CHAPTER VII.MORTAL MINDTherefore, when the blow fell and Sherman had written her a letter, not daring to see her, telling her as gently as he could, but with an air of finality which there was no mistaking, that the mortgage on Guildford had been bought and foreclosed by Colonel Yancey, and therefore, in his opinion, it was lost to the Lees for ever, Carolina realized for the first time how tenacious had been her hold on the hope of possessing it. In an instant, with her woman's instinct, she saw what it had taken years for Sherman to discover. Colonel Yancey had, as Carolina found, learned that it was Captain Lee's and Carolina's dearest wish to restore Guildford. The two men had talked intimately. Both were Southern, although Colonel Yancey was a Georgian, but with the confidence in each other's integrity, which is typical of most Southern men, and which has led to the ruin of many an honest man, Captain Lee confided his hopes to Colonel Yancey, who profited by them to secure Guildford for himself, and thus gain a hold over Carolina.It was so easy to do this, in the most ordinary business manner, with Sherman both unsuspicious of him and his sister's love for the place, that at times Colonel Yancey almost had the grace to be ashamed of himself.Carolina saw the whole vile plot, and the shock and disappointment put her fairly beside herself. She was so sure that she had got at the root of the matter that she at once disbelieved that part of Sherman's story which said that Colonel Yancey was a fugitive from justice. If he had cheated this syndicate, he had done it in such a manner that it left no illegal entanglements, and she was sure that he was free to return to this country whenever he chose. If not, her whole theory fell to the ground, for she knew that Colonel Yancey would not dare to offer her a reputation which the law had power to smirch.It never was Carolina's way to wax confidential, but one day Kate surprised her in a particularly desperate mood. Carolina was in her habit, waiting for her horse to be brought around, and when Kate entered, she was walking up and down the peaceful blue and silver boudoir like an outraged lioness."It's no use, Kate!" she cried, when her friend began to remonstrate. "I have come to the end of my rope. You don't know the truth because I have been afraid to tell you. You couldn't have understood if I had told you. Even if I should sit down now and spend a whole day trying to explain why I adored Guildford and why I am so upset over its loss, at the end of the time you would only shake your head and say, 'Poor Carolina,' without in the least understanding me. No one ever did understand about Guildford except dear Daddy, and since he died, I've been afraid to let even God know how much I wanted it, because I knew if He did, He would take it away from me! He takes everything away from me that I love! That is His way of showing His vaunted kindness. He is indeed a God of vengeance! He punishes His children as no earthly father would be mean enough to do. Oh, I won't hush! But the end has come, Kate, to even God's power to hurt me. I have nothing left for Him to take. Let Him be satisfied with His revenge. I wouldn't care if He took my life now, so He is practically powerless! He has reached His limit!""Oh, Carolina!" almost screamed Kate. "Do be careful how you blaspheme! Goodness knows I am not religious, but I am a member of the Church and I am not wicked!""You have never suffered, Kate, or you could bear, not only to hear, but to say worse things than I am saying. If you only knew how much worse my thoughts are!""But you will be punished for them, Carolina! I--I don't like to preach, but God always sends afflictions to those who defy Him!""I wouldn't care if He killed me!" cried Carolina, furiously. "I have nothing left to live for. I hope I shall never come back alive from this ride!"When she had rushed from the room, leaving that terrible wish in Kate's memory, Kate shivered with apprehensions."Something awful will happen to Carolina!" she muttered. "I never knew it to fail!" But her eyes filled with tears. "What if I had to bear what she has!" she thought. "Loss of father, mother, home, and fortune! Poor girl! Poor girl!"She had intended to go out, but some inner voice told her to wait. Carolina's dreadful mood and reckless words haunted her. She went restlessly from room to room, and anxiously listened for sounds of her return. And so keenly was she expecting a misfortune that when the telephone-bell rang sharply, it calmed her at once."It has happened!" she said to herself, as she flew to answer.The message was that Carolina had been thrown from her horse and dragged. They were bringing her home."I knew it!" said Kate. "She was in too awful a mood to wear spurs with Astra. I ought to have made her take them off."Carolina was still unconscious when they brought her in. Kate caught a glimpse of her still, white face as they carried her up-stairs. She waited with feverish impatience for the doctor's verdict, with her mind full of Carolina's awful words. "I knew it!" she kept whispering to herself through a rain of tears. "God always gets even with people who dare Him to do His worst!"It seemed hours before Doctor Colfax finally came out, with his refined face full of pain."Is she dead?" whispered Kate, catching at his arm. He shook his head."Disfigured?" continued Kate, with growing anxiety."Worse!" said the doctor. "She has broken her hip badly. Even if she recovers, she will be lamed for life!"Kate covered her mouth to repress a scream.Beautiful Carolina lamed for life!"Crutches?" whispered Kate."I am afraid so!" said the doctor, with a deep sigh. "I am going to have a consultation. We will do everything we can to preserve her health--and her beauty, poor child!"Kate turned away in a passion of tears, well knowing that to Carolina's proud spirit dependence would be far worse than death.Bad news travels on the wings of the wind, and before the day was over Carolina's accident was on everybody's tongue.Her sister-in-law was indignant, in a sense outraged by Carolina's behaviour. She blamed her first of all for existing in her radiant youth and beauty and so far outshining her own modest charms. She blamed her secondly for permitting Sherman to lose her money and thus make it Addie's duty to offer her a home. She blamed her thirdly, and most bitterly of all, for injuring herself so hopelessly that she could never marry, thus placing herself upon Addie to support for life. Was ever a more unkind fate invented? Addie's temper, never of the best, burst all bounds as this situation became plain to her, and she expressed herself fluently to Sherman, who felt himself included in her misfortunes as part author of them.It was an unhappy time for all concerned, for Carolina's bitter denunciations of her fate and her grief over her dependence could hardly be checked even in the presence of Kate and her family, whose hospitality and friendship, so generously offered, put the girl under at least civilized bonds of restraint. There were times, however, when she was alone, that she relapsed into such a savage state that she tore her hair and bit her own tender flesh.The sight of such rebellion reduced even Kate's mutinous nature to peace and quiet by contrast, and Kate was developed into a gentle friend of Christian sentiments by Carolina's great need.The conversations they held with each other were long and intimate. Kate tried to put faith in the series of doctors who succeeded each other like chapters in a book, but the sufferer's clear eyes saw not only through Kate's kind intentions, but through the great surgeon's hopeless hopes, and from the first she knew the worst. Knew that her bright youth was for ever gone; that her usefulness was ended; that never again could she expect even to ornament a social function, crippled as she was and disfigured by ungainly crutches. Her one hope was to die. Thus she made no effort to recover, and her strength, instead of aiding her, gradually faded away until her accident, though not at first of a fatal nature, began to be looked on as her death-blow.At this juncture, Addie, struck with remorse, came and offered Carolina a home, but Carolina shook her head."Thank you, Addie, but when I move from here it will be to rest for ever. I want to die here with Kate. She loves me!"It was a bitter thrust, and Addie felt it to the verge of tears. Indeed, she was so moved by pity for the frail shadow that Carolina had become, that she forgave the girl for having been so beautiful and began to be fond of her, as one is fond of a crippled child, who had been obnoxious in health.Trouble develops people.Mrs. Winchester was detained in Boston by the dangerous illness of the niece she had gone to visit, and although greatly fretting at being kept away from Carolina, was fairly obliged to stay.Carolina felt that she was welcome at the Howards, for not only Kate's mother but her father often came to sit with her and cheer her and to urge upon her how glad they were to be able to help her when she needed help.Carolina was grateful, the more so because she felt that she had not long to live. She had been in bed several months, and while the surgeons said the broken bones had knit, yet it was agony for her to move. She almost fainted with pain when they were obliged to lift her from one position to another.Kate spent hours in trying to interest her in the life around her. She felt frightened when she discovered the depth of Carolina's listlessness. Her weakness took a stubborn form."I am only one of the crowd now, Kate dear," she said one day after a long argument from her friend. "There is no use in wasting so much energy over me. Go and forget me and enjoy yourself. I used to be of the exclusive few who got their own ways always. Now I belong to the great mob of malcontents--the anarchists of the social world. I shall not want to blow up kings and presidents, but I would like to throw a bomb at every happy face I see."Her voice trailed off to a weak whisper."Y-you wouldn't need many bombs, then," said Kate, "for I never s-see any really happy faces. Did you ever in all your life--either at balls abroad or the opera here, see a perfectly happy face?"Carolina shook her head and closed her eyes wearily.Suddenly she opened them again."Yes," she said, "I have seen one--the night of 'Faust.' It was Rosemary Goddard!"Kate gave a little scream."Well, I'd rather follow you to the grave you seem so bent on f-falling into," she stammered, "than to get happiness from such a source. My dear, Rosemary Goddard is a C-Christian Scientist!"Kate's tone indicated that Rosemary had contracted a loathsome disease.Carolina fixed her eyes on Kate. She was not of a contrary disposition, yet the difference between Kate Howard's tone and Rosemary Goddard's face made her stop to think."I should like to talk to Rosemary," she said at last. To her surprise and consternation, Kate burst into tears."If you g-go and turn into one of those n-nasty things," she sobbed, "it will end everything. I'd rather you died!""Then never mind," said Carolina, wearily. "I don't want to vex anybody. Perhaps I shall die."Kate jumped up. The momentary colour faded from Carolina's face and the strength from her voice. Kate recognized the change."I'll go and f-fetch her," she said, with her old-time change of front. "She may do you good."When she came back with Rosemary, she saw what Carolina had seen in Rosemary's face--an illumination which no one could understand. It transfigured her.Kate left the two girls together, and walked the floor in tempestuous anger all during Rosemary's stay in the house. Something in Carolina's eyes as they first met Rosemary's told Kate that the poison was already at work, and that Carolina was ripe for the hated new religion.CHAPTER VIII.MAN'S EXTREMITYRosemary approached the bed wherein lay the wreck of the girl she had often, when in the grasp of mortal mind, envied. A great wave of sympathy, not pity, swept over her, as she noted the weary eyes and the lines of dissatisfaction and despair around Carolina's mouth. With an impulse of love, she knelt at the bedside and took Carolina's little thin hand in both of hers."Oh, my dear Carol," she said, "I am so glad to see you. I heard of your accident while I was in California. I only got back yesterday.""Would you have come to see me if I had not sent for you?" asked Carolina, childishly."I was coming to-day. Mother suggested it, and I was only too happy to put off everything of less importance and come at once.""Your mother!" said Carolina, involuntarily. Then, as she saw Rosemary's face flush, she hastened to cover her awkward exclamation. "I did not know your mother knew me well enough to--to care!""Mother is very much changed since you knew her," said Rosemary, gently. "She has been healed."Carolina did not know the nature of Mrs. Goddard's infirmity, so she forbore to ask of what. She only knew, as all the smart world knew, that Mrs. Goddard did something dreadful, and did it to excess. It was whispered that it was a case of drugs, but there were those, less kind, who hinted at a more vulgar excess, either of which would explain the dreadful scenes Mrs. Goddard had occasioned in public. Her intimates asserted that a terrible malady was at the bottom of her habits, whatever they were. At any rate, a somewhat scandalous mystery hung over Mrs. Goddard's name, although she had been at the forefront of every mad scene of pleasure the fashionable world could invent to kill time."You are changed, too," said Carolina, wonderingly, more and more surprised to see Rosemary Goddard--of all girls!