," said Mara, "at any rate, it's a relief to speak
out to some one. It's more than two months that I have felt every day
more and more that there was no hope,--life has hung on me like a
weight. I have had to _make_ myself keep up, and make myself do
everything, and no one knows how it has tried me. I am so tired all the
time, I could cry; and yet when I go to bed nights I can't sleep, I lie
in such a hot, restless way; and then before morning I am drenched with
cold sweat, and feel so weak and wretched. I force myself to eat, and I
force myself to talk and laugh, and it's all pretense; and it wears me
out,--it would be better if I stopped trying,--it would be better to
give up and act as weak as I feel; but how can I let them know?"

"My dear child," said Aunt Roxy, "the truth is the kindest thing we can
give folks in the end. When folks know jest where they are, why they can
walk; you'll all be supported; you must trust in the Lord. I have been
more'n forty years with sick rooms and dyin' beds, and I never knew it
fail that those that trusted in the Lord was brought through."

"Oh, Aunt Roxy, it is so hard for me to give up,--to give up hoping to
live. There were a good many years when I thought I should love to
depart,--not that I was really unhappy, but I longed to go to heaven,
though I knew it was selfish, when I knew how lonesome I should leave my
friends. But now, oh, life has looked so bright; I have clung to it so;
I do now. I lie awake nights and pray, and try to give it up and be
resigned, and I can't. Is it wicked?"

"Well, it's natur' to want to live," said Miss Roxy. "Life is sweet, and
in a gen'l way we was made to live. Don't worry; the Lord'll bring you
right when His time comes. Folks isn't always supported jest when they
want to be, nor _as_ they want to be; but yet they're supported fust and
last. Ef I was to tell you how as I has hope in your case, I shouldn't
be a-tellin' you the truth. I hasn't much of any; only all things is
possible with God. If you could kind o' give it all up and rest easy in
His hands, and keep a-doin' what you can,--why, while there's life
there's hope, you know; and if you are to be made well, you will be all
the sooner."

"Aunt Roxy, it's all right; I know it's all right. God knows best; He
will do what is best; I know that; but my heart bleeds, and is sore. And
when I get his letters,--I got one yesterday,--it brings it all back
again. Everything is going on so well;