"Dorothy!" said her brother, and he could not himself tell whether his tone meant surprise, or doubt, or what. "I don't understand!"
And the red glow that instantly overspread Dorothy's face told that her old feelings of embarrassment were taking rapid possession of her; she could not explain.
"It is a simple matter." The minister's voice was unembarrassed and dignified. "I have asked Dorothy to be my wife, and she has said 'Yes.' There remains now the asking for her of the father and mother. I had hoped that you would not be displeased at the news."
Then did Lewis Morgan recover the use of his wits. Amazed he was, but plain English, as briefly and plainly put as that, was not to be misunderstood. He waited to close the door after Louise, then went forward in hearty fashion holding out a hand to each.
"I was very much astonished," he said; "I am sure I may be excused for that. Who had imagined such a thing! But to say that it is not a glad astonishment would not be true."
As for Louise—women, at least some women, know what to do even when they are very much astonished, and Louise was not that—she went forward and put both arms around Dorrie, and gave her tender, sisterly kisses, on the flushed cheeks and glowing lips.
"I thought," said Lewis suddenly, a few minutes thereafter, the first feelings of bewilderment having subsided, "I thought, Dorrie, that you had an ambition to be a teacher."
"She has," said Mr. Butler, answering for her promptly and laughingly. "I have engaged her; but the school is a private one, number of pupils limited to one."
IT is not my purpose to detail to you what was said in the Morgan family when the astounding revelations connected with that evening in the parlour were made known to them. That the revelations were astounding you can hardly doubt,—at least to certain members of the family. The father and mother would hardly have been more amazed had an angel from heaven descended and claimed their daughter Dorothy for a friend. Not that they regarded the young minister in an angelic light; but they had, although they did not admit it even to themselves, much stanch loyalty of heart to the profession. A minister was a person to respect, not so much on account of himself as because of his profession. Farmer Morgan felt this. Sneer as he might, in a sort of good-natured, tolerant way, at the inconsistencies of Christians, ministers included, he never went beyond certain general phrases, and he disliked to hear others go even so far as that. Besides, Mr. Butler had grown into the genuine affections of this family. They did not know it. Farmer Morgan would have been amazed had anybody told him that he liked Mr. Butler very much; he would have been likely to think the person mistaken; yet it was true.
As for the mother, along with her respect for the minister, and a certain sense of satisfied pride in the fact that he had actually sought her daughter for a wife, came a feeling of utter astonishment that anybody wanted Dorothy. Why, Dorothy was nothing but a child. The idea of her being married! She looked at her in a kind of maze; for several days she studied over it and tried to understand it. It had never seemed to occur to her to look upon this daughter as one growing into a woman. She had seemed to stay somewhere in the region of twelve, or at best fourteen; a girl to be directed and managed; to be told peremptorily what to wear, and where to go, and where not to go; in short, a child, to obey unquestioningly—an older child than Nellie, of course, but after all a child.
Now, in the space of one night—so it seemed to the mother—she had sprung into young ladyhood, nay, sprung over it entirely, and stood on the very verge of womanhood! Engaged to be married! What an unaccountable state of things! Dorothy actually planning to go away from home—to be gone over night, many nights, every night Dorothy to have a home of her own, to be a housekeeper, a planner, a manager! To be a minister's wife! The story grew in strangeness. The mother turned on her pillow, overwhelmed with it. She arose in the morning with a strange sense of bewilderment: she looked doubtfully at Dorothy in her brown calico, the same brown calico that she had worn every morning that week, looking much the same in every respect, and yet by a certain light in her eye, and a certain spring in her step, and a certain throbbing of her mother's heart, known to be not the same for ever.
Look at the matter from whatever standpoint you may—let the circumstances be as favourable as they will, let the congratulations be as sincere and as hearty as possible—there is always a sad side to this story of life. It speaks of great and ever-increasing change; it always has its heavy corner in the mother's heart. Still, the new order of things worked well for Dorothy. If the mother was sad, she was also glad. As I said, there was a sense of satisfied pride about it; also, there was that feeling of added dignity in being the mother of Dorothy, albeit at first the sense of respect for her that came with it was nearly overpowering. Almost it seemed to her that it was hardly the thing to send the prospective wife of her minister down to the cellar after the bread and the butter, and to skim the cream! Gradually this absurd part of the feeling wore away; but the fact that Dorothy was a young woman, and not a child, was to be consulted and conferred with, and in a measure deferred to, remained, and was helpful not only to Dorothy but to the mother. The year that followed would be one that mother and daughter would like in future years to look back upon and remember.
Lewis was unaffectedly glad and thankful. Mr. Butler had grown rapidly in his regard—all the more rapidly since he had awakened to the fact that he was not merely a critic, but a fellow-worker, bound by solemn vows to work with and sustain his pastor. That his sister Dorothy should be the chosen one filled him with astonishment, but since she was chosen he was glad; and every day he grew more fully of the opinion that Mr. Butler was a sensible man, and had made a wise choice. He had underrated his sister nearly all her life; he was almost in danger of overrating her now; but that is such a pleasant and easily forgiven failing, and withal such a rare one between brothers and sisters, that I find myself liking Lewis the better for possessing it.
