A Quiet Strength by Janette Oke

was almost as thankful as he was when the task was finally completed. She was able to select the stove that she wanted in her kitchen, while Jonathan picked the heater for the upstairs rooms. The living room would be heated by a large fieldstone fireplace, which as yet had not been built.
    However, the warm weather also meant that Jonathan was able to put in even longer days than usual. He’d work with the horses during the hours of sunshine, then move into the house to work by lamplight into the long, dark evenings.
    Virginia said nothing. Soon, hopefully very soon now, they would have their own home. At least she would be close enough to Jonathan to catch glimpses of him from the window as he worked with the animals in the corral. There would be some comfort in that.

CHAPTER  8
    V irginia smiled her welcome over the post-office counter. Sarah Thompson was three years her junior, and they had never been more than acquaintances in school, but the fact that they had married the same summer gave them some kind of kinship.
    Sarah returned the smile along with a shy “Hello.”
    “I go past your house every day on my way to work. I love what you have done with the new bay window.”
    Sarah beamed. “That’s Geoffrey. He’s very good at carpentry. How’s your house coming?”
    “We hope to be in by Christmas.”
    “You must be really looking forward to that.”
    “I am. Some days I can hardly stand the wait,” said Virginia truthfully.
    “Well, Christmas isn’t far away now. I can’t believe how quickly it has come this year. When I was a youngster it seemed it would never arrive.”
    Sarah purchased two stamps for the letters she was posting and smiled again. She was turning to leave when the door opened.
    Virginia knew the woman by sight only. She was fairly new to the town and lived in the house next to Sarah and her Geoffrey. Any time Virginia and she had chanced to meet, she seemed loud and vulgar, so Virginia had never sought to encourage a friendship. Now the woman greeted Sarah in a rough, husky voice, posted a letter, and rummaged through the mailbox assigned to her.
    “See you got that new window in,” she observed with her back to the younger woman.
    “Yes. Geoffrey finished it last Thursday.”
    The woman turned slightly to look at the smiling face. “You seem mighty pleased with it.”
    “I am.”
    “And Geoffrey?”
    “He’s pleased, too.”
    “I wasn’t referring to your Geoffrey’s carpentry skills. I was meaning your Geoffrey. You still enamored?” The younger woman looked puzzled.
    “So you haven’t hit the stone wall yet?”
    “I’m sorry. I … I don’t understand.”
    “The stone wall, honey. The stone wall of reality. Every new bride hits it sooner or later. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes you hit it the first day.”
    “I don’t know …”
    The older woman’s harsh, mirthless laugh intruded on Sarah’s words. “Well, you haven’t hit it yet—that’s easy to tell. But you will. Mind me, you will. One of these days that shine will go from your eyes, and you’ll realize all those fairy tales of happy-ever-after are just that—fairy tales. No man is as good as he looks at the altar. But who am I to tell you that? You’ll find it out soon enough.”
    She gave the young woman a tap on the shoulder with the curled paper she held in her hand. Then she laughed heartily, the same hollow laugh. “Enjoy it while you can,” she said with another playful slap. Then she was gone.
    Sarah cast one pleading look Virginia’s way as though asking for someone to contradict the woman’s statement, then left silently.
    But the words seemed to hang heavily in the air around Virginia. Was there truth in what the woman said? Was there a time of reality when all young brides realized that fairy tales did not come true? That the knight in shining armor was nothing more than a fellow human full of faults, foibles, and weaknesses? Were her expectations of marriage unrealistic? Had