Where was she gone? she had slipped away from the merry party, and was by Joe’s couch.  Joe’s heart was very full, full with the newly-awakened sense that he loved and that he was loved; full of earnest resolves to become less selfish, less thankless, less irritable.  He knew his lot now, knew all that lay before him, the privations, the restrictions, the weakness, and the sufferings.  He knew that he could never hope again to share in the many joys of boyhood and youth; that he must lay aside his cricket ball, his hoop, his kite, in short all his active amusements, and consign himself to the couch through the winter, spring, summer, autumn, and winter again.  He felt this very bitterly; and when all the gifts were lavished upon him, he thought, “Oh, for my health and strength again, and I would gladly give up all these gifts, nay, I would joyfully be a beggar.”  But when he was alone, in the view of all I have written and more, he felt that he could forgive John, that in short he must ask John to forgive him, and this conviction came not suddenly and by chance, but as the result of honest sober consideration, of his own sincere communings with conscience.

Still he felt very desolate, still he could scarcely believe in Emilie’s assurance, “You may have God for your friend,” and something of this he told Miss Schomberg, when she came to sit by him for awhile.  She had but little faith in her own eloquence, we have said, and she felt now more than ever how dangerous it would be to deceive him, so she did not lull him into false peace, but she soothed him with the promise of Him who loves us not because of our worthiness, but who has compassion on us out of his free mercy.  Herein is love indeed, thought poor Joe, and he meditated long upon it, so long that his heart began to feel something of its power, and he sank to sleep that night happier and calmer than he had ever slept before, wondering in his last conscious moments that God should love him.

Poor Joel he had much to struggle with; for if indulgence and over-weening affection ruin their thousands, neglect and heartlessness ruin tens of thousands.  The heart not used to exercise the affection, becomes as it were paralyzed, and so he found it.  He could not love as he ought, he could not be grateful as he knew he ought to be, and he found himself continually receiving acts of kindness, as matters of course, and without suitable feeling of kindness and gratitude in return; but the more he knew of himself the more he felt of his own unworthiness, the more gratefully he acknowledged and appreciated the love of others to him.  The ungrateful are always proud.  The humble, those who know how undeserving they are, are always grateful.

CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.

THE NEW HOME.