Not again did it recur to him until he was passing, during that same evening, a brightly-lighted building, from whence there issued sounds of music. Something in the strains recalled, he knew not how or why, the incident of the morning and the card of invitation. "I wonder if this is the place?" he queried. "It would be rather queer if I had blundered on the very building, without the least notion of doing any such thing." He paused before the door, listening to the roll of the organ as it sounded on the quiet air. "That organ doesn't squeak, anyhow," he said grimly, recalling the organ scene in the old church at home, and Louise's pleasure in its improved condition after he had taken hold of it. Thoughts of her suggested the card again, and he brought it forth from his pocket, and by the light of a friendly lamp compared the name on the card with the name on the building before him. Yes, they agreed; chance or Providence, according as you are accustomed to view these matters, had led him to the very spot. Still he had no intention of going in. "Pretty-looking object I am to go to church," he said, surveying himself critically, something between a smile and a sneer on his face. "I would create a sensation, I fancy. I wonder if the bit of silk and lace that gave me the card is in there? And I wonder if she expects to see me? And I wonder where I have seen her before, and why her face haunts me?"
The organ had been silent for some minutes; now it rolled forth its notes again, and voices, that to John seemed of unearthly sweetness, rang out on the quiet:—
"Come home! Come home! You are weary at heart;And the way has been long,And so lonely and wild!Oh, prodigal child, come home! Oh, come home!"
Was John Morgan homesick? He would have scorned the thought. Yet at the sound of these tender words a strange choking sensation came over him, and something very like a mist filled his eyes. He felt, rather than realized, how long and lonely and wild the way had been; still he had no intention of going in. He would step nearer and listen to that music; those voices were unlike anything he had ever heard before. He drew nearer under the light of the hall lamp. He could see into the church. The doors stood invitingly open; the aisles even were full. Some were standing, not well-dressed people all of them, by any means; but some were so roughly clad that even he would not attract attention by the contrast. A young man, well-dressed, with an open hymn-book in his hand, stood by the door, almost in the hall. He turned suddenly, and his eyes rested on John; he beckoned him forward, then stepped toward him.
"Come right in, my friend; we can find standing-room for you, and the sermon is just about to commence."
"I'm not dressed for such places," said John, imagining that he spoke firmly.
"Oh, never mind the dress; that is not of the least consequence; there are plenty of men in here in their rough working-clothes. Come right in."
"Come home, come home," sang out the wonderful voices. And John Morgan, still with no intention of going in, yet impelled by a force which he no more understood than he understood his own soul, stepped forward and followed the young man into the crowded church. The singing ceased, and the minister arose and immediately announced his text, "Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having on a wedding garment?"
The sentence was spoken so like a personal question that John looked about him, startled. Could it be possible that the man was addressing him—actually referring to his uncouth dress? This only for an instant; then he discovered that no one was paying the least attention to him, and that his dress, rough enough, was not worse than that of some by whom he was surrounded. But the preacher's manner was so new and strange, so unlike anything that John Morgan had ever met before, that, despite his own half-formed determination to get out of this, he stayed, and looked, and listened.
If I could I would tell you about that sermon; but sermons on paper, reported by a second party, are so very different from the words that come burning hot from the heart of the preacher, that on second thought I have deemed it unwise to make the attempt.
To John Morgan the entire service was like a revelation of mysteries. That which had seemed to him bewildering and contradictory, and finally actually exasperating in the plan of salvation, was made as clear as the sunlight, and one by one his own daring subterfuges were swept from him, so that before the sermon closed he felt that he indeed stood unclothed and speechless before the King. What next? Where should he go now? Whither flee? Was he not sufficiently wretched before? Had he need to feel these truths in order to make his condition less endurable?
The sermon closed, the few words of solemn prayer followed, and the choir took up the service. Strangely clear, at least to John's ears, were the voices that spoke the tenderly solemn words:—
"Oh, do not let the word depart,And close thine eyes against the light;Poor sinner, harden not thine heart;Thou wouldst be saved, why not to-night?"
Among the singers he had no difficulty in singling out one face and voice. It was a voice of unusual sweetness and power, and it was a face that haunted him. He could not yet tell why. There she was, the fair young beauty who had given him his card. How strange it was that he had accepted her invitation after all! After the song, instead of the benediction which John expected, came another invitation.
"Now I know," said the preacher, "there are some in this room to-night who feel that they are without the wedding garment, and who believe that if the King should ask them why they would be speechless. Do not all such wish to settle the question? You mean to settle it some time. You do not mean to go up to that guest-chamber unclothed. Why not settle it to-night? Why not come up here, all of you who think the question unsettled, and who believe that it is important enough to be attended to? Come, and let us ask the Holy Spirit to help you to settle it to-night."
Did John Morgan intend ever to settle the question? He looked the thought, for almost the first time, squarely in the face. He believed that the man who had been speaking was in earnest. He believed that he knew what he was talking about. Somehow the network of unbelief in which this foolish young wanderer had intrenched himself so long would not bear the piercing light of one solemn Bible question, one gospel sermon; it slipped away from him and left him refugeless.
"Come," said the preacher. "Be men now and be women. Be worthy of your position as reasonable beings. Take steps toward the better understanding of this important matter. Do what you can. Rest assured that the King will see to it that the rest is done for you. Come now."
Had John Morgan the least idea of going? He told himself that he had not. He told himself that he did not believe in these things, that they were not for him, and even while he said so his heart said back to him, "That is not true." How came he to leave his station away back by the door, and to follow the throng who were moving up the aisle, and to kneel down there before that gray-haired man? Neither then nor afterward did John Morgan understand it. He had not intended to go—at least he supposed he had not; and yet he went. He did not believe that he had any feeling on the subject; he believed that he hated religion and all religionists. No, not all; there was Louise—he had tried to hate her, and failed. There was that fair girl who gave him the card, and that wrinkled old woman who had given him the card. What was the use in hating them? He did not believe that he did. Then this gray-haired, earnest, clear-brained preacher. No, he found nothing like hatred in his heart for him. But what was the use of going up there? He did not want to be prayed for. Yes he did, or at least he was not sure but he did. He wanted something; he could not be certain what it was; and before it was reasoned out, or before he understood what motive impelled him or quite what he meant, he had been slowly impelled—he could almost have said "pushed forward"—by a something, or by some one, stronger than himself, to whom he felt impelled to yield.
It was just as the city clocks were striking the hour of nine. He did not know that at that hour four people, in three separate rooms, were kneeling and presenting his name before the King, begging for him the wedding garment—Louise and Lewis in the quiet of their own room, Dorothy in John's own hall chamber, Carey Martyn in his own room over the kitchen, each, according to the covenant into which they had entered, breathing the same name, united in the same desire. "While they are yet speaking, I will hear." Did the King say that of them that night? Did a message go from the palace that night, "Clothe John Morgan in the wedding garment, and write his name among the guests who have accepted the invitation"? There are those, even in the so-called Christian world, who would fail to see the connecting link between this conference held nightly with the King and these strange leadings which John Morgan had called chance.