As for Louise, she was a woman, a young one, with wide-open eyes and sympathetic heart: she was not surprised at all. Matters had progressed more rapidly than she had expected. She was even a trifle sorry that Dorothy had not gotten just a little further on with her German before her teacher turned into her lover, because she much feared that there would be little German taught or studied now; but then she reflected that possibly the lessons he had to teach were more important than German. At least the matter was in no sense of her planning, and the studies in which she was teacher, and in which Dorothy had made such rapid progress during the year, should still continue; and so, all things considered, Louise was glad.
I find myself lingering longer over this explanation than is needed. I designed to tell you of something else—of a winter evening near to Christmas time when, the farm work for the day being all done, the early evening had closed in upon the Morgan family, and found them in the bright, clean kitchen, at their substantial supper-table—a cheery group. Somehow this family was learning to have social suppers and cheery times together. The account Lewis was giving of a matter of interest that had occurred in the village was interrupted by a decisive rap at the outside door.
"Another tramp?" said Lewis inquiringly, as Nellie slipped from her corner and went to answer the knock. "This is the third one to-day, isn't it? Those fellows are growing more plentiful."
"Strange that they straggle away out here," the mother said. "I should think they would stay in large towns."
And then Nellie gave a startled little exclamation, possibly of terror, or perhaps only of surprise, but it caused each member of the household to turn suddenly in the direction of the door; and then they exclaimed—not in terror, certainly, for there was nothing in the young man to awaken terror, but they were too much excited to analyze the tone of the exclamations. The mother was on her feet and at the door, and while the others stared and waited, and knew not what they said nor how they felt, the mother had both arms around the intruder, and her lips for the first time for years and years to his cheek, and her heart cried out,—
"Oh, my boy! My boy!"
Now, I am sure you do not expect me to tell you what the Morgan family said to each other and to John for the next ten minutes. They do not know themselves; they could not recall afterward how they acted, nor what were the first words spoken, nor who, after the mother, spoke first. And if I should tell the tale, the probabilities are that it would sound strange and unnatural, the words, trivial in the extreme, unsuited to the occasion. It is even a chance if the speakers thereof would not declare, "I don't believe I said any such thing; it doesn't sound like me." Such scenes are better left untold. The heart-throbs, and the quivers of lip and chin, and the glances exchanged from wet eyes, cannot be described, and have much more to do with the matter than mere words.
Thus much Dorothy remembered; that after the first surprise was subsiding, before even it had time to subside, she made haste to the pantry, and coming thence with knife and plate, motioned Louise, who had taken the hint, further to the left, and arranged for John his old seat near his father, and set his chair and said, "Come, John;" and then all settled into their places again. And Farmer Morgan remembers it now with a curious, half-ashamed smile how he filled John's plate full to overflowing with the cold beans that he remembered he used to like, and then, unmindful of what he did, reached forward and added another spoonful after the plate had been passed. Well, what mattered it, whether expressed in beans or some other way, so that the heart made known the fact that it wanted to give even to overflowing to the son who was lost and is alive again. The familiar sentence hovered through Louise's mind, "Was he alive?" She looked at him stealthily, tremblingly, while Lewis talked. His face looked older, much older; worn and grave, not hard; the eyes were clear and steady, and his dress was that of a cleanly, respectable working-man. But how much hope was there that he would bring gladness with him to the old home—a gladness that would stay?
"Well," John said, pushing his chair forward so that his face was more in shadow, and the tone of the simple little word sent that thrill of expectancy through the family group which comes in unison with a feeling that something important is coming. This was after the tea-things had been cleared away and the room had assumed order and quiet. Not that there had been much bustle about the work that evening. Mrs. Morgan had done what was for her a surprising thing: she pushed her chair back from the table and sat still during all the moving to and fro from pantry to cellar, unmindful, for the first time in her life, as to whether the milk went down in the right pitcher or the bread went down at all. Louise and Dorothy had moved softly, had set back chairs noiselessly, and dried cups and plates without a sound, so as to lose no syllable of the conversation. But it was not until they were seated that John spoke that little preparatory word.
"I have a long story to tell—a very long one. I don't know where to begin or how to begin; only this, I have made up my mind to strike into the middle of it first, and to say to you, father, and to you, mother, that I want you to forgive me for everything that is past in my life that has hurt you; and I know that is a great deal. I want to tell you that I have begun life again—begun at the beginning. In short, I feel that I can honestly say, 'This your son was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found.'" And he turned to his mother with a smile that evidently she understood.
"Did you really get my letter?" she asked him, her voice so full of eagerness and so unlike herself that Louise could not avoid a wondering look.
"Yes," John said, "I did;" and he launched at once into the details of the series of apparent accidents which had brought him his mother's letter. "I was signing an acknowledgment of a package received for Mr. Stuart, and I had to sign my own name, so that in case of loss, you know, it could be traced to me. As I wrote my name, the carrier, who stood by, said, 'There has been a letter lying in the office up here at Station D for a person of that name. I remember it because it has neither street nor number—just the name and the city. We thought it was intended for John Y. Morgan, the mason, but he brought it back to the station; said it was none of his; said it commenced, "My dear son," and the two people who used to commence letters that way for him had been in heaven for a dozen years.'"
