Chapter Fifteen.Fidelia’s Perplexity.This year in the seminary was far more profitable to Fidelia than the former year had been. The work which she had done so faithfully at home told now. She was not pressed or hurried by overwork in preparing for her classes, and had time to take the good of other things besides study.Under the Christian influence lovingly and judiciously exercised over them, not even the careless or unimpressionable among the pupils could remain altogether untouched by some sense of their responsibility to the Lord Jesus, or to the claims which He had on them to be workers together with Him in the world which He came to save. Fidelia, with softened heart and awakened conscience, was now open to that influence, and yielded to it as she had not done before. There was no neglect or misappropriation of the “quiet half-hour” morning and evening now, nor of any other of the many means of grace provided for the benefit of all.The scope and sense of all the teaching, as to duty, of the noble woman through whose labours and self-denials the seminary was founded had been—“Ye are not your own: ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”“No man liveth to himself.” One of her last utterances to the pupils whom she loved and for whom she laboured was this: “There is nothing in the universe that I fear, but that I shall not know all my duty, or shall fail to do it.” She was dead, but her works and words still lived and spoke through those who had come after her, and through them there came richly to Fidelia the blessing which above all other blessings she desired for herself—the wish and the power to consecrate her life to the work which is the highest of all. So she came back to her home in a different state of heart and mind this time—she herself did not know how different till she was among old familiar friends and circumstances again, looking over the past and on to the future with other hopes and aspirations than those which had made her discontented about the time of her last coming home.It did not seem quite like home to her in Halsey any more. But she told herself she would wait patiently and do faithfully the work which came to her hand, till some opening should come to her of higher work in a larger field as a teacher, and then she would strive to be such a teacher as Eunice might have been in her youth, had not other work fallen to her hand.By-and-by something happened. A letter came to her from Dr Justin Everett which surprised her. It was not the first time that he had written to her. After the death of her sister he had written a letter of sympathy which she had answered briefly. She had not answered other letters which had followed, but this one must be answered. It was a long letter, telling her something of his youth and of his engagement to her sister, and of the disappointment and pain which their necessary separation had caused to them both.He said he had returned to Halsey two years ago, hoping to carry Eunice back with him as his wife; but in her state of health they had both seen this to be impossible. Then he went on to say how unconsciously at first his heart had turned to the sister of the woman he had loved so dearly in his youth, and how Eunice had not refused to sanction his love, though she had utterly forbidden him to speak then or for some time to come. “Has the time come now when I may speak? And will you not listen to me?” That was the sum of what followed, though many words were used in saying it; and it must be owned that Fidelia was moved by them—for a time. If he had come himself it would have been a much more troublesome matter. But her dream had passed, and so had the pain it had caused her, though it took a little time to make her sure that it was so. After reading her letter over again, she wrapped a shawl about her, and went up the hill till she came to the turn of the road where she had seen Dr Justin standing soothing his startled mare. She could think of it all quietly enough now, and her calmness might have helped her to the knowledge of what her answer ought to be. But she allowed herself to ponder over it. It was a pleasant life that was set before her. She might have a charming home, intellectual society, a chance to improve herself, a chance also to do good to others. There would be the happy mean—neither poverty nor riches, and a home of her own; and for a time she was not aware how the possibility of taking all this into consideration, and of weighing it all quietly, proved that she did not care for Justin Everett as she ought to do before she answered him, “Yes.” There was the further question, though she scarcely dared to pursue it. Was the man who could thus transfer his affections really worthy of her trust? She shrank back when she thought of the past, as if she were wronging her sister’s memory.“You are not worrying about anything, are you, Fidelia?” said Mrs Stone at last.“Worrying? No; I hope not. I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”“Was the big letter that Calvin brought you the other day from Dr Justin Everett?”“Yes, it was,” answered Fidelia, with a touch of vexation in her voice.“I wouldn’t have asked only—”“Oh, there is no harm done!” said Fidelia, laughing. “I hope not,” said Mrs Stone gravely. “I have been expecting it ever since you came here. You mustn’t think I want to meddle, dear. I want just to tell you something that Eunice said to me. Oh, yes! She knew it might come some time. But she would not say a word about it. She said that the Lord would guide you right in this and in all other things. And so He will, if you ask Him.”Mrs Stone gathered up her work, and rose to leave the room.“Tell me about it, Aunt Ruby,” said Fidelia gently.There was not much to tell. For herself, Mrs Stone had not a word to say. Even when Fidelia asked her advice, she replied quietly—“It seems to me you ought to have known what answer to send to that letter as soon as ever you read it.” And then she went away, leaving Fidelia to ponder her words. She came back to add another word, however.“Let your answer, whether it be Yes or No, be final. Don’t let there be any half-and-half doings—any waiting to find out what your real feelings are. You ought to know this minute all you need to know. Say it once for all.”That very day another letter came, not so long as the other, but it brought help to Fidelia, in a way unexpected. This letter was from “Ella Wainright.” Fidelia knew that Miss Kent had married; but she did not know that she had married a widower with children. The letter told her this, and it told her also that the two little girls who had fallen into her hands more than filled them. They had been spoiled all their lives by two loving grandmothers and several aunts, all of whom had the best intentions with regard to the motherless children.“As for me,” wrote Mrs Wainright, “I am to them the cruel or indifferent stepmother of the story-books, and I should not have a chance with them, even if I had any faculty with children, which I have not. They are bright girls of nine and twelve. I might leave them in school while I go to Europe with my husband, but that would not be good for them nor right for me, and it would only be postponing, perhaps increasing, the trouble. I know you mean to teach, and I have heard from your friend Nelly Austin that you covet hard work; and here it is, ready to your hand. You may name your salary. You will earn it, whatever it is. We shall be in Europe two years at least, perhaps longer. You will have a chance to see much that every one wishes to see, and you can improve yourself in your music, and learn a language or two; and you can help me to do the same. Do not decide against me till you come over to Eastwood to see me.” And so on.Fidelia came into the room where Mrs Stone was sitting with her letter in her hand.“Aunt Ruby, listen, and tell me what I had better do.” Then she read the letter.Mrs Stone listened, but she did not need to advise. She saw that, though she was not aware of it herself, Fidelia had almost made up her mind to go.“I think I would go over to Eastwood and see Mrs Wainright, and talk it over with her.” And she would have liked to add—“You may as well write your letter to Dr Justin before you go,” but she did not. “It is all right, I guess; and I, for one, am glad of it.”Fidelia went to Eastwood. If she had been inclined to hesitate over her decision, she could hardly have done so. Mrs Wainright took possession of her at once.“If it is a chance to do good that you desire, it is the very place for you, for the children need you sorely.” And Miss Abby Chase, who had seen the children, said the same. Mrs Austin wished her to go because of Mrs Wainright, who was not strong, and who did not seem to have a chance with the children; and Nellie enlarged upon the delights of travel, and the opportunities for self-improvement which she would enjoy. There was, besides, little time for hesitation. Within ten days they were to sail. So Fidelia went home and wrote her letter to Dr Justin, and set her house in order, and was ready to depart.“Halsey will always be your home while you own this place, and so you must keep it,” said Mrs Stone. “I don’t know a more forlorn feeling than for such a home-bird as you have always been than to find herself without a nest. We talked it all over, Eunice and I. I’d as lief live in your house as in my own, and I will pay you rent. It’s paid already in a way. Eunice had a little change of investment to make, under Dr Everett’s advice, about the time I came here, and I put something with what she had in your name—just about enough to make the interest pay rent for your house and land. I’ll keep up the place as well as I know how; the rent may be put with the rest while you don’t want, and it will be handy when you do. I thought it would be better to fix it so than to put you in my will, because of Ezra’s folks. No; there is nothing to be said. Eunice knew all about it; and you can just think of me as keeping house for you till you come home.”Fidelia did not say much, but she said just the right thing in the right way when the time came. It was the night before she left.