Above all, her heart was wrung with pity
for Stephen--Stephen, with no comforting woman's hand to help him in his sore
trouble; Stephen, bearing his losses alone, his burdens and anxieties alone,
his nursing and daily work alone. Oh, how she felt herself needed! Needed!
that was the magic word that unlocked her better nature. "Darkness is the time
for making roots and establishing plants, whether of the soil or of the soul,"
and all at once Rose had become a woman: a little one, perhaps, but a whole
woman--and a bit of an angel, too, with healing in her wings. When and how had
this metamorphosis come about? Last summer the fragile brier-rose had hung
over the river and looked at its pretty reflection in the placid surface of
the water. Its few buds and blossoms were so lovely, it sighed for nothing
more. The changes in the plant had been wrought secretly and silently. In some
mysterious way, as common to soul as to plant life, the roots had gathered in
more nourishment from the earth, they had stored up strength and force, and
all at once there was a marvelous fructifying of the plant, hardiness of
stalk, new shoots everywhere, vigorous leafage, and a shower of blossoms.
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