--kneeling at her bedside, holding her hand in a warm grasp, pressing it now and then to emphasize an affection she felt shy of expressing, and talking in a gentle, altogether unknown tone of voice. In Carolina's uncompromising vocabulary she had privately stigmatized Rosemary as a snob, and rather ridiculed her exaggeration of aristocracy. But the coldness, the tired expression, the aloofness, were all gone. The weary eyes shone. The bored eyebrows were lowered. The curved lips smiled. The withdrawn hands were reached out to help. The whole attitude was radiant of sympathy and love.Rosemary could not forbear to smile at Carolina's unconscious scrutiny."What has done it?" asked Carolina, abruptly."Christian Science," said Rosemary, frankly.Carolina was disappointed that she did not rush on and explain. She had heard that Scientists thrust their views upon you and were instant in season, out of season. She was piqued that Rosemary did not give her the opportunity to argue and refute. Carolina wanted to be coaxed."The change in you is wonderful," she said at last. "I think it is always a little insulting to tell a woman how she has improved, so I will not harp on it. But I don't think I care to investigate Christian Science. It has always bored me when people have tried to explain it to me.""You have a perfect right to leave it alone, then," said Rosemary. "Christian Science does not need you in the least."Although her tone was perfectly sweet and kind, it was dignified, and Carolina's quickness at once comprehended the almost unbearable priggishness of her remark."I did not intend to be rude," she said, hurriedly. Then she hesitated as another thought struck her, and in a more timid voice she said:"Did you mean that Christian Science does not need me as much as I need Christian Science?"Rosemary pressed her hand as her only reply."Can it help me?" cried Carolina, with sudden fervour. "I am a wreck, physically and mentally. I have lost parents, fortune, home, health, and ambition. I long to die! I have even lost my God!""Christian Science will give you back your God," said Rosemary."I hate God!" said Carolina, calmly."I used to hate Him, too," said Rosemary. "In the old thought there was nothing else to do, for a just mind, than to hate Him. We had made an image of hate and vengeance and set it up to worship and called it God.""We? Did we do it?""Of course! Who else?""Then it is all our fault?""It certainly is not God's fault," said Rosemary. "He has declared Himself to be Love Incarnate. If we have been stupid enough to endow Him with human attributes of our own distorted imagination, is He to blame?""He never answered a prayer of mine in all my life!" cried Carolina, passionately, looking at the ceiling as if to make sure that God heard her accusation, and as if she hoped to irritate Him into hearing future prayers."Nor of mine, either, until I learned how to pray.""Who discovered the new way? That Eddy woman?""Mrs. Eddy did.""How, I should like to know? Why was all this given to her to know and not to some man?""By the way," said Rosemary, as if changing the subject, "I hear that you speak both Japanese and Russian and that you did some important interpreting at a banquet on board the Kaiser's yacht at Cowes, last spring. Did you?""I believe so," said Carolina, wearily."However did you manage to master two such awfully difficult languages?""I studied years to do it.""How strange that my brother was not called upon to do that interpreting," said Rosemary, in a musing tone. "He was at that banquet, and he is a man."Carolina opened her lips to make an incautious reply, but caught herself just in time. A gleam in Rosemary's eyes warned her."I see," she said, reddening. "But I must say you baited the hook skilfully.""I had to, in order to catch you," said Rosemary.Carolina turned her head on her pillow restlessly."Tell me about how you came to accept it," she said, pleadingly."Well, I was so abnormally miserable! I had everything in the world I wanted--apparently, yet my home was full of discord. I had only a big, beautiful house. I wanted the love of a certain man. He held aloof while all the others were at my feet. I prayed wildly to my God for help, and He mocked me. Then I grew bitter and vengeful. I vowed that I would have all that life held without God, for it seemed to me, in my vicious interpretation of Him, that every time He saw me poke my head out of my hole, He hit it--""Just to show that He could!" cried Carolina, almost with a scream of comprehension."Exactly--just to show that He could. Well, then I plunged into a madness I called gaiety, and grew more and more unhappy because I saw that each day I was putting myself further and further from the man I loved. Then, as if to fill my already full cup to overflowing, mamma grew very much worse, so much so that I wanted her to die. I really felt that she had exhausted all thatmateria medicacould do for her, and that death was the only way to end it, both for her and for us. Then I heard of a Christian Science practitioner, named Mrs. Seixas. I went to see her, and, impossible as it may sound, in the first fifteen minutes, I had told her the whole truth, mortifying as it was. But she seemed not only to inspire confidence, but to radiate help. I felt that, although I was a perfect stranger to her, yet she wanted to help me--that she would go out of her way to do it, and that the reason she would do it was because she loved much. I took her to mamma that same day, and mamma's complete healing is so great a marvel that we never can get used to it. Our happiness is almost too much to bear."Rosemary's eyes filled with tears which rolled down her cheeks. Carolina viewed her with an astonishment that she could ill conceal. Rosemary Goddard to be talking, nay, more, feeling like that! A question was so unmistakably in Carolina's eyes, which her tongue could not gain permission to utter, that Rosemary found herself answering it."Then, when God had made me worthy of a good man's love, the desire of my heart came to me, in so sweet and natural a way that it broke down the last barrier of pride and left me humbly at the foot of the cross, marvelling at God's goodness!"Carolina drew Rosemary's face down to hers and laid her cheek against it.There was a long silence between them. Then Carolina said, fearfully:"My hip is broken. Can that be cured?""God can do anything.""So that I needn't use crutches?""Most certainly. You won't even limp. You will be made perfectly whole!""Just as I was before?""Just as you were before--except these bonds."Carolina thought a moment."But what do I want to get well for? I have lost Guildford!""Nothing can be lost in Truth!"Rosemary felt her two hands grasped firmly, and without thinking Carolina raised herself to a sitting posture in bed without pain."Do you mean to tell me that there is the--that Christian Science teaches that there is any remote possibility of my getting Guildford back?""Guildford belongs to you, and has never been lost. It is only error which makes such a law for you. Truth emancipates everybody and everything.""I don't believe it!" said Carolina. "I can't! It's too good to be true! I don't understand it!""You do understand it!" said Rosemary."What makes you think so?""Because you are sitting up in bed, and you raised yourself without pain. That is because, for a moment, your soul accepted God as Love and the source of all supply. Unconsciously your mind looked into His mind, and you saw the truth.""I believe that I could get up!" said Carolina, in a sort of ecstasy."I know that you can! Give me your hand."Rosemary helped Carolina to dress, and in half an hour Carolina was sitting, for the first time in months, in a chair by the window, with Rosemary reading and marking for her the passages in "Science and Health" which bore immediately upon her case. Carolina's mind opened under it like a flower."Oh, I need so much teaching!" cried Carolina. "Who will help me?""Did you know that my mother is a practitioner and holds classes?" asked Rosemary.Carolina almost felt her new-found rock melting beneath her feet at this intelligence."No, I did not. Will she take me? And will you help?""We will both do all we can for you with the greatest joy."When Rosemary left, Kate came in and Carolina explained everything to her.Kate called Noel St. Quentin by telephone and told him that Carolina had gone insane.The next morning Carolina awakened with the happy consciousness that something pleasant had happened. Hitherto she had gone to sleep, glad of the respite of a few hours of unconsciousness. Simply not to know--simply not to be awake and to realize her load of pain and disappointment, had been her prayer. With her definite aim in life swept away, she felt rudderless, forlorn, despairing.But suddenly everything was changed. Her weakness vanished as if by magic. Instead of dreading to open her eyes and clarify her brain for thought her mind leaped to a lucid clearness without effort. The glow of happiness which pervaded her she could liken to nothing so much as the awakening in her hated school-days to the knowledge that to-day was Saturday!And what had brought her healing? Only a few hours' talk from Rosemary Goddard which seemed to untangle all the knots of her existence and to wipe the mists from the window-panes, out of which she had been vainly trying to get a clear view of her life, its reason for being, and its duties. Always the question with Carolina had been "To what end?" And all the answers had been vague and unsatisfactory, until suddenly she had stumbled by reason of her infirmity upon one who could answer her vehement questions clearly and lucidly.Emerson must have been largely of the thought when he wrote: "Put fear under thy feet!" Carolina, with her sensitive, mystic nature had been, in common with all imaginative persons, literally a slave to her fear. What could it mean, this sudden freedom, except that she had found the only true way out of bondage?With a little assistance, she was able to dress herself and sit in a chair to wait for the promised visit of Rosemary's mother.She had known of Mrs. Goddard for years, although she seldom appeared in public. No one spoke the name of her malady, but everyone knew of her intense suffering and of the days she spent unconscious from the effects of quieting drugs. Secretly every one expected to hear at any time of Mrs. Goddard's madness or death, and Carolina had heard no news of her except what Rosemary had said until Mrs. Goddard was announced and found her, dressed and sitting up to meet her guest, with outstretched hand and happy, smiling face. As usual Carolina's expressive countenance betrayed her."No wonder you look surprised, my dear," said Mrs. Goddard, kissing the girl on the cheek with warmth. "Rosemary evidently did not have time yesterday to tell you what brought us both into Science. I was cured of cancer in its worst form. Did you never know?""I knew you were very, very ill and suffered horribly," said Carolina, "but--""I know. My friends were very kind. They never gave it a name. But that was it.""Oh, how wonderful!" cried