is life is, and
that after it, they that have done His will shall be together with Him
for ever. Dear hearts, it is only a little while."

The Sister who was to watch with me had come forward to the foot of the
bed, and was standing silent there. When Mother Alianora thus spoke, I
fancied that I heard a little sob. Wondering who she was, I looked up--
looked up, to my great astonishment, into those dark, strange eyes of my
own sister Margaret.

Margaret and I, alone, to keep the watch all night long! What could my
Lady Prioress mean? Here was an opportunity to indulge my will, not to
mortify it; to make my love grow, instead of repressing it. I had
actually put into my hand the chance that I had so earnestly desired, to
speak to Margaret alone.

But now that the first difficulty was removed, another rose up before
me. Would Margaret speak to me? Was she, perhaps, searching for
opportunities of mortification, and would refuse the indulgence
permitted? I knew as much of the King's Court, as much of a knightly
tournament, as I knew of that sealed-up heart of hers. Should I be
allowed to know any more?

"Annora," said our aunt again, "there is one thine in my life that I
regret sorely, and it is that I was not more of a mother to thee when
thou earnest as a little child. Of course I was under discipline: but I
feel now that I did not search for opportunities as I might have done,
that I let little chances pass which I might have seized. My child,
forgive me!"

"Dearest Mother!" I said, "you were ever far kinder to me than any one
else in all the world."

"Thank God I have heard that!" saith she. "Ah, children--for we are
children to an aged woman like me--life looks different indeed, seen
from a deathbed, to what it does viewed from the little mounds of our
human wisdom as we pass along it. Here, there is nothing great but God;
there is nothing fair save Christ and Heaven; there is nothing else
true, nor desirable, nor of import. Every thing is of consequence, if,
and just so far as, it bears on these: and all other things are as the
dust of the floor, which ye sweep off and forth of the doors into the
outward. Life is the way upward to God, or the way down to Satan. What
does it matter whether the road were smooth or rough, when ye come to
the end thereof? The more weary and footsore, the more chilled and
hungered ye are, the sweeter shall be the marriage-supper and the rest
of the Father's House