Desire is so generous, so glad of the truth, that she can stand aside, and let this better thing be, and say to herself that it is better.

Is not this that she is growing to inwardly, more blessed than any marriage or giving in marriage?  Is it not a partaking of the heavenly Marriage Supper?

“We two might have grumbled at the world until we grumbled at each other.”

She even said that, calmly and plainly, to herself.

And then that manna was fed to her afresh of which she had been given first to eat so long a while ago; that thought of “the Lamb in the midst of the Throne” came back to her.  Of the Tenderness deep within the Almightiness that holds all earth and heaven and time and circumstance in its grasp.  Her little, young, ignorant human heart begins to rest in that great warmth and gentleness; begins to be glad to wait there for what shall arise out of it, moving the Almightiness for her,—­even on purpose for her,—­in the by-and-by; she begins to be sure; of what, she knows not,—­but of a great, blessed, beautiful something, that just because she is at all, shall be for her; that she shall have a part, somehow, even in the showing of His good; that into the beautiful miracle-play she shall be called, and a new song be given her, also, to sing in the grand, long, perfect oratorio; she begins to pray quietly, that, “loving the Lord, always above all things, she may obtain His promises, which exceed all that she can desire.”

And waiting, resting, believing, she begins also to work.  This beginning is even as an ending and forehaving, to any human soul.

I will tell you how she woke one morning; of a little poem that wrote itself along her chamber wall.

It was a square, pleasant old room, with a window in an angle toward the east.  A great, old-fashioned mirror hung opposite, between the windows that looked out north-westwardly; the morning and the evening light came in upon her.  Beside the solid, quaint old furnishings of a long past time, there were also around her the things she had been used to at home; her own little old rocking-chair, her desk and table, and her toilet and mantel ornaments and things of use.  A pair of candle-branches with dropping lustres,—­that she had marveled at and delighted in as a child, and had begged for herself when they fell into disuse in the drawing-room,—­stood upon the chimney along which the first sun-rays glanced.  Just in those days of the year, they struck in so as to shine level through the clear prisms, and break into a hundred little rainbows.

She opened her eyes, this fair October morning, and lay and looked at the little scattered glories.

All around the room, on walls, curtains, ceiling,—­falling like bright soft jewels upon table and floor, touching everything with a magic splendor,—­were globes and shafts of colored light.  Softly blended from glowing red to tenderly fervid blue, they lay in various forms and fragments, as the beam refracted or the objects caught them.