Carolina, with shining eyes."Not half as wonderful as what it did for me mentally," said Mrs. Goddard. "I used to feel that I had brought my malady on myself by my way of life. I was the gayest of the gay in my youth, and in middle life I found that stimulants had such a hold on me that I was not myself unless I was drugged. I ran the gauntlet of those until I came to morphine. There I stayed, and whether the morphine came of the cancer or the cancer of the morphine I never knew. But the horror of my life I can readily recall. It came to a point when the best physicians and surgeons in New York said that there must be an operation and frankly added that no one could tell whether I would come out of it or not. Pleasant, wasn't it?"Carolina only clasped her hands together, and Mrs. Goddard proceeded:"Then Rosemary heard of Christian Science, and without saying a word to me, she looked up the names of one or two practitioners and called. The first one she did not care for and came away discouraged. But something told her to try again, and her second attempt led her to the door of the angel of healing who, under God, worked this cure, Mrs. Seixas. Rosemary had not talked with her ten minutes before she knew that she had been led aright. She wanted Mrs. Seixas to get into the brougham and come at once, but according to Science practice she insisted upon Rosemary's coming home and getting my consent."You can imagine that I was not slow to accept the hope it offered, and that same afternoon I had my first treatment. Carolina, inside of an hour the pain all left me! Child, you have suffered, so you know, you can fathom as many cannot, what that means! I promised when the pain returned to call her by telephone, instead of taking the morphine, but it never did come back! She gave me treatments from her office every hour for the rest of the day and came back after dinner that night and gave me another. That was three years ago. To-day I am a well woman. I eat whatever I please and not once has the old craving for stimulants attacked me. I am a free woman and a very happy one!""Oh, Mrs. Goddard," cried Carolina, "thank you so much for telling me. It helps me to know that I am being cured!""That you are cured.""Yes, I must believe that.""Pardon me--not so much believe it, as you must understand it and understand why it is so. Every orthodox Christian is ready to state glibly that God is All, but they never act as if they believed it and that is the chief difference between members of churches and Christian Scientists.""Why does every one hate Christian Science so before they understand it?""Christian Science is like a large crystal bowl full of the pure water of life. Left alone it simply sparkles in the sunlight of God's smile. But if you bring to it the alkali of ignorance and the acid of prejudice, this clear water becomes the vehicle of a most energetic boiling and fizzing. But when it has assimilated the two foreign ingredients the residue sinks to the bottom harmlessly, the water clarifies itself by its reflected power, and the crystal bowl resumes its placid, sparkling aspect.""I understand," said Carolina, "that I must have caused that commotion rather often, for I used to hate Christian Science so vigorously and I hated Mrs. Eddy so intensely that I used to rejoice at every adverse criticism of her or her work, and I used to go to the trouble (when I never would have bothered to make a scrap-book) of cutting things out of the papers, and mailing them to my friends. I deliberately put myself out in order to hate it more adequately!""I know," said Mrs. Goddard. "Isn't it strange, when you look back on it in the light of your new understanding and your healing?""Ye-es," said Carolina, dubiously, "but to be quite truthful, I am afraid I am not cured of all my prejudice yet!""Let it go," said Mrs. Goddard. "It will pass of itself. Don't fret about it. Now tell me about yourself. You know we do not dwell upon our ailments, mental or physical, but if you state them to me, as your physician I can work more intelligently.""Oh," sighed Carolina, "what is there not the matter with me! Where shall I begin?""Let it console you to know in advance that there is a remedy in Divine Science for everything. 'Not a sparrow falleth'--you remember! The table of comfort for every woe is spread before you in the presence of your enemies. Fear neither them nor to partake freely of God's gifts. The more eagerly you come and the more you partake of the feast Divine Love spreads, the more generously God will pour out His blessings upon you."Thus encouraged Carolina told her suspicions of the fate of Guildford and of Colonel Yancey, without, however, mentioning him by name, until, led on by Mrs. Goddard's sympathetic manner, she threw her whole soul into the recital of her own and Mrs. Winchester's loss, and of how she had hoped to restore Guildford.Occasionally Mrs. Goddard interrupted her to ask a pertinent question. It gave Carolina a feeling of comfort to realize her new friend's mentality. Carolina, was so accustomed to knowing people of capacity and brilliant intelligence that her mind reached after such naturally."Guildford is not lost to you," said Mrs. Goddard, just as Rosemary had."It will be restored to you, and you will be able to make good Mrs. Winchester's loss. You must have harmony in your life. That is your right--your God-bestowed right. You are an heir of God's boundless affluence. It is a crime for one of God's little ones to be poor, or neglected, or sick, or forsaken. Not to believe this is to doubt His promises, which are sure, and to limit His power, which is limitless."We do not know the way, nor must we make laws nor dictate means. But God is even now preparing the broad highway which shall lead your feet straight to the gates of Guildford. Let Him find you humble, grateful, and ready for the blessing. Don't fret. Don't worry. Don't be anxious. 'Be still, and know that I am God!'"For her only reply Carolina bowed her face upon her hands, and burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping.Mrs. Goddard made no effort to check or comfort her, except by thought. When she had finished, Mrs. Goddard nodded her head, saying:"That did you good. Now for your physical self! Was the hip broken?""Yes, and set by six of the best surgeons in New York. Doctor Colfax is the most hopeful, but even he says that if ever I grow strong enough to leave off crutches, I shall limp all my life."Mrs. Goddard smiled."Doctor Colfax is one of the best men I ever knew. His left hand knows not what his right hand does in the way of charity, and his whole life, instead of being devoted to amassing a fortune, is given up to the healing of mankind.""Why, I thought Scientists did not like doctors!" cried Carolina."We admire their intentions. Who could fail to? Among them are some of the noblest characters I have ever known in any walk of life.""But," cried Carolina, alarmed by this praise, "you don't believe that what he says is true? Why, Rosemary assured me--""And I assure you no less than Rosemary," said Mrs. Goddard, "that God is able and willing to heal all such as repent of their sins and come to Him with an humble and contrite heart. You are the best judge of whether your heart is right toward your enemies. Can you bring yourself to love this man who has defrauded you of your inheritance? If not, you have no right to expect God to restore it to you. Now think this over while I give you a treatment."Carolina watched her in so great a surprise that she forgot to think over her grievance against Colonel Yancey. Mrs. Goddard leaned her elbow on the arm of her chair, and pressed the tips of her fingers lightly against her closed eyes as if in silent prayer. Her lovely face framed in large ripples of iron-gray hair, her gown of silvery gray, her figure still youthful in its curves, her slender, spiritual hands, her earnest voice, and tender, helpful manner, formed so beautiful an image in Carolina's mind, and she longed so ardently to model herself upon the spirit she represented, that tears welled to her eyes when she contrasted her own attitude with Mrs. Goddard's, and when she recalled herself with a start, to the subject of Colonel Yancey, she found to her surprise that his importance had so diminished that he had receded into the background of her thought, and the thing she most ardently desired was not Guildford, but to put herself right with God, her Father!At the moment that this thought formulated in her mind, a flood of divine peace poured over her whole spirit, and for the first time the pain of her bereavement lessened, and then gently passed into nothingness.God her Father! A God of infinite tenderness and love! One who loved her even as her own dear father had loved! One who was not responsible for all the evil which had descended upon her! One who owed her only love and protection, and a tenderness such as she had received in its highest earthly form from her father.In vain Carolina struggled to deify God above her earthly father. She had loved him in so large and deep and broad a manner that she could only realize her new God by comparing Him to her father. And Divine Science had sent this new interpretation of God to her to take the place in her sore heart of the ever-present aching sense of her great loss.When Mrs. Goddard ended her treatment and opened her eyes, she sat for a moment in silent contemplation of the transfigured face before her. Carolina's beauty, as she thus, for the first time, beheld the face of her Father, was almost unearthly. It was as that of the angels in heaven.A wave of generous thanksgiving and rejoicing swept over the soul of her practitioner, for she knew that she had been permitted to be the instrument in God's hands of healing a soul which had been sick unto death. Carolina's bodily healing took second place in her thought, yet her confidence was sound that that was even now being accomplished.When Carolina met her eyes, she smiled. She had found peace."Now, dear child, I want to leave with you the ninety-first Psalm. Read it with your new thought in mind, and you will realize that you never have even apprehended it before. Remember, too, that you are not alone any more. You are cradled in Divine Love, for God is both Mother and Father to His children. 'The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms!'"Mrs. Goddard bent and kissed the girl, and Carolina, usually so reserved, laid her flowerlike face against the older woman's cheek in a silence too deep for words."Remember, dear, to call on me by day or night exactly as if I were Doctor Colfax, for I am your physician now. But deny your error as soon as it makes its appearance and you won't need to send for me. I will come of my own accord every day and help you in your studies. Now I must go. Rosemary and I love you already. Both Divine and human love are pouring in upon you in such a manner that you shall not be able to receive it. Good-bye and God bless you, my dear!"CHAPTER IX.THE TRIAL OF FAITHTo understand Carolina's complete and instant acceptance of the doctrines of Christian Science in addition to her healing, it is necessary to take a more intimate view of her character.A person of little or no understanding, or of little or no depth, would naturally have accepted the boon of restored health, whether she ever went any further in the doctrine or not. But Carolina was different. To her the blessing was in a change of thought. Marvellous as she felt her healing to be, her greatest gain was in the peace and happiness which descended upon her like a garment.To be sure she had been in a desperate plight, both physically and spiritually, when this wonderful hand was stretched out to her in her darkness and despair, yet many to whom it reaches out refuse its grasp simply from a blind prejudice. Having ears, they hear not, nor will they when they might. It argues a particularly lovely spirit to be able to accept so freely and gladly. Carolina was not free from prejudice. Far from it. But she was not stupid. Aside from a clear, spiritual understanding, to be able to accept Christian Science demonstrates no small degree of mentality, clearness of perception, and a capacity for higher education. The Science of Metaphysics does not appeal to fools, and only wise men pursue it. Christian Science is the only religion which calls in any