Yet is it not blessed, after all, to remember that the witnesses are daily increasing who can testify to just such claims as these—chains reaching even to the Infinite Arm, and moving that Arm to reach down and pluck some stranded, sin-surrounded soul, lifting its feet from the mire and setting them firmly on the Rock, even the Rock of Ages?
To the Morgan family the long golden summer months moved slowly. The first actual break in the household had come to them; none of the family had realized how hard it would be until it was met. I suppose it is a fact, many times proved by experience, that trial either softens or hardens the human heart. Certainly Mrs. Morgan's heart was not undergoing the softening process; she brooded over her first great anxiety until at times it seemed to her that no sorrow was like unto her sorrow, and she chafed under it as a cruel thing.
Farmer Morgan, though saying little, had aged under the trouble, and seemed at times like a broken-down man; yet he steadily resisted any effort at comfort, and sternly forbade any attempts to make search for the missing boy. "He has chosen to cut himself off from us," he would say coldly; "let him get the full benefit of it." Yet there were times when he hinted, in the presence of the mother, that had the home atmosphere been less hard and cold John might have been kept; and she more than hinted, in the coldest of voices, that if his father had not treated John like a little boy, and made him work like a slave, there need have been no trouble: so of course these two could not help each other, and only grew further apart in their common sorrow. Taken altogether, the summer was one full of bitterness to the new bud that had been grafted on to the gnarled old tree.
There were times when Louise's brave heart sunk within her, and she cried in tears to the Lord for relief. It was not that she was not willing to bear the heat and burden of the day, but the poor heart so longed for fruitage. Was her Christian effort in vain she questioned. Then her thoughts went away from the old farmhouse, back to her own lovely home and her lovely sister Estelle; how long she had prayed for her! How earnestly she had striven to bring her as a trophy to the Master! Yet the bright, winsome girl was fast blushing into womanhood, her life still uncrowned by this consecration. Thinking of her and of John, and of the steadily aging father and the hard mother in this new home, could Louise be other than sad sometimes? "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed." Yes, I know; it was true, her faith was weak. But whose is strong?
There were bright spots. It was strange that with the illustration ever before her she should so often forget it.
Dorothy moved steadily on her upward way. She had given herself entirely to the Master's service, and he was daily showing her that he accepted the gift. Occasionally Louise found heart for admiration over the rapid strides that Dorothy had taken and the avenues for work opening on every hand. There had been, during the summer months, a Sabbath school organized in the little brown school-house just above them. No one quite remembered how it started into growth, save Louise, who knew it was born of Dorothy's sudden, startled, "What a pity that those children are not being taught anything!" as she watched half-a-dozen playing together in an uproarious manner one Sunday afternoon. Now the school had been in progress three months, and was flourishing. Lewis was superintendent, much to his own astonishment; and Louise, and Dorothy, and Carey Martyn, and the young lady whose father employed him, were the teachers. Louise had organized a Bible class composed of some of the mothers, and was working faithfully among them, yet not seeing the fruit that she longed for. Mr. Butler had of late fallen into the habit of walking out on Sabbath afternoon and talking a few minutes to the children. Once he overheard a remark of Dorothy's not by any means intended for his ears.
"Mr. Butler's talk to the children was really good, wasn't it?" Carey Martyn said to her; and she had answered heartily—
"Yes, it was; when he talks without having it put on paper, it sounds as though he meant it. I wonder why it makes such a difference to read things off?"
And the minister, just at their elbow, intending to join them for a little talk, turned away with heightened colour, and went home to ponder the question. Perhaps that had somewhat to do with the fact that two Sundays thereafter he talked to the people who gathered in the dreary little church. I do not know that they discussed the sermon much during the week, but I know that one and another said to himself: "I must try to get to prayer-meeting on Wednesday evening; I declare it is a shame to have so small an attendance. We ought to go, if for nothing else than to sustain the minister; he seems really in earnest." Yet he had not preached about the prayer-meeting. Still its evident growth the next Wednesday evening encouraged his heart, and had to do with certain earnest thoughts that he worked up in his next morning's sermon, which was simply "talked" again, not read. Perhaps he would have been discouraged had he known that this wise people, not used to the work of making sermons, did not call these efforts of his, over which he had toiled as he never had over written work, sermons at all. They imagined him to have been belated in his preparations, and simply to have opened his mouth and let the words flow out.
"We haven't had a sermon for two weeks now," said one wise head to another.
And surely the minister who had sat late nearly every night, thinking out and trying to get accustomed to what he meant to try and say, would have been discouraged had he heard it; especially if he had not heard the answer—
"No; but the fact is, I like these talks better than the real sermons. I get better hold of them; and they seem, somehow, to do me more good. I don't care how many times he leaves out the sermon, I'm sure!"
Now this was one of the most thoughtful minds belonging to the little company which gathered once a week in the old church. On the whole, might not the minister have felt somewhat encouraged had he known it all?
But I commenced this chapter with the special intention of telling you about little Nellie Morgan. She has been kept very much in the background of the story; and she was a quiet, old-fashioned sort of a child, who kept herself much out of hearing, at least, though she listened well.
On this particular autumn afternoon of which I write the world was in gloom. The glory which had had possession of the country for the few weeks past seemed to have departed in a night, leaving in its place clouds and wind, and dull, withered leaves flying about, and presently a chill, depressing rain. The Morgan household felt the depression. Mrs. Morgan, senior, knew, when first she opened her eyes on the dreariness, that it was one of her black days—John's birthday. She was sorry that she thought of it; she struggled all day with the memories of the past. She saw John's curly head nestled in her arms; she saw him trotting, a beautiful two-year-old bit of mischief, always at her side; she saw his little shoes—though they were laid away in the bottom of her old trunk in the attic, yet they seemed to stare at her all day, haunting her with the dreams that she had had and that had faded. Every hour in the day her heart grew heavier, and her outward demeanour grew harder. Why could not those about her have realized that she bitterly suffered? Whether the knowledge had helped her or not, it would have made the day easier to them.
Nellie, soon after the early dinner, took refuge in her new sister's room; and drawing the small rocker close to the cheery fire, turned over, for the hundredth time, a volume brightened with many pictures, and maintained silence, leaving Louise to the sadness of her thoughts. They were sad; the atmosphere of the house was growing at times almost too much for her. She did not seem to be gaining on her mother-in-law. Yet she felt that, on Dorothy's account, she would not be elsewhere. Presently Nellie's soft voice broke the silence.
"Sister Louise, what do you think He said to them, when he took them in his arms?"
She was bending her fair head over a familiar picture, which she seemed to love to study—Jesus, with a fair, sweet-faced child in his arms and many others clustering around him.
Louise tried to call in her thoughts enough to answer—"Why, you know, dear, he blessed them."
"Yes, I know; but just what do you think he said—the exactly words? I wish I could have heard him."
There was intense pathos in the voice, but Louise's preoccupied heart did not notice.
"I don't know, Nellie, just the words; only I suppose he prayed for them, that his Father would take care of them and make them his own children."
