The heart of Grace sank within her. Weak as she was, and in constant pain, she needed gentle sympathy, tender care, and perfect quiet; and it appeared that none of these could ever be her own. She had no spirit to bear up against the thousand petty annoyances inseparable from her condition. She resolved that she would never complain, but the resolve, it must be confessed, came as much from pride as from patience. She would shut herself up in her sorrow, and have nothing to do with her companions. In her desponding gloom, Grace forgot that those around her were God's creatures as well as herself: that they, like herself, were afflicted, and that the command, "Love one another," is as binding in the poorhouse as in the brightest, happiest home. The poor lady might long have remained in this miserable state, with her mind suffering still more than her body, impatient, despairing under her cross, unloved, unloving, and desolate; but for a seemingly trifling incident which occurred a few days after her arrival. This was a visit to the ward from a lady who came regularly once a week to read the Bible to its inmates. Mrs. Grant was not gifted with talent: she had little power of influencing others; she could not, like some more honored servants of God, so plead with sinners that the hardened heart should be touched with the holy eloquence of love. She was a plain, quiet woman, somewhat stiff in her manner, who did her duty indeed as unto God, but who in herself was little capable of making any impression on others. Conscious perhaps of her own defects, the lady contented herself with reading the Scripture without making any remarks upon it. The portion which she chose upon this occasion was the parable of the talents. Grace listened in deep depression; the words reminded her so painfully of her own shattered hopes, of her joyous praises on the morning on which her accident had occurred—"I thank God for the talents which He has given me: I thank Him for the opportunity of spending them all in His service." But the parable does not end with the account of the "good and faithful servants who entered into the joy of their Lord.' There is a second part, and it was this which especially fixed the attention of Grace as she lay on her couch of pain. "Then He which had received the one talent, came and said, 'Lord, I know thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where thou didst not scatter; and I was afraid, and went away and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, thou hast thine own.'" "His Lord answered and said unto him, 'Thou wicked and slothful servant—'" And then followed the stern but just rebuke, closing with the terrible sentence—"'Cast ye out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.'"