She began, too, to understand that if God has called, he
will also open the door. She kissed her mother as she had never kissed
her before, and went to her own room.
CHAPTER XXII.
GLADNESS.
Scarcely had she reached it, however, when the voices of the children
came shouting along some corridor, on their way to find their breakfast:
she must go and minister, postponing meditation on the large and distant
for action in the small and present. But the sight of the exuberance,
the foaming overflow of life and gladness in Saffy, and of the quieter,
deeper joy of Mark, were an immediate reward. They could hardly be
prevented from bolting their breakfast like puppies, in their eagerness
to rush into the new creation, the garden of Eden around them. But
Hester thought of the river flowing turbid and swift at the foot of the
lawn: she must not let them go loose! She told them they must not go
without her. Their faces fell, and even Mark began a gentle
expostulation.
A conscientious elder sister has to bear a good many hard thoughts from
the younger ones on whom, without a parent's authority and reverence,
she has to exercise a parent's restraint.
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