Poor Anthony Croft, or blessed Anthony Croft, I know not which,--
God knows! Poor he certainly was, yet blessed after all.
"One thing I do," said Paul. "One thing I do," said Anthony.
He was not able to realize his ideals, but he had the "angel aim"
by which he idealized his reals.
O waiting heart of God! how soon would thy kingdom
come if we all did our allotted tasks, humble or splendid,
in this consecrated fashion!
III.
"Therein I hear the Parcae reel
The threads of man at their humming wheel,
The threads of life and power and pain,
So sweet and mournful falls the strain."
Emerson's _Harp._
Old Mrs. Butterfield had had her third stroke of paralysis,
and died of a Sunday night. She was all alone in her little
cottage on the river bank, with no neighbor nearer
than Croft's, and nobody there but a blind man and a small boy.
Everybody had told her it was foolish to live alone in a house
on the river road, and everybody was pleased in a discreet
and chastened fashion of course, that it had turned out exactly
as they had predicted.
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