dignified way upon a man's brain. All the others stuff one's intelligence with cotton wool, bidding the questioner not to question but believe. Believe what his ordinary human intelligence repudiates. "If you don't understand all of me," says popular religion, "skip what you don't understand and go on to the next. If you keep on long enough you will find something that you can believe without any trouble. Let that satisfy you. Forget the rest."But when a metaphysical interpretation of the Scriptures comes along saying: "Ask any question you will and I will give you an answer that will satisfy the best brains and highest order of intelligence among you, for the day of blind belief is past, and the day of understanding is at hand," then the highest compliment which can be paid to the mentality of the most brilliant man and woman, is to say: "They are Christian Scientists."There may be--there are, many erratic minds attracted by Christian Science, but there are no complete and utter fools among its followers, for the mere fact that a man has sense enough to grope after the very best, instead of being satisfied with that which never completely satisfied the mentality of any man or woman of real intelligence, is an evidence that some degree of wit must be entangled in the meshes of his foolishness. While on the other hand it is doubtful if there ever was a forty-year old sect in the knowledge of man which numbered the multitude of brilliant minds which are within the annals of Christian Science.Carolina, all her life, had been, not only surrounded by, but familiar with the best. Her father's and mother's brilliance and good taste had drawn around them many of the finest minds in Europe, so that the girl's mentality was as ripe for the highest form of religion as it was of literature or art.She plunged into the study of it with all the ardour of an enthusiastic intelligence, and heaved a sigh of relief when she realized that at last she had found a dignified religion, free from every form of superstition, from all material symbols, and, above all, one which made it possible intelligently to obey the command, "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you" (1 Peter iii. 15).Her greatest fear was that she would be unable to curb the hot temper which mortal mind had made into the law that it was a Lee inheritance.She particularly dreaded her first interview with Noel St. Quentin, Kate, and Cousin Lois. She had yet, also, to face Doctor Colfax. She had not seen him since, by Mrs. Goddard's advice, she wrote him a frank little note, saying that her healing had been marvellously hastened by Christian Science, and that she had so much faith in it that she felt compelled to relinquish all claim on materia medica, but that, in doing so, she wished to acknowledge most gratefully all that his skill had accomplished in her case.It was a hard note to write, for Kate's assertion, which at first Carolina had indignantly repudiated, that Doctor Colfax was falling in love with her, had proved true, and Carolina knew that this dismissal of him as her physician would indicate that he need expect nothing more of her in any other capacity, either.He wrote her a polite but stiff letter of acknowledgment, and soon afterward went away for a brief vacation.Carolina realized how much antagonism she had aroused among her own immediate friends, and she spent many hours consulting Mrs. Goddard how to conduct herself with tact.When Mrs. Winchester returned from Boston, Carolina experienced her first battle with error. She possessed a high spirit, and to see Cousin Lois sit and look at her in silent despair, with tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks, irritated Carolina almost to the verge of madness, so that instead of waving aloft the glorious banner of a new religion, Carolina found herself longing to box Cousin Lois's ears. Anything, anything to stop those maddening tears!She could only control herself by a violent effort. Mrs. Winchester, like Kate Howard, was an ardent churchwoman, and to both these women Carolina's acceptance of Christian Science was the greatest blow which could have fallen on them, short of her eloping with the coachman. They felt ashamed, and in no small degree degraded."Whatever can you see in it?" demanded Mrs. Winchester, plaintively, one Sunday morning just after she returned from church. "Why need you go to their church? Why can't you continue in the church you were baptized into as a baby? I don't care what you believe, just so you go to the Episcopal church! It is so respectable to be an Episcopalian! Oh, Carolina, as I sat there listening to that sermon to-morrow--oh, Carolina, how can you laugh when I am so serious!""Do forgive me, Cousin Lois, but you couldn't be any funnier if you said you had seen something week after next!""I am glad to know that a Christian Scientist can laugh," sighed Mrs. Winchester, whose mild persistency in investing the new thought with every attribute that she particularly disliked was, to say the least, diverting."Am I improved or not since I began to study with Mrs. Goddard?" demanded Carolina, with recaptured good humour."I don't see any improvement, my dear. To me you were always as nearly perfect as a mortal could be!""Dear loyal Cousin Lois!" said Carolina.She seldom kissed any one, but she kissed Mrs. Winchester, who blushed with pleasure under the unusual caress."Perhaps," she added, cautiously, "you are a trifle more demonstrative, but I always thought your apparent coldness was aristocratic.""It wasn't," said Carolina, decidedly. "It was because I didn't care.""And now?" questioned Mrs. Winchester, wistfully."Now," cried Carolina, "I care vitally for everything good!""You always did, I think," said Mrs. Winchester. "Even as a child you always gravitated toward the highest of everything. You are too remarkable a girl, Carolina, to throw yourself away at this late day on a fad which will die a natural death of its own accord.""May I be there to see when Christian Science dies!" cried Carolina, brightly. She felt ashamed that she had ever lost patience with any one who loved her as idolatrously as Cousin Lois."Doctor Colfax--I forgot to tell you that I met him on the train, and that he asked fifty questions about you that I couldn't answer--Doctor Colfax will certainly be nonplussed when he sees you walking with only that cane. He told me he never expected to see you walk without two crutches.""Then you do give Christian Science credit for that much, do you?" asked Carolina."Oh, yes. It must have some wonderful power. I simply don't understand it, that's all. And Carolina, it seems so--excuse me, but so disreputable!""Does it? I hadn't thought of it in that light.""And so unsexing! Don't you have women in the pulpit?""Yes. Christian Science recognizes woman as the spiritual equal, if not the spiritual superior, of man.""There!" said Mrs. Winchester, triumphantly, as if having scored a point against the new religion. "Yet woman caused man's fall!""No, she didn't, Cousin Lois. Christian Science doesn't take that allegory as history.""Oh, Carolina! Carolina! You are indeed in a sad way when you forsake the faith of your ancestors! Such disloyalty cannot fail to have a depressing effect upon your character!""On the contrary," said Carolina, "it is as exhilarating to kick down all one's old, stale beliefs as a game of football."At this Mrs. Winchester's asthma returned. There was nothing left for her to do, in her state of mind, but to choke or to swoon.A few evenings later Doctor Colfax telephoned to Kate that he would drop in for a few minutes after dinner."H-he can't stand it for another minute, Carolina!" cried Kate. "I am crazy to see his face when you walk in without your crutches! C-Carol, couldn't you take an extra treatment or so, and come in without even your c-cane?"Carolina's eyes blazed with joy at this unconscious admission on Kate's part that she believed even that little in the new faith.For reply Carolina rose by means of the arms of her chair, and without any material aid whatsoever took half a dozen steps."Oh, Carol! Carol!" shrieked Kate, bursting into tears. "Y-you never even limped! Oh, it's l-like the d-days when Christ was on earth to s-see a m-miracle like that!"She seized her friend in her arms and almost lifted her from her feet."D-do it to-night, Carolina, and we'll knock their eye out! I'll get the whole family together, a-a-and you j-just walk in like that! Will you?""Yes, if you will go away and let me work over it this afternoon. And don't tell anybody!""Oh, certainly not! That would spoil the surprise.""I don't mean for that reason. I mean that outsiders' adverse thought would hinder my work. Mortal mind makes false laws.""C-could you just as well t-talk United States when you are heaving your ideas at me?" pleaded Kate. "Y-you know I'm not on to the new jargon, and I fail to connect more than half the time."As Carolina laughed, Kate nodded her head with great satisfaction."I am glad to see that Christian Science has not destroyed your royal sense of humour," she said. "Now I'm off to let you w-work!"But when the door closed behind Kate, a prolonged sense of discouragement seized Carolina. She looked forward to the evening with dread. Kate made fun of it, Doctor Colfax was coming purposely to scoff, and she knew that she was to be made conspicuous because of her religion.She tried to walk without her cane, but her knee bent under her and she fell to the floor. Her first impulse was to burst into tears, but, as she lay there alone, too far from the bell to summon help, apparently without human aid, she fancied she heard the voice of Mrs. Goddard repeating: "For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."She said this over and over to herself, and it comforted her. Then the face of Mrs. Goddard came before her mental vision, and the lovely earnestness of her voice sounded in Carolina's ear. She remembered her last words, which now came back to her with strange and timely significance:"The way will not always be smooth beneath your feet. Error in the guise of fear, selfish or vainglorious thoughts, revenge, self-pity, or desire to shine before others will sometimes cause you to stumble and fall. But at such times, remember to blame, not circumstances nor others, but your own faulty thought. Be severe with yourself. Then turn your thought instantly to the Source of your supply. No one can help you, Carolina, but God, your Father, Divine Love, the All in All of your existence, your very Reason for being. Realize that God is all there is. Beyond Him there is nothing and nothingness. Breathe His spirit. Drink in His divine power. Make yourself one with Him, and you will instantly find that the mists which covered the surface of your spiritual reflection of His image will disappear, and you will begin to reflect His government clearly. At that same moment, you will be healed of your infirmity."As she repeated these last few words aloud, a feeling of complete security took possession of her, and she rose, first to her knees, then to her feet, and walked confidently to her chair by the window.In great thankfulness she took her Bible and read the fifth chapter of Luke, and, when she came to the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses, she read them three times, with a heart full of gratitude.Still she was not satisfied. She was groping after a sign, and she read on until she came to the words, "And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto the magistrates and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say. For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that hour what ye ought to say.""The Holy Ghost!" thought Carolina. "I wonder what that really is. That is one of the things I never could understand in the old thought."She turned to the Glossary in "Science and Health," and there the first definition of Holy Ghost was "Divine Science.""I am answered," she said, with a sigh of complete satisfaction. "For the first time in my life I begin to understand the fourteenth chapter of John."She leaned her head against the window-pane to watch the postman come down the street. Then she heard his whistle, and presently the maid brought her a letter. She asked the maid to turn on the electric light, and, when she had done so and left the room, Carolina read the following letter:
CHAPTER VII.
