She closed her eyes and hid her face, and in that darkness gathered
together her soul-strength. But she shed no tears. Pale as death, weak
and trembling with suppressed emotion, she went softly about the
little room putting things in order--doing she scarcely knew what, yet
feeling the necessity to be doing something. Thus she came across the
white gloves, and she feared to look in them. Her knowledge of Roland
led her to think he would not leave fifty dollars behind him. He would
take the credit of the gift and leave her to suppose herself robbed by
some intruder or visitor.
So she looked suspiciously at the bit of white kid and undid it
without hope. The money was there. After all, Roland had some pity for
her. The sight of the bills subdued her proud restraint. One great
pressure was lifted. No one could now interfere if she sent for a
doctor for her sick baby. She could at least buy it the medicine that
would ease its sufferings. And so far out was the tide of her
happiness that from this reflection alone she drew a kind of
consolation.
CHAPTER XIII.
DEATH IS DAWN.
"In the pettiest character there are unfathomable depths."
"Only one Judge is just, for only one
Knoweth the hearts of men."
Sayeth the book: "There passeth no man's soul
Except by God's permission, and the speech
Writ in the scroll determining the whole,
The times of all men, and the times for each."
--KORAN, 3d CHAP.
The Lanhearnes by an old-fashioned standard were a very wealthy
family. They were also a large family, though the sons had been
scattered by their business exigencies and the eldest daughters by
marriage. Only Ada, the youngest child of the house, remained with her
father; for the mother had been dead many years, and the preservation
of the idea of home was felt by all the Lanhearne children to be in
Ada's hands. If she married and went away, who then would keep open
the dear old house and give a bright welcome to their yearly visits?
Ada, however, was not inclined to marriage. She was a grave, quiet
woman of twenty-two years of age, whose instincts were decidedly
spiritual and whose hopes and pleasures had little to do with this
world. She was interested in all church duties and in all charitable
enterprises. Mission schools and chapels filled her heart, and she
paid out of her private purse a good-hearted little missionary to find
out for her cases of deserving poverty which it was her delight to
relieve.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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