now you must
take a little wine and lie down. You know what you have so often said,
that all will yet be well with him."

"Oh, I know it, I am sure," said Mara, "but oh, his sorrow shook my very
heart."

"You must not talk another word about it," said Sally, peremptorily, "Do
you know Aunt Roxy is coming to see you? I see her out of the window
this very moment."

And Sally assisted to lay her friend on the bed, and then, administering
a stimulant, she drew down the curtains, and, sitting beside her, began
repeating, in a soft monotonous tone, the words of a favorite hymn:--

"The Lord my shepherd is,
I shall be well supplied;
Since He is mine, and I am His,
What can I want beside?"

Before she had finished, Mara was asleep.

CHAPTER XLI

CONSOLATION

Moses came down from the chamber of Mara in a tempest of contending
emotions. He had all that constitutional horror of death and the
spiritual world which is an attribute of some particularly strong and
well-endowed physical natures, and he had all that instinctive
resistance of the will which such natures offer to anything which
strikes athwart their cherished hopes and plans. To be wrenched suddenly
from the sphere of an earthly life and made to confront the unclosed
doors of a spiritual world on the behalf of the one dearest to him, was
to him a dreary horror uncheered by one filial belief in God. He felt,
furthermore, that blind animal irritation which assails one under a
sudden blow, whether of the body or of the soul,--an anguish of
resistance, a vague blind anger.

Mr. Sewell was sitting in the kitchen,--he had called to see Mara, and
waited for the close of the interview above. He rose and offered his
hand to Moses, who took it in gloomy silence, without a smile or word.

"'My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,'" said Mr.
Sewell.

"I cannot bear that sort of thing," said Moses abruptly, and almost
fiercely. "I beg your pardon, sir, but it irritates me."

"Do you not believe that afflictions are sent for our improvement?" said
Mr. Sewell.

"No! how can I? What improvement will there be to me in taking from me
the angel who guided me to all good, and kept me from all evil; the one
pure motive and holy influence of my life? If you call this the
chastening of a loving father, I must say it looks more to me like the
caprice of an evil spirit."

"Had you ever thanked the God of your life for this gift, or fe