Silence again in the room. Louise went on with her broken thread of thought, and the child's eyes were still riveted on the picture. Suddenly she spoke again, and this time the voice was so eager, so intense, that it called her sister back keenly and entirely from all wandering.
"If I could only have been there."
It was the echo of more than a passing fancy of a child; and Louise, looking at her, saw that her fair blue eyes were brimming with tears, and the large drops were staining the page before her.
"Why, my darling little sister, what is the trouble?" Her voice was full of sympathy now, and she dropped the work she had been listlessly sewing, and, drawing the little rocker toward her, put loving arms around Nellie.
"What makes the tears come, little darling sister?"
"O Louise, I don't know quite; but I think and I think about it, and wish I could see him and hear him speak. If he would only say, 'Nellie, come here,' I would run so fast; and I can't make it seem as though he cared now for me. My teacher in the Sunday school says I must give my heart to him; but I don't know how. If I could see him and ask him about it, as they had a chance to do, I think it would be so nice; and then I can't help crying."
"Jesus said, 'Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me.' But his disciples rebuked them."
"Is it possible," thought Louise, "that I have been one of those faithless disciples, rebuking, or at least ignoring, the presence of one of his little ones, while I reached out after fruit that I dared to think was of more importance!"
I cannot explain to you with what a chill her heart took in this thought, and she gathered Nellie to her, and her voice was tenderness itself.
"You poor little lonely lammie. Would no one show you the way to the Shepherd? It is just as easy, darling, as it was when he was on earth, and he calls you just as surely. You don't know how to give your heart to him? I shouldn't wonder if you had done it without knowing how. Do you think you love the dear Saviour, Nellie, and want to try to please him?"
"I'm sure I do," said Nellie, brushing back the tears and looking with earnest eyes into her questioner's face. "I do want to, but I keep forgetting and doing naughty things, and then am sorry, and I think I won't ever again, and then I do; and, oh dear! I don't know what to do."
The old sad cry of the awakened human heart: "That which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not, but what I hate, that do I." And the sad little heart had not learned the triumphant chorus, "'Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.'"
"Poor darling!" said Louise, and she held her close. "I know all about it. But see here: if you love him, then you have given him your heart—whoever you love has a piece of your heart—and if you love him very much, so that you are determined to please him just as well as you can, then you belong to him, and he has blessed you. Nellie dear, I know what you have been thinking about: you would have liked if you had been there so that he could pray for you."
"Yes, I would!" said Nellie, the emphasis of a strong desire in her voice.
"Well, now, let me tell you. I felt just so when I was a little girl, and a lady found for me a verse in the Bible which showed me that he prayed for me while he was here on the earth. Then I was glad. Listen:—Once when Jesus was praying, and had asked his Father to take care of his disciples, and keep them from sin, he said: 'And, Father, I do not pray only for these; I pray for every one who shall ever believe on me, because my disciples have told them about me.'"
"That means me," said Nellie, with a flash of intelligence in her bright eyes. "O Louise, that does mean me!"
"Of course it does, my darling little sister. Now, let me tell you what I said when I was a little girl, not much older than you. I determined that I would belong to Jesus all my life, and that I would try in everything to please him; and my papa taught me a little prayer to speak to him, telling him what I meant to do. This was the prayer: 'Here, Lord, I give myself away; 'tis all that I can do.' Do you want to give yourself to Jesus, Nellie,—to belong to him for ever?"
"Yes," said the child, with grave face and earnest eyes, from which the tears had passed, leaving only solemn resolve, "I do."
And they two knelt down beside the little rocker, and the rain pattered from the eaves outside, and the fire crackled in the stove inside, and aside from these sounds, and the low murmured words of prayer from young lips, a solemn silence filled the room, and the deed of another human soul was "signed, sealed, and delivered" to its rightful owner.
It was a radiant face that was raised to Louise a few moments thereafter, and the child's voice had a note of triumph in it.
"He took me," she said, simply. "I belong to him now. I did not understand it before; but it is very easy. He took me."
Could any elaboration make the story of the mysterious change simpler?
How do you think that older disciple felt about the matter of fruitage? Here had she been looking right and left of her for sheaves to take to the Master, and behold, just at her feet, a bud had grown and swelled and burst into bloom before she had even discovered signs of life! It taught her a lesson that she put often into practice among the lambs thereafter. It led her to remember that possibly his disciples of to-day often occupy unwittingly the position of rebukers, even while the Master's voice is calling, "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not."
Two hours thereafter they were down in the kitchen, Louise and Nellie; Louise had been called down by a message from a neighbour, and Nellie had followed. The errand despatched, the daughter-in-law lingered in the kitchen, her hungry heart looking for a bit of cheer.
Changes in the kitchen arrangements had involved the clearing out and reordering of a certain corner cupboard that day, and Dorothy, perched on a chair, was settling the upper shelves. Her mother, with a face that every hour in the day had grown harder, because of the conflict within which she was determined nobody should suspect, was sorting over boxes of spices, bags of dried seeds, papers of treasures. Dorothy found a niche which she believed would just receive one of the treasures, a large, old-fashioned, covered dish of china, dating back in its pattern for nearly a hundred years, and valued in the household, as such pieces generally are, for a dozen times their worth. She glanced about her. Louise had moved to the distant window, and was looking out upon the dull sky and earth. Her mother was absorbed and forbidding-looking. Little Nellie was standing very near the treasured dish, and her quick eye saw what was wanted, and her quick and eager fingers grasped the treasure.
"I'll hand it to you, Dorrie; you needn't get down."
"Oh no!" said Dorothy aghast, but not quickly enough. The small hands that were so anxious to help had seized it, and were safely bearing it forward, when the metallic voice of the mother came startlingly upon her.
"Nellie Morgan, put that dish down on the table this instant!"
Poor, startled Nellie, eager to obey, anxious to show her mother and Dorothy, and, above all, Louise, that she meant to do right, turned to obey; but, alas her nervous little hand measured falsely the height of the table, and she hit the rare blue dish against its edge, the treacherous cover toppled over, and—well, how did it happen? Who ever knows just how dire accidents happen? Such a second of time in which they do it all! What Nellie and the rest of the startled spectators knew was that the family heirloom lay in a dozen pieces on the yellow kitchen floor!
FOR the space of about one minute there was silence in the kitchen; then Mrs. Morgan, senior, advanced with swift steps and stern face, and caught the trembling Nellie by the arm and whirled her into the little bedroom near at hand, and closed the door with an ominous bang. Then, presently, there followed those sounds so absolutely unendurable to refined and sensitive nerves—rapid blows, mingled with pitiful pleadings for mercy.
I have often wondered whether, if those given to the administration of that sort of punishment could be lookers-on or listeners while another dealt the blows, it would not materially change their views of the entire question. Is it possible under those circumstances to avoid feeling a loss of respect for the administrator?—to escape from the notion that he or she is submitting to a self-degradation?
The two sisters looked at each other in dire dismay.
"Poor little Nellie!" gasped Dorothy at length. "She hadn't the least idea that she was doing anything wrong. How can mother punish her?"
