“Do not pursue this subject, Colonel Conyers. Dear friend, by dwelling upon our wild wishes, they grow to seem hopes, and probabilities, and certainties. In my youth—” “In ‘your youth’? How many years ago was that, Catherine?” “Strange!—but at eighteen, I really feel no longer young.” “Yet it is not winter, but a wintry spring, that chills your young life. That is not uncommon. Spring—the spring of hope, the spring of joy, the spring of life will open indeed by-and-by, and be all the warmer and brighter for its lateness—and my Catherine shall feel younger—but for increased wisdom—at twenty-five, then she does now at eighteen—that lot is for her—whosesoever treasure she may be. But what was she going to say happened in her long passed youth?” Catherine smiled, and said— “Well, then—when life was newer and fresher, believing—as I do now—all the promises of the Bible—and saying—as I do now—that the days of miracles are not passed, and never will be so, until the days of God’s omnipotence and man’s faith is passed, I used to say that I would pray for what I wanted, though the granting of my prayer should seem to involve an impossibility. But now, later in life, I have learned a better lesson still, from the example of my Master. He might have saved Himself by a miracle, but He chose rather to endure the cross and the shame, for the working out of His Father’s will and purpose. God has a purpose and a will in every—the humblest life. And now, for all other vain and childish petitions, I substitute the words of the Saviour—‘Not My will—but Thine, be done.’” “Catherine, you must be happy, even in this world. You are so good. You must be made happy in the end.” “Ah, I should be sorry to set up the plea of goodness—when I see so many people so much better than I am, suffer so deeply. It is too often represented that goodness is rewarded in this world—but, oh! how can any one remember the life and death of a thousand martyrs, and the crucifixion of the Saviour, and not feel that it is not so—and not feel that the reverse is often so!” “Oh, Catherine, that is a very gloomy doctrine, and I will not believe it! There is a hopeful text of Scripture that comes into my mind—‘Godliness is profitable in all things, having the promise of the life that _now is_, and that which is to come.’ It is the clouds of your wintry spring that make everything look so gloomy to you!” “It is not a gloomy doctrine! Oh, no! not gloomy, by all the hope and illumining of the glorious Resurrection and Ascension.” CHAPTER XXVIII WINTER EVENINGS AT THE FARM.