ed her.

"'He knoweth what is best; each heart has its own sorrow,' and she
held me in her arms just as she used to hold Willie. Then she talked
to me a long time of God's goodness and love; that he knew and pitied
our anguish; that this life was not all, there was a future, and that
it would not be long till we should stand on the farther shore.

"Somehow her simple words went directly to my heart; and although I
wept till I was nearly exhausted it did me good, and that night I
slept like a child.

"I awoke next morning with a strange feeling of weakness in every
limb, and a sense of bewilderment and confusion that I tried in vain
to shake off. Past events, even my recent bereavement, would rise up
for an instant before me, and then float away into dim distance. I was
prostrate with high fever, through which I was tenderly watched by
Mrs. Bryan, aided by friends whose approach I did not now repel.

"After long delirium and unconsciousness I awoke at last to reason,
and for several days bore reluctantly with what I fancied was Mrs.
Bryan's needless caution in keeping the room so dark. At length I
could bear it no longer, I wanted to see the sunlight once more, and
insisted that the window should be opened. Poor Mrs. Bryan put me off
till to-morrow, then the curtains were rolled up, and the blinds
thrown open; I knew it, for I felt the pure air on my cheek. But,
alas! I could dimly see the sun shining through the rose tree, and the
white spire of the village church; all was dim and faint as before.

"It was not that my room was darkened; the light had gone out of my
eyes, I was almost blind; I should never see the sunshine nor the
flowers again; all my life I must be a helpless, dependent creature, a
burden to myself and to others.

"I remembered then my ingratitude, the hardness of my heart, because
he had taken my idols, and I felt the Lord had justly smitten me. Day
after day I could see less of the flickering sunlight, and at length
it was gone to me entirely.

"Oh how beautiful now seemed to me the broad green earth! How I longed
to look upon the sweet flowers! Once I would not look at them because
they reminded me of those his hands had so often gathered for me. Now
I longed but to look at them, while the song of the birds filled me
with pleasant music. For hours did I sit and listen to the robins as
they crooned out their love songs in the old elm tree, when suddenly a
thought struck me: 'These winged crea