Louise made no answer, because there seemed to her nothing that it was safe to say.
"Oh, mamma, don't, please don't!" wailed Nellie. "I didn't mean to do anything wrong."
Then did Dorothy's courage rise to the point of action.
She went swiftly over to that closed door, pushed it open, and spoke with eager, tremulous voice:—
"Oh, mother, don't whip Nellie; I know she didn't mean to do anything wrong."
"Dorothy Morgan!" said the firm, stern voice of her mother, never colder or firmer than at that moment, "Leave this room, and close the door immediately."
And Dorothy immediately obeyed. She always obeyed her mother; but is it probable that just at that moment she respected her?
Louise leaned her head against the rain-bespattered window-pane, and looked out into the dreariness, and waited; and Dorothy got back on her perch and leaned her head against the cupboard door, and wiped a distressed tear from her face with the back of her hand, and waited. It was not that either of those misery-stricken waiters feared injury to Nellie, at least not to the physical part of her. Mrs. Morgan was not in that sense cruel. They were well aware that the punishment would not be unduly severe; but, nevertheless, there was that miserable sense of degradation. Was it possible to avoid the conclusion that the mother was angry, and was venting the pent-up irritations of the day on her defenceless child? Each wail of Nellie's sank the mother lower in the estimation of daughter and daughter-in-law: the latter, realizing and struggling with the feeling, trying to reason herself into the belief that Mrs. Morgan must know what was best for her child, and with strange inconsistency trying to determine whether she could ever respect her again; Dorothy, not conscious of the name of the miserable feelings that held her in possession, but knowing that life seemed very horrid just then. All these phases of misery occupied little room in time—one's heart works rapidly. Quiet came to the little bedroom, broken only by an occasional sob, and presently the administrator of punishment came out, closing the door after her.
"Pick up those pieces and throw them away," was her first command to Dorothy. "One would have supposed you could have done that without waiting to be told. And don't climb up there again; I will finish the work myself. If I had done it in the first place, instead of setting you at it, I would have saved myself a great deal of trouble."
"Can't they be mended?" Dorothy asked, aghast at the idea of throwing away the bits of treasured blue china.
"No, they can't. I don't want my mother's china patched up—a continual eyesore; I would rather put it out of sight."
"Poor Nellie!" said Dorothy, stooping to gather the fragments, and astonished at her own courage; "she was so eager to help."
"It was not for trying to help that she was punished," explained the mother coldly—the very tones of her voice betraying the fact that she felt the need of self-justification. "She knows very well that she has been forbidden to touch any dishes without special permission; and the fact that she forgot it only proves that she pays very little attention to commands. And you, Dorothy, are trying to help her pay less attention. I was astonished at your interference! Don't let me ever see anything of that kind again."
And then Dorothy hated the blue china pieces, and would rather throw them away than not. Still Louise lingered in the kitchen, not because the atmosphere was pleasant, but because she pitied Dorothy, who was evidently much tried still; she could not go away and leave her, perhaps to be vanquished by the tempter.
It presently transpired that Dorothy had a new and fruitful source of anxiety. The early autumn night was closing in; the rain was increasing, so were the wind and the dampness. In the kitchen, Mother Morgan herself poked the fire and added another stick, and the glow and warmth that followed were agreeable; but the bedroom door was closed, and Dorothy was almost sure that the bedroom window was open, and occasionally there came a dry little cough from the little girl shut in there, that deepened the look of anxiety on the sister's face. Her mother grew more gloomy looking as the moments passed, but Dorothy ventured yet again.
"Mother, shall I shut the bedroom window?"
"No; let the bedroom window alone."
Presently the mother descended to the cellar, and Dorothy seized the opportunity to express her anxieties.
"Nellie will catch her death in there; she must be real chilly. It is growing damper every minute, and she has a cold now. What can mother be thinking of?"
Then Louise began to give attention to the dry little cough, and to grow anxious also. Debating the question for a while as to whether she would help or hinder by speaking, she finally determined to try; so she said, in as indifferent a tone as she could assume,—
"Shall I open the bedroom door, mother? Nellie seems to be coughing."
The mother faced round on her from the cupboard, where she was still working, and these were the words she said,—
"Mrs. Lewis Morgan, can I be allowed to manage my own family, or must I give it up to you?"
Then Louise went upstairs, and shut her door and locked it, and sat down in the little rocker so lately vacated by Nellie, and gave herself up to the luxury of tears. It was not merely this event, it was a good many little events that had been piling up during many trying days; and the night was chill, and the world outside was in gloom, and Lewis was away, to be gone all night, and for two nights to come, and it seemed to the young wife as though two nights represented years, and it seemed a long time since she had seen her mother, and she was sorry for poor, little, banished Nellie—and so she cried. She had some vindictive thoughts also; she told herself that this struggle to belong to the family, and be one of them, was perfect nonsense; and she had borne it quite as long as any human being could be expected to; Lewis would insist on a separate home whenever she gave the hint; what was the use in trying to endure this sort of thing longer? Mrs. Morgan had insulted her; why should she bear it? She would not go down to supper; she would not go down again to-night; she would send word that, at least so long as her husband was absent, she would remain in her room, and not irritate the mistress of the house by her presence. She would write to her mother, and tell her just what a hateful world this was, and how disagreeable a person named "mother" could be. She would go home, would start to-morrow morning, and telegraph Lewis to take the westward train instead of the eastern, and meet her there; and they would stay until Father Morgan was willing to give them, what was her husband's right, a spot for himself. To be sure, she meant to do none of these dire things; but it was a sort of luxury to go over them in her heart, and imagine what she could do, the sensation that she could create, if she chose.
This is one of the miserable snares with which Satan trips the feet of unwary saints, leading them to feel that to luxuriate in bitter thoughts, which they really do not intend to carry out, is no harm; letting them forget that by just so much is their spirituality weakened, and their communion with Christ cut off. It was in this case but a partial victory, for Louise, presently feeling the gloom of heart too much for her to struggle under, looked about for relief, and being used to seeking it but in one place, dropped on her knees and carried the whole dreary scene to Him who bears our sorrows and carries our griefs; and when, almost an hour afterward, she answered Dorothy's summons to tea, her face was serene and her heart at rest.
Nellie was at the table, a trifle more quiet than usual—albeit she was always a meek and quiet little mouse—her face a shade paler than usual, and her eyes disposed to seek Louise's with a questioning gaze, as if she would determine whether she had been considered naughty; but when Louise answered the question by a tender, reassuring smile, the little face became radiant.
I want you to do Mother Morgan justice. She was by no means cruel intentionally; she would not have kept Nellie in the cold five minutes had her nature realized the situation. Her own blood was fairly boiling in her veins; she could not have conceived of the possibility of anybody being chilled that day. She honestly believed Dorothy to be a simpleton, and Louise to be trying to interfere with her duties as the mistress of the family. Therefore she had no self-accusing spirit with which to meet her family at the tea-table; so she was self-poised and dignified. But Louise, in her half-hour of communion in the chamber of peace, had found strength enough to bear any amount of dignity, and carried herself sweetly and helpfully through the hour.
