“And what is that, Aunt Marthe?”

“Self renunciation,” said Aunt Marthe softly, “the secret of peace.

“Among all the pictures of the Madonna,” she continued after a pause, “the one I like best is where Mary is sitting, holding in her hands the crown of thorns; everything else had been wrenched from her grasp, but this they had no use for.  What a legacy it was!  As I look at it I see how he has gathered all the thorns of life and woven them into that kingly garland which is his glory.  All the wealth of the Indies could not shed as dazzling a light as that thorny crown.  Like the brave soldier who gathered into his own breast the spears of the enemy, Christ has taken the sting from our sorrows and made us more than conquerors over the wounds of earth.  Surely he has tasted it all for us,—­the baseness and coldness and ingratitude and treachery which have wrung human hearts all through the ages,—­when Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him and they all forsook him and fled, do you suppose any other pain was comparable to that?  Only our friends have the power to wound us, you know, and, ‘he was wounded in the house of his friends.’  When people talk of the crucifixion they think of the nail-torn hands and pierced side,—­I think of his heart!  Oh, my Lord, how could they treat thee so!”

Evadne looked wistfully at the rapt face, irradiated now by the moonlight which was streaming in through the window. “How you love him, Aunt Marthe!”

“He is my all,” she answered simply.  The girl stroked the hand which she still held in both her own.  She is absolutely satisfied, she thought sorrowfully, she wants nothing that I can give her.  And then through the stillness she heard the sweet voice singing,—­

  “I love thee because thou hast first loved me,
  And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree;
  I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow,
  If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.”

CHAPTER XV.

“Dear Aunt Marthe,” cried Evadne one afternoon, “what is love?”

“I will answer you in the words of one who for years has lived the love-life,” said Mrs. Everidge.

“’One must be himself infinite in knowledge to define it, infinite in comprehension to fathom it, infinite in love to appreciate it.  Love is God in man, for “God is love,” and “every one that loveth is born of God;” but love is not merely veneration, nor respect, nor justice, nor passion, nor jealousy, nor sympathy, nor pity, nor self-gratification; to love something as our own is but a form of self-love; to love something in order to win it for ourselves is just a perpetration of the same mistake.’  Dr. Karl Gerok wrote,—­’Love is the fundamental law of the world.  First, as written in heaven, for God is love; second, as written on the cross, for Christ is love; third, as written in our hearts, for Christianity is love,’ And