Accordingly, the question was on all their lips,
"You have set the wrong right,--you have done what you desired?"
"Oh," she said, stretching out her hands, "how well one is in one's own
place! how blessed to be at home! I have seen the trouble and sorrow in
the earth till my heart is sore, and sometimes I have been near to die."
"But that is impossible," said the man who had loved her.
"If it had not been impossible, I should have died," she said. "I have
stood among people who loved me, and they have not seen me nor known me,
nor heard my cry. I have been outcast from all life, for I belonged to
none. I have longed for you all, and my heart has failed me. Oh how
lonely it is in the world, when you are a wanderer, and can be known of
none--"
"You were warned," said he who was in authority, "that it was more bitter
than death." "What is death?" she said; and no one made any reply.
Neither did any one venture to ask her again whether she had been
successful in her mission. But at last, when the warmth of her appointed
home had melted the ice about her heart, she smiled once more and spoke.
"The little children knew me. They were not afraid of me; they held out
their arms. And God's dear and innocent creatures--" She wept a few
tears, which were sweet after the ice tears she had shed upon the earth.
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