"I don't know what made me go after that letter," said John, after a moment's silence, his voice broken with feeling. "I am sure I had no reason and no right to expect that it was for me; but it seemed to me that I must have it, and I went for it. And, mother, that letter brought me home. There were certain things that I meant to wait to do before I came—money that I meant to earn. I had an idea of waiting until I could feel that my coming would not disgrace you. But after I read that letter I knew I ought to come right away, and after I had so decided, I could hardly wait for morning. Now, mother, father, will you take me back? Will you let me try to be to you the son I ought to have been, and never was? I don't know that I should dare to say that to you, only that I have been to my heavenly Father and found out how he can forgive, and I have found that he says, 'Like as a father pitieth his children,' and 'As one whom his mother comforteth.' And that has given me a notion of what father and mother love are. And then, mother, that letter of yours—I went down on my knees before God with it and blessed him for it."
They were crying now, every one of them save Farmer Morgan, and what he felt no one knew. He drew out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose twice, then he leaned forward and snuffed the candle. When he presently found voice it was a husky one; but all he said was,—
"We won't talk about them days that are gone; I guess the most of us are willing to bid good-bye to them and begin again. There's a chance for improvement in us all; like as not we better try for it."
The Morgan family actually sat up that night until nearly eleven o'clock. It was an unprecedented thing for them to do. I cannot tell you what they said; I even doubt much whether I would if I could. Do not you hate to see some things attempted on paper? A little of the commonplace mixed in with it? In fact, I doubt whether there could be a true home scene without touches of what we call commonplace coming in between. For instance, in the course of the evening Louise bethought herself of the little dismantled hall chamber, and slipped away and brought comforts, and quilts, and cover, and pure linen, and towels, and wrought with rapid hand until the room took on a sense of home and occupancy again. She even went for the tidies and the vases to make it all seem as he had left it. Then she climbed to the upper shelf and got down that Bible, and I am unable to tell you what a rush of glad emotions swelled in her heart as she thought of the tender way in which John had quoted those two Bible verses, and remembered that that Bible would be to him now something besides a cumberer.
Down in the kitchen the mother, her heart filled with the most precious thoughts that ever throbbed in a mother's heart, remembered suddenly that John had been very fond of a certain kind of cake, and while he and Lewis talked, and the father, with his elbows leaning on the arms of his chair and head bent forward, listened as though ten o'clock had not been two hours after his bed-time for more than half a century, the mother gave undertone directions to Dorothy to sift flour, and "bring a yeast-cake, and a little warm water, and the big yellow bowl, and the batter-spoon, and a little salt," and with skilful fingers, and such a light in her eyes as the yellow bowl had never seen before, prepared to make the breakfast table abound with good cheer. These commonplace reachings-out after to-morrows that make good cheer for the home are certainly productive of results that dignify them.
I find myself liking to linger over that evening in the Morgan household. It was such a wonderful hour to them—something which settled down into their lives as a history—a time from which they dated. Years afterward they said, "The moonlight to-night reminds me of that evening when John came home, you know," and then silence—such sentences never used save to that innermost circle and those who in after years grew into the circle and had a right to the family histories. Yet there is little to tell about it. How very often that is the case where there is much, so very much, to feel. One train of thought, intimately connected with it, ought to be told.
There was that in the evening's history which silenced Mr. Morgan—which bewildered him. Hitherto he had professed to be, and, in fact, I think believed himself to be, a sceptic as regarded the fact of a supernatural change in human hearts. Conversion, he believed, meant simply firm resolves, decision of character, will-power. Louise was, by natural temperament and by education, different from most others; so, in his way, was Lewis. Thus Mr. Morgan had reasoned. Dorothy needed waking up, and Louise and Lewis and Mr. Butler between them had waked her up. The change, sudden and great in his own wife, had bewildered him not a little. She certainly had always possessed will enough. But he told himself, "After all, what had she done but determine to be interested in the Bible and in the church and all that? All it needed was determination." Now, here came his strong-willed son—so strong, indeed, that his will had been his one great source of trouble even from babyhood. As a wee boy he had hated to give up one inch. He had been unable to say, "I am sorry," or, "I won't do so again," or, "Forgive me," or any of the penitent phrases which fall so readily from baby lips. A scowl and dogged perseverance in his own way had been characteristics of John's babyhood. Now, what power had brought him home to say not only, "I was wrong," but "Forgive me; I want to begin again"? John saying, "Father, mother, forgive me"—saying it without being ordered or compelled by the force of circumstances! His father was staggered. Here at last was something—some strange change that could not be explained by any force of will whatever, save by admitting that something—somebody—had changed the current of the will-power.
"I believe," said Father Morgan to himself, as late that night he sat down on the edge of his bed and slowly and thoughtfully removed his boots, while Mother Morgan went to see if John did not need another coverlet,—"I believe in my soul that somehow—I don't know how, but somehow—God has got hold of John."
JUNE brought the roses and Estelle—herself the fairest rose among them all. There had been much planning in the Morgan household preparatory to her coming. Many things had changed in the farmhouse since Louise first came home to it—subtle changes many of them were, too slowly brought about to be recognized as changes; new ways, slipped into gradually, insensibly; little refinements, touches here and there; trifles every one of them, and perhaps the only method of proving to the family what a difference they made in the home would have been to have dropped suddenly back into the old ways for a week. That experiment no one seemed inclined to try. Louise took great pleasure in making the large old-fashioned room, with its quaint furniture, into a very bower of beauty for the sweet rose that was to bloom there, and smiled joyfully when she thought of what blissful surprises the wealth of June flowers and the smell of June clover would be to the city maiden. Many a plan she had for Estelle, many a hope having to do with this two months' sojourn in the farmhouse—hopes, however, that were not indulged without anxious little sighs being woven in among them.