MORTAL MIND
Therefore, when the blow fell and Sherman had written her a letter, not daring to see her, telling her as gently as he could, but with an air of finality which there was no mistaking, that the mortgage on Guildford had been bought and foreclosed by Colonel Yancey, and therefore, in his opinion, it was lost to the Lees for ever, Carolina realized for the first time how tenacious had been her hold on the hope of possessing it. In an instant, with her woman's instinct, she saw what it had taken years for Sherman to discover. Colonel Yancey had, as Carolina found, learned that it was Captain Lee's and Carolina's dearest wish to restore Guildford. The two men had talked intimately. Both were Southern, although Colonel Yancey was a Georgian, but with the confidence in each other's integrity, which is typical of most Southern men, and which has led to the ruin of many an honest man, Captain Lee confided his hopes to Colonel Yancey, who profited by them to secure Guildford for himself, and thus gain a hold over Carolina.
It was so easy to do this, in the most ordinary business manner, with Sherman both unsuspicious of him and his sister's love for the place, that at times Colonel Yancey almost had the grace to be ashamed of himself.
Carolina saw the whole vile plot, and the shock and disappointment put her fairly beside herself. She was so sure that she had got at the root of the matter that she at once disbelieved that part of Sherman's story which said that Colonel Yancey was a fugitive from justice. If he had cheated this syndicate, he had done it in such a manner that it left no illegal entanglements, and she was sure that he was free to return to this country whenever he chose. If not, her whole theory fell to the ground, for she knew that Colonel Yancey would not dare to offer her a reputation which the law had power to smirch.
It never was Carolina's way to wax confidential, but one day Kate surprised her in a particularly desperate mood. Carolina was in her habit, waiting for her horse to be brought around, and when Kate entered, she was walking up and down the peaceful blue and silver boudoir like an outraged lioness.
"It's no use, Kate!" she cried, when her friend began to remonstrate. "I have come to the end of my rope. You don't know the truth because I have been afraid to tell you. You couldn't have understood if I had told you. Even if I should sit down now and spend a whole day trying to explain why I adored Guildford and why I am so upset over its loss, at the end of the time you would only shake your head and say, 'Poor Carolina,' without in the least understanding me. No one ever did understand about Guildford except dear Daddy, and since he died, I've been afraid to let even God know how much I wanted it, because I knew if He did, He would take it away from me! He takes everything away from me that I love! That is His way of showing His vaunted kindness. He is indeed a God of vengeance! He punishes His children as no earthly father would be mean enough to do. Oh, I won't hush! But the end has come, Kate, to even God's power to hurt me. I have nothing left for Him to take. Let Him be satisfied with His revenge. I wouldn't care if He took my life now, so He is practically powerless! He has reached His limit!"
"Oh, Carolina!" almost screamed Kate. "Do be careful how you blaspheme! Goodness knows I am not religious, but I am a member of the Church and I am not wicked!"
"You have never suffered, Kate, or you could bear, not only to hear, but to say worse things than I am saying. If you only knew how much worse my thoughts are!"
"But you will be punished for them, Carolina! I--I don't like to preach, but God always sends afflictions to those who defy Him!"
"I wouldn't care if He killed me!" cried Carolina, furiously. "I have nothing left to live for. I hope I shall never come back alive from this ride!"
When she had rushed from the room, leaving that terrible wish in Kate's memory, Kate shivered with apprehensions.
"Something awful will happen to Carolina!" she muttered. "I never knew it to fail!" But her eyes filled with tears. "What if I had to bear what she has!" she thought. "Loss of father, mother, home, and fortune! Poor girl! Poor girl!"
She had intended to go out, but some inner voice told her to wait. Carolina's dreadful mood and reckless words haunted her. She went restlessly from room to room, and anxiously listened for sounds of her return. And so keenly was she expecting a misfortune that when the telephone-bell rang sharply, it calmed her at once.
"It has happened!" she said to herself, as she flew to answer.
The message was that Carolina had been thrown from her horse and dragged. They were bringing her home.
"I knew it!" said Kate. "She was in too awful a mood to wear spurs with Astra. I ought to have made her take them off."
Carolina was still unconscious when they brought her in. Kate caught a glimpse of her still, white face as they carried her up-stairs. She waited with feverish impatience for the doctor's verdict, with her mind full of Carolina's awful words. "I knew it!" she kept whispering to herself through a rain of tears. "God always gets even with people who dare Him to do His worst!"
It seemed hours before Doctor Colfax finally came out, with his refined face full of pain.
"Is she dead?" whispered Kate, catching at his arm. He shook his head.
"Disfigured?" continued Kate, with growing anxiety.
"Worse!" said the doctor. "She has broken her hip badly. Even if she recovers, she will be lamed for life!"
Kate covered her mouth to repress a scream.
Beautiful Carolina lamed for life!
"Crutches?" whispered Kate.
"I am afraid so!" said the doctor, with a deep sigh. "I am going to have a consultation. We will do everything we can to preserve her health--and her beauty, poor child!"
Kate turned away in a passion of tears, well knowing that to Carolina's proud spirit dependence would be far worse than death.
Bad news travels on the wings of the wind, and before the day was over Carolina's accident was on everybody's tongue.
Her sister-in-law was indignant, in a sense outraged by Carolina's behaviour. She blamed her first of all for existing in her radiant youth and beauty and so far outshining her own modest charms. She blamed her secondly for permitting Sherman to lose her money and thus make it Addie's duty to offer her a home. She blamed her thirdly, and most bitterly of all, for injuring herself so hopelessly that she could never marry, thus placing herself upon Addie to support for life. Was ever a more unkind fate invented? Addie's temper, never of the best, burst all bounds as this situation became plain to her, and she expressed herself fluently to Sherman, who felt himself included in her misfortunes as part author of them.
It was an unhappy time for all concerned, for Carolina's bitter denunciations of her fate and her grief over her dependence could hardly be checked even in the presence of Kate and her family, whose hospitality and friendship, so generously offered, put the girl under at least civilized bonds of restraint. There were times, however, when she was alone, that she relapsed into such a savage state that she tore her hair and bit her own tender flesh.
The sight of such rebellion reduced even Kate's mutinous nature to peace and quiet by contrast, and Kate was developed into a gentle friend of Christian sentiments by Carolina's great need.
The conversations they held with each other were long and intimate. Kate tried to put faith in the series of doctors who succeeded each other like chapters in a book, but the sufferer's clear eyes saw not only through Kate's kind intentions, but through the great surgeon's hopeless hopes, and from the first she knew the worst. Knew that her bright youth was for ever gone; that her usefulness was ended; that never again could she expect even to ornament a social function, crippled as she was and disfigured by ungainly crutches. Her one hope was to die. Thus she made no effort to recover, and her strength, instead of aiding her, gradually faded away until her accident, though not at first of a fatal nature, began to be looked on as her death-blow.
At this juncture, Addie, struck with remorse, came and offered Carolina a home, but Carolina shook her head.
"Thank you, Addie, but when I move from here it will be to rest for ever. I want to die here with Kate. She loves me!"
It was a bitter thrust, and Addie felt it to the verge of tears. Indeed, she was so moved by pity for the frail shadow that Carolina had become, that she forgave the girl for having been so beautiful and began to be fond of her, as one is fond of a crippled child, who had been obnoxious in health.
Trouble develops people.
Mrs. Winchester was detained in Boston by the dangerous illness of the niece she had gone to visit, and although greatly fretting at being kept away from Carolina, was fairly obliged to stay.
Carolina felt that she was welcome at the Howards, for not only Kate's mother but her father often came to sit with her and cheer her and to urge upon her how glad they were to be able to help her when she needed help.
Carolina was grateful, the more so because she felt that she had not long to live. She had been in bed several months, and while the surgeons said the broken bones had knit, yet it was agony for her to move. She almost fainted with pain when they were obliged to lift her from one position to another.
Kate spent hours in trying to interest her in the life around her. She felt frightened when she discovered the depth of Carolina's listlessness. Her weakness took a stubborn form.
"I am only one of the crowd now, Kate dear," she said one day after a long argument from her friend. "There is no use in wasting so much energy over me. Go and forget me and enjoy yourself. I used to be of the exclusive few who got their own ways always. Now I belong to the great mob of malcontents--the anarchists of the social world. I shall not want to blow up kings and presidents, but I would like to throw a bomb at every happy face I see."
Her voice trailed off to a weak whisper.
"Y-you wouldn't need many bombs, then," said Kate, "for I never s-see any really happy faces. Did you ever in all your life--either at balls abroad or the opera here, see a perfectly happy face?"
Carolina shook her head and closed her eyes wearily.
Suddenly she opened them again.
"Yes," she said, "I have seen one--the night of 'Faust.' It was Rosemary Goddard!"
Kate gave a little scream.
"Well, I'd rather follow you to the grave you seem so bent on f-falling into," she stammered, "than to get happiness from such a source. My dear, Rosemary Goddard is a C-Christian Scientist!"
Kate's tone indicated that Rosemary had contracted a loathsome disease.
Carolina fixed her eyes on Kate. She was not of a contrary disposition, yet the difference between Kate Howard's tone and Rosemary Goddard's face made her stop to think.
"I should like to talk to Rosemary," she said at last. To her surprise and consternation, Kate burst into tears.
"If you g-go and turn into one of those n-nasty things," she sobbed, "it will end everything. I'd rather you died!"
"Then never mind," said Carolina, wearily. "I don't want to vex anybody. Perhaps I shall die."
Kate jumped up. The momentary colour faded from Carolina's face and the strength from her voice. Kate recognized the change.
"I'll go and f-fetch her," she said, with her old-time change of front. "She may do you good."
When she came back with Rosemary, she saw what Carolina had seen in Rosemary's face--an illumination which no one could understand. It transfigured her.
Kate left the two girls together, and walked the floor in tempestuous anger all during Rosemary's stay in the house. Something in Carolina's eyes as they first met Rosemary's told Kate that the poison was already at work, and that Carolina was ripe for the hated new religion.
CHAPTER VIII.
MAN'S EXTREMITY
Rosemary approached the bed wherein lay the wreck of the girl she had often, when in the grasp of mortal mind, envied. A great wave of sympathy, not pity, swept over her, as she noted the weary eyes and the lines of dissatisfaction and despair around Carolina's mouth. With an impulse of love, she knelt at the bedside and took Carolina's little thin hand in both of hers.
"Oh, my dear Carol," she said, "I am so glad to see you. I heard of your accident while I was in California. I only got back yesterday."
"Would you have come to see me if I had not sent for you?" asked Carolina, childishly.
"I was coming to-day. Mother suggested it, and I was only too happy to put off everything of less importance and come at once."
