"Peter," she said, "whatever we do, let us never doubt the kindness of God."
It was a little hard on Peter, he felt, for here was he, too, devoted to Osmond with a full heart; yet nature was nature, and life was life. He could not help seeing himself in the bridegroom's garment.
"Osmond is the greatest thing there is," he said. "But, grannie--" He stopped.
"I know, I know," said grannie. She was not accustomed to speaking with authority. The passion of her life had all resolved itself into deeds, into a few simple words like the honey in the flower and the slowly fructifying cells. Now she stood leaning on her staff and thinking back over the course she had run. Osmond had been the child of her spirit because he was maimed. She had drawn with him every breath of his horror of life, his acquiescence, his completed calm. What withdrawals there were in him, what wrestlings of the will, what iron obediences, only she knew. There was the sweetness, too, of the little child who, when they were alone, in some sad twilight, used to come and put his arms about her neck and lay his cheek to hers, with a mute plea to her to understand. And now when Osmond had harnessed himself to the earth, God had let a beautiful flower spring up before him, to say, "Behold me." God did everything, grannie knew. He had not merely created, in a space of magnificent idleness, some centuries ago, and then, with the commendation that it was "good," turned away his head and let his work shift for itself. He was about it now, every instant, in the decay of one seed to nourish another, in the blast and in the sunshine. He was ever at hand to hear the half-formed cry of the soul, the whisper it hardly knew it gave. He was the still, small voice. And He had remembered Osmond as He had been remembering him all these years. He had led him by painful steps to the hilltop, and then had painted for him a great sunrise on the sky. The night might lower and obscure it, the rain fall, or the lightning strike. But Osmond would have seen the sunrise. And all grannie could say was,--
"It may not turn out well, dear, but it's a great thing for him to have."
Peter strode away into the garden. She followed him, in an hour or so, and asked if she should sit for him, and all that afternoon he painted on her portrait, with the dash and absorption of one who knows his task.