Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/146

 in it. He had beautiful hands. She always saw them when she read out of the Thomas-à-Kempis. She read from what he had written with his beautiful hands.

That was true, but its truth did not change the ways of humanity. It went on just the same. It was a clever thought, but not strong enough to overcome and subdue the body that shut you in, a prisoner. I will wear black, she thought, and devote myself to hospitals and the poor. Perhaps a legend will grow up about me—the woman who had given all to life and turned in the end to God and the church. That would be a fitting end to the story, a fine way to end it, and it was only the end that mattered now.

She wept a little, pitying herself, and then read some more out of the little book, passages which she had read many times.

"O Lord, let that become possible to me by Thy grace, which by nature seemed impossible to me.

"Thou knowest that I am able to suffer but little, and that I am quickly cast down, when a slight adversary ariseth.

"For Thy Name's sake, let every tribulation be made pleasant and desirable to me: for to suffer and