"Your mother!" said Carolina, involuntarily. Then, as she saw Rosemary's face flush, she hastened to cover her awkward exclamation. "I did not know your mother knew me well enough to--to care!"
"Mother is very much changed since you knew her," said Rosemary, gently. "She has been healed."
Carolina did not know the nature of Mrs. Goddard's infirmity, so she forbore to ask of what. She only knew, as all the smart world knew, that Mrs. Goddard did something dreadful, and did it to excess. It was whispered that it was a case of drugs, but there were those, less kind, who hinted at a more vulgar excess, either of which would explain the dreadful scenes Mrs. Goddard had occasioned in public. Her intimates asserted that a terrible malady was at the bottom of her habits, whatever they were. At any rate, a somewhat scandalous mystery hung over Mrs. Goddard's name, although she had been at the forefront of every mad scene of pleasure the fashionable world could invent to kill time.
"You are changed, too," said Carolina, wonderingly, more and more surprised to see Rosemary Goddard--of all girls!--kneeling at her bedside, holding her hand in a warm grasp, pressing it now and then to emphasize an affection she felt shy of expressing, and talking in a gentle, altogether unknown tone of voice. In Carolina's uncompromising vocabulary she had privately stigmatized Rosemary as a snob, and rather ridiculed her exaggeration of aristocracy. But the coldness, the tired expression, the aloofness, were all gone. The weary eyes shone. The bored eyebrows were lowered. The curved lips smiled. The withdrawn hands were reached out to help. The whole attitude was radiant of sympathy and love.
Rosemary could not forbear to smile at Carolina's unconscious scrutiny.
"What has done it?" asked Carolina, abruptly.
"Christian Science," said Rosemary, frankly.
Carolina was disappointed that she did not rush on and explain. She had heard that Scientists thrust their views upon you and were instant in season, out of season. She was piqued that Rosemary did not give her the opportunity to argue and refute. Carolina wanted to be coaxed.
"The change in you is wonderful," she said at last. "I think it is always a little insulting to tell a woman how she has improved, so I will not harp on it. But I don't think I care to investigate Christian Science. It has always bored me when people have tried to explain it to me."
"You have a perfect right to leave it alone, then," said Rosemary. "Christian Science does not need you in the least."
Although her tone was perfectly sweet and kind, it was dignified, and Carolina's quickness at once comprehended the almost unbearable priggishness of her remark.
"I did not intend to be rude," she said, hurriedly. Then she hesitated as another thought struck her, and in a more timid voice she said:
"Did you mean that Christian Science does not need me as much as I need Christian Science?"
Rosemary pressed her hand as her only reply.
"Can it help me?" cried Carolina, with sudden fervour. "I am a wreck, physically and mentally. I have lost parents, fortune, home, health, and ambition. I long to die! I have even lost my God!"
"Christian Science will give you back your God," said Rosemary.
"I hate God!" said Carolina, calmly.
"I used to hate Him, too," said Rosemary. "In the old thought there was nothing else to do, for a just mind, than to hate Him. We had made an image of hate and vengeance and set it up to worship and called it God."
"We? Did we do it?"
"Of course! Who else?"
"Then it is all our fault?"
"It certainly is not God's fault," said Rosemary. "He has declared Himself to be Love Incarnate. If we have been stupid enough to endow Him with human attributes of our own distorted imagination, is He to blame?"
"He never answered a prayer of mine in all my life!" cried Carolina, passionately, looking at the ceiling as if to make sure that God heard her accusation, and as if she hoped to irritate Him into hearing future prayers.
"Nor of mine, either, until I learned how to pray."
"Who discovered the new way? That Eddy woman?"
"Mrs. Eddy did."
"How, I should like to know? Why was all this given to her to know and not to some man?"
"By the way," said Rosemary, as if changing the subject, "I hear that you speak both Japanese and Russian and that you did some important interpreting at a banquet on board the Kaiser's yacht at Cowes, last spring. Did you?"
"I believe so," said Carolina, wearily.
"However did you manage to master two such awfully difficult languages?"
"I studied years to do it."
"How strange that my brother was not called upon to do that interpreting," said Rosemary, in a musing tone. "He was at that banquet, and he is a man."
Carolina opened her lips to make an incautious reply, but caught herself just in time. A gleam in Rosemary's eyes warned her.
"I see," she said, reddening. "But I must say you baited the hook skilfully."
"I had to, in order to catch you," said Rosemary.
Carolina turned her head on her pillow restlessly.
"Tell me about how you came to accept it," she said, pleadingly.
"Well, I was so abnormally miserable! I had everything in the world I wanted--apparently, yet my home was full of discord. I had only a big, beautiful house. I wanted the love of a certain man. He held aloof while all the others were at my feet. I prayed wildly to my God for help, and He mocked me. Then I grew bitter and vengeful. I vowed that I would have all that life held without God, for it seemed to me, in my vicious interpretation of Him, that every time He saw me poke my head out of my hole, He hit it--"
"Just to show that He could!" cried Carolina, almost with a scream of comprehension.
"Exactly--just to show that He could. Well, then I plunged into a madness I called gaiety, and grew more and more unhappy because I saw that each day I was putting myself further and further from the man I loved. Then, as if to fill my already full cup to overflowing, mamma grew very much worse, so much so that I wanted her to die. I really felt that she had exhausted all thatmateria medicacould do for her, and that death was the only way to end it, both for her and for us. Then I heard of a Christian Science practitioner, named Mrs. Seixas. I went to see her, and, impossible as it may sound, in the first fifteen minutes, I had told her the whole truth, mortifying as it was. But she seemed not only to inspire confidence, but to radiate help. I felt that, although I was a perfect stranger to her, yet she wanted to help me--that she would go out of her way to do it, and that the reason she would do it was because she loved much. I took her to mamma that same day, and mamma's complete healing is so great a marvel that we never can get used to it. Our happiness is almost too much to bear."
Rosemary's eyes filled with tears which rolled down her cheeks. Carolina viewed her with an astonishment that she could ill conceal. Rosemary Goddard to be talking, nay, more, feeling like that! A question was so unmistakably in Carolina's eyes, which her tongue could not gain permission to utter, that Rosemary found herself answering it.
"Then, when God had made me worthy of a good man's love, the desire of my heart came to me, in so sweet and natural a way that it broke down the last barrier of pride and left me humbly at the foot of the cross, marvelling at God's goodness!"
Carolina drew Rosemary's face down to hers and laid her cheek against it.
There was a long silence between them. Then Carolina said, fearfully:
"My hip is broken. Can that be cured?"
"God can do anything."
"So that I needn't use crutches?"
"Most certainly. You won't even limp. You will be made perfectly whole!"
"Just as I was before?"
"Just as you were before--except these bonds."
Carolina thought a moment.
"But what do I want to get well for? I have lost Guildford!"
"Nothing can be lost in Truth!"
Rosemary felt her two hands grasped firmly, and without thinking Carolina raised herself to a sitting posture in bed without pain.
"Do you mean to tell me that there is the--that Christian Science teaches that there is any remote possibility of my getting Guildford back?"
"Guildford belongs to you, and has never been lost. It is only error which makes such a law for you. Truth emancipates everybody and everything."
"I don't believe it!" said Carolina. "I can't! It's too good to be true! I don't understand it!"
"You do understand it!" said Rosemary.
"What makes you think so?"
"Because you are sitting up in bed, and you raised yourself without pain. That is because, for a moment, your soul accepted God as Love and the source of all supply. Unconsciously your mind looked into His mind, and you saw the truth."
"I believe that I could get up!" said Carolina, in a sort of ecstasy.
"I know that you can! Give me your hand."
Rosemary helped Carolina to dress, and in half an hour Carolina was sitting, for the first time in months, in a chair by the window, with Rosemary reading and marking for her the passages in "Science and Health" which bore immediately upon her case. Carolina's mind opened under it like a flower.
"Oh, I need so much teaching!" cried Carolina. "Who will help me?"
"Did you know that my mother is a practitioner and holds classes?" asked Rosemary.
Carolina almost felt her new-found rock melting beneath her feet at this intelligence.
"No, I did not. Will she take me? And will you help?"
"We will both do all we can for you with the greatest joy."
When Rosemary left, Kate came in and Carolina explained everything to her.
Kate called Noel St. Quentin by telephone and told him that Carolina had gone insane.
The next morning Carolina awakened with the happy consciousness that something pleasant had happened. Hitherto she had gone to sleep, glad of the respite of a few hours of unconsciousness. Simply not to know--simply not to be awake and to realize her load of pain and disappointment, had been her prayer. With her definite aim in life swept away, she felt rudderless, forlorn, despairing.
But suddenly everything was changed. Her weakness vanished as if by magic. Instead of dreading to open her eyes and clarify her brain for thought her mind leaped to a lucid clearness without effort. The glow of happiness which pervaded her she could liken to nothing so much as the awakening in her hated school-days to the knowledge that to-day was Saturday!
And what had brought her healing? Only a few hours' talk from Rosemary Goddard which seemed to untangle all the knots of her existence and to wipe the mists from the window-panes, out of which she had been vainly trying to get a clear view of her life, its reason for being, and its duties. Always the question with Carolina had been "To what end?" And all the answers had been vague and unsatisfactory, until suddenly she had stumbled by reason of her infirmity upon one who could answer her vehement questions clearly and lucidly.
Emerson must have been largely of the thought when he wrote: "Put fear under thy feet!" Carolina, with her sensitive, mystic nature had been, in common with all imaginative persons, literally a slave to her fear. What could it mean, this sudden freedom, except that she had found the only true way out of bondage?
With a little assistance, she was able to dress herself and sit in a chair to wait for the promised visit of Rosemary's mother.
She had known of Mrs. Goddard for years, although she seldom appeared in public. No one spoke the name of her malady, but everyone knew of her intense suffering and of the days she spent unconscious from the effects of quieting drugs. Secretly every one expected to hear at any time of Mrs. Goddard's madness or death, and Carolina had heard no news of her except what Rosemary had said until Mrs. Goddard was announced and found her, dressed and sitting up to meet her guest, with outstretched hand and happy, smiling face. As usual Carolina's expressive countenance betrayed her.
"No wonder you look surprised, my dear," said Mrs. Goddard, kissing the girl on the cheek with warmth. "Rosemary evidently did not have time yesterday to tell you what brought us both into Science. I was cured of cancer in its worst form. Did you never know?"
