nd
the loss of their children--all the suffering and struggle of years
came over her again.

And so all her Bible-reading and all her praying had been of no avail!
She sat there in the most violent agitation! Her grief that she could
thus be overcome caused her in despair to begin the bitterest
self-accusation. Again she felt the scorn of the crowd at her foolish
bridal procession; again she loathed herself for her own
weakness--that she could not stop her crying then, nor her thinking
of it now--that with her want of self-control she had cast undeserved
suspicion on her parents, destroyed her own health and through this
caused the death of the children she bore, and lastly that with all
this she had embittered the life of a loving husband, and feigned a
piety that was not real, as her present behaviour clearly showed!

How dreadful that she still felt it in this way--that she had got no
farther!

Then it burst upon her--both her crying in church and the consuming
bitterness that had spoiled the early years of her married life had
been _wounded vanity_. It was wounded vanity that was weeping now; and
that might at any moment separate her from God, her happiness in this
world and the world to come!

So worthless, so worthless did she feel herself that she dared not
look up to God; for oh! how great were her shortcomings towards Him!
But why, she began to wonder, why had she succumbed just now--at the
moment when her daughter, in all true-heartedness and overflowing
happiness, had given herself to the man she loved? Why at this moment
arouse all the ugly memories and thoughts that lay dormant in her
mind? Was she envious of Mildrid; envious of her own daughter? No,
_that_ she knew she was not--and she began to recover herself.

What a grand thought it was that her daughter was perhaps going to
atone for _her_ fault! Could children do that? Yes, as surely as they
themselves were a work of ours, they could--but we must help too, with
repentance, with gratitude! And before Randi knew what was happening,
she could pray again, bowing in deep humility and contrition before
the Lord, who had once more shown her what she was without Him. She
prayed for grace as one that prays for life; for she felt that it was
life that was coming to her again! Now her account was blotted out; it
was just the last settling of it that had unnerved her.

She rose and looked up through streaming tears; she knew that things
had come right now