“Aunt Ruby, let us go down to the graveyard now. We can go by the old road, where we shall not likely to meet any one, and come home by moonlight.”So together they stood beside the grave of Eunice, and spoke lovingly and thankfully of her, and prayed in silence for each other. And there was no bitterness in Fidelia’s tears, though they came in a flood as she turned away. For it was well with Eunice, and she knew they would meet again. She turned back when she had gone a little way toward the gate, and, kneeling once more, kissed the dear name carved on the stone, and prayed with all her heart that by God’s grace she might be kept unspotted from the world, till the time came when she should meet her sister again.And so Fidelia left her home—sad, but hopeful.One untoward event happened before she set sail. She had to meet Dr Justin face-to-face, and give him his answer. She was not many minutes in his company, but they were full of pain to her.Strangely enough, she caught her first glimpse of him from a window, as she had done that day in Eastwood from Miss Abby’s room; and, more strangely still, he was walking as he had been walking that day, by Miss Avery’s side, looking down upon her, while she, with smiles and pretty eager gestures, looked up at him. For a minute Fidelia was not sure of the nature of the feelings which the sight awoke within her; but she was quite sure of one thing—she did not intend to break her engagement to go with her friend and schoolmate, Mary Holbrook, to Cambridge, to see at least the outside of the poet’s house before she went away. She listened till she heard them enter the house; and, when she knew them to be safe in the parlour, she went softly downstairs and out into the street; and, though she felt a little ashamed of herself for running away, she laughed heartily as she hastened on. She enjoyed every minute of the day, she told Mrs Wainright when—rather late in the evening—she came home. She had seen, not only the outside of the poet’s house, but also, through the kindness of a friend of Miss Holbrook, the inside of it, and Mr Longfellow himself as well; and the day was a day to be remembered for many reasons.She saw Dr Justin in the morning, however, though she hoped she need not. There was not time for many words between them; but Fidelia’s words were spoken with sufficient decision. Dr Justin had not received her letter. He had heard from his niece Susie that her friend was going away, and he hastened to see her before her departure. He asked for nothing that would make it necessary for her to break her engagement with Mrs Wainright. He only asked her promise to return at the end of the year, and give him her answer then. But she refused to make the promise, or even to correspond with him while she was away.“I have spoken too soon; I will wait and come again,” said he.“You will not be wise to wait or to come again,” said Fidelia gravely.He came to the steamer with other friends of the Wainrights to see the last of them. Miss Avery was there among the rest; and, as Fidelia watched them moving away together, she said to herself, that the chances were few that Dr Justin would either wait or return to her again.And so it proved. Before the first year of her absence was quite over there came to Mrs Wainright a letter from her cousin, telling her of her engagement to Dr Justin Everett, and trusting that they might meet them in Europe before many months.“And sothatis well over,” said Fidelia.Fidelia’s desire for real work by which she might do some good in the world was granted during the next three years, and besides her work she had both pleasure and profit; and little more than this can be told of the time she spent away from her home, on the other side of the sea. Her pupils respected her always, and by-and-by they loved her dearly; and her influence over them was altogether good and happy to body, mind, and spirit. And as much as that can be said as regarded her influence over their mother also. During a long and tedious illness, which came upon Mrs Wainright in Switzerland, Fidelia nursed and comforted her as she could not have done had there not been mutual respect as well as love between them; and to both mother and daughters her influence and example was a source of blessing which did not cease when the time came that they were called to separate.This time came when they returned to America, for on going home to Halsey Fidelia found Mrs Stone—not ill, but ailing; and she made up her mind that it was her duty to remain with her old friend during the winter. Her pupils were to be sent to school, and needed her no longer. Their mother needed her very much, or she thought she did, and entreated her to return. But, even if Fidelia had not thought it her duty to remain with Mrs Stone, she would have hesitated about returning, for she had not been long in Halsey before she made a discovery which surprised her, and which made her ashamed.After the first joy of welcome from old friends, and the first glad renewal of old associations well over, she could not but own to herself that she did not find life in Halsey altogether to her mind. This was not her discovery. She had hardly expected to find it so. She had had some such thought before she left it. Her surprise was, to find that she missed—even greatly missed—the pleasant things which she had become accustomed to during the last three years—the new books, the music, the sight and touch of rare and beautiful things; all the luxuries and the ease-giving which wealth dispensed judiciously, sometimes lavishly, had secured to her friend’s household, and to her with the rest. She missed the movement and the change made by the coming and going of the many friends of the household—not merely the ordinary friends and neighbours, but people of whom the world had heard—men and women whom it was good to see and know.The life had suited her. It was not surprising that she should regret many things which she had enjoyed while with the Wainrights. Was it wrong to regret them? She might enjoy them all again in somewhat different circumstances. Would it be right and wise for her to return at the entreaty of her friend?“I must settle the question once for all,” she said to herself. And she did settle it; and with it she settled another question which went farther and deeper. “Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Would a chance to lead an easy, pleasant, even useful life in the house of her friend cover for her all the ground which this command covered? She did not need a long time to consider the answer. The past she did not regret. It was well that she had gone with Mrs Wainright. She knew that she had helped the mother and the children to a better knowledge of each other, and she trusted also that she had done something towards encouraging in them a desire for a higher knowledge—the knowledge which God alone can give. She was glad in looking back; but could she look forward and see that she had any special work for these young people which their mother might not do better than she did? And might she not be taking out of the mother’s hands work the doing of which would be for her good as well as for theirs?And then as to herself. Was “an easy time,” with only light duties—which could hardly be called work in any right sense, amid the luxury which she had learned to like so well that now she missed it—was this what she ought to accept for herself as the best and highest? Did she owe no more than this to Him Who had bought her with a price? She was, in a sense, quite alone, and at her own disposal, free from all ties of relationship or friendship, such as might interfere with any work to which she gave herself. She could teach. That had been her plan always, and her sister’s plan for her, because teaching undertaken and pursued in a right spirit might be made a part of the highest work of all. This Eunice had coveted for her; she had coveted it for herself.Yes; the faithful doing of such work might be made work for the Master. Had she lost her desire to have a part in this work? she asked herself. Had her easy life among the pleasant things of the last few years done her this evil? She had many thoughts about it, and, after a time, she had some talk with Mrs Stone about it also.“No; I don’t think you are spoiled. Your life could not have been a very easy one. Anyway, it hasn’t spoiled you. You had good work to do over there and you did it pretty well, I expect, or they wouldn’t want you back again. In one way it has helped you. Yes, I think you could now do good work in a better way for the advantages you have had, and you are bound to do it. If you don’t, your privileges may become a snare to you, and you may get to be satisfied with a kind of work lower than the highest you are capable of. ‘No man liveth to himself,’ you must remember.”“And the highest work I seem to be capable of, is to teach.”“There is no higher work, if it is done in the right spirit. And it is the work you have prepared yourself for. If you are better fitted for other work, you’ll have a chance to try it. It seems to be your work in the meantime. You may marry.”Fidelia shook her head.“I am not sure about other work. I know I can teach.”And so for the next few years she did teach. In one of those large seminaries which the Christian beneficence of many wise men of moderate means, with the help of a few rich men, has established for the higher education of the young women of the country, Fidelia found her work. She was one of many who there worked willingly and well, in a field where good and willing work rarely fails to give a full return.It would take a long chapter to give even a glimpse of her experiences during those years. She was not without her troubles and anxieties, but on the whole they were happy years. For to be successful in good work which one loves, and which one can do well, comes as near to true happiness as most people ever come in this world. Day by day, as time went on, she was permitted to see the springing up of some “plant of grace” from the seed which she had sown; and she had good cause to hope that there were more to follow, for such plants do not die out, but increase, and bear fruit abundantly as the years go by. Once in a while, but not often, she paused amid her work, to ask herself whether she would be quite content in it all her life long. It was a question which did not need an answer, as she was quite satisfied with the present; and the future, she believed, would be guided and guarded by the Hand of love which had led her during the past.
