"Don't say was," I said. "You know we all love you dearly, dearly"

"Yes, but not as James did!"

"That is true. It was foolish in me to expect to console you by such
suggestions. But to go back to Mrs. Campbell. She will sympathize
with you, if you will let her, as very few can, for she has lost both
husband and children."

"Ah, but she had a husband for a time, at least. It is not as if he
were snatched away before they had lived together."

If anybody else had said this I should have felt that it was out of
mere perverseness. But dear little Helen is not perverse; she is
simply overburdened.

"I grant that your disappointment was greater than hers," I went on.
"But the affliction was not. Every day that a husband and wife walk
hand in hand together upon earth makes of the twain more and more one
flesh. The selfish element which at first formed so large a part of
their attraction to each other disappears, and the union becomes so
pure and beautiful as to form a fitting type of the union of Christ
and His church. There is nothing else on earth like it."

Helen sighed.

"I find it hard to believe," she said, "there can be anything more
delicious than the months in which James and I were so happy
together."