Leaving them to talk thus together and to discuss the situation to their hearts’ content, Bride stole away into the garden, and wandered along some of the shady paths, thinking her own thoughts, and filled with a sense of profound thankfulness and joy in the unity of spirit now existing between herself and her husband. It was the same daily joy to her that it was to him, and her heart was charged with a peace and restful content that sometimes seemed to her to be a foretaste of the Kingdom itself, towards which her heart was always turning. In one of the alleys of the rose-garden she came upon Abner, who was tying up the young shoots upon the arch, and picking off the dead blossoms. He welcomed her with the smile that the sight of her always called up in his eyes, and stood still with a face full of interest whilst she told him the news. “Well, well, well,” he said when she had done, “may be it’ll be a good thing. It sounds just, and right, and reasonable; but I don’t understand these big matters, and there’s a deal to be said on both sides, so far as I can see. My poor boy would have been pleased. He was terrible set on it; but I used to think that when he got it, he would find himself as discontented as ever, and set off after some new teacher who would tell him this was only the beginning of what men must demand. May be he sees things clearer now. I sometimes think we’ll know a deal better what to think of such matters once we are free of the burden of the sinful flesh. But there’s always comfort in the thought that the Lord’s working in one way or another in all these things. He sees the fulfilment of His purpose all through, though we can’t. That’s what I comfort myself with when things seem blackest. The frost and the snow, the biting winds and the storms, all seem against the gardener; but by-and-bye he sees they all have their use, and his plants would not have done as well without them. I always go back to that when I’m perplexed and worried. The great Gardener will bring out His perfected garden on the earth in time; and it should be enough for us to be trying to help Him on in our little corner, without thinking He can’t rule the world without us.” Bride smiled as she answered softly--