was not the heavy atmosphere and the melancholy heavens that
depressed her; it was rather the mental and moral driz