w about her
father before. Forgetting her weariness in the absorbing interest of her
subject, she talked on and on, and Mrs. Everidge with the wisdom of true
sympathy, made no attempt to check her, knowing full well that the
relief of the tried heart was helping her more than any physical rest
could do.

"And now, oh, Aunt Marthe, life is so desperately lonely!" she said at
last with a sobbing sigh.

Mrs. Everidge leaned over and kissed the trembling lips. "I think
sometimes the earthly fatherhood is taken from us, dear child, that we
may learn to know the beautiful Fatherliness of God. We can never find
true happiness until our restless hearts are folded close in the hush of
his love. Human love--however lovely--does not satisfy us. Nothing
can,--but God!"

"The Fatherliness of God," repeated Evadne. "That sounds lovely, but
people do not think of him so. God is someone very terrible and far
away."

"'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' Does that sound as
if he were far away, little one? 'As one whom his mother comforteth, so
will I comfort you.' Why, God is father and mother both to us, dear
child. Can you think of anyone nearer than that?"

Evadne caught her breath in a great gladness. "I believe you are his
angel of consolation," she said in a hushed voice.

"'Even unto them will I give ... a place and a name better than of sons
and daughters,'" quoted Aunt Marthe softly. "That means a location and
an identity. Here, sometimes, it seems as if we had neither the one nor
the other. Christ follows out the same idea in his picture of the
abiding place which is being prepared for you and me. Everything on
earth is so transitory, and the human heart has such a hunger for
something that will last."

"Have you felt this too?" cried Evadne. "I thought I was the only one."

Mrs. Everidge laughed. "The only one in all the world to puzzle over its
problems! Oh, yes, the older we grow, the more we find that the great
majority have the same feelings and perplexities as ourselves, although
some may not understand their thought clearly enough to put it into
words."

"What is your favorite verse in all the Bible?" asked Evadne after a
pause.

Mrs. Everidge laughed again, and Evadne thought she had never heard a
laugh at once so merry and so sweet.

"You send me into a rose garden, dear child, and tell me to select the
choicest bloom out of its wilderness of beauty. How can I when every one
has a diffe