This year in the seminary was far more profitable to Fidelia than the former year had been. The work which she had done so faithfully at home told now. She was not pressed or hurried by overwork in preparing for her classes, and had time to take the good of other things besides study.
Under the Christian influence lovingly and judiciously exercised over them, not even the careless or unimpressionable among the pupils could remain altogether untouched by some sense of their responsibility to the Lord Jesus, or to the claims which He had on them to be workers together with Him in the world which He came to save. Fidelia, with softened heart and awakened conscience, was now open to that influence, and yielded to it as she had not done before. There was no neglect or misappropriation of the “quiet half-hour” morning and evening now, nor of any other of the many means of grace provided for the benefit of all.
The scope and sense of all the teaching, as to duty, of the noble woman through whose labours and self-denials the seminary was founded had been—“Ye are not your own: ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
“No man liveth to himself.” One of her last utterances to the pupils whom she loved and for whom she laboured was this: “There is nothing in the universe that I fear, but that I shall not know all my duty, or shall fail to do it.” She was dead, but her works and words still lived and spoke through those who had come after her, and through them there came richly to Fidelia the blessing which above all other blessings she desired for herself—the wish and the power to consecrate her life to the work which is the highest of all. So she came back to her home in a different state of heart and mind this time—she herself did not know how different till she was among old familiar friends and circumstances again, looking over the past and on to the future with other hopes and aspirations than those which had made her discontented about the time of her last coming home.
It did not seem quite like home to her in Halsey any more. But she told herself she would wait patiently and do faithfully the work which came to her hand, till some opening should come to her of higher work in a larger field as a teacher, and then she would strive to be such a teacher as Eunice might have been in her youth, had not other work fallen to her hand.
By-and-by something happened. A letter came to her from Dr Justin Everett which surprised her. It was not the first time that he had written to her. After the death of her sister he had written a letter of sympathy which she had answered briefly. She had not answered other letters which had followed, but this one must be answered. It was a long letter, telling her something of his youth and of his engagement to her sister, and of the disappointment and pain which their necessary separation had caused to them both.
He said he had returned to Halsey two years ago, hoping to carry Eunice back with him as his wife; but in her state of health they had both seen this to be impossible. Then he went on to say how unconsciously at first his heart had turned to the sister of the woman he had loved so dearly in his youth, and how Eunice had not refused to sanction his love, though she had utterly forbidden him to speak then or for some time to come. “Has the time come now when I may speak? And will you not listen to me?” That was the sum of what followed, though many words were used in saying it; and it must be owned that Fidelia was moved by them—for a time. If he had come himself it would have been a much more troublesome matter. But her dream had passed, and so had the pain it had caused her, though it took a little time to make her sure that it was so. After reading her letter over again, she wrapped a shawl about her, and went up the hill till she came to the turn of the road where she had seen Dr Justin standing soothing his startled mare. She could think of it all quietly enough now, and her calmness might have helped her to the knowledge of what her answer ought to be. But she allowed herself to ponder over it. It was a pleasant life that was set before her. She might have a charming home, intellectual society, a chance to improve herself, a chance also to do good to others. There would be the happy mean—neither poverty nor riches, and a home of her own; and for a time she was not aware how the possibility of taking all this into consideration, and of weighing it all quietly, proved that she did not care for Justin Everett as she ought to do before she answered him, “Yes.” There was the further question, though she scarcely dared to pursue it. Was the man who could thus transfer his affections really worthy of her trust? She shrank back when she thought of the past, as if she were wronging her sister’s memory.
“You are not worrying about anything, are you, Fidelia?” said Mrs Stone at last.
“Worrying? No; I hope not. I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
“Was the big letter that Calvin brought you the other day from Dr Justin Everett?”
“Yes, it was,” answered Fidelia, with a touch of vexation in her voice.
“I wouldn’t have asked only—”
“Oh, there is no harm done!” said Fidelia, laughing. “I hope not,” said Mrs Stone gravely. “I have been expecting it ever since you came here. You mustn’t think I want to meddle, dear. I want just to tell you something that Eunice said to me. Oh, yes! She knew it might come some time. But she would not say a word about it. She said that the Lord would guide you right in this and in all other things. And so He will, if you ask Him.”
Mrs Stone gathered up her work, and rose to leave the room.
“Tell me about it, Aunt Ruby,” said Fidelia gently.
There was not much to tell. For herself, Mrs Stone had not a word to say. Even when Fidelia asked her advice, she replied quietly—
“It seems to me you ought to have known what answer to send to that letter as soon as ever you read it.” And then she went away, leaving Fidelia to ponder her words. She came back to add another word, however.
“Let your answer, whether it be Yes or No, be final. Don’t let there be any half-and-half doings—any waiting to find out what your real feelings are. You ought to know this minute all you need to know. Say it once for all.”
That very day another letter came, not so long as the other, but it brought help to Fidelia, in a way unexpected. This letter was from “Ella Wainright.” Fidelia knew that Miss Kent had married; but she did not know that she had married a widower with children. The letter told her this, and it told her also that the two little girls who had fallen into her hands more than filled them. They had been spoiled all their lives by two loving grandmothers and several aunts, all of whom had the best intentions with regard to the motherless children.
“As for me,” wrote Mrs Wainright, “I am to them the cruel or indifferent stepmother of the story-books, and I should not have a chance with them, even if I had any faculty with children, which I have not. They are bright girls of nine and twelve. I might leave them in school while I go to Europe with my husband, but that would not be good for them nor right for me, and it would only be postponing, perhaps increasing, the trouble. I know you mean to teach, and I have heard from your friend Nelly Austin that you covet hard work; and here it is, ready to your hand. You may name your salary. You will earn it, whatever it is. We shall be in Europe two years at least, perhaps longer. You will have a chance to see much that every one wishes to see, and you can improve yourself in your music, and learn a language or two; and you can help me to do the same. Do not decide against me till you come over to Eastwood to see me.” And so on.
Fidelia came into the room where Mrs Stone was sitting with her letter in her hand.
“Aunt Ruby, listen, and tell me what I had better do.” Then she read the letter.
Mrs Stone listened, but she did not need to advise. She saw that, though she was not aware of it herself, Fidelia had almost made up her mind to go.
“I think I would go over to Eastwood and see Mrs Wainright, and talk it over with her.” And she would have liked to add—“You may as well write your letter to Dr Justin before you go,” but she did not. “It is all right, I guess; and I, for one, am glad of it.”
Fidelia went to Eastwood. If she had been inclined to hesitate over her decision, she could hardly have done so. Mrs Wainright took possession of her at once.
“If it is a chance to do good that you desire, it is the very place for you, for the children need you sorely.” And Miss Abby Chase, who had seen the children, said the same. Mrs Austin wished her to go because of Mrs Wainright, who was not strong, and who did not seem to have a chance with the children; and Nellie enlarged upon the delights of travel, and the opportunities for self-improvement which she would enjoy. There was, besides, little time for hesitation. Within ten days they were to sail. So Fidelia went home and wrote her letter to Dr Justin, and set her house in order, and was ready to depart.
“Halsey will always be your home while you own this place, and so you must keep it,” said Mrs Stone. “I don’t know a more forlorn feeling than for such a home-bird as you have always been than to find herself without a nest. We talked it all over, Eunice and I. I’d as lief live in your house as in my own, and I will pay you rent. It’s paid already in a way. Eunice had a little change of investment to make, under Dr Everett’s advice, about the time I came here, and I put something with what she had in your name—just about enough to make the interest pay rent for your house and land. I’ll keep up the place as well as I know how; the rent may be put with the rest while you don’t want, and it will be handy when you do. I thought it would be better to fix it so than to put you in my will, because of Ezra’s folks. No; there is nothing to be said. Eunice knew all about it; and you can just think of me as keeping house for you till you come home.”