"I knew you were very, very ill and suffered horribly," said Carolina, "but--"
"I know. My friends were very kind. They never gave it a name. But that was it."
"Oh, how wonderful!" cried Carolina, with shining eyes.
"Not half as wonderful as what it did for me mentally," said Mrs. Goddard. "I used to feel that I had brought my malady on myself by my way of life. I was the gayest of the gay in my youth, and in middle life I found that stimulants had such a hold on me that I was not myself unless I was drugged. I ran the gauntlet of those until I came to morphine. There I stayed, and whether the morphine came of the cancer or the cancer of the morphine I never knew. But the horror of my life I can readily recall. It came to a point when the best physicians and surgeons in New York said that there must be an operation and frankly added that no one could tell whether I would come out of it or not. Pleasant, wasn't it?"
Carolina only clasped her hands together, and Mrs. Goddard proceeded:
"Then Rosemary heard of Christian Science, and without saying a word to me, she looked up the names of one or two practitioners and called. The first one she did not care for and came away discouraged. But something told her to try again, and her second attempt led her to the door of the angel of healing who, under God, worked this cure, Mrs. Seixas. Rosemary had not talked with her ten minutes before she knew that she had been led aright. She wanted Mrs. Seixas to get into the brougham and come at once, but according to Science practice she insisted upon Rosemary's coming home and getting my consent.
"You can imagine that I was not slow to accept the hope it offered, and that same afternoon I had my first treatment. Carolina, inside of an hour the pain all left me! Child, you have suffered, so you know, you can fathom as many cannot, what that means! I promised when the pain returned to call her by telephone, instead of taking the morphine, but it never did come back! She gave me treatments from her office every hour for the rest of the day and came back after dinner that night and gave me another. That was three years ago. To-day I am a well woman. I eat whatever I please and not once has the old craving for stimulants attacked me. I am a free woman and a very happy one!"
"Oh, Mrs. Goddard," cried Carolina, "thank you so much for telling me. It helps me to know that I am being cured!"
"That you are cured."
"Yes, I must believe that."
"Pardon me--not so much believe it, as you must understand it and understand why it is so. Every orthodox Christian is ready to state glibly that God is All, but they never act as if they believed it and that is the chief difference between members of churches and Christian Scientists."
"Why does every one hate Christian Science so before they understand it?"
"Christian Science is like a large crystal bowl full of the pure water of life. Left alone it simply sparkles in the sunlight of God's smile. But if you bring to it the alkali of ignorance and the acid of prejudice, this clear water becomes the vehicle of a most energetic boiling and fizzing. But when it has assimilated the two foreign ingredients the residue sinks to the bottom harmlessly, the water clarifies itself by its reflected power, and the crystal bowl resumes its placid, sparkling aspect."
"I understand," said Carolina, "that I must have caused that commotion rather often, for I used to hate Christian Science so vigorously and I hated Mrs. Eddy so intensely that I used to rejoice at every adverse criticism of her or her work, and I used to go to the trouble (when I never would have bothered to make a scrap-book) of cutting things out of the papers, and mailing them to my friends. I deliberately put myself out in order to hate it more adequately!"
"I know," said Mrs. Goddard. "Isn't it strange, when you look back on it in the light of your new understanding and your healing?"
"Ye-es," said Carolina, dubiously, "but to be quite truthful, I am afraid I am not cured of all my prejudice yet!"
"Let it go," said Mrs. Goddard. "It will pass of itself. Don't fret about it. Now tell me about yourself. You know we do not dwell upon our ailments, mental or physical, but if you state them to me, as your physician I can work more intelligently."
"Oh," sighed Carolina, "what is there not the matter with me! Where shall I begin?"
"Let it console you to know in advance that there is a remedy in Divine Science for everything. 'Not a sparrow falleth'--you remember! The table of comfort for every woe is spread before you in the presence of your enemies. Fear neither them nor to partake freely of God's gifts. The more eagerly you come and the more you partake of the feast Divine Love spreads, the more generously God will pour out His blessings upon you."
Thus encouraged Carolina told her suspicions of the fate of Guildford and of Colonel Yancey, without, however, mentioning him by name, until, led on by Mrs. Goddard's sympathetic manner, she threw her whole soul into the recital of her own and Mrs. Winchester's loss, and of how she had hoped to restore Guildford.
Occasionally Mrs. Goddard interrupted her to ask a pertinent question. It gave Carolina a feeling of comfort to realize her new friend's mentality. Carolina, was so accustomed to knowing people of capacity and brilliant intelligence that her mind reached after such naturally.
"Guildford is not lost to you," said Mrs. Goddard, just as Rosemary had.
"It will be restored to you, and you will be able to make good Mrs. Winchester's loss. You must have harmony in your life. That is your right--your God-bestowed right. You are an heir of God's boundless affluence. It is a crime for one of God's little ones to be poor, or neglected, or sick, or forsaken. Not to believe this is to doubt His promises, which are sure, and to limit His power, which is limitless.
"We do not know the way, nor must we make laws nor dictate means. But God is even now preparing the broad highway which shall lead your feet straight to the gates of Guildford. Let Him find you humble, grateful, and ready for the blessing. Don't fret. Don't worry. Don't be anxious. 'Be still, and know that I am God!'"
For her only reply Carolina bowed her face upon her hands, and burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping.
Mrs. Goddard made no effort to check or comfort her, except by thought. When she had finished, Mrs. Goddard nodded her head, saying:
"That did you good. Now for your physical self! Was the hip broken?"
"Yes, and set by six of the best surgeons in New York. Doctor Colfax is the most hopeful, but even he says that if ever I grow strong enough to leave off crutches, I shall limp all my life."
Mrs. Goddard smiled.
"Doctor Colfax is one of the best men I ever knew. His left hand knows not what his right hand does in the way of charity, and his whole life, instead of being devoted to amassing a fortune, is given up to the healing of mankind."
"Why, I thought Scientists did not like doctors!" cried Carolina.
"We admire their intentions. Who could fail to? Among them are some of the noblest characters I have ever known in any walk of life."
"But," cried Carolina, alarmed by this praise, "you don't believe that what he says is true? Why, Rosemary assured me--"
"And I assure you no less than Rosemary," said Mrs. Goddard, "that God is able and willing to heal all such as repent of their sins and come to Him with an humble and contrite heart. You are the best judge of whether your heart is right toward your enemies. Can you bring yourself to love this man who has defrauded you of your inheritance? If not, you have no right to expect God to restore it to you. Now think this over while I give you a treatment."
Carolina watched her in so great a surprise that she forgot to think over her grievance against Colonel Yancey. Mrs. Goddard leaned her elbow on the arm of her chair, and pressed the tips of her fingers lightly against her closed eyes as if in silent prayer. Her lovely face framed in large ripples of iron-gray hair, her gown of silvery gray, her figure still youthful in its curves, her slender, spiritual hands, her earnest voice, and tender, helpful manner, formed so beautiful an image in Carolina's mind, and she longed so ardently to model herself upon the spirit she represented, that tears welled to her eyes when she contrasted her own attitude with Mrs. Goddard's, and when she recalled herself with a start, to the subject of Colonel Yancey, she found to her surprise that his importance had so diminished that he had receded into the background of her thought, and the thing she most ardently desired was not Guildford, but to put herself right with God, her Father!
At the moment that this thought formulated in her mind, a flood of divine peace poured over her whole spirit, and for the first time the pain of her bereavement lessened, and then gently passed into nothingness.
God her Father! A God of infinite tenderness and love! One who loved her even as her own dear father had loved! One who was not responsible for all the evil which had descended upon her! One who owed her only love and protection, and a tenderness such as she had received in its highest earthly form from her father.
In vain Carolina struggled to deify God above her earthly father. She had loved him in so large and deep and broad a manner that she could only realize her new God by comparing Him to her father. And Divine Science had sent this new interpretation of God to her to take the place in her sore heart of the ever-present aching sense of her great loss.
When Mrs. Goddard ended her treatment and opened her eyes, she sat for a moment in silent contemplation of the transfigured face before her. Carolina's beauty, as she thus, for the first time, beheld the face of her Father, was almost unearthly. It was as that of the angels in heaven.
A wave of generous thanksgiving and rejoicing swept over the soul of her practitioner, for she knew that she had been permitted to be the instrument in God's hands of healing a soul which had been sick unto death. Carolina's bodily healing took second place in her thought, yet her confidence was sound that that was even now being accomplished.
When Carolina met her eyes, she smiled. She had found peace.
"Now, dear child, I want to leave with you the ninety-first Psalm. Read it with your new thought in mind, and you will realize that you never have even apprehended it before. Remember, too, that you are not alone any more. You are cradled in Divine Love, for God is both Mother and Father to His children. 'The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms!'"
Mrs. Goddard bent and kissed the girl, and Carolina, usually so reserved, laid her flowerlike face against the older woman's cheek in a silence too deep for words.
"Remember, dear, to call on me by day or night exactly as if I were Doctor Colfax, for I am your physician now. But deny your error as soon as it makes its appearance and you won't need to send for me. I will come of my own accord every day and help you in your studies. Now I must go. Rosemary and I love you already. Both Divine and human love are pouring in upon you in such a manner that you shall not be able to receive it. Good-bye and God bless you, my dear!"
CHAPTER IX.
THE TRIAL OF FAITH
To understand Carolina's complete and instant acceptance of the doctrines of Christian Science in addition to her healing, it is necessary to take a more intimate view of her character.
A person of little or no understanding, or of little or no depth, would naturally have accepted the boon of restored health, whether she ever went any further in the doctrine or not. But Carolina was different. To her the blessing was in a change of thought. Marvellous as she felt her healing to be, her greatest gain was in the peace and happiness which descended upon her like a garment.
To be sure she had been in a desperate plight, both physically and spiritually, when this wonderful hand was stretched out to her in her darkness and despair, yet many to whom it reaches out refuse its grasp simply from a blind prejudice. Having ears, they hear not, nor will they when they might. It argues a particularly lovely spirit to be able to accept so freely and gladly. Carolina was not free from prejudice. Far from it. But she was not stupid. Aside from a clear, spiritual understanding, to be able to accept Christian Science demonstrates no small degree of mentality, clearness of perception, and a capacity for higher education. The Science of Metaphysics does not appeal to fools, and only wise men pursue it. Christian Science is the only religion which calls in any dignified way upon a man's brain. All the others stuff one's intelligence with cotton wool, bidding the questioner not to question but believe. Believe what his ordinary human intelligence repudiates. "If you don't understand all of me," says popular religion, "skip what you don't understand and go on to the next. If you keep on long enough you will find something that you can believe without any trouble. Let that satisfy you. Forget the rest."
