She was very glad when it was over, and the Colonel, saying he should go and consult Dr. Lucas, gave her back the keys he had taken from Janet, and said that perhaps she would prefer looking over the papers before he himself did so, with a view to accounts; but he should advise all professional records to be destroyed.

It may be feared that the two executors did not respect or like each, other much the better for the interview, which had made the widow feel herself even more desolate and sore-hearted.

She ran, downstairs, locked the door of the consulting room, opened the lid of the bureau, and kneeling down with her head among all the papers, she sobbed with long-drawn, tearless sobs, “O father!  O Joe! how could you bid me live there?  He makes me worse!  They will make me worse and worse, and now you are gone, and Granny is gone, there’s nobody to make me good; and what will become of the children?”

Then she looked drearily on the papers that lay before her, as if his hand-writing at least gave a sort of nearness.  There was a memorandum book which had been her birthday present to him, and she felt drawn to open it.  The first she saw after her own writing of his name was—-

“’Magnum Bonum.  So my sweet wife insists on calling this possibility, of which I will keep the notes in her book.

“’Magnum Bonum!  Whether it so prove, and whether I may be the means of making it known, must be as God may will.  May He give me the power of persevering, to win, or to fail, or to lay the foundation for other men, whichever may be the best, with a true heart, heeding His glory, and acting as His servant to reveal His mysteries of science for the good of His children.

“’And above all, may He give us all to know and feel the true and only Magnum Bonum, the great good, which alone makes success or failure, loss or gain, life or death, alike blessed in Him and through Him.’”

Carey gazed on those words, as she sat in the large arm-chair, whither she had moved on opening the book.  She had always known that religion was infinitely more to her husband than ever it had been to herself.  She had done what he led her to do, and had a good deal of intellectual and poetical perception and an uprightness, affection, and loyalty of nature that made her anxious to do right, but devotion was duty, and not pleasure to her; she was always glad when it was over, and she was feeling that the thoughts which were said to comfort others were quite unable to reach her grief.  There was no disbelief nor rebellion about her, only a dull weariness, and an inclination which she could hardly restrain, even while it shocked her, to thrust aside those religious consolations that were powerless to soothe her.  She knew it was not their fault, she did not doubt of their reality; it was she who was not good enough to use them.

These words of Joe were to her as if he were speaking to her again.  She laid them on her knee, murmured them over fondly, looked at them, and finally, for she was weak still and had had a bad night, fell fast asleep over them, and only wakened, as shouts of “Mother” were heard over the house.