Mrs. Everidge smiled. "We make our crosses, dear child, when we put our wishes at right angles to God's will. When we only care to please him everything that he chooses for us seems just right. I have heard people speak as if it were a cross to mention the name of Christ. How could it be if they loved him? Do you find it a cross to talk to me about your father? People make a terrible mistake about this. The only cross we are commanded to carry is the cross of Christ." "And what is that, Aunt Marthe?" "Self renunciation," said Aunt Marthe softly, "the secret of peace. "Among all the pictures of the Madonna," she continued after a pause, "the one I like best is where Mary is sitting, holding in her hands the crown of thorns; everything else had been wrenched from her grasp, but this they had no use for. What a legacy it was! As I look at it I see how he has gathered all the thorns of life and woven them into that kingly garland which is his glory. All the wealth of the Indies could not shed as dazzling a light as that thorny crown. Like the brave soldier who gathered into his own breast the spears of the enemy, Christ has taken the sting from our sorrows and made us more than conquerors over the wounds of earth. Surely he has tasted it all for us,--the baseness and coldness and ingratitude and treachery which have wrung human hearts all through the ages,--when Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him and they all forsook him and fled, do you suppose any other pain was comparable to that? Only our friends have the power to wound us, you know, and, 'he was wounded in the house of his friends.' When people talk of the crucifixion they think of the nail-torn hands and pierced side,--I think of his heart! Oh, my Lord, how _could_ they treat thee so!" Evadne looked wistfully at the rapt face, irradiated now by the moonlight which was streaming in through the window. "_How_ you love him, Aunt Marthe!" "He is my all," she answered simply. The girl stroked the hand which she still held in both her own. She is absolutely satisfied, she thought sorrowfully, she wants nothing that I can give her. And then through the stillness she heard the sweet voice singing,-- "I love thee because thou hast first loved me, And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree; I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow, If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, 'tis now." CHAPTER XV. "Dear Aunt Marthe," cried Evadne one afternoon, "what is love?" "I will answer you in the words of one who for years has lived the love-life," said Mrs. Everidge.