"All God's training is not done by pain. Bless me, the flowers know better than that! The cold winds and rains make them bloom right enough, but the sunshine has a good share in the work as well. Instead of you having no training just now, the sunshine all round you is doing it as fast as it can. And if God sees you can stand the sunshine without getting puffed up, or careless, or proud--I know you will forgive an old woman's plain words--He perhaps has glorious plans of work for you in the future. He can discipline and train you by all this wealth He has given you." "Trust you," replied Phebe, laughing, "for never giving me the ghost of a chance of being miserable. I never saw anybody like you for ruthlessly stripping away every shred of the blues!" "Do you want to keep a few of the blue rags, then?" "No, you know I do not." "Dear heart," said Nanna tenderly, "there was a time when you had to search round for your bright bits: now you are surrounded with it, take in all you can get--rejoice and exult in it, and don't lose one bit simply because you have got so much." When Phebe repeated this conversation to her husband, he added: "If God has crowned you with joy, sweetheart--and I hope from my heart He has done so--do not let anybody put a thorn in the crown God did not mean to be there. I would like to crown you every day myself with joy if I could--my queen!--my ray of glory!" "But, Steve, be serious." "I never was calmer in my life. You know I mean every word I say--say you do!" "Yes, you loyal lover mine," linking her arm in his, "but you don't have a monopoly in love for all that," looking up at him with a smile on her sweet face. "Now, I want to ask you a very serious question." "Ask on, my queen." "But it is really serious." "And so am I. What is it, darling?" bending down to kiss her. He never seemed to tire of proving to himself that she actually, after all the weary years of waiting, belonged to him, and he to her. "If God were to call me home to-night," she said in a low voice, "I should not want to go. That cannot be a right frame of mind to be in, now, is it?" "Yes, it is; a perfectly right frame of mind. If you were wanting to go home just now, it would seem to show you were not satisfied with what God had provided for you. When the call does come you may feel very different from what you do now. I never think we can be exactly sure what we should do under certain conditions--supposed conditions. It is only the present moment that we need to concern ourselves about, and I think we can both say we are ready this minute to do God's will. Don't you think so, sweetheart?" "God's will for us just now is so sweet," she answered, "that I somewhat mistrust myself. But I can truly pray, 'Teach me to do Thy will, O my God.'"