"Well, my child, that's the faith I am trying to cherish myself and teach my boy. It is impossible for you to know what a black gulf opened at my feet when my noble husband was killed early in the war. Such things, happily, are known only by experience, and many escape. Then our cause demanded my only son. I face death with him in every battle, every danger. He takes risks without a thought of fear, and I dare not let him know the agony of my fear. Yet in my widowhood, in the sore pressure of care and difficulty in managing a large plantation in these times, I have found my faith in God's love adequate to my need. I should still find it so if I lost my boy. I could not escape the suffering, but I would not sorrow as without hope." "How much I would give for the certainty of such a faith!" said Miss Lou sadly. "Sometimes, since Captain Hanfield died, I think I feel it. And then--oh, I don't know. Things might happen which I couldn't meet in your spirit. If I had been compelled to marry my cousin I feel that I should have become hard, bitter and reckless." "You poor, dear little girl! Well, you were not compelled to marry him. Don't you see? We are saved from some things and given strength to bear what does happen. Don't you worry about yourself, my dear. Just look up and trust. Happily, the sun of God's love shines on just the same, unaffected by the passing clouds of our feelings and experiences. He sees the end and knows all about the peaceful, happy eternity before us. You dear, worn-out little child! His love is ever about you like my arms at this moment," and the old lady drew the girl to her in an impulse of motherly tenderness. "Oh, Mrs. Waldo, you make me feel what it is to have no mother," sobbed Miss Lou. "Well, my dear, that's your heavy cross. Sooner or later, in some form, a cross burdens every human soul, too often many crosses. All I ask of you is not to try to bear them alone. See how faith changed everything for Captain Hanfield in his extremity. He is now in the better home, waiting for his dear ones." "I can never forget what faith has done for you and your son, Mrs. Waldo. Surgeon Ackley said that your son's absolute quiet and cheerfulness of mind during the first critical days saved his life." "Yes, I know that," Mrs. Waldo replied with her low, sweet laugh. "Faith is often more useful in helping us to live than in preparing us to die. It saved my life, too, I'm sure, after my husband died. I had no right to die then, for Vincent and, far more, my daughters, still needed me." For a time they sat on the piazza steps in silence, the old lady keeping her arm caressingly about the girl, whose head drooped on the motherly bosom overflowing with sympathy. Only the semi-tropical sounds of night broke the stillness. The darkness was relieved by occasional flashes along the horizon from a distant thunder-shower. Miss Lou thought, "Have I ever known a peace so deep and sweet as this?"