[321] sometimes look up, and this smile seems to say, “ Mother, patience, I am happy. In our Father's house are many mansions.” Sometimes I think I am like a gardener who has planted the seed of some rare exotic. He watches as the two little points of green leaf first spring above the soil. He shifts it from soil to soil, from pot to pot. He watches it, waters it, saves it through thousands of mischiefs and accidents. He counts every leaf, and marks the strengthening of the stem, till at last the blossom bud was fully formed. What curiosity, what eagerness,--what expectation — what longing now to see the mystery unfold in the new flower. Just as the calyx begins to divide and a faint streak of color becomes visible,--lo! in one night the owner of the greenhouse sends and takes it away. He does not consult me, he gives me no warning; he silently takes it and I look, but it is no more. What, then? Do I suppose he has destroyed the flower? Far from it; I know that he has taken it to his own garden. What Henry might have been I could guess better than any one. What Henry is, is known to Jesus only.Shortly after this time Mrs. Stowe wrote to her sister Catherine:--
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Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1889.
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