She had hoped so long and waited so eagerly and in vain. She told John about it one evening, as they sat in the vine-covered porch together, waiting for Lewis and Dorothy to have done with the problem in algebra that was vexing the latter.
"John, I have such a strong hope that you will be able to help Estelle this summer; it has a great deal to do with my joy in her coming."
John bestowed anxious eyes on her for a moment, and was silent. Presently he said,—
"Once I should have thought that you were saying that for effect, but I have learned to know that you never say things simply for effect. Having said it, you must mean it; so it makes me anxious. I cannot see how it would be possible for me to influence your sister in any way, to say nothing of the folly of hoping to help her; I don't understand what you can mean."
"She isn't a Christian, you know, John."
"I know, and I understand that it is about such help that you speak. But what puzzles me is, how you could possibly expect that anything which I might do or say could influence her when she has had you all her life."
"That is easily explained," Louise said, smiling. "In the first place, you are in the mood just now to overrate my influence over people. I have some with Estelle, but that it is not great is plainly shown in the fact that, in this most important of all matters, she has chosen her way and I have chosen mine, and we have walked separately for a good many years. Don't you know, John, that sometimes the people whom we meet but once, with whom we really have very little to do, are given a word to say or an act to perform that shall influence all our future lives?"
"Yes," John said, with sudden energy and emphasis; he certainly knew that as well as any person could. And his thoughts went immediately back to the fair young girl who had held out her hand, and whose winning voice had said, "Won't you have a card?"
"Well," Louise said, "I cannot help hoping that the Holy Spirit will give you a word or look that will influence Estelle. It doesn't seem to me that I can have her wait any longer."
There were tears in her eyes. Then John felt savage toward Estelle; he said to himself that he didn't believe he should be able to endure her; she must be a little simpleton. To have grown-up under the influence of such a sister, and yet to have deliberately chosen a course that would grieve her, argued ill for her heart or her sense or something. Altogether, though he desired to help, Louise was not awakening very hopeful sentiments toward helpfulness. There was a good understanding established between this brother and sister. For that matter, the reconstructed household understood each other well during these days—had begun to realize something of what the family relation meant.
John was certainly "a new creature in Christ Jesus." It is not always that the new life has so plain a chance of showing itself as his former life had given. No Christian doubted the presence of the unseen Guest who had come to abide with him. As for the father, while keeping absolute silence in regard to the matter, he kept also keen eyes, and told himself, a dozen times a day, that "whatever had come over John, he was another person." By slow degrees the Morgan family had settled into definite plans for the future—plans that were not matured without some soreness of heart, and even, on Louise's part, a touch of tears. The giving up of future prospects of usefulness in the church had been a trial to Lewis, and the giving up had been done by inches. At last, however, it had been made plain that, if he would keep what health and strength he had, he must be content with an active outdoor life. This settled beyond probability of a change, the father was found entirely willing to loose his hold on John, and give him, what had been the desire of his heart, a medical education. At least, he said that for this reason he was willing. Those of the family who watched him closely strongly suspected that there was very little that the father would not have been willing to give John during these days.
The father, in himself, was somewhat changed. There were other things that he was willing to do. For instance, he invited Lewis, one bright winter day when they happened to come home together, to take Louise out and pick out the spot where he would like to build a house, and they would see what kind of a one could be built one of these days. Now, strange to say, the desire to have a home of their own was less intense than it had been. They talked it up; they said it would be "nice," in fact, delightful; and then, in the same breath, Lewis wondered what mother would do when Dorothy went away; and Louise wondered whether Dorothy wouldn't need her help right there at home for the next year or two; and finally, though they made no objection to picking out the site, and even planned the house—built it, indeed, on paper a good many times—still they unanimously agreed that nothing definite could be done about it until spring. The truth was, the necessity for a home by themselves was not so apparent to this young couple as it had been. Now that spring, yes, even summer, was fairly upon them, the question of house came up again, brought forward by Farmer Morgan himself.
"Not that I am in a hurry," he said, with a little embarrassed laugh; "in fact, I hope it will be about five years in getting built, and you five more or so getting moved. I've no notion of what this house would be without you; but what I'm after is, I've made up my mind it is your right to have your own house, and I mean you shall have it."
So the house was a settled fact; and Lewis and his wife were undeniably pleased, yet nobody hurried. The necessity for haste in the matter was past.
So, as I say, they had journeyed into June, when Estelle was to make her first visit at the farmhouse. She was to have come the summer before, but home matters had detained her; and Louise, as she arranged roses in the white vases of her room, rejoiced that it had been so, and smiled over the different dress the home and family wore from that which they would have worn to Estelle only a year before. These were the closing touches to the adornments; for Lewis had already gone to the train to meet his sister, accompanied by Dorothy and little Nellie. Louise, under plea of escaping from the afternoon sun, declined the ride; in reality, feeling not sure of herself, lest when she got that bright young sister in her arms again she might not disgrace the welcome by crying outright. Who would have supposed that the months of separation would have stretched themselves out so! Louise was to have gone home certainly in a year from the date of her departure, and yet she didn't. It often happens in this world that, with all our planning, our lives move in exactly different lines from what we have prepared. So Louise had really never looked upon the face of her beautiful young sister since that morning when she became a bride. It is surely not much wonder that her heart beat hard at the sound of carriage-wheels, and it seemed to her, for a moment, that she could not get down the stairs.
It was not until just as daylight was fading that John came to be introduced to the new-comer. He had planned differently; but unexpected business had detained him at the village until a late hour, then he had taken his supper alone, and came to the piazza to meet Estelle, just as they were about adjourning to the house.
"Come," Louise said; "these insects must be shut out and you must be shut in. Oh, here comes John."
At that moment Dorothy brought the large lamp, and the glow of it fell full on Estelle's face. John had decidedly dreaded this ordeal. His life had been spent so much in shadow that there were certain creations before whom he was unreasonably timid—among these were young ladies; and to meet one, too, whom he was expected to help was formidable. Still, John's strong point was decision of character. What had to be done was to be done promptly, and with as little appearance of shrinking as possible. So he advanced boldly and raised his eyes to Estelle's fair, bright face. But instead of the greeting, in every way cordial, which he had planned, he gave Estelle the benefit of a prolonged astonished stare; and at last the words, uttered in an explosive tone, as by one from whom they were forced by astonishment, were,—
"You are the very one!"
"Of course," said Estelle, mischief shining in every line of her beautiful face; and, nothing daunted by this strange greeting, she held out her hand cordially, while Louise looked on amazed. "Did you think I was somebody else? Shake hands, won't you?"
"Is it possible that you remember me?" John said at last slowly, as one awakening from a dream, and then looking from her to Louise, then back again to her, studying the two faces like one who had been puzzled, but who had just found the answer to his riddle.
"Not in the least," Estelle said promptly. "I don't think I ever saw you before in my life; but since you seem to be acquainted with me, I thought I would be friendly."
"You have seen me before," John said, recovering his natural manner, and giving the small white hand a cordial grasp; "and it is your resemblance to Louise which gave me such a vivid impression of your face and so strange a feeling of having seen you before somewhere."
Then Estelle laughed. "What an idea!" she said gaily. "I don't look the least in the world like Louise, and never did; and, what is more trying, I am not in the least like her, as you will find to your sorrow. Where did you see the being whom you think I am? I'd like to have a glimpse of her."
Nothing but bright, thoughtless mischief in voice or manner; but John was still earnest and eager.
"Louise," he said, turning to her for sympathy, "isn't it strange that it should happen so? She is the very young lady who gave me that card on that miserable and memorable night, and invited me to the meeting."
A vivid blush overspread Estelle's face. She had given some curious thoughts to the forlorn specimen of humanity whom she had invited to the meeting; it was the only attempt she had ever made at evangelistic effort, and it stood out in her memory. She had commented upon his appearance to her mother; she had given a laughing description of him to her young friends. Now it seemed a most improbable thing that this well-dressed, nice looking young man and her forlorn tramp were one and the same!
"Are you an adept at masquerades?" she asked at last. "You certainly played the character of a woe-begone street wanderer to perfection; or else you are doing the well-dressed young man very well. Which is the assumed character?"
Viewing it from John's standpoint, there was no comical side to this episode in his life. He answered her with intense gravity,—
"The street wanderer was a real, and certainly a sufficiently dreary, wanderer; he thought himself a hopeless case; but he will never cease to thank God for sending you to put out a rescuing hand that night."
The flush that had been fading from Estelle's face became vivid again; how was she going to jest with one who took matters so solemnly? She did not know what to say to him, and turned away embarrassed. Now indeed was John roused. Intensity was a part of his nature; what he did at all, he did with all his might. Louise, looking on, anxious as to what this revelation would effect, was presently satisfied that it had roused his interest in her as nothing else could have done. The fact that the one who had been the direct means of bringing him into the light of Christ was herself walking in darkness filled him with pain.
From that hour he fixed upon her as the subject for his constant prayer; he brought her before his Master only as one can who has learned the sweetness of being a servant of Christ, and who longs to call in others. Now and then a word with her, as opportunity offered, but the most of his strength spent on his knees.
It chanced that on the way to the district prayer-meeting, which, by the way, had been started, and which had flourished. John was Estelle's companion. It was really the first time he had seen her alone. He had not to waste time in trying to make up his mind to speak to her on the subject; he was eager to speak.
"I was so surprised," he said. "I had been so accustomed to pray for the one who gave me that card as one would for a saint almost. I had not thought of the possibility of your not being a Christian."
"And now all those prayers have been lost—so much wasted strength! What a pity!" Estelle did not really mean to be wicked, although her tone was mischief itself. She had accustomed herself to parrying personalities on this subject in some such jesting way; the usual effect was to shock into silence the person addressing her, and so give her freedom for the time being. She did not even mean irreverence; she meant simply fun, and to be let alone. John, however, was not used to sparkling nonsense in conversation. Since he began to converse at all, he had talked nearly always with earnest people, and been tremendously in earnest himself. So he answered her as if the remark had been made in all gravity.
"No, I don't think that; for of course God know just where you were, and he accepted the spirit of the prayer. But isn't it strange that with Louise for a sister you have lived so many years without Christ?"
Louise was a person about whom Estelle did not jest; she could be flippant to her, but not about her, so to this sentence she had no answer at first but silence; then she rallied.