Into the gloom of that rainy night came a guest that dispelled all the dignity, and made each member of the unfortunately constructed household feel of kin. Louise was the first to hear it, even before Dorothy, that strange, hoarse cough, which has fallen in so many a household almost like the sound of earth-clods on a coffin, and which too often has been but the forerunner of that very sound. Louise had heard it from the little sister at home often enough, and understood the signal so well that it brought her to her feet with a bound; so that when Dorothy, a few moments later, knocked hesitatingly at her door, she answered with a quick "Yes, dear," and threw it wide-open, herself nearly dressed.
"O Louise! Do you hear Nellie? Isn't she very sick?"
"She has the croup, Dorrie. I am going right down."
And Louise searched rapidly, yet with the air of one who knew what she wanted and where it was, in her trunk for a package.
Dorothy shivered.
"O Louise! What if mother doesn't think there is much the matter with her, and will not do things?"
"I wouldn't borrow trouble, dear. Your poor mother is more likely to be overwhelmed with anxiety. Come down; we can find something to do." And she sped swiftly downstairs.
Whereupon Dorothy's courage returned. She followed suit, and immediately attacked the stove, and arranged kindlings with skilled fingers, and applied her match, and lifted on the large kettle, and filled it with water; while Louise pushed boldly into the bedroom, none too soon, for the white-faced mother sorely needed help.
It was a rapid and very severe form of that terrible disease, and there were no young men to hasten for a doctor, though anxiety lent haste to the old father's fingers, and he was even then saddling a horse with what speed he could.
"Have you tried hot water?" was Louise's first question, as she hastened to raise the head of the struggling, suffering child.
"No," said Mrs. Morgan, her voice expressing an anxiety that she could not conceal. "There is no hot water; and there isn't anything; and the doctor will never get here. There is no fire."
"Yes, there is," said Louise, who already caught its brisk snapping. "Dorrie is there; we will have hot water in five minutes," and she hurried to the kitchen.
"That's right, Dorrie; just a little water, so we can have it at once; then set the other kettle on, and fill it half full, and as soon as it heats fill up. And, Dorrie, get a tub; run for blankets. But, first, where's a spoon?"
"Have you the medicine that you use?" This to the mother, for she was back again beside her.
"No," said Mrs. Morgan again in that same distressed tone; "I haven't anything."
Then Louise produced her package, and untied it with rapid fingers.
"This is what my mother uses for my little sister."
Mrs. Morgan, senior, seized the bottle, gave one glance at the label, and returned it with a brief, decisive sentence, "Give her some."
And the already secured spoon was promptly produced and the medicine dropped, none too soon, for it was growing momently harder for Nellie to swallow anything.
Don't you know just how they worked, those three women, for the next hour, over that child? If I write for those who have had no experience in such suffering, where there is such dire need of haste, and where all remedies at times are utter failures, blessed are they, although Louise blessed the past hours of experience that had given her knowledge and skill for this night. Both were needed, for Mrs. Morgan's usually cold nerves were trembling, and a terrible fear of what might be coming blanched her face, and made her limbs tremble beneath her. She gave herself unresistingly to the lead of Louise and Dorothy; for Dorothy, the moment she found something to do, sprung into action and energy, and the hot water bath was ready almost before it had seemed possible.
Nellie, in the midst of her sufferings, had strength to greet Louise's coming with a smile; and, although it was hard work to speak at all, murmured, as the face of her sister recalled the earlier events of the afternoon, "He took me."
"What does she say?" asked the mother, her voice sharpened with pain.
Louise hesitated a moment; then, struggling to keep back the tears, answered steadily, smiling on Nellie,—
"She is referring to a little conversation which she and I had this afternoon. She gave herself away to Jesus, and she is telling me that he took her.—Yes, darling; I know he did."
A sharp cry, almost as from a wounded animal, escaped the drawn lips of the mother; then she gave herself with renewed energy to the work of fighting disease.
And the clock was watched eagerly, and the drops administered at just such moments; and the bath was replenished, and the rubbing of feet and hands went on, and the compresses were changed constantly; and, just as Dorothy, with a little gasp of relief, said, "There's the doctor!" as the sound of voices was heard in the hall, Louise and her mother-in-law said, in the same breath, "She breathes easier!"
"Well," said the doctor, after the patient had been examined, and the drops from Louise's bottle looked into, and the questions had been answered, "you have really done all there was to be done, and the little woman is past the crisis for to-night; but it was a tough case, I guess. That medicine works like a charm sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't. It helps, though, where there is hot water, and speed and good judgment to supplement it."
The Morgan family were not likely to forget the experiences of that night. To each member of it they had been peculiar. No one knows, or at least can describe, the emotions which tugged at the heart of the father, as he galloped through the gloom of that night, not knowing but that the death angel, who evidently hovered near, would have gone away with his youngest born before he could get back to her. No one, perhaps, but the Searcher of hearts will ever know what the mother felt as she strained every nerve to hold back the destroyer, and yet thought she saw his grim steps approaching. Through all the swift working and swift thinking, the strongest feeling of Louise's heart had been pity for that mother. All the events of the dreary afternoon photographed themselves before her with startling distinctness. What must they be to the mother? Swiftly as she worked, and entirely as she seemed to give her mind to the needs of the hour, with every motion there went up a prayer that the Great Physician would, for the mother's sake, speak the word of healing; and presently there went up the prayer of grateful acknowledgment. Fair little Nellie, as she lay back at last, white and exhausted with her hard hours of suffering, seemed possessed with something like the same feeling of pity for the mother, but she gave it expression in a way that almost broke that mother's heart. Putting up her weak little hand as the mother bent over her, she patted tenderly the white, wrinkled cheek, and said, in the most loving and penitent of tones,—
"Dear mamma, I didn't mean to be naughty."
Then, indeed, the strain that had been upon the mother's heart, not only for that afternoon, but for days and weeks, gave way suddenly, and with the bitter cry, "O Nellie, don't!" she burst into a passion of tears.
A SECOND time in her life did Mrs. Morgan, senior, seek her daughter-in-law's room. Not unsolicited, however. Louise, all unknowingly, planned the way for an easier approach.
"Mother," she said, toward the evening of the day that followed that night of watching, "won't you just slip up to my room and lie down for an hour or two? You look so tired, and you know you had no rest at all last night. Dorrie and I will take the best possible care of Nellie; and, indeed, she looks so bright as to hardly need care."
This invitation had been repeated at intervals during the day; but Mrs. Morgan, though not repellent in her manner, had steadily resisted every suggestion, and yet had seemed not ungrateful for the thoughtfulness.
"Perhaps I will by-and-by," she had said to Louise's last suggestion; but it was an hour afterward, when Louise had despaired of her success and had sought her room, that Mrs. Morgan tapped at her door.
"That is good," the daughter said briskly. "Let me bring a cover and arrange the pillows comfortably, and you will get a nice rest before Nellie misses you."
