50
THE STORY OF MAGGIE.
why! and to see you look as you used to,
too.”
“Do I?”
“Yes you"do; and you haven’t once before since you’ve been here. I’ve looked at you a hundred times; and sometimes it seemed to me, for a minute, that it was somebody else, sent here to cheat the old woman, because John was off in Kansas. Your being sick has made you well. It is so sometimes, I’ve heard folks say.”
After she went out, Maggie could not resist the desire she felt to see herself looking as she used to. When she reached the mirror, and saw for herself that the haggard look was all gone, that softness reigned in its stead, that her eyes looked natural, and that, although paler than she used to be, a bright-red spot had its seat on her cheeks—she could have wept for gratitude; because now, when he came in to see her, (he was coming at four o'clock, the note brought by Mrs. Holt, in the course of the day, had told her,) he would feel better about her.
She wished she could be rid of the great shawl, the dressing-gown, and be dressed as he used to see her. He was going back to Boston in the last train; and they were never, never to meet again, if they lived ever so many years. She wished she could look as if she were as well as she used to be, as hap—— only, the sobbing breaths with which she left the word half- uttered, faintly expfessed the sorrow that must evermore lie on her heart. Evermore, after she had shown him this once how she looked like her old self, so that he might go away rid of a portion of his anxiety and remorse on her account, must her heart lie hidden in its peni- tence and grief. Evermore, with every breath of her changed life, would she pray to be for- given, to be received at last, pure, among God’s angels; even among those that came nearest the throne, nearest the beloved feet, in the host that came up “through much tribulation.”
Merciful thoughts of God, of the Saviour, of life—of life here, and life on the other side of death—were in her mind; thoughts increasing in clearness, strength; thoughts rising as if on wings to the mercy-seat, bringing back swift messages of pardon, peace.
After a few hours of this tough conflict, when she looked for her suffering she could not find it; could find only the love that, in her own breast, and over all the earth, seemed swallowing her and all the world; the dear world! the dear, groping, stumbling, sinning world; but the world where “the Lord reigned,” and would, in his appointed time, bring everything into willing obedience to his loving, wise requirements.
She must speak to him of these things; must let him see how, thinking of them made her hap- pier, (no sobbing, half-utterance of the word now,) happier than one year ago she would have believed the whole world, and heaven itself added to it, could have made her.
So she went to the mirror no more, not even when the minute to bring him had come. But she sat wrapped in her shawl and dressing- gown; gave him her hand, smiled, told him how much better she felt, and to what content she looked forward, ana to what usefulness; how kind she meant to be to everybody, because there was so much suffering, of one kind or another, in every heart; how kind she would be if she saw anybody, man or woman, going wrong; how she would help them to be saved, just by her tenderness toward them. She longed to see her dear father, she told him. She meant to show him how she loved him when she went home, and this would be in a few days now; told him what sacred things home, duty, life, seemed to her; implored him to feel this, and to do his best for his home, and to bring his wife, who really had capacity, into a higher, holier life. If he found he could not, he must not allow himself to be fretted, made really un- happy; for One reigned, and he must leave her in His hand, doing his part patiently, faithfully; and, for the rest, doing his best—‘‘your best!” she said, at his art; and he must be kind to every poor creature he saw.
At parting she stood before him as a being glorified. He could have worshiped her; but he went away worshiping God—a better worship.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Saviour was most tender, loving, true, as He ever is, if we knew it. Out of the bitter travail of this young soul did He bring her forever into His fold, to be Himself, forevermore, whether she lived or died, her shepherd.
But death was not far off. Although she did not know it, I suppose the spirit was already disrobing itself of its clay vestures; was even already robing itself anew for the world of light; and that this was why the ills, even the shame of her body, faded away from her con- sciousness, as the darkness fades, and must fade, before the light of a resplendent morning.
"I shall go home in a few days,” she said to herself, and to aunt Hester. “By Saturday shall be able to go, good aunt Hester.”
She wrote to tell them at home that she had
