The Darkened Pathway - Page 2

eyes could not penetrate, and gave new occasion for dark surmises in regard to the Power above all, in all, and ruling all. With a sober face, as was befitting an interview with one so deeply burdened as Mrs. Adair, she went down to the parlour.

"My dear friend!" she said, tenderly, almost sadly, as she took the hand of her visiter.

Into the eyes of Mrs. Adair she looked earnestly for the glittering tear-veil, and upon her lips for the grief curve. To her surprise neither were there; but a cheerful light in the former and a gentle smile on the latter.

"How are you this morning?"

Mrs. Endicott's voice was low and sympathizing.

"I feel a little stronger, to-day, thank you," answered Mrs. Adair, smiling as she spoke.

"How is your breast?"

"Still very tender."

"And the pain in your side."

"I am not free from that a moment."

Still she smiled as she answered. There was not even a touch of sadness or despondency in her voice.

"Not free a moment! How do you bear it?"

"Happily--as I often say to myself--I have no time to think about the pain," replied Mrs. Adair, cheerfully. "It is wonderful how mental activity lifts us above the consciousness of bodily suffering. For my part, I am sure that if I had nothing to do but to sit down and brood over my ailments, I would be one of the most miserable, complaining creatures alive. But a kind Providence, even in the sending of poverty to his afflicted one, has but tempered the winds to the shorn lamb."

Mrs. Endicott was astonished to hear these words, falling, as they did, with such a confiding earnestness from the pale lips of her much-enduring friend.

"How can you speak so cheerfully?" she said. "How can you feel so thankful to Him who has shrouded your sky in darkness, and left you to grope in strange paths, on which falls not a single ray of light?"

"Even though the sky is clouded," was answered, "I know that the sun is shining there as clear and as beautiful as ever. The paths in which a wise and good Providence has called me to walk, may be strange, and are, at times, rough-and toilsome; but you err in saying that no light falls upon them.

"But the sky is dark--whence comes the light, Mrs. Adair?"

"Don't you remember the beautiful hymn written by Moore? It is to me worth all he ever penned besides. How often do I say it over to myself, lingering with a warming heart and. a quickening pulse, on every word of consolation!"

And in the glow of her fine enthusiasm, Mrs. Adair repeated--

"Oh, Thou, who dry'st the mourner's tear, How dark this world would be, If, when deceived and wounded here, We could not fly to Thee! The friends, who in our sunshine