Fidelia did not say much, but she said just the right thing in the right way when the time came. It was the night before she left.
“Aunt Ruby, let us go down to the graveyard now. We can go by the old road, where we shall not likely to meet any one, and come home by moonlight.”
So together they stood beside the grave of Eunice, and spoke lovingly and thankfully of her, and prayed in silence for each other. And there was no bitterness in Fidelia’s tears, though they came in a flood as she turned away. For it was well with Eunice, and she knew they would meet again. She turned back when she had gone a little way toward the gate, and, kneeling once more, kissed the dear name carved on the stone, and prayed with all her heart that by God’s grace she might be kept unspotted from the world, till the time came when she should meet her sister again.
And so Fidelia left her home—sad, but hopeful.
One untoward event happened before she set sail. She had to meet Dr Justin face-to-face, and give him his answer. She was not many minutes in his company, but they were full of pain to her.
Strangely enough, she caught her first glimpse of him from a window, as she had done that day in Eastwood from Miss Abby’s room; and, more strangely still, he was walking as he had been walking that day, by Miss Avery’s side, looking down upon her, while she, with smiles and pretty eager gestures, looked up at him. For a minute Fidelia was not sure of the nature of the feelings which the sight awoke within her; but she was quite sure of one thing—she did not intend to break her engagement to go with her friend and schoolmate, Mary Holbrook, to Cambridge, to see at least the outside of the poet’s house before she went away. She listened till she heard them enter the house; and, when she knew them to be safe in the parlour, she went softly downstairs and out into the street; and, though she felt a little ashamed of herself for running away, she laughed heartily as she hastened on. She enjoyed every minute of the day, she told Mrs Wainright when—rather late in the evening—she came home. She had seen, not only the outside of the poet’s house, but also, through the kindness of a friend of Miss Holbrook, the inside of it, and Mr Longfellow himself as well; and the day was a day to be remembered for many reasons.
She saw Dr Justin in the morning, however, though she hoped she need not. There was not time for many words between them; but Fidelia’s words were spoken with sufficient decision. Dr Justin had not received her letter. He had heard from his niece Susie that her friend was going away, and he hastened to see her before her departure. He asked for nothing that would make it necessary for her to break her engagement with Mrs Wainright. He only asked her promise to return at the end of the year, and give him her answer then. But she refused to make the promise, or even to correspond with him while she was away.
“I have spoken too soon; I will wait and come again,” said he.
“You will not be wise to wait or to come again,” said Fidelia gravely.
He came to the steamer with other friends of the Wainrights to see the last of them. Miss Avery was there among the rest; and, as Fidelia watched them moving away together, she said to herself, that the chances were few that Dr Justin would either wait or return to her again.
And so it proved. Before the first year of her absence was quite over there came to Mrs Wainright a letter from her cousin, telling her of her engagement to Dr Justin Everett, and trusting that they might meet them in Europe before many months.
“And sothatis well over,” said Fidelia.
Fidelia’s desire for real work by which she might do some good in the world was granted during the next three years, and besides her work she had both pleasure and profit; and little more than this can be told of the time she spent away from her home, on the other side of the sea. Her pupils respected her always, and by-and-by they loved her dearly; and her influence over them was altogether good and happy to body, mind, and spirit. And as much as that can be said as regarded her influence over their mother also. During a long and tedious illness, which came upon Mrs Wainright in Switzerland, Fidelia nursed and comforted her as she could not have done had there not been mutual respect as well as love between them; and to both mother and daughters her influence and example was a source of blessing which did not cease when the time came that they were called to separate.
This time came when they returned to America, for on going home to Halsey Fidelia found Mrs Stone—not ill, but ailing; and she made up her mind that it was her duty to remain with her old friend during the winter. Her pupils were to be sent to school, and needed her no longer. Their mother needed her very much, or she thought she did, and entreated her to return. But, even if Fidelia had not thought it her duty to remain with Mrs Stone, she would have hesitated about returning, for she had not been long in Halsey before she made a discovery which surprised her, and which made her ashamed.
After the first joy of welcome from old friends, and the first glad renewal of old associations well over, she could not but own to herself that she did not find life in Halsey altogether to her mind. This was not her discovery. She had hardly expected to find it so. She had had some such thought before she left it. Her surprise was, to find that she missed—even greatly missed—the pleasant things which she had become accustomed to during the last three years—the new books, the music, the sight and touch of rare and beautiful things; all the luxuries and the ease-giving which wealth dispensed judiciously, sometimes lavishly, had secured to her friend’s household, and to her with the rest. She missed the movement and the change made by the coming and going of the many friends of the household—not merely the ordinary friends and neighbours, but people of whom the world had heard—men and women whom it was good to see and know.
The life had suited her. It was not surprising that she should regret many things which she had enjoyed while with the Wainrights. Was it wrong to regret them? She might enjoy them all again in somewhat different circumstances. Would it be right and wise for her to return at the entreaty of her friend?
“I must settle the question once for all,” she said to herself. And she did settle it; and with it she settled another question which went farther and deeper. “Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Would a chance to lead an easy, pleasant, even useful life in the house of her friend cover for her all the ground which this command covered? She did not need a long time to consider the answer. The past she did not regret. It was well that she had gone with Mrs Wainright. She knew that she had helped the mother and the children to a better knowledge of each other, and she trusted also that she had done something towards encouraging in them a desire for a higher knowledge—the knowledge which God alone can give. She was glad in looking back; but could she look forward and see that she had any special work for these young people which their mother might not do better than she did? And might she not be taking out of the mother’s hands work the doing of which would be for her good as well as for theirs?
And then as to herself. Was “an easy time,” with only light duties—which could hardly be called work in any right sense, amid the luxury which she had learned to like so well that now she missed it—was this what she ought to accept for herself as the best and highest? Did she owe no more than this to Him Who had bought her with a price? She was, in a sense, quite alone, and at her own disposal, free from all ties of relationship or friendship, such as might interfere with any work to which she gave herself. She could teach. That had been her plan always, and her sister’s plan for her, because teaching undertaken and pursued in a right spirit might be made a part of the highest work of all. This Eunice had coveted for her; she had coveted it for herself.
Yes; the faithful doing of such work might be made work for the Master. Had she lost her desire to have a part in this work? she asked herself. Had her easy life among the pleasant things of the last few years done her this evil? She had many thoughts about it, and, after a time, she had some talk with Mrs Stone about it also.
“No; I don’t think you are spoiled. Your life could not have been a very easy one. Anyway, it hasn’t spoiled you. You had good work to do over there and you did it pretty well, I expect, or they wouldn’t want you back again. In one way it has helped you. Yes, I think you could now do good work in a better way for the advantages you have had, and you are bound to do it. If you don’t, your privileges may become a snare to you, and you may get to be satisfied with a kind of work lower than the highest you are capable of. ‘No man liveth to himself,’ you must remember.”
“And the highest work I seem to be capable of, is to teach.”
“There is no higher work, if it is done in the right spirit. And it is the work you have prepared yourself for. If you are better fitted for other work, you’ll have a chance to try it. It seems to be your work in the meantime. You may marry.”
Fidelia shook her head.
“I am not sure about other work. I know I can teach.”
And so for the next few years she did teach. In one of those large seminaries which the Christian beneficence of many wise men of moderate means, with the help of a few rich men, has established for the higher education of the young women of the country, Fidelia found her work. She was one of many who there worked willingly and well, in a field where good and willing work rarely fails to give a full return.
