Do you think this is so?"
Young Ried did not answer promptly; he had no answer ready that suited
him. His strongest feeling just then was one of self-reproach, mingled
with humiliation. How had he looked down on this fair and beautiful
little woman,--her very beauty being, he had fancied, an element against
her when it came to actual effort. How had he allowed himself to sneer
over her attempts at teaching that class of boys! How actually irritable
he had been over it! How almost angrily he had questioned why it was
that a teacher was not found for them fitted to their needs; when he had
prayed about it so much; determined not to believe that the prayer had
been answered, and the teacher found; yet here she was, the one whose
efforts he had despised, talking already about individual prayer for
them, while he, who had done a great amount of fretting for them, had
not once presented them as individuals to Christ, and asked a definite
blessing for each! His answer, when it came, was low and full of
feeling:--
"I have concentrated my desires in praying for the coming of such a
teacher as might get hold of them; and I begin to think that I have an
answer to my prayers."
But she was absolutely proof against compliments.
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