e has been something looming, as it were, before
me that I had to do, or thought I should have to bear,--and in the
distance and the darkness it took a dread shape, and I looked forward to
it with terror. And when it has come at last, it has often--I say not
always, but often--proved to be at times a light and easy cross, even at
times an absolute pleasure. Again, there hath often been something in
the future that I have looked forward to as a great good and delight,
which on its coming hath turned out a positive pain and evil. 'Tis
better we should not know the future, dear Phoebe. Our Father knows
every step of the way: is not that enough? Our Elder Brother hath
trodden every step, and will go with us through the wilderness. Perfect
wisdom and perfect love have prepared all things. Ah, child, thy
fathers were wise men to sing as they sang--

"`Mon sort n'est pas a plaindre,
Il est a desirer;
Je n'ai plus rien a craindre,
Car Dieu est mon Berger.'"

"But, Mrs Dolly-- I suppose it can't be so, yet--it does seem as if
there were some things in life which the Lord Jesus did not go through."

"What things, my dear?"

"Well, we never read of His having any kind of sickness for one thing."

"Are you sure of that? `Himself took our infirmities, and bare our
sicknesses,' looks very like the opposite. You and I have no idea,
Phoebe, how He spent thirty out of thirty-three years of His mortal
life. He may--mind, I don't say it was so, for I don't know--but He may
have spent much of them in a sick chamber. He was `in _all_ points
tempted like as we are.' My father used to tell me that the word there
rendered `tempted' signifies not only temptations of Satan, but trials
sent of God."

"But--He was never a woman, Mrs Dolly."

"And therefore cannot feel for a woman as though He had been,--is that
thy meaning, dear? Nay, Phoebe, I believe He was the only creature that
ever dwelt on earth in whom were the essential elements both of man and
woman. He took His flesh of the woman only. The best part of each was
in Him,--the strength and intelligence of the man, the love and
tenderness of the woman. 'Tis modish to say women are tender, Phoebe;
more modish than true. Many are soft, but few are tender. But He was
tenderness itself."

"I don't think women always are tender," said Phoebe.

"My dear," said Mrs Dorothy, "you may laugh at me, but I am very much
out of conceit with my own sex. A good woman i