fted, and we were standing now in the tragic presence
of a social sphinx, whose mystery calls for baffled silence rather
than confident speech.

"Well, honey," she said at last, thoughtfully and hesitatingly, "if
folks could only love each other the way me and Abram did, they'll
never want to part; and of course if they love each other they'll
trust each other; and if the love and the trust runs short, why, then
they ought to be patient and try to bear with each other's failin's.
But, as Maria Petty used to say, there's some things that no woman is
called on to bear, and no man, either, for that matter, and if married
folks feel that they can't stand livin' together I ain't the one to
judge 'em, for I never had anything to stand, and happy folks oughtn't
to judge the folks that's unhappy. It does look like to me that if the
husbands and wives in Goshen could stay married anybody could, but
maybe I don't know. And when a person gits all twisted and turned so's
they can't tell what's right and what's wrong, why, it ain't time for
passin' judgment and givin' opinions, and I reckon I'll jest have to
fall back on that text o' Scripture that says all things are workin'
together for good. Not some things, honey, but 'all things.' Did you
ever think o' that? The things you want and the things you don't want;
the things you complain about and the things you rejoice about; the
things you laugh over and the things you cry over--all of 'em workin',
not against each other, but together, and all workin' for good. I
ricollect hearin' a sermon once on that very passage o' Scripture.
The preacher said that that text was like a sea without a shore; its
meanin' was as wide and as deep as the love of God, and if we could
only take it in and believe it, we'd never have any fears or any
misgivin's again. And then, there's that verse o' Brownin's that says
God's in his heaven and everything's right with the world. So I
reckon, in spite of all this marryin' and partin' and marryin' again,
the world's in safe hands and movin' on in the right way."

Aunt Jane was smiling now, for on these winged words of apostle and
poet her soul had risen into its native atmosphere of serene faith,
casting upon the shoulders of Omnipotence the burden of world-sorrow
and world-sin that only Omnipotence can lift and bear.

VI

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

[Illustration]

VI

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

It was the time of the blooming of the wistaria. Over