Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/180

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going over an old bureau in my mother's room a while ago," she said. "And in a little secret drawer I found a packet of letters written to her by my father. I suppose I ought not to have read them, but I don't regret it. I thought they were the letters he had written her in their courting days. They were quite beautiful letters. No one but a lover could have written them. But there were passages in them that puzzled me. There was a postscript to one, telling her of a new underclothing made from pine wood that the doctors were recommending for rheumatism, and asking her if she would like to try it. And in another there was talk about children. And then it occurred to me to look at the date marks on the outside of the envelopes. They were letters he had written her at intervals during the last few years of her life; and I remembered then how happy they had been together just before the end. Our lives are like gardens, I always think. Perhaps we can't help the weeds coming, but that doesn't make the flowers less beautiful."

She turned her face again to the woman.

"And even if so," she said, "even if sooner or later the glory does fade, at least we have seen it—have seen God's face.