“Angela, do you know that it is wrong to talk so?  You have no right to set yourself up against the decrees of the Almighty.  In His wisdom He is working out ends of which you are one of the instruments.  Who are you that you should rebel?”

“No one—­a grain, an atom, a wind-tossed feather; but what am I to do with my life, how am I to occupy all the coming years?”

“With your abilities, that is a question easy to answer.  Work, write, take the place in scholastic or social literature which I have trained you to fill.  For you, fame and fortune lie in an inkstand; your mind is a golden key that will open to your sight all that is worth seeing in the world, and pass you into its most pleasant places.  You can become a famous woman, Angela.”

She turned upon him sadly.

“I had such ideas; for Arthur’s sake I wished to do something great; indeed I had already formed a plan.  But, Mr. Fraser, like many another, when I lost my love I lost my ambition too; both lie buried in his grave.  I have nothing left to work for; I do not care for fame or money for myself, they would only have been valuable to give to him.  At twenty-one I seem to have done with the world’s rewards and punishments, its blanks and prizes, its satisfactions and desires, even before I have learnt what they are.  My hopes are as dull and leaden as that sky, and yet the sun is behind it.  Yes, that is my only hope, the sun is behind it though we cannot see it.  Do not talk to me of ambition, Mr. Fraser.  I am broken-spirited, and my only ambition is for rest, the rest He gives to His beloved——­”

“Rest, Angela! that is the cry of us all, we strive for rest, and here we never find it.  You suffer, but do not think that you are alone, everybody suffers in their degree, though perhaps such as you, with the nerves of your mind bared to the roughness of the world’s weather, feel mental pain the more acutely.  But, my dear, there are few really refined men and women of sensitive organization, who have not at times sent up that prayer for rest, any rest, even eternal sleep.  It is the price they pay for their refinement.  But they are not alone.  If the heart’s cry of every being who endures in this great universe could be collected into a single prayer, that prayer would be, ’Thou who made us, in pity give us rest.’”

“Yes, we suffer, no doubt, all of us, and implore a peace that does not come.  We must learn

“’How black is night when golden day is done,
How drear the blindness that hath seen the sun!’

“You can tell me that; but tell me, you who are a clergyman, and stronger to stand against sorrow than I, how can we win even a partial peace and draw the sting from suffering?  If you know a way, however hard, tell it me, for do you know,” and she put her hand to her head and a vacant look came into her eyes, “I think that if I have to endure much more of the anguish which I sometimes suffer, or get