re be
always footsteps on the road afore us, child. Nearest of all be His
footsteps that knelt that dark night in _Gethsemane_, with no human
comforting in His agony. There hath never been any sorrow like to His
sorrow, though each one of us is given to suppose there is none like her
own. Poor little _Edith_! didst reckon thy face should be any riddle to
me--me, that have been on the road afore thee these forty years?"

I could not help it. That gentle touch unlocked the sealed fountain,
and I knelt down by Aunt _Joyce_, and threw mine arms around her, and
poured out mine heart like water, with mine head upon her knees. She
held me to her with one arm, but not a word said she till my tears were
stayed, and I could lift mine head again.

"That will do thee good, child," saith she. "'Tis what thy body and
mind alike were needing. (And truly, mine heart, as methought, hath
never felt quite so sore and bound from that day.) I know all about it,
_Edith_. I saw it these two years gone, when I was with you at
_Selwick_. And I began to fear, even then, that there was a dark valley
on the road afore thee, though not so dark as mine. Ah, dear heart, it
is sore matter to find thy shrine deserted of the idol: yet not half so
sore as to see the idol lie broken at thy feet, and to know
thenceforward that it was nought but a lump of common clay. No god--
only a lump of clay, that thy foolish heart had thought to be one!
Well! all that lieth behind, and the sooner thou canst turn away and go
on thy journey, the better. But for what lieth afore, _Edith_, look
onward and look upward. Heaven will be the brighter because earth was
darker than thou hadst looked for. _Christ_ will be the dearer Friend,
because the dearest human friend hath failed thine hope. It is not the
traveller that hath been borne through flowers and sunshine on the soft
cushions of a litter, that is the gladdest to see the lights of home."

"It is nobody's fault," I could not help whispering.

"I know, dear heart!" she saith. "Thine idol is not broken. Thank God
for it. Thou mayest think of him yet as a true man, able to hold up his
head in the sunlight, with no cause to be 'shamed of the love which
stole into thine heart ere thou hadst wist it. Alas for them to whom
the fairest thought which even hope can compass, is the thought of the
prodigal in the far country, weary at long last of the husks which the
swine do eat, and turning with yearning