“A little share!” echoed Evadne.  “Is it possible that you do not know, Doctor Randolph, how much of it belongs to you!”

The beauty of the life was that the guests were taken into the heart of the living and felt themselves a part of the home.  They never preached, these wise, tender women, but the beautiful incidental teachings sank deep into hearts that would have been closed fast against sermons.  There was no stereotyped effort to do them good, they simply lived as Christ did, and the world-tired souls looked on and marveled, and rejoiced in the sunlight of the present and the afterglow which made the memory of their visit a delight.

“‘Do not leave the sky out of your landscape,’” said Aunt Marthe in her cheery way, as Mrs. Dolours was wailing over her troubles.  That was all—­for the time,—­Mrs. Everidge believed in homeopathy—­but it set her hearer thinking, and thought found expression in questioning, until she was led to the feet of the great Teacher and learned to roll her burden of trouble upon him who came to bear the burdens of the world.

“‘We are not to be anxious about living but about living well,’” said Miss Diana to a young man who prided himself upon being a philosopher “that is a maxim of Plato’s but we can only carry it out by the help of the Lord, my boy.”  And he listened to Evadne’s merry laugh as she pelted Hans with cherries while Gretchen dreamed of the Fatherland under the trees by the brook, and wondered whether after all the men who had made it their aim to stifle every natural inclination, had learned the true secret of living as well as these happy souls who laid their cares down at the feet of their Father, and gave their lives into Christ’s keeping day by day.

“You just seem to live in the present,” wealthy Mrs. Greyson said with a sigh, as she folded her jeweled fingers over her rich brocade, “I don’t see how you do it!  Life is one long presentiment with me.  I am filled with such horrible forebodings.  I tell Doctor Randolph, it is a sort of moral nightmare.”

  “Some of your griefs you have cured,
  And the sharpest you still have survived,
  But what torments of pain you endured,
  From evils that never arrived!”

Evadne quoted the words from a book of old French poems she had found in the library.  Then she asked gently, “Why should you worry about the future, dear Mrs. Greyson, when it is such a waste of time?  Don’t you believe our Father loves his children?

“A waste of time.”  That was a new way of looking at it!  Mrs. Greyson had always prided herself upon being thrifty, and, if God loved, would he let any real harm happen?  She knew she would shield her children.  How blind she had been!

“Ah, but you have never known sorrow!” and Mrs. Morner drew her sable draperies around her with a sigh.  “Just look at your face!  Not a shadow upon it and hardly a wrinkle.  You are one of the favored ones with whom life has been all sunshine.”