"Wait," said Mrs. Morgan, arresting Louise's quick steps; "don't fix the bed. I have not come to lie down; I don't feel like resting; I want to talk with you. Sit down here by the fire. I suppose I need your help. I need something—I don't really know what. I have been having a very hard time."
"I know it," said Louise, quick sympathy in her voice. "Last night was a heavy strain. But you can safely rest now, she is so much better. I never saw any one rally so rapidly."
"I don't mean that. My hard time did not begin last night. I don't feel sure that I can tell you when it began; away back. I have made some of my hard times, I can see that. I have been disappointed in my children. John disappointed me, long ago; I had ambitions for him, I had plans, and everything happened to thwart them. I felt hard at Lewis sometimes because he seemed to come in the way; and I felt hard—well, at everything. I have thought that his father did not treat him just as I would have done if I had been a father. So I have just gone through life, being out of sorts at everything."
"For a while after you came here I had hopes that John would take to you, and that he would come out all right; and when I saw how much stress you laid on prayer, I began to feel glad that you were praying for John, and to sort of expect that good would come out of it. Then you know how awfully I was disappointed, and how things went from bad to worse. Then after he went away it seemed to me as though my heart turned to stone. I didn't feel as though I cared much for the other children, and I didn't want to. Dorothy provoked me, and Lewis provoked me, and you provoked me worst of all. I have grown harder and bitterer every day; I was rebellious at God; I thought he had treated me badly. I got down on my knees once and prayed for John; and I said to myself that He ought to have heard me, and he didn't, and I couldn't forgive him."
"Then came last night. I was hard on my poor little girl. I didn't punish her hard, I don't mean that. I just gave her three or four slaps, which, if they had been given in sport, she wouldn't have minded. It was her heart that I hurt, and I knew it. I knew at the time that I was punishing her unjustly. The child didn't mean to be disobedient—didn't know that she was; but I had been having a dreadful day, and it seemed an actual relief to have some escape for my bitterness. So I whipped her. But I have been punished for it. Last night was an awful night! If she had died I believe I should have lost my reason. And I thought she would die; I believed that God had sent for her in retribution. Yet I cried to him. I told him I had been bitter and severe and rebellious, and was yet; but that if he would spare my baby I would try to serve him—I would do anything that he told me. Now he has taken me at my word when I didn't expect it, and I am a woman who has always been noted for keeping a promise. I mean to keep this one, but I don't know how. I don't even know what he wants of me. It seemed to me that you ought to know, and to be able to tell me, so I have come to you for help."
Throughout the telling of this story Louise had not interrupted by word or movement; but long before it was concluded the sympathetic tears were dropping on her mother's hand. Directly the steady, unnaturally quiet voice ceased, this servant of Christ was ready with his message.
"O mother, what he wants of you is to lean your head upon his bosom, and tell him all your fears and cares and disappointments, and let him whisper to you, 'Daughter, be of good courage.' He loves you, mother, and he loves John, and Nellie, and all your flock. He wants to save you all in his everlasting arms, and bring you, an unbroken family, to his Father's house. I believe he will do it. And in return he asks your love; and you know, mother, when we stop to think of it, it would be simply impossible to help loving one who waits to do all this for us and ours."
Mrs. Morgan looked at her daughter with grave, earnest eyes, and slowly shook her head.
"It may not be possible for you to help loving him, but I don't feel a bit of love in my heart. It feels as hard as flint. I believe that he is willing to do a great deal for me, and yet I don't seem to care."
"Mother, tell him so." Louise's voice trembled with the earnestness of her desire. "He is unlike any other friend. To a human friend we could not go, saying simply: 'I know I ought to love you, but I don't. Show me how.' But to the tender Saviour we can come with even this story. Mother, do not wait to feel as you think you ought. You have promised to serve him. You say you mean to keep the promise; then just give yourself to him. Be sure he will accept the gift, and fill your heart with joy in return."
"But, Louise, that would be simply mockery. He asks for love, and I cannot love him. I feel as though I had no love for anybody."
Louise shook her head. "No, if you are sincere you cannot mock him. He made the heart. You cannot make your heart love him, but you can resolve to give yourself to him, to obey his directions, to follow his voice, and I do assure you he will see to all the rest. Will you keep your promise?"
Then there was silence. Mrs. Morgan was evidently puzzled, as well as painfully embarrassed. The way was darker to her than it had been to Nellie. She had not the faith of a little child to rest upon.
"How much does the promise mean?" she asked at last "What would I have to do?"
"It means everything," said Louise solemnly; "you would have to do just exactly as God directs. He has promised to guide you, and you are to promise to be guided every step of the way; to have no will of your own, to lose your will in his. Will you do it?"
"But if he directs what I cannot do?"
"There is no possibility of such an 'if,' mother; he will be sure to give the power to do, with the command. Unless you mean 'will not' by 'cannot,' there is nothing in the way. The world is full of people who say, 'I can't,' when in their hearts they know they mean 'I won't.' But you are an honest woman; you will not say I cannot to God, knowing that you could, if you would. Mother, will you redeem your promise? See here; your little Nellie sat in that chair where you are only yesterday, and she knelt beside me and prayed this prayer,—"
"'Here, Lord, I give myself away;'Tis all that I can do.'"
"When she arose from her knees she said, 'He took me.' Will you use Nellie's prayer, mother? If you will, I am sure you will receive her answer. Will you kneel down with me, now and here?"
I cannot assure you that the daughter's faith was strong; she was startled at her heart's own beating, and a great deal of the emotion was the result of anxiety. It was evidently the turning-point in Mrs. Morgan's life, but how would she decide it? Would she kneel down and deliberately give herself away to Christ, even in this darkness, declaring that she had no love in her heart for him? Louise was afraid; and the silence lasted. She did not know what else to say; she was afraid to speak again, so she kept silent. But, oh, how her heart sped to the throne with its errand. How she blessed the King that at this crisis hour she had not to wait to petition for an audience, and then await his leisure. Instead, without introduction or explanation, she pressed her petition: "O Jesus, save her now." Again and again, and yet again, were these desires presented; and thinking of it afterward, it seemed to her that almost she felt the presence of the Angel of the covenant, and whispered yet again in his waiting ear, "I will not let thee go." And so strong grew the feeling, that when suddenly, in the quiet and the darkness, the little rocker was pushed back with a resolute hand, and her mother-in-law went down on her knees before it, Louise, not surprised now, slipped down beside her, and immediately changing the tone of her prayer, said aloud,—
"Dear Jesus, here is this soul come to redeem her promise; she is going to give herself to thee now, to be thine for ever; she is going to follow wherever thy hand points the way. Now, Jesus, accept the covenant, and write her thine, even as thou hast promised."
And then again from that room, only a trifle over twenty-four hours away from its yesterday's baptism, went up the solemn words, Nellie's little prayer,—
"'Here, Lord, I give myself away;'Tis all that I can do.'"
