rowing to inwardly, more blessed than any
marriage or giving in marriage? Is it not a partaking of the
heavenly Marriage Supper?

"We two might have grumbled at the world until we grumbled at each
other."

She even said that, calmly and plainly, to herself.

And then that manna was fed to her afresh of which she had been
given first to eat so long a while ago; that thought of "the Lamb in
the midst of the Throne" came back to her. Of the Tenderness deep
within the Almightiness that holds all earth and heaven and time and
circumstance in its grasp. Her little, young, ignorant human heart
begins to rest in that great warmth and gentleness; begins to be
glad to wait there for what shall arise out of it, moving the
Almightiness for her,--even on purpose for her,--in the by-and-by;
she begins to be sure; of what, she knows not,--but of a great,
blessed, beautiful something, that just because she is at all, shall
be for her; that she shall have a part, somehow, even in the
_showing_ of His good; that into the beautiful miracle-play she
shall be called, and a new song be given her, also, to sing in the
grand, long, perfect oratorio; she begins to pray quietly, that,
"loving the Lord, always above all things, she may obtain His
promises, which exceed all that she can desire."

And waiting, resting, believing, she begins also to work. This
beginning is even as an ending and forehaving, to any human soul.

I will tell you how she woke one morning; of a little poem that
wrote itself along her chamber wall.

It was a square, pleasant old room, with a window in an angle toward
the east. A great, old-fashioned mirror hung opposite, between the
windows that looked out north-westwardly; the morning and the
evening light came in upon her. Beside the solid, quaint old
furnishings of a long past time, there were also around her the
things she had been used to at home; her own little old
rocking-chair, her desk and table, and her toilet and mantel
ornaments and things of use. A pair of candle-branches with dropping
lustres,--that she had marveled at and delighted in as a child, and
had begged for herself when they fell into disuse in the
drawing-room,--stood upon the chimney along which the first
sun-rays glanced. Just in those days of the year, they struck in so
as to shine level through the clear prisms, and break into a hundred
little rainbows.

She opened her eyes, this fair October morning, and lay and looked
at the little