“Then you can tell Marjorie not to wait until she is half of three score and ten before she gives herself up.”

“Her will is more yielding than mine; she doesn’t seek great things for herself.”

The letter from Switzerland about being “satisfied” Marjorie read again and again.  There was only one way for childhood, girlhood, or womanhood to be satisfied; and that one way was to acknowledge God in every thing, and let him direct every step.  Then if one were not satisfied, it was dissatisfaction with God’s will; God’s will was not enough.

Hollis had made short visits at home twice since she had left school.  The first time, she had been at her grandfather’s and saw him but half an hour; the second time, they met not at all, as she was attending to some business for Mrs. Holmes, and spending a day and night with Mrs. Harrowgate.

This twenty-first summer she was not happy; she had not been happy for months.  It was a new experience, not to be happy.  She had been born happy.  I do not think any trial, excepting the one she was suffering, would have so utterly unsettled her.  It was a strange thing—­but, no, I do not know that it was a strange thing; but it may be that you are surprised that she could have this kind of trial; as she expressed it, she was not sure that she was a Christian!  All her life she had thought about God; now, when she thought about herself, she began to fear and doubt and tremble.

No wonder that she slept fitfully, that she awoke in the night to weep, that she ate little and grew pale and thin.  It was a strange thing to befall my happy Marjorie.  Her mother could not understand it.  She tempted her appetite in various ways, sent her to her grandfather’s for a change, and to Linnet’s; but she came home as pale and dispirited as she went.

“She works too hard,” thought the anxious mother; and sent for a woman to wash and iron, that the child might be spared.  Marjorie protested, saying that she was not ill; but as the summer days came, she did not grow stronger.  Then a physician was called; who pronounced the malady nervous exhaustion, prescribed a tonic—­cheerful society, sea bathing, horseback riding—­and said he would be in again.

Marjorie smiled and knew it would do no good.  If Aunt Prue were near her she would open her heart to her; she could have told her father all about it; but she shrank from making known to her mother that she was not ill, but grieving because she was not a Christian.  Her mother would give her energetic advice, and bid her wrestle in prayer until peace came.  Could her mother understand, when she had lived in the very sunshine of faith for thirty years?

She had prayed—­she prayed for hours at a time; but peace came not.  She had fasted and prayed, and still peace did not come.