woman, unwonted, and
tale-telling, and heavy.

'My marriage warn't happy,' she said, lower than her usual tone. 'I kin
manage the garden alone; and I'd jes' as lieve. Two minds about a thing
makes unpeace; and I set a great deal by peace. But it's awful lonely,
life is, now and then!'

'It is not that to me,' said Esther sympathizingly; she was eager to
speak, and yet doubtful just what to say. She fell back upon what
perhaps is the safest of all, her own experience. 'Life _used_ to be
like that to me--at one time,' she went on after a little pause. 'I was
very lonely and sad, and didn't know how I could live without comfort.
And then I got it; and as I got it, I think so may you.'

The woman looked at her, not in the least understanding what she would
be at, yet fascinated by the sympathy--which she read plainly
enough--and held by the beauty. By something besides beauty, too, which
she saw without being able to fathom it. For in Esther's eyes there was
the intense look of love and the fire of joy, and on her lips the
loveliest lines of tenderness were trembling. Mrs. Blumenfeld gazed at
her, but would almost as soon have addressed an angel, if one had stood
beside her with wings that proclaimed his heavenly descent.

'I'll tell you how I got comfort,' Esther went on, keeping carefully
away from anything that might seem like preaching. 'I was, as I tell
you, dark and miserable and hopeless. Then I came to know the Lord
Jesus; and it was just as if the sun had risen and filled all my life
with sunlight.'

The woman did not remove her eyes from Esther's face. 'I want to know!'
she said at last. 'I've heerd tell o' sich things;--but I never see no
one afore that hed the knowledge of 'em, like you seem to hev. I've
heerd parson talk.'

'This is not parson talk.'

'I see 'tain't. But what is it then? You see, I'm as stupid as a bumble
bee; I don't understand nothin' without it's druv into me--unless it's
my garden. Ef you ask me about cabbages, or early corn, I kin tell you.
But I don't know no more'n the dead what you are talkin' of.'

Esther's eyes filled with tender tears. 'I want you to know,' she said.
'I wish you could know!'

'How am I goin' to?'

'Do what I did. I prayed the Lord Jesus to let me know Him; I prayed
and prayed; and at last He came, and gave me what I asked for. And now,
I tell you, my life is all sunlight, because He is in it. Don't you
know, the Bible calls Him the Sun of righteousness!