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Book, page 31 / 224 If he expected the small lady, who was regarding him so steadily, to take the other side of this question, he was disappointed. She spoke quietly enough, but with the earnestness of conviction. "Those are startling facts. I do not see how one could be surprised that the results are they are; and the practical question forces itself upon us, What are we to do under the circumstances? Mr. Ried, you have had your eyes open in regard to this subject for some time; what have you thought out?" Now was Mr. Alfred Ried embarrassed. It was true that his eyes had been long open to the subject; it was true that he had given it a great deal of what he had called thought. But with those alert eyes fixed on his face, her whole manner indicating intense earnestness, he suddenly realized that all his thought had been to no purpose, had accomplished nothing, unless it had served to give him a feeling almost of irritation against the boys, and their teachers who made failures, and the people who folded their hands and let things go to ruin. Here confronted him one, whose hands were not folded, though they rested quietly enough on the counter before him. He began to feel that there might be latent power in them. "I have nothing to say," and he said it at last with flushed face and embarrassed voice; "I have thought out nothing. The whole thing seemed hopeless to me with my utter lack of resources. My sister had schemes, many of them, and they seemed to me good ones, even then; they seem better now, only I cannot carry them out." She caught at the name. "Your sister? Ester Ried? Good! Let us carry them out, you and I, and as many more as we can get to help us. She is at work yet,--don't you see? What is that prophecy about her?--that voice which the prophet heard, you know, 'And I heard a voice saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.'" How strangely the words sounded, repeated in her low, clear voice, amid the hum of business on every side! Alfred Ried felt singularly moved. He had been a highly strung, imaginative child. He had been his sister
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