But when a metaphysical interpretation of the Scriptures comes along saying: "Ask any question you will and I will give you an answer that will satisfy the best brains and highest order of intelligence among you, for the day of blind belief is past, and the day of understanding is at hand," then the highest compliment which can be paid to the mentality of the most brilliant man and woman, is to say: "They are Christian Scientists."
There may be--there are, many erratic minds attracted by Christian Science, but there are no complete and utter fools among its followers, for the mere fact that a man has sense enough to grope after the very best, instead of being satisfied with that which never completely satisfied the mentality of any man or woman of real intelligence, is an evidence that some degree of wit must be entangled in the meshes of his foolishness. While on the other hand it is doubtful if there ever was a forty-year old sect in the knowledge of man which numbered the multitude of brilliant minds which are within the annals of Christian Science.
Carolina, all her life, had been, not only surrounded by, but familiar with the best. Her father's and mother's brilliance and good taste had drawn around them many of the finest minds in Europe, so that the girl's mentality was as ripe for the highest form of religion as it was of literature or art.
She plunged into the study of it with all the ardour of an enthusiastic intelligence, and heaved a sigh of relief when she realized that at last she had found a dignified religion, free from every form of superstition, from all material symbols, and, above all, one which made it possible intelligently to obey the command, "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you" (1 Peter iii. 15).
Her greatest fear was that she would be unable to curb the hot temper which mortal mind had made into the law that it was a Lee inheritance.
She particularly dreaded her first interview with Noel St. Quentin, Kate, and Cousin Lois. She had yet, also, to face Doctor Colfax. She had not seen him since, by Mrs. Goddard's advice, she wrote him a frank little note, saying that her healing had been marvellously hastened by Christian Science, and that she had so much faith in it that she felt compelled to relinquish all claim on materia medica, but that, in doing so, she wished to acknowledge most gratefully all that his skill had accomplished in her case.
It was a hard note to write, for Kate's assertion, which at first Carolina had indignantly repudiated, that Doctor Colfax was falling in love with her, had proved true, and Carolina knew that this dismissal of him as her physician would indicate that he need expect nothing more of her in any other capacity, either.
He wrote her a polite but stiff letter of acknowledgment, and soon afterward went away for a brief vacation.
Carolina realized how much antagonism she had aroused among her own immediate friends, and she spent many hours consulting Mrs. Goddard how to conduct herself with tact.
When Mrs. Winchester returned from Boston, Carolina experienced her first battle with error. She possessed a high spirit, and to see Cousin Lois sit and look at her in silent despair, with tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks, irritated Carolina almost to the verge of madness, so that instead of waving aloft the glorious banner of a new religion, Carolina found herself longing to box Cousin Lois's ears. Anything, anything to stop those maddening tears!
She could only control herself by a violent effort. Mrs. Winchester, like Kate Howard, was an ardent churchwoman, and to both these women Carolina's acceptance of Christian Science was the greatest blow which could have fallen on them, short of her eloping with the coachman. They felt ashamed, and in no small degree degraded.
"Whatever can you see in it?" demanded Mrs. Winchester, plaintively, one Sunday morning just after she returned from church. "Why need you go to their church? Why can't you continue in the church you were baptized into as a baby? I don't care what you believe, just so you go to the Episcopal church! It is so respectable to be an Episcopalian! Oh, Carolina, as I sat there listening to that sermon to-morrow--oh, Carolina, how can you laugh when I am so serious!"
"Do forgive me, Cousin Lois, but you couldn't be any funnier if you said you had seen something week after next!"
"I am glad to know that a Christian Scientist can laugh," sighed Mrs. Winchester, whose mild persistency in investing the new thought with every attribute that she particularly disliked was, to say the least, diverting.
"Am I improved or not since I began to study with Mrs. Goddard?" demanded Carolina, with recaptured good humour.
"I don't see any improvement, my dear. To me you were always as nearly perfect as a mortal could be!"
"Dear loyal Cousin Lois!" said Carolina.
She seldom kissed any one, but she kissed Mrs. Winchester, who blushed with pleasure under the unusual caress.
"Perhaps," she added, cautiously, "you are a trifle more demonstrative, but I always thought your apparent coldness was aristocratic."
"It wasn't," said Carolina, decidedly. "It was because I didn't care."
"And now?" questioned Mrs. Winchester, wistfully.
"Now," cried Carolina, "I care vitally for everything good!"
"You always did, I think," said Mrs. Winchester. "Even as a child you always gravitated toward the highest of everything. You are too remarkable a girl, Carolina, to throw yourself away at this late day on a fad which will die a natural death of its own accord."
"May I be there to see when Christian Science dies!" cried Carolina, brightly. She felt ashamed that she had ever lost patience with any one who loved her as idolatrously as Cousin Lois.
"Doctor Colfax--I forgot to tell you that I met him on the train, and that he asked fifty questions about you that I couldn't answer--Doctor Colfax will certainly be nonplussed when he sees you walking with only that cane. He told me he never expected to see you walk without two crutches."
"Then you do give Christian Science credit for that much, do you?" asked Carolina.
"Oh, yes. It must have some wonderful power. I simply don't understand it, that's all. And Carolina, it seems so--excuse me, but so disreputable!"
"Does it? I hadn't thought of it in that light."
"And so unsexing! Don't you have women in the pulpit?"
"Yes. Christian Science recognizes woman as the spiritual equal, if not the spiritual superior, of man."
"There!" said Mrs. Winchester, triumphantly, as if having scored a point against the new religion. "Yet woman caused man's fall!"
"No, she didn't, Cousin Lois. Christian Science doesn't take that allegory as history."
"Oh, Carolina! Carolina! You are indeed in a sad way when you forsake the faith of your ancestors! Such disloyalty cannot fail to have a depressing effect upon your character!"
"On the contrary," said Carolina, "it is as exhilarating to kick down all one's old, stale beliefs as a game of football."
At this Mrs. Winchester's asthma returned. There was nothing left for her to do, in her state of mind, but to choke or to swoon.
A few evenings later Doctor Colfax telephoned to Kate that he would drop in for a few minutes after dinner.
"H-he can't stand it for another minute, Carolina!" cried Kate. "I am crazy to see his face when you walk in without your crutches! C-Carol, couldn't you take an extra treatment or so, and come in without even your c-cane?"
Carolina's eyes blazed with joy at this unconscious admission on Kate's part that she believed even that little in the new faith.
For reply Carolina rose by means of the arms of her chair, and without any material aid whatsoever took half a dozen steps.
"Oh, Carol! Carol!" shrieked Kate, bursting into tears. "Y-you never even limped! Oh, it's l-like the d-days when Christ was on earth to s-see a m-miracle like that!"
She seized her friend in her arms and almost lifted her from her feet.
"D-do it to-night, Carolina, and we'll knock their eye out! I'll get the whole family together, a-a-and you j-just walk in like that! Will you?"
"Yes, if you will go away and let me work over it this afternoon. And don't tell anybody!"
"Oh, certainly not! That would spoil the surprise."
"I don't mean for that reason. I mean that outsiders' adverse thought would hinder my work. Mortal mind makes false laws."
"C-could you just as well t-talk United States when you are heaving your ideas at me?" pleaded Kate. "Y-you know I'm not on to the new jargon, and I fail to connect more than half the time."
As Carolina laughed, Kate nodded her head with great satisfaction.
"I am glad to see that Christian Science has not destroyed your royal sense of humour," she said. "Now I'm off to let you w-work!"
But when the door closed behind Kate, a prolonged sense of discouragement seized Carolina. She looked forward to the evening with dread. Kate made fun of it, Doctor Colfax was coming purposely to scoff, and she knew that she was to be made conspicuous because of her religion.
She tried to walk without her cane, but her knee bent under her and she fell to the floor. Her first impulse was to burst into tears, but, as she lay there alone, too far from the bell to summon help, apparently without human aid, she fancied she heard the voice of Mrs. Goddard repeating: "For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."
She said this over and over to herself, and it comforted her. Then the face of Mrs. Goddard came before her mental vision, and the lovely earnestness of her voice sounded in Carolina's ear. She remembered her last words, which now came back to her with strange and timely significance:
"The way will not always be smooth beneath your feet. Error in the guise of fear, selfish or vainglorious thoughts, revenge, self-pity, or desire to shine before others will sometimes cause you to stumble and fall. But at such times, remember to blame, not circumstances nor others, but your own faulty thought. Be severe with yourself. Then turn your thought instantly to the Source of your supply. No one can help you, Carolina, but God, your Father, Divine Love, the All in All of your existence, your very Reason for being. Realize that God is all there is. Beyond Him there is nothing and nothingness. Breathe His spirit. Drink in His divine power. Make yourself one with Him, and you will instantly find that the mists which covered the surface of your spiritual reflection of His image will disappear, and you will begin to reflect His government clearly. At that same moment, you will be healed of your infirmity."
As she repeated these last few words aloud, a feeling of complete security took possession of her, and she rose, first to her knees, then to her feet, and walked confidently to her chair by the window.
In great thankfulness she took her Bible and read the fifth chapter of Luke, and, when she came to the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses, she read them three times, with a heart full of gratitude.
Still she was not satisfied. She was groping after a sign, and she read on until she came to the words, "And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto the magistrates and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say. For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that hour what ye ought to say."
"The Holy Ghost!" thought Carolina. "I wonder what that really is. That is one of the things I never could understand in the old thought."
She turned to the Glossary in "Science and Health," and there the first definition of Holy Ghost was "Divine Science."
"I am answered," she said, with a sigh of complete satisfaction. "For the first time in my life I begin to understand the fourteenth chapter of John."
She leaned her head against the window-pane to watch the postman come down the street. Then she heard his whistle, and presently the maid brought her a letter. She asked the maid to turn on the electric light, and, when she had done so and left the room, Carolina read the following letter: