What made her so
fond of James was simply the fact that a friend of his had looked on
her with a favorable eye, regarding her as a very proper mother for
four or five children who are in need of a shepherd. Yes, Lucy is
going to marry a man so much older than herself, that on a pinch he
might have been her father. She does it from a sense of duty, she
says, and to a nature like hers duty may perhaps suffice, and no cry
of the heart have to be stifled in its performance. We are all so
happy in the happiness of James and Helen that we are not in the mood
to criticise Lucy's decision. I have a strange and most absurd envy
when I think what a good time they are having at this moment
downstairs, while I sit here alone, vainly wishing I could see more
of Ernest. Just as if my happiness were not a deeper, more blessed
one than theirs which must be purged of much dross before it will
prove itself to be like fine gold. Yes, I suppose I am as happy in my
dear, precious husband and children as a wife and mother can be in a
world, which must not be a real heaven lest we should love the land
we journey through so well as to want to pitch our tents in it
forever, and cease to look and long for the home whither we are
bound.
James will be married almost immediately, I suppose, as he sails for
Syria early in April. How much a missionary and his wife must be to
each other, when, severing themselves from all they ever loved
before, they go forth, hand in hand, not merely to be foreigners in
heathen lands, but to be henceforth strangers in their own should
they ever return to it!
Helen says, playfully, that she has not a missionary spirit, and is
not at all sure that she shall go with James.
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