She had come back to us for a brief visit, soon after
her marriage, with some deep, new experience of spiritual
realities which I, a child of four or five years, felt in the
very tones of her voice, and in the expression of her eyes.
My mother told her of my fondness for the hymn-book, and she
turned to me with a smile and said, "Won't you learn one hymn for
me--one hymn that I love very much?"
Would I not? She could not guess how happy she made me by wishing
me to do anything for her sake. The hymn was,--
"Whilst Thee I seek, protecting Power."
In a few minutes I repeated the whole to her and its own beauty,
pervaded with the tenderness of her love for me, fixed it at once
indelibly in my memory. Perhaps I shall repeat it to her again,
deepened with a lifetime's meaning, beyond the sea, and beyond
the stars.
I could dream over my patchwork, but I could not bring it into
conventional shape. My sisters, whose fingers had been educated,
called my sewing "gobblings." I grew disgusted with it myself,
and gave away all my pieces except the pretty sea-moss pattern,
which I was not willing to see patched up with common calico.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164