Hope Harwell was a beautiful woman--beautiful with the beauty of a
womanhood unspoiled by vain idleness, empty pleasures or purposeless
activity. Perhaps because of her interest and care for the girl, to whom
she was filling the place of both mother and elder sister, perhaps
because of something else that had come into her life--the past few
months, in spite of her trials, had added much to that sweet atmosphere
of womanliness that enveloped her always. The deep, gray eyes seemed
deeper still and a light was in their depths that had not been there
before. In her voice, too, there was a new note--a richer, fuller tone,
and she moved and laughed as one whose soul was filled with the best
joys of living.
Charity arose to her feet when Miss Farwell entered. The nurse greeted
her, but the poor girl who had spent an almost sleepless night, stood
regarding the woman before her with a kind of envying wonder. What right
had this creature to be so happy while she a Christian was so miserable?
To Charity there were only two kinds of people--those who belonged to the
church and those who belonged to the world. Those of the world were
strangers--aliens. The life they lived, their pleasures, their ambitions,
their loves, were all matters of conjecture to this daughter of the
church. They were, to her, people to save--never people to be intimate
with; nor were they to be regarded without grave suspicion until they
were saved. She wondered, sometimes, what they were like if one were to
really know them.
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