It would take a long chapter to give even a glimpse of her experiences during those years. She was not without her troubles and anxieties, but on the whole they were happy years. For to be successful in good work which one loves, and which one can do well, comes as near to true happiness as most people ever come in this world. Day by day, as time went on, she was permitted to see the springing up of some “plant of grace” from the seed which she had sown; and she had good cause to hope that there were more to follow, for such plants do not die out, but increase, and bear fruit abundantly as the years go by. Once in a while, but not often, she paused amid her work, to ask herself whether she would be quite content in it all her life long. It was a question which did not need an answer, as she was quite satisfied with the present; and the future, she believed, would be guided and guarded by the Hand of love which had led her during the past.
Chapter Sixteen.Thanksgiving.Fidelia had not lost sight of her friends during these years in the seminary. A few weeks of every summer were given to Mrs Stone and her Halsey friends, and as many to Mrs Wainright and her daughters, either in their own home, or at the seaside, or among the mountains, wherever they chanced to be passing the summer. The change and the happy renewal of old associations did her good, and kept her interested in other matters than those which concerned her daily life and duties. Her friends did not allow her to forget them. Even Mrs Stone wrote frequently to her, though the writing of a letter cost her more labour than a day’s housework did. One or other of Dr Everett’s family wrote now and then, and so did the Austins. With Mrs Wainright the correspondence was constant.“Come home to Thanksgiving,” wrote that lady soon after the work of Fidelia’s fourth year in the seminary had commenced. She had written the same thing every year, but Fidelia had never been able to accept the invitation. This year she had a great desire to accept it, for various reasons; so, though the journey was long, and the time she could give for the visit was short, she found herself in her friend’s house on the eve of Thanksgiving Day; and among the many thousands who, throughout the land, had that day turned their faces homeward, few could have been welcomed more kindly than she.Thanksgiving Day was kept in the town of C— much as it is kept everywhere throughout the country, in which there is so much over which a thankful people may rejoice. Everybody, except the anxious housekeepers who had dinner on their minds, was expected to go to church in the early part of the day, and join in thanksgiving with their neighbours. The Wainrights all went, and so did Fidelia. There were many people present. The service was simple and devout; the sermon was appropriate; and all things went as usual till it came to the singing of the thanksgiving anthem, and that went better than usual, because Fidelia joined in it, and put all her glad and thankful heart into her wonderful voice as she sang.She even sang the “solo” which Mrs Wainright was expected to sing. But a whispered entreaty from her friend, which there was time neither to answer nor to refuse, gave the honour to Fidelia. Clear and full and sweet rose her voice, and filled the house, thrilling and satisfying all the listening hearts and ears with the melody, till the saintly old souls among them asked themselves whether even the heavenly music could be sweeter.Some one sitting near the door rose when the other voices came in again, and walked up the aisle till he came to a point where, looking up, the choir in the gallery could be seen. There he stood till the anthem was ended, and then moved quietly away. He was a stranger, and no one took much notice of him at the moment, though some among them remembered him afterwards. Lucy Wainright noticed him, and spoke of it when she came home.“It must have been some stranger. No one of our people would have done such a thing,” said she.“It must have been that he wanted to see where the voice came from,” said her sister.“I do not wonder,” said their father. “Miss Marsh, how came you to take the place of honour to-day?”“I don’t know,” said Fidelia.Mrs Wainright laughed.“I don’t know either. I did not think of it a second before I spoke. It was a risk, I acknowledge—or it would have been with any one but Fidelia.”“A risk! It might have caused a breakdown. She might have refused.”“No; I was sure of Fidelia!”And while they went on talking the door-bell rang, and the maid brought in a card and gave it to Mrs Wainright.“A stranger? Did he ask for me? I do not know the name. Jabez Ainsworth!”Fidelia uttered an exclamation, holding out her hand for the card.“I know him well. He is one of my oldest friends, though I have not seen him for years. Shall I go and see him?”“Do go,” said Mr Wainright; “and, if he is a friend of yours, ask him to stay to eat his Thanksgiving dinner with us. He will have something to be thankful for when he sees you, I should say.”“Of course—ask him to stay. And don’t be long about it, for dinner is ready.”So Fidelia went in quickly, with both hands stretched out in eager welcome to the friend whom she had not seen for so many years.“Can it be Jabez?” she said softly, pausing before she came near.“I need not ask if it can be Fidelia. You haven’t changed, except to grow a little like your sister.”“Ah, my Eunice!”Was it the dear name that brought the tears to Fidelia’s eyes, and the memory of so many sad and happy days? She could not hide them except by turning her face away, for Jabez held her hands firmly in his, and her smiles came quickly as she looked up at him.“You are a happy woman, Fidelia. Your face tells me that before a word is spoken.”“Happy! Yes; and so glad to see you. How can it have happened that we have never met all these long years—never once since you left Halsey?”“I have only been once in Halsey since I left it, and then you were on the other side of the sea, where I have been since.”They ought to have had much to say to each other after so long a time, but there was not much said for awhile. Fidelia looked on the face and listened to the voice at once so strange and so familiar, saying to herself how changed he was—and yet he seemed the same. He was a large man now, dark and strong, not at all in these respects like the slender sallow boy who had loitered about the garden in Halsey. But it was Jabez all the same. He was very grave and silent for a time, and walked up and down the room once or twice, pausing at the window which looked out upon the street, as though he had something to consider or to conquer before he could either listen or speak. After a little he came and sat down beside her.“Well, Fidelia, you are a happy woman. You have lived through your troubles, and have come safely to the other side, thank God!”“But, Jabez, it does not seem like trouble to look back upon it now. Only think of my Eunice safe and blessed all these years. Why, I have not shed a tear for a long time—in sorrow!”She might well add the word, for there were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks while she spoke; but there were smiles on her face as well, which made Jabez say—“I thank God that you are happy now.”There was no time for more. The door opened and Mrs Wainright entered, followed by her husband. She did not need an introduction.“I am glad to see you, Mr Ainsworth, and sorry to interrupt you so soon, but dinner is ready, and there will be time to visit afterwards.”Then she introduced her husband, whose welcome, though quiet, was sufficiently cordial. Then he said:“I hope you have no other Thanksgiving dinner in view, for I think ours is to be a good one; and we are very happy to see you.”“I supposed that I was to spend Thanksgiving in Halsey, but a mistake as to connection, and then a breakdown on the road, left me here for the day. I shall be glad to give thanks with you, and with—Fidelia.”“I am sorry for your grandmother,” said Fidelia.“You need not be sorry. My visit was to be a surprise to them. It must wait till next summer now. I am going West again.”“Well, we will go to dinner now,” said Mr Wainright, offering his arm to his wife. “Miss Marsh, you must show Mr Ainsworth the way.”“Miss Marsh?” said Jabez, turning astonished eyes upon her, as the others passed out at the door.“Why, who did you suppose me to be?” said Fidelia, laughing.“I—I don’t know. I asked the door-keeper at the church who was the singer to-day, and he said it was Mrs Wainright. But I am very glad he was mistaken.”“I sang to-day—”“You cannot imagine how strange it was—how wonderful. I had been thinking about you all the morning—never supposing that you were within hundreds of miles of me—and I heard your voice, Fidelia,” he added, taking both her hands in his. “It is Thanksgiving Day indeed with me to-day.”“And with me too,” it was on Fidelia’s lips to say, but she only said it in her heart. The joy that shone in her friend’s eyes kept her silent, though why it should do so she could hardly have told.They went very soberly into the dining-room, where a few friends besides the family were assembled. Fidelia sat between the two girls as usual, and Lucy whispered that her friend was the stranger who walked up the aisle, and that it must have been to to see where the voice came from, as Lena had said.And Lena said: “How tall he is, and how strong! He is not the least like the lanky boy about whom you used to tell us funny stories.”Fidelia laughed and said softly, “Yes, he has changed—almost as much as the little girls to whom the stories were told. It is a long time ago, you must remember.”Mr Wainright was not mistaken. The dinner was a very good one, and passed off, as all Mrs Wainright’s dinners did, quite successfully. So did the evening with music and pleasant talk, and all else that was required for success. But it is not to be supposed that all this was quite satisfactory to Fidelia and her friend.