“It is nothing, sir, that you would understand; you are very skilled and notice-taking, as well as good, but you are not a woman, and you must excuse me, sir, if I beg you not to question me further on what would not interest you.”

Mr. Eden looked at her compassionately, and merely said to her again, “What is it?” in a low tone of ineffable tenderness.

At this Susan looked in a scared manner this way and that.  “Sir, do not ask me, pray do not ask me so;” then she suddenly lifted her hands, “My George is gone across the sea!  What shall I do! what shall I do!!” and she buried her face in her apron.

This burst of pure Nature—­this simple cry of a suffering heart—­was very touching, and Mr. Eden, spite of his many experiences, was not a little moved.  He sat silent, looking on her as an angel might be supposed to look upon human griefs, and as he looked on her various expressions chased one another across that eloquent face.  Sweet and tender memories and regrets were not wanting among them.  After a long pause he spoke in a tone soft and gentle as a woman’s, and at first in a voice so faltering that Susan, though her face was hidden, felt there was no common sympathy there, and silently put out her hand toward it.

He murmured consolation.  He said many gentle, soothing things.  He told her that it was very sad the immense ocean should roll between two loving hearts, “but,” said he, “there are barriers more impassable than the sea.  Better so than that he should be here and jealousy, mistrust, caprice, or even temper come between you.  I hope he will come back; I think he will come back.”

She blessed him for saying so.  She was learning to believe everything this man uttered.

From consolation he passed to advice.

“You must do the exact opposite of what you have been doing.”

“Must I?”

“You must visit those poor people; ay, more than ever you did; hear patiently their griefs; do not expect much in return, neither sympathy nor a great deal of gratitude; vulgar sorrow is selfish.  Do it for God’s sake and your own single-heartedly.  Go to the school, return to your flowers, and never shun innocent society, however dull.  Milk and water is a poor thing, but it is a diluent, and all we can do just now is to dilute your grief.”

He made her promise:  “Next time I come tell me all about you and George.  ’Give sorrow words, the grief that does not speak whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.’”

“Oh! that is a true word,” sobbed Susan, “that is very true.  Why a little of the lead seems to have dropped off my heart now I have spoken to you, sir.”

All the next week Susan bore up as bravely as she could, and did what Mr. Eden had bade her, and profited by his example.  She learned to draw from others the full history of their woes; and she found that many a grief bitter as her own had passed over the dwellers in those small cottages; it did her some little good to discover kindred woes, and much good to go out of herself a while and pity them.