Mrs. Wylder had not got so far yet, but she had sought refuge in love, and what is the love of child, or mother, or dog, but the love of God shining through another being—which is another being just because he shines through it? The one important result of her illness, finding refuge in the love of her daughter, brought her to love Barbara. The next point in her eternal growth would be to love the God who made the child she loved, and whose love shone upon her through the child.

By nature Mrs. Wylder was a strong woman whom passion made weak It sucked at her will till first it hardened it to a more selfish determination, then pulped it to a helpless obstinacy. The persistence that goes with inclination has its force only from the weakness of pride and the mean worship of self. It is the opposite of that free will which is the reflex of the divine will, and the ministering servant-power to all freedom, which resists and subdues the self of inclination, and is obedient only to the self of duty. Where the temple of God has no windows, earthquakes must sometimes come to tear off the roof that sunlight may enter.

Her earthquake had come, and Barbara’s mother lay broken so that the spirit of her daughter might enter the soul of her mother—and with it the Spirit of him who, in the heart of her daughter, made her who she was.

Her illness had lasted a month, when one day her husband, at Barbara’s request, came to see her. She feebly put out her hand, and for a moment the divine child in the man opened its heavenly eyes. He took the offered hand kindly, faltering a gentle-sounding commonplace or two, and left her happier, with a strange little bird fluttering in his own heart. There are eggs of all the heavenly birds in our bosoms, and the history of man is the incubation and hatching of these eggs.

Mrs. Wylder began to recover, but the recovery was a long one. As soon as she thought her well enough, Barbara told her that Mr. Wingfold had been to ask about her almost every day and asked whether she would not like to see him. Her mother was in a quiet condition, noncombative, involving no real betterment, only a weakening of the will to fight. But such a condition gives opportunity for the good and loving to be felt.