It was at the source the fountain ought to be sweet, and there ambition and desire for pleasure rose still triumphant; and the current of her will, set against them, seemed only to produce, not their abatement, but a whirlpool of discontent, which sucked into itself all natural pleasures, and cast out around its edge those dislikes and disdains which were becoming habitual in her intercourse with others.

It was all wrong--she knew it.

She leaned her head against the cold pane, and her eyes grew wet with tears.
There is no sorrow on earth so real as this; no other for which such bitter tears have been shed; no other which has so moved the heart of God with sympathy.

Yet there came to Sophia just then a strange thought that her tears were unnecessary, that the salvation of the world was something better than this conflict, that the angels were looking upon her discouragement in pained surprise.
She had no understanding with which to take in this thought.

As she looked at it, with her soul's eye dim, it passed away; and she, trying in vain to recall the light that it seemed to hold, wondered if it would come again.
Perhaps the tears had given relief to her brain; perhaps some Divine Presence had come near her, giving hope that she could not weigh or measure or call by name; at any rate, as she looked round again with fresh glance, the scene outside seemed fairer than it had yet appeared to her.
A long strip had been swept on the ice of the river by pleasure-loving hands.