“There were so many things I wanted to hear about,” said Mr Ainsworth.“And I too,” said Fidelia.“I shall see you in the morning before I leave, if possible,” said he.He came in the morning, and he stayed all day.He could, by travelling all night, get to M— in time to meet an engagement on Monday. He should have had to do so if he had gone to Halsey.He had something to tell and much to hear. He had, he thought, a right to say that he had been fairly successful as a student. He had had to help himself, and had done so in various ways, but not more than was right, or than had been good for him. His last two years had been spent in Germany. He had gone there in charge of two lads, sons of a German merchant in the West. Of course he had availed himself of the opportunity to go on with his own studies at the university, and now he was going West to find his work.It was a very poor sort of work in the opinion of Mr Wainright, who, coming in at the moment, heard him say that the next few months were to be spent in travelling through some of the newer states in the service of one of the great missionary societies, with a view to the encouragement and aid of weak Churches, and the establishment of new ones, in the small settlements springing up everywhere.“It will be hard work,” said Mrs Wainright. “And do you really suppose it will pay? Don’t you think that all that sort of thing might be safely left to the people themselves?”“It seems to be the work laid out for me just now,” said Jabez, not caring to get into any discussion of the question.“You might do far better work in an older community. It is the majority of the dwellers in our great cities which need most the civilising—or, if you like it better, the Christianising—influence which strong and good men can exercise in a community. It is from our great cities that power for good or for evil is sent out over all the land, in ways of which I need not tell you. If you have the will and the power to work for your fellow-men, it is not to these remote and sparsely-settled parts of the country that you should go. You are needed more where crowds would gather to hear you.”But Mr Ainsworth shook his head.“I have the will to work, and I trust, by God’s grace, to have also the power. But I think I am best fitted for such work as is needed out in our newer settlements. It will be hard work, perhaps, but it will be work, direct and simple, for the good of men and the glory of God. I don’t think I am so made and fashioned as to be likely to be very useful among such men as fill our great cities.”“There are all sorts of men in our great cities; and you can hardly tell what sort of work you are good for yet, till you try.”“And as to the importance of my work out there—it would be a good work, wouldn’t it, to help to educate and influence some of the boys who come from country places to make the business men and the professional men of the great cities? Yes, and our senators and the governors of our states. You must know several country boys who have come to that.”“I know several certainly; and you may be right. We have a great country out there, which is getting filled up in a wonderful way with all sorts of people. God knows, some strong influence for good is needed among them.”“Yes, that is our hope—God knows,” said Mr Ainsworth gravely.This was the beginning of a long conversation, during which each man surprised the other, and each learned something from the other which bore fruit in the life of both in after years.East and West, North and South, the past, the present, and the future of all sections of the country—all “the burning questions” of the day were discussed. Fidelia listened with shining eyes and changing colour, and dropped a strong word in now and then; and all the time she was saying to herself—“To think that Jabez should have grown to be just the best sort of man! And what a life lies before him! I wonder if my Eunice knows?”And Jabez, seeing her softened glance, knew as well as if she had spoken her name that it was of her sister that she thought.It rained all the morning, so that there was nothing said about showing the town and the surrounding country to the visitor; and there was all the more time for the talk which seemed to interest them all. The rain ceased, and the sky cleared a little in the afternoon, and a walk was proposed. Mr Ainsworth rose at once and looked at Miss Marsh.“I shall be glad to take a walk,” said she. “I have heard so much talk to-day that I need to rest my mind by tiring my body. Come, Lucy and Lena, get your wrappers and let us go. Will you come with us, Mrs Wainright?”“No, I think not; and I am not sure about its being best for the girls to go. Had they better, Fidelia?”“Because of the dampness? It will do Lucy no harm. Lena, perhaps, had better not go.”“Oh, if one goes, they may both go! I guess the damp won’t hurt them,” said Mrs Wainright. And to her husband she said—“And if he has anything to say to her, I guess he’ll find a chance to say it.”Apparently Mr Ainsworth had nothing particular to say—at least nothing which Lucy and Lena might not hear, for they all walked on together till they came to the church. It was a new and fine church, and visitors in C— were often taken to see and to admire it; so when Mr Ainsworth proposed that they should go into it, the girls at once set off to get the keys. They returned almost immediately, and with them came a gentleman who told Mr Ainsworth, after he had been introduced, that he knew more about the church than any one in C—, and could give them the history of every nail and stone, window and door. He did not quite do that, but he gave them many interesting particulars as to construction and cost, and the special advantages of the building generally over all the other churches in the town, or, in fact, any other town. Mr Ainsworth listened and kept silence in a way which won the respect of the pleased narrator, who probably was not always so fortunate in his listeners. He got through at last, or had another engagement and went away; and then Jabez said softly—“Miss Fidelia, do you know why I wanted to come in here? I want to hear you sing again, ‘For His merciful kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.’”“Of course I will sing it. But I might have done that at home, and saved you the deacon’s lecture on architecture. Oh, I must go up into the gallery, must I?”“Yes; and I will stand here, where I first caught sight of your face.”So Fidelia went up and sang with a glad heart, not the solo only, but the whole Thanksgiving anthem, the two girls doing their best to help. They did not linger long after that; and when they had left the church, and the girls had gone to carry back the key, Jabez said gravely—“I shall have that always to think about, till I see you again.”“And I hope that will not be so very long this time,” said Fidelia.It was not very long. They met the next summer in Halsey. There he found her one summer morning standing in the garden, at the opening under the apple-trees, looking down on the river and the meadows and the hills beyond, thinking of many things. There he found courage to say to her all that was in his heart.Not at that first meeting, however; though even then it would not have surprised her or found her unready with her answer. For they had written to one another constantly since their first meeting at that glad Thanksgiving time; and Fidelia knew all that letters frequent and long could tell her about the work which he had found ready for hand, head, and heart in the far West. Now he had more to tell her. He had been called by the Church in M—, in the state of W—, to be their pastor, and he had accepted the call.There were just fifteen members in the Church, but they were all New England men and women, of the right sort. M— was only a small place as yet, but the prospects were fair that it would be a city within twenty years. It would one day be a great commercial centre for a grand stretch of country; and the faithful fifteen who had made their home there meant that, in so far as it should be in their power to make it so, it should be a centre of influence for good in the state, and in the whole great country; and their pastor elect meant no less than that also. And when he had got thus far, he said gravely—“Fidelia, will you come with me, and help in this great work?”And Fidelia put her hand in his and said quietly—“Jabez, I shall be glad to go.” And let the wise men of this world, and the rich men and the mighty, say what they will, there is no greater or grander work to be done under the sun than the work which these two, standing under the apple-trees, agreed to help one another to do. There is no work whose success can avail so much for the happiness of the individual soul, for the household, or for the community, and there is none whose success can bring such wealth and honour and stability to the nation, as that through which the hearts of men are taught to believe and know, and the eyes of men are enlightened to see, that it is “righteousness which exalteth a nation,” and that “sin is a reproach to any people.”“Fidelia,” said Jabez in a little, “do you suppose that Eunice knows?”And Fidelia answered softly,—“If she knows, I am pure she is glad.” Before the summer was quite over these two happy people went West to begin their work together. A good many years have passed since then. The place in which “the faithful fifteen” set up the standard is a great city now. They, and those who have joined themselves to them since then, have kept the promise made in these early days to their Lord and to each other. And He who said, “Them that honour Me I will honour,” has kept His promise to them.
Fidelia had not lost sight of her friends during these years in the seminary. A few weeks of every summer were given to Mrs Stone and her Halsey friends, and as many to Mrs Wainright and her daughters, either in their own home, or at the seaside, or among the mountains, wherever they chanced to be passing the summer. The change and the happy renewal of old associations did her good, and kept her interested in other matters than those which concerned her daily life and duties. Her friends did not allow her to forget them. Even Mrs Stone wrote frequently to her, though the writing of a letter cost her more labour than a day’s housework did. One or other of Dr Everett’s family wrote now and then, and so did the Austins. With Mrs Wainright the correspondence was constant.
“Come home to Thanksgiving,” wrote that lady soon after the work of Fidelia’s fourth year in the seminary had commenced. She had written the same thing every year, but Fidelia had never been able to accept the invitation. This year she had a great desire to accept it, for various reasons; so, though the journey was long, and the time she could give for the visit was short, she found herself in her friend’s house on the eve of Thanksgiving Day; and among the many thousands who, throughout the land, had that day turned their faces homeward, few could have been welcomed more kindly than she.
Thanksgiving Day was kept in the town of C— much as it is kept everywhere throughout the country, in which there is so much over which a thankful people may rejoice. Everybody, except the anxious housekeepers who had dinner on their minds, was expected to go to church in the early part of the day, and join in thanksgiving with their neighbours. The Wainrights all went, and so did Fidelia. There were many people present. The service was simple and devout; the sermon was appropriate; and all things went as usual till it came to the singing of the thanksgiving anthem, and that went better than usual, because Fidelia joined in it, and put all her glad and thankful heart into her wonderful voice as she sang.
She even sang the “solo” which Mrs Wainright was expected to sing. But a whispered entreaty from her friend, which there was time neither to answer nor to refuse, gave the honour to Fidelia. Clear and full and sweet rose her voice, and filled the house, thrilling and satisfying all the listening hearts and ears with the melody, till the saintly old souls among them asked themselves whether even the heavenly music could be sweeter.
Some one sitting near the door rose when the other voices came in again, and walked up the aisle till he came to a point where, looking up, the choir in the gallery could be seen. There he stood till the anthem was ended, and then moved quietly away. He was a stranger, and no one took much notice of him at the moment, though some among them remembered him afterwards. Lucy Wainright noticed him, and spoke of it when she came home.
“It must have been some stranger. No one of our people would have done such a thing,” said she.
“It must have been that he wanted to see where the voice came from,” said her sister.
“I do not wonder,” said their father. “Miss Marsh, how came you to take the place of honour to-day?”
“I don’t know,” said Fidelia.
Mrs Wainright laughed.
“I don’t know either. I did not think of it a second before I spoke. It was a risk, I acknowledge—or it would have been with any one but Fidelia.”
“A risk! It might have caused a breakdown. She might have refused.”
“No; I was sure of Fidelia!”
And while they went on talking the door-bell rang, and the maid brought in a card and gave it to Mrs Wainright.
“A stranger? Did he ask for me? I do not know the name. Jabez Ainsworth!”
Fidelia uttered an exclamation, holding out her hand for the card.
“I know him well. He is one of my oldest friends, though I have not seen him for years. Shall I go and see him?”
“Do go,” said Mr Wainright; “and, if he is a friend of yours, ask him to stay to eat his Thanksgiving dinner with us. He will have something to be thankful for when he sees you, I should say.”
“Of course—ask him to stay. And don’t be long about it, for dinner is ready.”
So Fidelia went in quickly, with both hands stretched out in eager welcome to the friend whom she had not seen for so many years.
“Can it be Jabez?” she said softly, pausing before she came near.
“I need not ask if it can be Fidelia. You haven’t changed, except to grow a little like your sister.”
“Ah, my Eunice!”
Was it the dear name that brought the tears to Fidelia’s eyes, and the memory of so many sad and happy days? She could not hide them except by turning her face away, for Jabez held her hands firmly in his, and her smiles came quickly as she looked up at him.
“You are a happy woman, Fidelia. Your face tells me that before a word is spoken.”
“Happy! Yes; and so glad to see you. How can it have happened that we have never met all these long years—never once since you left Halsey?”
“I have only been once in Halsey since I left it, and then you were on the other side of the sea, where I have been since.”
They ought to have had much to say to each other after so long a time, but there was not much said for awhile. Fidelia looked on the face and listened to the voice at once so strange and so familiar, saying to herself how changed he was—and yet he seemed the same. He was a large man now, dark and strong, not at all in these respects like the slender sallow boy who had loitered about the garden in Halsey. But it was Jabez all the same. He was very grave and silent for a time, and walked up and down the room once or twice, pausing at the window which looked out upon the street, as though he had something to consider or to conquer before he could either listen or speak. After a little he came and sat down beside her.
“Well, Fidelia, you are a happy woman. You have lived through your troubles, and have come safely to the other side, thank God!”
“But, Jabez, it does not seem like trouble to look back upon it now. Only think of my Eunice safe and blessed all these years. Why, I have not shed a tear for a long time—in sorrow!”
She might well add the word, for there were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks while she spoke; but there were smiles on her face as well, which made Jabez say—
“I thank God that you are happy now.”
There was no time for more. The door opened and Mrs Wainright entered, followed by her husband. She did not need an introduction.
“I am glad to see you, Mr Ainsworth, and sorry to interrupt you so soon, but dinner is ready, and there will be time to visit afterwards.”
Then she introduced her husband, whose welcome, though quiet, was sufficiently cordial. Then he said:
“I hope you have no other Thanksgiving dinner in view, for I think ours is to be a good one; and we are very happy to see you.”
“I supposed that I was to spend Thanksgiving in Halsey, but a mistake as to connection, and then a breakdown on the road, left me here for the day. I shall be glad to give thanks with you, and with—Fidelia.”
“I am sorry for your grandmother,” said Fidelia.
“You need not be sorry. My visit was to be a surprise to them. It must wait till next summer now. I am going West again.”
“Well, we will go to dinner now,” said Mr Wainright, offering his arm to his wife. “Miss Marsh, you must show Mr Ainsworth the way.”
“Miss Marsh?” said Jabez, turning astonished eyes upon her, as the others passed out at the door.
“Why, who did you suppose me to be?” said Fidelia, laughing.
“I—I don’t know. I asked the door-keeper at the church who was the singer to-day, and he said it was Mrs Wainright. But I am very glad he was mistaken.”
“I sang to-day—”
“You cannot imagine how strange it was—how wonderful. I had been thinking about you all the morning—never supposing that you were within hundreds of miles of me—and I heard your voice, Fidelia,” he added, taking both her hands in his. “It is Thanksgiving Day indeed with me to-day.”
“And with me too,” it was on Fidelia’s lips to say, but she only said it in her heart. The joy that shone in her friend’s eyes kept her silent, though why it should do so she could hardly have told.
They went very soberly into the dining-room, where a few friends besides the family were assembled. Fidelia sat between the two girls as usual, and Lucy whispered that her friend was the stranger who walked up the aisle, and that it must have been to to see where the voice came from, as Lena had said.
And Lena said: “How tall he is, and how strong! He is not the least like the lanky boy about whom you used to tell us funny stories.”
Fidelia laughed and said softly, “Yes, he has changed—almost as much as the little girls to whom the stories were told. It is a long time ago, you must remember.”
Mr Wainright was not mistaken. The dinner was a very good one, and passed off, as all Mrs Wainright’s dinners did, quite successfully. So did the evening with music and pleasant talk, and all else that was required for success. But it is not to be supposed that all this was quite satisfactory to Fidelia and her friend.
“There were so many things I wanted to hear about,” said Mr Ainsworth.
“And I too,” said Fidelia.
“I shall see you in the morning before I leave, if possible,” said he.
He came in the morning, and he stayed all day.
He could, by travelling all night, get to M— in time to meet an engagement on Monday. He should have had to do so if he had gone to Halsey.
He had something to tell and much to hear. He had, he thought, a right to say that he had been fairly successful as a student. He had had to help himself, and had done so in various ways, but not more than was right, or than had been good for him. His last two years had been spent in Germany. He had gone there in charge of two lads, sons of a German merchant in the West. Of course he had availed himself of the opportunity to go on with his own studies at the university, and now he was going West to find his work.
It was a very poor sort of work in the opinion of Mr Wainright, who, coming in at the moment, heard him say that the next few months were to be spent in travelling through some of the newer states in the service of one of the great missionary societies, with a view to the encouragement and aid of weak Churches, and the establishment of new ones, in the small settlements springing up everywhere.
“It will be hard work,” said Mrs Wainright. “And do you really suppose it will pay? Don’t you think that all that sort of thing might be safely left to the people themselves?”
“It seems to be the work laid out for me just now,” said Jabez, not caring to get into any discussion of the question.
“You might do far better work in an older community. It is the majority of the dwellers in our great cities which need most the civilising—or, if you like it better, the Christianising—influence which strong and good men can exercise in a community. It is from our great cities that power for good or for evil is sent out over all the land, in ways of which I need not tell you. If you have the will and the power to work for your fellow-men, it is not to these remote and sparsely-settled parts of the country that you should go. You are needed more where crowds would gather to hear you.”
But Mr Ainsworth shook his head.
“I have the will to work, and I trust, by God’s grace, to have also the power. But I think I am best fitted for such work as is needed out in our newer settlements. It will be hard work, perhaps, but it will be work, direct and simple, for the good of men and the glory of God. I don’t think I am so made and fashioned as to be likely to be very useful among such men as fill our great cities.”
“There are all sorts of men in our great cities; and you can hardly tell what sort of work you are good for yet, till you try.”
“And as to the importance of my work out there—it would be a good work, wouldn’t it, to help to educate and influence some of the boys who come from country places to make the business men and the professional men of the great cities? Yes, and our senators and the governors of our states. You must know several country boys who have come to that.”
“I know several certainly; and you may be right. We have a great country out there, which is getting filled up in a wonderful way with all sorts of people. God knows, some strong influence for good is needed among them.”
“Yes, that is our hope—God knows,” said Mr Ainsworth gravely.
This was the beginning of a long conversation, during which each man surprised the other, and each learned something from the other which bore fruit in the life of both in after years.
East and West, North and South, the past, the present, and the future of all sections of the country—all “the burning questions” of the day were discussed. Fidelia listened with shining eyes and changing colour, and dropped a strong word in now and then; and all the time she was saying to herself—
“To think that Jabez should have grown to be just the best sort of man! And what a life lies before him! I wonder if my Eunice knows?”
And Jabez, seeing her softened glance, knew as well as if she had spoken her name that it was of her sister that she thought.
It rained all the morning, so that there was nothing said about showing the town and the surrounding country to the visitor; and there was all the more time for the talk which seemed to interest them all. The rain ceased, and the sky cleared a little in the afternoon, and a walk was proposed. Mr Ainsworth rose at once and looked at Miss Marsh.
“I shall be glad to take a walk,” said she. “I have heard so much talk to-day that I need to rest my mind by tiring my body. Come, Lucy and Lena, get your wrappers and let us go. Will you come with us, Mrs Wainright?”
“No, I think not; and I am not sure about its being best for the girls to go. Had they better, Fidelia?”
“Because of the dampness? It will do Lucy no harm. Lena, perhaps, had better not go.”
“Oh, if one goes, they may both go! I guess the damp won’t hurt them,” said Mrs Wainright. And to her husband she said—“And if he has anything to say to her, I guess he’ll find a chance to say it.”
Apparently Mr Ainsworth had nothing particular to say—at least nothing which Lucy and Lena might not hear, for they all walked on together till they came to the church. It was a new and fine church, and visitors in C— were often taken to see and to admire it; so when Mr Ainsworth proposed that they should go into it, the girls at once set off to get the keys. They returned almost immediately, and with them came a gentleman who told Mr Ainsworth, after he had been introduced, that he knew more about the church than any one in C—, and could give them the history of every nail and stone, window and door. He did not quite do that, but he gave them many interesting particulars as to construction and cost, and the special advantages of the building generally over all the other churches in the town, or, in fact, any other town. Mr Ainsworth listened and kept silence in a way which won the respect of the pleased narrator, who probably was not always so fortunate in his listeners. He got through at last, or had another engagement and went away; and then Jabez said softly—
“Miss Fidelia, do you know why I wanted to come in here? I want to hear you sing again, ‘For His merciful kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.’”
“Of course I will sing it. But I might have done that at home, and saved you the deacon’s lecture on architecture. Oh, I must go up into the gallery, must I?”
“Yes; and I will stand here, where I first caught sight of your face.”
So Fidelia went up and sang with a glad heart, not the solo only, but the whole Thanksgiving anthem, the two girls doing their best to help. They did not linger long after that; and when they had left the church, and the girls had gone to carry back the key, Jabez said gravely—
“I shall have that always to think about, till I see you again.”
“And I hope that will not be so very long this time,” said Fidelia.
It was not very long. They met the next summer in Halsey. There he found her one summer morning standing in the garden, at the opening under the apple-trees, looking down on the river and the meadows and the hills beyond, thinking of many things. There he found courage to say to her all that was in his heart.
Not at that first meeting, however; though even then it would not have surprised her or found her unready with her answer. For they had written to one another constantly since their first meeting at that glad Thanksgiving time; and Fidelia knew all that letters frequent and long could tell her about the work which he had found ready for hand, head, and heart in the far West. Now he had more to tell her. He had been called by the Church in M—, in the state of W—, to be their pastor, and he had accepted the call.
There were just fifteen members in the Church, but they were all New England men and women, of the right sort. M— was only a small place as yet, but the prospects were fair that it would be a city within twenty years. It would one day be a great commercial centre for a grand stretch of country; and the faithful fifteen who had made their home there meant that, in so far as it should be in their power to make it so, it should be a centre of influence for good in the state, and in the whole great country; and their pastor elect meant no less than that also. And when he had got thus far, he said gravely—
“Fidelia, will you come with me, and help in this great work?”
And Fidelia put her hand in his and said quietly—“Jabez, I shall be glad to go.” And let the wise men of this world, and the rich men and the mighty, say what they will, there is no greater or grander work to be done under the sun than the work which these two, standing under the apple-trees, agreed to help one another to do. There is no work whose success can avail so much for the happiness of the individual soul, for the household, or for the community, and there is none whose success can bring such wealth and honour and stability to the nation, as that through which the hearts of men are taught to believe and know, and the eyes of men are enlightened to see, that it is “righteousness which exalteth a nation,” and that “sin is a reproach to any people.”
“Fidelia,” said Jabez in a little, “do you suppose that Eunice knows?”
And Fidelia answered softly,—“If she knows, I am pure she is glad.” Before the summer was quite over these two happy people went West to begin their work together. A good many years have passed since then. The place in which “the faithful fifteen” set up the standard is a great city now. They, and those who have joined themselves to them since then, have kept the promise made in these early days to their Lord and to each other. And He who said, “Them that honour Me I will honour,” has kept His promise to them.
|Chapter 1| |Chapter 2| |Chapter 3| |Chapter 4| |Chapter 5| |Chapter 6| |Chapter 7| |Chapter 8| |Chapter 9| |Chapter 10| |Chapter 11| |Chapter 12| |Chapter 13| |Chapter 14| |Chapter 15| |Chapter 16|