"Come now, isn't it strange that with Lewis for a brother, and Mrs. Morgan for a mother, you lived so many years without paying any attention to these things? Didn't you ever hear that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones?"
"Ah, but," said John eagerly, "I didn't believe in it; I didn't think there was any such thing as conversion, nor any reality in religion. I was a fool, to be sure, but I was an honest one; I really didn't believe in these things. But you had a different bringing up. My mother is a young Christian, you know. You had no such doubts to trammel you, had you?"
"No," said Estelle slowly, reluctantly obliged to be truthful before this truthful young man; thinking of her mother, of her father, of her sister Louise, she must say, "No."
"Then why haven't you been a Christian these many years?"
"I don't know."
"Then why don't you be one now?"
"I don't know."
John was betrayed into an exclamation not unlike the half sneer with which he used to express his entire disapproval of an act, and his tones were very significant as he said, "Seems to me if I were you I'd find out."
Estelle was silent; this to her was an entirely new way of approaching the subject. This grave young man gave her some thinking to do. She had had her bit of scepticism to struggle with, albeit she did not know it by that name. In her heart she had believed that some persons were by nature religious in their youth; mamma was, and Louise was like her. Mamma said that Louise, when just a baby, would lie quiet by the hour to be read to from the Bible; while she, Estelle, never lay quiet at any time for anything but sleep. She was not by nature religious, she argued; some time, when she was old and gray-haired, it would become natural to her to think about these things. Some people were called in their youth, and some in later life; it must be that she was designed for a middle-aged Christian. Into the face of this theory came John—young, keen, intense, fierce by nature, as irreligious by nature as a man could be, as far-away from even outward respect for the cause as a scoffer could be. Louise, whose intuition had shown her somewhat of this reasoning, had taken pains to explain in detail John's past life and John's intense nature. Here was a problem that Estelle must work out for herself; that she had begun to work at it was evidenced by her grave, sincere answer, "I don't know."
IT is not because there is not much concerning the Morgan family which would be pleasant to me to tell that I pass in silence a stretch of years. It is simply that the lengthening chapters remind me it is high time to have done with them; and yet there are certain things that I must tell. Therefore it is that I drop you into the midst of June roses again, after a lapse of five busy, earnest years. Back at the old farmhouse, which really was not the old farmhouse at all; and yet it was—that is, it was in a new dress. A corner had been put on here, a bay-window there, a piazza at the south side, and a wide old-fashioned porch at the east, until really the house would not have recognized itself. Within, not a single room, from the yellow painted kitchen onward, remained the same. Was this the new house, planned years before? Well, not exactly. The new house was built, and built with the bricks and mortar, just as it had been planned on paper, and a gem of a house it proved to be; but its location was next to the church, in the village, and Dorothy and the minister were the occupants.
"It isn't exactly a parsonage," Father Morgan said, "and yet it is; at least the minister lives in it, and is welcome to, of course, for it belongs to his wife; but if another minister should come in his place, why then I suppose it couldn't be called a parsonage."
At present there is no prospect that another minister will come in Mr. Butler's place. The people like both him and his wife. That is a strange statement, I am aware—almost an unnatural story; and yet every one knows that there are a few parishes left in which the people continue to stand by a faithful pastor even after a lapse of years. Dorothy had certain advantages. To be sure, Mr. Butler had done what is supposed to be an unwise thing—married the daughter of one of his parishioners; but it will be remembered that in her early girlhood she had almost no acquaintances with the people of the village. She had not mingled with them in any capacity. They knew no more of her character, and almost as little of her life, as they would have done had she lived a thousand miles away; and, somehow, the one whom they used, on rare occasions, to speak of as "that Morgan girl," seemed to the people an entirely different person from their minister's wife, as in truth she was. So, as if to verify the promise about "all things working together for good," the very obscurity in which Dorothy had spent her girlhood worked well for her in her present sphere. So Dorothy reigned in the new house, and ruled it well, and her mother had grown used to looking upon her as a married woman and a housekeeper, ay, and a mother.
Lewis Morgan had not a little to do with the successful ministrations of his brother-in-law. When he, after his period of mental depression and discouragement, rallied at the time of Dorothy's conversion, and tasted anew the joy of working for Christ, he took what perhaps I may reverently term a new lease of spiritual life, and gave himself up to joyful service, since which time he had been eagerly busy for the Master, the refrain of his song still being, "How sweet the work has been!" Imagine what such a wide-awake, prudent, faithful Christian could be to a pastor. Imagine the alert eyes he could have to the needs, and the wishes, and the whims of the people. Imagine the kind suggestions he could offer to a pastor younger than himself, who not only thoroughly respected, but loved him as a brother. Certainly Lewis Morgan, heavy though the cross had been to give up what is called active work for Christ, was yet as active in his way, and perhaps fully as successful, as though he were from the pulpit preaching the gospel. I make that distinction because Lewis Morgan, in his class, in the prayer-meeting, in his daily life, was assuredly preaching the gospel.
The renovated farmhouse was still large enough for the two families. Yet the new house—the other new house—was in process of building. Louise's plan again. One of the prettiest of houses; but that too was in the village, and it was planned with special reference to the needs of Dr. John Morgan. Yes, he was going to settle down in the little village. No, I forget; the word "little" really does not apply to it very well. It had, during these years in which I remember I have said almost nothing about it, sprung into life and growth, aided by the junction of another railroad, and a large machine-shop; and Dr. John had accepted a partnership with the gray-haired physician who had held the practice in village and on hillside for miles around during the space of forty years. Just as soon as the new house was finished and furnished (and it was nearly done), he was going to begin housekeeping.
