the freshness and beauty of your young life!

Tell me do you owe our Lord God something or is He in debt to you? Have
you nothing to thank him for? Others can see how much you have to look
forward to. Get yourself together, girl, and try to give your thoughts
another direction."

"I should be only too glad to do so," said Veronica, who had listened
intently to every word that Sabina had said. "Have you any such book as
you describe, that you can lend me to read?"

Sabina was well pleased at this request. She had a book close at hand,
which she had just finished reading, and from which she expected great
things for the young girl. Veronica was moved by Sabina's glowing words,
to believe that her future might be happier, and that the clouds of
despondency which had overshadowed her, were about to be dispersed.

She lost no time, for she was in earnest. She opened the book that very
evening, and began to read. But her sanguine expectations were not
fulfilled. She read the words, she understood their meaning; but it was as
if she heard them at a distance and through them all, louder than all
else, sounded something in her ears and in her heart that drowned them. It
was the flow of the troubled waters, as Sabina had said. The waves rose
higher; their noise increased, until Veronica lost all hearing and
understanding of what she was reading. Still she persevered; perhaps
bye-and-bye it would come right. Alas! was not that the house door opening
and shutting again so softly late in the night? She flung the book aside;
walked rapidly back and forth in her chamber for awhile, then unfolded her
sewing, and worked steadily on and on, until the morning broke and a new
day called her to its duties.