ght to know the truth; no right to ask anything
else from God, but the right to ask that.

And to her latest breath she went on loving Tommy just the same. She
thought everything out calmly for herself; she saw that there is no
great man on this earth except the man who conquers self, and that in
some the accursed thing which is in all of us may be so strong that to
battle with it and be beaten is not altogether to fail. It is foolish
to demand complete success of those we want to love. We should rejoice
when they rise for a moment above themselves, and sympathize with them
when they fall. In their heyday young lovers think each other perfect;
but a nobler love comes when they see the failings also, and this
higher love is so much more worth attaining to that they need not cry
out though it has to be beaten into them with rods. So they learn
humanity's limitations, and that the accursed thing to me is not the
accursed thing to you; but all have it, and from this comes pity for
those who have sinned, and the desire to help each other springs, for
knowledge is sympathy, and sympathy is love, and to learn it the Son
of God became a man.

And Grizel also thought anxiously about herself, and how from the time
when she was the smallest girl she had longed to be a good woman and
feared that perhaps she never should. And as she looked back at the
road she had travelled, there came along it the little girl to judge
her. She came trembling, but determined to know the truth, and she
looked at Grizel until she saw into her soul, and then she smiled,
well pleased.

Grizel lived on at Double Dykes, helping David in the old way. She was
too strong and fine a nature to succumb. Even her brightness came back
to her. They sometimes wondered at the serenity of her face. Some
still thought her a little stand-offish, for, though the pride had
gone from her walk, a distinction of manner grew upon her and made her
seem a finer lady than before. There was no other noticeable change,
except that with the years she lost her beautiful contours and became
a little angular--the old maid's figure, I believe it is sometimes
called.

No one would have dared to smile at Grizel become an old maid before
some of the young men of Thrums. They were people who would have
suffered much for her, and all because she had the courage to talk to
them of some things before their marriage-day came round. And for
their young wives who had tidings to whisper to