Every cheery, sweet-smelling room in the Morgan farmhouse had a sort of gala look on this afternoon of which I write. They were such pretty rooms! I wish I could describe them to you—simple, quiet-toned, in keeping with the wide-stretching green fields and the glowing flowers, and so pretty! Bright, clear carpets, in tasteful hues and graceful patterns; muslin curtains, looped with ribbons to match the carpets; easy-chairs, nearly every one of them of a pattern peculiar to itself; wide, low couches, with luxurious pillows, inviting you to lounge among them; books and papers and pictures in profusion; Louise's piano and Louise's guitar in convenient positions, and Louise's tasteful finger-touches everywhere. Who can describe a simple, pretty room? It is easy to tell the colour of the carpet, and the position of the furniture; but where is the language in which to describe that nameless grace, speaking of comfort and ease and home, that hovers over some rooms, and is utterly lacking in others?
Upstairs, in the room that was once Louise's, and which she had vacated now for the more sunny side of the house, special care had been exercised. It was a fair pink and white abode; the carpet was a sprinkling of pink moss-rose buds on a mossy ground; the white curtains were looped with pink ribbons; the cool, gray furniture, of that peculiar tint of gray that suggests white, was adorned with delicate touches of Louise's skill, in the shape of moss-rose buds that matched the carpet; the toilet-stand was a mass of delicate white drapery, through whose thinness a suspicion of pink glowed; and the very china had been deftly painted in the same pattern; easy-chairs and large old-fashioned rockers occupied cosy nooks, and Louise, her face aglow with merry satisfaction, had adorned them with the veritable tidies which she had brought from home as a bride, or with others made after a like pattern, to look like the identical ones. She was arranging real roses with unsparing hand in the mantel vases, on the little toilet-table, wherever she could find a spot for a vase to stand. Then came Nellie and stood in the door—herself a vision of beauty—in flowing curls, and spotless white garments, made after the latest and most approved fashion for young misses of thirteen, and with a flutter of blue ribbons about her, from the knot fastened in some deft way among the curls to the dainty bows perched on her slippers. She made a little exclamation, indicative of her happy satisfaction in the appearance of all about her, and Louise turned.
"Will this do for a bride?" she asked, her smiling eyes taking in Nellie as a very satisfactory part of the picture.
"It is too lovely for anything," Nellie said in genuine girl parlance; "and it looks just exactly like Estelle."
Louise laughed; she had been thinking something very like that herself. Don't imagine that I think I have startled you now with a bit of news; I have given you credit for penetration enough to have surmised, long ago, that the gala day was in honour of a coming bride, and the bride none other than Estelle herself. I did not propose to say much about that; such things are so constantly occurring in all well-regulated families that you would have been stupid, indeed, not to have foreseen it.
Louise did not, however; she had been as blind as a bat about it, though the old story was lived right before her very eyes. Glad eyes they were, however, when they took in the facts. Louise loved her brother John. Was he not the one whom God used at last to bring her darling Estelle to a knowledge of his love?
"Louise," said Nellie, coming back to commonplaces as soon as the eyes had taken in all the beauty, "mother wants you. She wants you to see if you think the table looks overloaded, and whether you think the turkey platters haven't too much dark meat on them, and half-a-dozen other things that I have forgotten; won't you come right away?"
"In three minutes," said Louise; but she had hardly time to attend in person to all these important matters when Nellie's voice shouted through the house,—
"There they come! There's the carriage; it has just driven through the archway. Oh, I wonder what John thought of the archway!"
When I tell that it was decorated with evergreen, on which there glowed, in roses arranged by Nellie's own fair hands, the words, "Welcome Home!" you will be sure that John liked it. Then the family gathered on that south piazza to greet the bride and groom. The aroma of coffee was stealing through the house, and the spacious dining-table, spread its entire length in the large dining-room, did almost look burdened with its weight of dishes for the wedding-feast.
Mother Morgan tarried to cover a cake-basket before she hurried to the piazza. Give one moment's time to her. Her face had grown younger; it was smooth and fair, and set in calmness. Her dress was a holiday one of soft, neutral-tinted silk, and her white lace cap, which Louise's fingers had fashioned, was wonderfully becoming to her pleasant face. Dorothy had seated herself, matronly fashion, in one of the large easy-chairs with which the piazza abounded, for the fair bundle of muslin and lace bobbing around in her lap was too restless to admit of a standing position, although admonished thus: "Do, little Miss Louise, sit still, and receive your new auntie with becoming dignity."
Little Miss Louise's papa had just dropped her ladyship out of his arms, and gone forward to open the gate for the family carriage, which, with Lewis for driver, was just emerging from the shade of the evergreens. At this moment came Father Morgan from the small room at the right of the piazza, with a pompous specimen of three-year-old boyhood perched serenely on his shoulder. He was John Morgan, junior, and liked no place so well as his grandfather's shoulder. The carriage wound around the lawn, and drew up before the piazza door, and they all—father, mother, sisters, and baby—went down to meet it. And as Estelle's bright and beautiful face, a little matured since we first knew her, but rarely beautiful still, appeared in view, and her eager arms were thrown around Mother Morgan's neck, that lady, as she heartily gave back loving kisses, said, in a voice which I am not sure you would recognize, so little have you known of her in these latter days,—
"Welcome home, my daughter!"
