It's harder for you, my dear; it
is harder for you than me. My voyage has been long and stormy; husband,
sons, and the cause for which they died all lost; but I'm coming into the
harbor. You've got your voyage before you. But take courage. Who knows but
that your early days may be your darkest days? They can't always be dark
when you are so ready to brighten the lives of others. There, I hear
Ella's voice."
A moment later there was a knock at the door, and Ella Bodine entered. We
have all seen bright-hued flowers growing in shaded places, and among
cold, grim rocks. Such brightness had the young girl who now appears upon
the scene of our story. One speedily felt that its cause was not in
externals, but that it resulted from inherent qualities. As with Mara,
there had been much in her young life sad and hard to endure. She had not
surmounted her trouble by shallowness of soul or callousness, but rather
by a spiritual buoyancy which kept her above the dark waves, and enabled
her to enjoy all the sunshine vouchsafed. Yet, unlike her father and Mara,
she lived keenly in the present. She sympathized truly and honestly with
her father, and in a large measure intelligently recognized the nature of
the deep shadows projected across his life from the past, but it was her
disposition to keep as near to him as possible and yet remain just beyond
the shadows. She possessed a wholesome common-sense which taught her that
the shadows were not hers and that they were not good for her father; so
she was ever making inroads upon them, beguiling him into a smile,
surprising him into a laugh--in brief, preventing the shadows from
deepening into that gloom which is dangerous to bodily and spiritual
health.
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