n nursing; it is too dreadful living like this
just to amuse one's self, and try to forget. I must do something,
something for the good of myself, if not for my fellow-creatures."

Bessie listened to her with some surprise. Edna's manner was excited;
she looked feverish; her voice had a hard ring in it.

"Tell me what I must do," she said, fixing her large eyes on Bessie.

"Dear, you must get well first," replied Bessie tenderly. "You are far
from strong; your mother is right, Edna."

Edna shook her head impatiently.

"It is nothing--a cold; what does it signify? How can one feel well with
all these worrying thoughts? It is work that I want, Bessie--work that
will take me out of myself and make me forget."

"Are you sure that God wishes you to forget?" asked Bessie softly. "Oh,
my dear," stroking her hand, "you can never say again that I do not know
what trouble is, that I cannot feel for you; but I have learned that we
must not run away from our trouble; girls so often talk like that," she
went on, "about going into a hospital, but they do not know what they
want. Nursing is too sacred a work to be done from such a motive. What
good would such a work, undertaken in a selfish, self-seeking spirit, do
them? Edna, when God wounds He heals, but it must be in His own time,
and in the proper place; and even troubles caused by our own
recklessness must come under this head."

"But, Bessie----"

"Wait a minute, dear; I seem to see it so clearly. You have work, only
you are throwing it aside and asking for more. 'Thou earnest not to thy
place by accident; it is the very place God meant for thee.' Don't you
remember those lines? Surely, surely, an only daughter's place must be
with her mother; to make her happy must be no light duty. You are her
one thought from morning to night; it breaks her heart to see you
unhappy. Edna, if your mother died, and you had not tried to make her
happy!"

"Do you mean--oh, I see what you mean, but I am too selfish to find it
out for myself. I am only thinking of my own good, not of her at all. I
have never been good to her; she gives all, and I just take it."

"Make her your work," whispered Bessie, "and bye and bye comfort will
come to you, as it would not in any hospital, in any self-chosen duty;
for where God puts us, He must find us, or we shall have to give an
account of why we have erred and strayed," finished Bessie reverently.

CHAPTER XXI.

ON THE PARADE.

Bessie