I wonder if I have told you that the carriage contained others beside the bride and groom? Louise had not forgotten it, for her own father and mother were actually come to pay the long-promised visit. It had been arranged that they should meet the young couple returning from their wedding trip and travel with them homeward. Louise had been home several times in the last five years, but father and mother were just fulfilling a long-made promise to visit her; and here at last were they all gathered under the Morgan roof, the two families unbroken.
They went to the spacious dining-room, and sat them down to the bountiful wedding-feast; and among them all only two had vivid recollections just then of the contrast between that home-coming and the greeting that was given Louise and Lewis on that winter night. Mrs. Dorothy Butler remembered it, it is true; but such important matters had filled Mrs. Dorothy's mind in the intervening years, and everything was so utterly changed to her, that she much doubted sometimes whether she really had not dreamed all those strange earlier experiences, and only lived through these later years. To Estelle the house was new, of course, and really handsome, and everything was delightfully improved. But Estelle did not know that hearts and faces had greatly improved. She could not imagine Mother Morgan in her straight calico without a collar; she could not see John in his shirt-sleeves, his pants tucked within his boots, as Louise saw him in imagination at that moment.
Ah! There were sweeter contrasts than those. When the bright evening drew to its close, Nellie wheeled the little centre-table close to her father's chair, and set the student lamp on it. And Farmer Morgan opened the large old Bible which always had its place of honour on that centre-table, and read: "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies." And then Farmer Morgan said, with reverent voice, "Let us pray," and the two families, brought together by ties that reach into eternity, bowed together, and Father Morgan commended them all to the care of the God whom at last he and his house served.
They talked about old times just a little, the next morning, both upstairs and down. Louise, lingering in Estelle's room, listening well pleased to her lavish praise of all its adorning, said suddenly,—
"Do you remember this, Estelle?"
"Yes; indeed I do. The very tidy that Fannie Brooks made for your wedding present; and there is that white one I made. O Louise, isn't it funny? Do you remember my asking you what you were going to do with all those tidies?"
"Yes, dear. I told you I would find use for them, and you see I have. Do you remember, also, that you assured me that morning how impossible it would be for you ever to leave papa and mamma and go away with a stranger as I was doing?"
"Well," said Estelle, with an amused, half-ashamed little laugh, "I didn't go away with a stranger; I came with John. You see I didn't know him then."
And again Louise wondered what she would have said of him if she had.
Downstairs, an hour or so afterward, she lingered in the sitting-room to say a few loving words to her own dear mother, and while there Mother Morgan passed the piazza windows, young John by the hand, he loudly discoursing to her as to the beauties of a certain insect which she was being dragged by his eager hand to see.
"Mother spoils him," Louise said, with a complacent laugh, as the boy's shrill voice floated back to them. "She will go anywhere and do anything that he coaxes her to."
"The idea of mother SPOILING anybody!" said Dr. John, with incredulous voice and laughing eyes.
"Well, she certainly does. I suppose all grandmothers do."
Then she went about the pretty task of straightening the books and papers, and restoring the sitting-room to its yesterday's freshness.
"I am glad mothers don't spoil their children," her mother said, satisfaction in her voice, as she watched Louise moving among the disordered elements, bringing order out of confusion.
"I didn't spoil her, did I, Lewis? What a lovely home you have had here all these years! I am glad you have demonstrated the folly of the saying that no house is large enough for two families. How could anything be better than the arrangement which you have here? Mrs. Morgan was telling me this morning that when you talked for a time of going to housekeeping it almost made her sick. I'm very glad you didn't. Little John gives Louise care enough without the responsibilities of housekeeping; though your mother says, Lewis, that she takes a great deal of care from her. I think she has rather an exaggerated opinion of you, Louise; perhaps she is trying to spoil you."
"She is a remarkable little woman, you will have to admit," Lewis said, in a half-laughing tone, but regarding his wife with eyes in which she saw earnestness and tender feeling. "I am glad you brought her up so well, mother; there are not many who would have succeeded with the problem of two families in one house as she has done."
"Yes," said the mother emphatically; "and then there is another thing to be taken into consideration. She had unusual surroundings. Anybody can see that your mother is an unusual woman. Probably Louise's experience has been exceptional. I really believe at heart that there are not many houses large enough for two families. I trembled for Louise. I used to watch every letter critically for signs of failure. You see I did not know your father and mother. I did not feel so anxious about the father; they always get along well with daughters-in-law if the mothers do. But I worried a good deal, unnecessarily I can see now. Still it is, after all, an exceptional case. Don't you think so?"
Lewis turned slowly round from the mantel against which he had been leaning and regarded his wife with a curious look—eyes that were brimming with a mischievous light, and yet had behind the light a suggestion even of tears. His voice, when he spoke, had also that curious hint of pent-up feeling.
"Yes, it is an exceptional case. Very few daughters-in-law have such experiences. I do consider my mother an unusual woman, and my wife an unusual wife. And I tell you in all honesty, mother, that we of the Morgan family thank God every day of our lives for the vine from your branch that was grafted into ours."
THE END.