How ingenious is affection in contriving alleviations!  Here Joe sadly wanted some one whose wits were quickened by love.  Mrs. Barton nursed him admirably; he was kept very neat and nice, and his room always had a clean tidy appearance; but it lacked the little tokens of love which oft-times turn the sick chamber into a kind of paradise.  No flowers, no little contrivances for amusement, no delicate article of food to tempt his sickly appetite.  Poor Joe!  Edith soon saw this, and yet it needs experience in illness to adapt one’s self to sick nursing.  Besides she was afraid, she did not like to offer books and flowers, and these visits were quite dreaded by her.

“Will you not go and see Joe, Emilie?” asked Edith, one day of her friend, as she was recounting the difficulties in her way.  “You get at people’s hearts much better than ever I could do.”

“My dear child,” said Emilie, “did not Joe say that he begged you never would bring the preaching German to see him? oh no, dear, I cannot force my company on him.  Besides you have not tried long enough, kindness does not work miracles; try a little longer Edith, and be patient with Joe as God is with us.  How often we turn away from Him when He offers to be reconciled to us.  Think of that, dear.”

“Fred is very patient and persevering; I often wonder, Miss Schomberg, that John, who really did cause the accident, seems to think less about Joe than Fred, who had not any thing to do with it.”

“It is not at all astonishing, Edith.  It requires that our actions should be brought to the light of God’s Word to see them in their true condition.  An impenitent murderer thinks less of his crime than a true penitent, who has been moral all his life, thinks of his great sin of ingratitude and ungodliness.”

CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

JOE’S CHRISTMAS.

Christmas was at hand; Christmas with its holidays, its greetings, its festive meetings, its gifts, its bells, and its rejoicings.  That season when mothers prepare for the return of their children from school, and are wont to listen amidst storms of wind and snow for the carriage wheels; when little brothers and sisters strain their eyes to catch the first glimpse of the dear ones’ approach along the snowy track; when the fire blazes within, and lamps are lit up to welcome them home; and hope and expectation and glad heart beatings are the lot of so many—­of many, not of all.  Christmas was come, but it brought no hope, no gladness, no mirth to poor White, either present or in prospect.  The music and the bells of Christmas, the skating, the pony riding, the racing, the brisk walk, the home endearments were not for Joe—­poor Joe.  No mother longed for his return, no brother or little sister pressed to the hall door to get the first look or the first word; no father welcomed Joe back to the hearth-warmth of home sweet home.  Poor orphan boy!