Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/248

  me so much that I never knew before. I see everything so differently. It seems easy to be good here, and, oh! I wish you were not so far away from me, auntie. I am afraid—afraid—"

The tears could no longer be denied. She put her head in her aunt's lap and sobbed out her heart's overflow. For an hour they sat by the open trunk, forgetting all about the packing, while her aunt talked to Maimie as no one had ever talked to her before; and often, through the long years of suffering that followed, the words of that evening came to Maimie to lighten and to comfort an hour of fear and sorrow. Mrs. Murray was of those to whom it is given to speak words that will not die with time, but will live, for that they fall from lips touched with the fire of God.

Before they had finished their talk Harry came in, and then Mrs. Murray told them about their mother, of her beauty and her brightness and her goodness, but mostly of her goodness.

"She was a dear, dear girl," said their aunt, "and her goodness was of the kind that makes one think of a fresh spring morning, so bright, so sweet, and pure. And she was beautiful, too. You will be like her, Maimie," and, after a pause, she added, softly, "And, most of all, she loved her Saviour, and that was the secret of both her beauty and her goodness."

"Auntie," said Harry, suddenly, "don't you think you could come to us for a visit? It would do father—I mean it would be such a great thing for father, and for me, too, for us all."

Mrs. Murray thought of her home and all its ties,