The tones were firm, broken by no emotion; strong—they might almost be said to be stern. In truth, it was an iron will that was bending now; but there was fixed purpose in the act. If the will was hard to bend, it never seemed to bend when there was no reality. When a strong oak bows low before unseen power, it is evident that there is power. Only those words were spoken, then silence. Louise waited, praying softly. Then again she broke the silence, sealing the offering with a solemn, tender prayer of petition that the Lord might now reveal his smiling face to the waiting soul. Then, almost alarmed at the stillness, lest the tide of feeling might be too much for the wearied body of this iron-willed woman, she arose. Mrs. Morgan quietly followed her example, and sat down again in the little chair. To Louise's heart it seemed unwise to speak more words. Presently she said,—
"Mother, you will rest here now a while, won't you? I will go down to Nellie, and when she awakens and wants you we will call immediately. I have made the bed comfortable, and perhaps you will have a chance to get a nice rest. Will you have a light? No?" as Mrs. Morgan shook her head. "You like the fire-light best; then I will make it just a little brighter."
And she stirred the embers and added another stick; and then with soft step she went back to the little chair and touched her lips for just one second to the mother's cheek, then slipped out and left her.
Only a few moments Mrs. Morgan sat, as if spell-bound, gazing into the glow that sprang up on the hearth. Then she roused suddenly, and went over to the door and turned the key in the lock; but instead of going toward the bed, she went back to the little chair and bowed before it on her knees.
Already had this woman, with her first words of actual self-surrender, felt a touch of the mighty Hand that leaves its impress on the heart. She could not say now, what she had fifteen minutes before, "I cannot love him; I feel as though I had no love for anybody." She did not understand what to name the strange new feelings that were surging through her heart. Thus much she could say, what she never in her life had been able to say before, "I want to pray." And so she dropped on her knees, and the old, and ever new, and continually repeated miracle of transformation went on. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." Why do not the honest unbelievers apply the test of the Lord's own promising?
"What is the matter?" Dorothy asked, in tones half-startled and wholly wondering, as Louise came once more to the little bedroom.
"Nothing. Why?" Louise asked, smiling as she took her station beside the pale little face on the pillow.
"I don't know; you look—I hardly know how—a little as though you had seen an angel."
"Perhaps I have." This with a glad light in her eyes and a bright, reassuring smile.
Then came the father to look in on his sleeping baby, and to ask of Dorothy in a half whisper,—
"Where is your mother?"
"I don't know," said Dorothy, turning inquiring eyes on Louise, who answered,—
"She is up in my room, father, resting."
"Resting!" Father Morgan repeated the word, wonder and almost terror in his voice. Rest was something that Mother Morgan never took. The word seemed foreign to her nature. Even when she slept you hardly thought of her as actually resting. "She must be sick!"
"Oh no, she isn't; I think she feels better than usual. She will have a nice rest, and be down presently."
And then the farmer turned and looked wonderingly at his daughter-in-law. He detected the minor tone of music in her voice, and he noticed the brightness in her face. It was always a bright face, but here was positive joy. What was there to be joyful about? Father Morgan did not define this questioning feeling, neither did he think of angels. He had not been reading about the shining of Moses' face after his communion with God, as Dorothy had; but he told himself, for perhaps the thousandth time, that "Lewis had an unusual kind of a wife, somehow."
It was verging toward midnight, and Farmer Morgan was asleep on the old settee in the parlour, when Mrs. Morgan opened the door quietly and came in.
"Did you get any rest, mother?"
It was Dorothy who questioned, while Louise looked up quickly.
Her voice was in its usual calm, but was it imagination that made it seem to Louise as though the peculiar, hard ring had gone out of it?
"Yes," she said, "a good rest; better than any that I ever had in my life. You girls may both go to bed now. I would just as soon sit up all night as not." And then she looked at Louise and smiled.
"What were those words Nellie said to you last night?"
This to Louise a little later, as Dorothy moved about doing last things for her mother's comfort.
"She told me that 'He took her.'"
"It is a strange thing, but I believe he has taken her mother too. Good-night, and God bless you."
And then Mother Morgan deliberately folded her arms about Louise and deliberately kissed her twice before the astonished eyes of Dorothy. She had just come in from the kitchen to petition,—
"Mother, couldn't you lie down beside Nellie and sleep, and let me stay awake to watch her?"
"No, Dorothy, I don't need it; I am rested. I have found such rest as I knew nothing about. Louise will tell you."
It is very strange that between a mother and a daughter kisses should have been so rare a thing that for Dorothy to feel one on her cheek made the rich blood roll into it in waves, and she was utterly bewildered still, until she heard Louise repeating, "'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Mother has just been to him with his promise, and received its fulfilment, Dorrie," she said. And as they went up the stairs together, she added, "Dorrie dear, I believe you and I could sing the long-metre doxology with good effect to-night. Meantime, dear, don't let us for one moment let go of John."
Ah! But stronger arms than theirs had hold of John.
You think that the progress in the Morgan family has been unusual; that the fruit has been more than the earnest Christian has a right to expect? Have you ever tried it—ever given one year of patient endeavour and constant prayer to the work which lay all around you? If not, how can you possibly know what the results of such a year might be?
I do not say that Louise Morgan had faith equal even to a grain of mustard seed; if she had, she would have seen greater mountains than these removed. I have told you frequently of her discouraged questioning, "Why?" but such faith as she had the Lord honoured, and as much real prayer as she was able to send up into the golden vials he kept before him.
I desire you to distinctly understand that from the hour when Mrs. Morgan kneeled before the little rocker in Louise's room and gave herself unconditionally to God she was a different woman. I am not in sympathy with those who say that conversion makes no radical change in character; that a person who is selfish or passionate or penurious before conversion is selfish or passionate or penurious after conversion in the same degree. Conversion is change of heart; and a heart given up to the reign of Christ, the supreme desire being to please him, will, at the outset, be a very different heart from one that was given up to the reign of self.
Mrs. Morgan's changed heart showed in her life; showed promptly and decisively. On that very next evening, after tea, with Nellie among the pillows in the rocking-chair that had been brought from Louise's room for her use, the mother said: "Now, Lewis, I have made up my mind that I want family prayers in this house after this, and on Nellie's account we will have them right after tea, if it is just as well for you.—Dorothy, get mother's Bible. Sing a hymn, if you like, before reading. I like singing, if I can't help; and your father used to be a good singer when he was young." Farmer Morgan made no remark upon this change in the family arrangements. If he was surprised, he gave no sign. It is probable that she had been talking with him about it—his wife was a straightforward woman—but Lewis's voice was very unsteady as he commenced the solemn hymn:—
"Now I resolve with all my heart,With all my powers, to serve the Lord."
It seemed to him almost too wonderful and blessed a thing to be true, that those words should actually embody the resolve of his mother's heart! Besides, he had another reason for unsteadiness of voice: in his heart was an absorbing desire to have his father understand and adopt that language. I have not had a chance to say much about Lewis Morgan during these latter days; but I can give you the history of his life in brief. He had reached that point where the history of each day was in the morning, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and in the evening a note of triumph,—
"How sweet the work has been!'Tis joy, not duty,To speak this beauty:My soul mounts on the wing!"
And then the consecration,—
"Lord, if I may,I'll serve another day."
And when a Christian reaches such a plane as that, it is what a blessed saint of God describes as "the graded road."
How I would like to linger over those autumn days, to tell how rich they were; what a spirit pervaded the home that had never been there before; how mother and daughters drew together; how they established one afternoon a little female prayer-meeting, where mother, and Louise, and Dorothy, and little Nellie prayed in turn for John, such prayer as reached after him and drew him steadily though he knew it not; how in that meeting they prayed constantly, persistently, with a measure of faith, for the head of the household, and watched eagerly for sign of life in his still soul, but as yet saw none; how they enjoyed the rides to church, and to prayer-meeting on Wednesday evening; how Mother Morgan, who had never been used to going anywhere of an evening, astonished them all by making ready as a matter of course, answering Dorothy's wondering look by the sentence: "Of course I am going, child; I need all the help I can get." All these, and so many more experiences, I would like to give you in detail; but time will not wait for me—the days fly past.
They bring us to a certain evening, cold without, but very pleasant upstairs in Louise's room, whore Dorothy was lingering with her brother and sister, having a confidential chat, as she was now so fond of doing. They had grown to be wonderfully in sympathy, these three.
"Dorrie," Lewis said, "what do you think about a district prayer-meeting this winter? Don't you believe we could sustain one?"
Dorrie flashed a pair of glad eyes on her brother.
"Of course we could; there are enough in our family to sustain it, with Carey Martyn's help. Isn't Carey splendid, Lewis?" Dorothy sometimes said this, or something equivalent, several times in a day. "Where could we have one? At the school-house? How could we warm it? Could we furnish wood, do you think? Of course we could, if father would think so, and I guess he would."
Lewis laughed. "You take my breath away," he said pleasantly, and then the three laughed into eager talk about the district prayer-meeting. From that they went on to individual effort and individual cases.
"What about the Graham girls?" Lewis asked.
"Well, the Graham girls are progressing steadily. I'm wonderfully interested in Delia.—Have you talked with Delia, Louise? Don't you think she is an unusual girl?"
Then Lewis laughed again.
"You think each one of those girls is unusual, don't you, Dorrie? I think I have heard you make a similar remark of half-a-dozen of them."
"Well, they are remarkable, every one of them, to me. I didn't know they were such girls. They are getting on nicely with their grammar, those Graham girls are, and are so interested in it. Mr. Butler thinks they would have been fair scholars if they had had a chance."
"You would make a good teacher, Dorrie," Lewis said, his mind evidently more on Dorrie than on the girls of whom she was talking.
Cheeks as well as eyes glowed now.
"Do you think so, Lewis—do you honestly think so? I would like it so much. Since I commenced studying this last time I have thought about it a good deal. At first I thought I could not prepare myself without going away from home, but that was before I knew what a wonderful teacher I had at home." This last sentence with a loving glance toward Louise, and a caressing movement of her hand over the fair hair. At that moment the clang of the old-fashioned knocker sounded through the house. Dorrie arose promptly.
"I suppose that is Mr. Butler," she said, stopping a moment before the glass to arrange her hair. "He was to come in this evening to see about the German class. Shall I speak to him about the district prayer-meeting? or you will come down presently, will you not?"
To this they assented, looking after her as she went from the room with quick, eager tread.
"Speaking of changes," Lewis said, "how wonderfully that girl has changed! I don't think I ever saw anything like it before. Don't you think she develops very rapidly?"
"It is steady growth," Louise said. "But I am not sure that there is so much actual change in her as there is development. She evidently had plenty of energy always, but it was slumbering; she did not know what to do with it. I think she was in the apathy of disappointment when we first came home."
"She is certainly a remarkable girl," Lewis said, "and I never knew it. I believed her to be more than ordinarily commonplace. Now it seems to me that the influence she has gained over the young people in a short time is really wonderful. I'm glad she has an ambition to become a teacher. I believe she will be a good one. Louise, don't you think Mr. Butler will be helpful to her in the matter of perfecting her education?"
"I think he has been helpful in many ways, and will be," Louise said, with smiling eyes.
Downstairs in the kitchen Mrs. Morgan sat before the table, certain unused implements before her—namely, pen and ink and paper. She had resolved to spend this evening in writing to John; not that she knew where John was, only that she imagined that the great city, such a little distance away, probably held him. She knew no address; she had simply decided to send the message out, addressed to John Morgan, in the forlorn hope that the chances of life might put it in his way. True, it was extremely doubtful, but then what if it should happen! And the mother's heart within her thrilled at the thought, and she bent over the paper and carefully commenced her letter; she had wonderful things to tell John!
Farmer Morgan dozed in his chair behind the stove. He opened his eyes when the knocker clanged, and kept awake long enough to discover that Dorothy appeared to answer it, then dozed off again.
"It is Mr. Butler," Dorothy said, appearing again to exchange the candle for the lamp, which now belonged to the front room. "Louise and Lewis will be down pretty soon. Will you come in, mother?"
"Not to-night; I am very busy."
Then the writing and the sleeping went on, Dorothy returning to the brightness of the front room. Writing was slow and laborious work to Mrs. Morgan; besides, this was an unusual letter, upon a subject entirely new to her; she wanted to choose her words with special care. Farmer Morgan, enjoying his many naps in the cozy corner, was unmindful of the flight of time. Lewis and Louise in their room, enjoying the delights of a quiet hour together, roused presently to the fact that they were expected downstairs.
"That couldn't have been Mr. Butler," Lewis said, glancing up at the clock. "Dorrie would have been after us before this time if it had."
"Perhaps they are busy over their German," Louise made answer. "But we ought to go down, Lewis; father must be tired of waiting. Mr. Butler is probably gone before this; I did not know it was so late."
But in the kitchen the writing and the dozing were still going on. Mother Morgan, flushed with her unusual exercise, looked up as the husband and wife entered.
"Where is Dorrie?" Lewis asked, speaking low, so as not to disturb his father.
"She is in the front room with Mr. Butler," the mother said. "Mr. Butler came in a few minutes ago; Dorothy said you were coming down to see him."
"A few minutes ago!"
Lewis and Louise exchanged glances of puzzled surprise. It was an hour and a half by the clock since they had been expected in the parlour, and it was an hour past the usual bed-time. But the slow-moving pen moved on, and so Lewis turned the knob of the parlour door. The two occupants of the room were standing near the large, old-fashioned fireplace, engaged in earnest conversation, the glow of lights and shadows in the room revealing, on Dorothy's part, a flushed face and shining eyes, and on the minister's an attitude that arrested Lewis's steps, and caused an exclamation to escape his lips even before he was aware; for he held in his two hands Dorothy's own, and the light in his eyes and the flush on Dorothy's cheeks were not caused by the play of the fire-light.
"Come in," he said, turning suddenly at the sound of the opening door, but in no other way altering his position: "Dorothy and I were just speaking of you, wishing for you; we want to ask your advice. I want Mr. and Mrs. Morgan to give me a present. I incline to the opinion that I had better ask for it to-night, but Dorothy counsels waiting until to-morrow; what say you?"