This was just what Rowena wanted. She felt that her party had not been waste of time when she parted from Dora Rashleigh. The girl had taken to her and wanted to know her better.
In talking over the afternoon with her husband afterwards, Rowena said:
"There are so many kinds that make up a world, Hugh. And so many of these modern girls have such high ideals of work, and of benefiting one's fellow-creatures, that I long to save them from the mistakes they are bound to make if they are building without a foundation. You showed me what a full life could be lived in empty circumstances; I want to show them that the fullest life cannot be full unless they have the 'One thing needful.'"
The three young Holts arrived soon after this. Mysie and Milly became firm friends at once, and though at first Mysie stood a little in awe of George's superior age and inches, yet when she realized he was up to any mad escapade she quickly made friends with him. Bertha was more staid, and loved nothing better than wandering about the garden, book in hand; when she could get Rowena to herself she was supremely happy, for she adored her, but, as a rule, General Macdonald absorbed all his wife's leisure time.
Then one morning Rowena received the following letter from Di Dunstan:
"MY DEAR ROWENA,—""I'm taking you at your word, for I know you're the real good sort and mean what you say. Will you have me on a visit now? I have to put in a fortnight with some cousins in Perthshire at the end of the month, and I'm fed up with town. I don't believe I shall ever stick a flat all the year round. It isn't good enough! I'm bored stiff with the pack of humanity round me. I want light and air and breathing space; and, oh, for a horse and a gallop through the fresh untainted air on the heath or moor! Does your good man keep horses? Or is he all for those smelly cars? Rowena, I must come. I think I shall go mad if I don't get out of town pretty soon. So send me a wire on receipt of this, and I'll leave my slang and most of my cigarettes behind, and will be on my best behaviour lest I shock your high-principled husband. Poor Mrs. Burke used to rail against him! In her jolly days, I mean. Poor dear, she wasn't much fun latterly, though she was wonderfully plucky in bearing her lot! I don't see much of Vi—one is at a disadvantage in a married sister's house. She does the high and mighty with me, as if I'm on a lower plane to her. And I can't cotton to Gregory—I never could—and he's too selfish to make a good husband—was a bachelor too long. So long.""Yours,""DI."
Rowena consulted her husband. With a wry face he agreed to send a wire.
"I'm trying to be sociable," he said, "and you must have your friends. I know her sort, and trust that you will not leave me to entertain her."
"Indeed, indeed, I won't!" laughed Rowena. "But, Hugh dear, if you let her ride your cob, she'll want nothing better. Di off a horse is only half herself. And I'm truly sorry for her. She has lost such a lot, and seems to have no object in life."
The wire was sent, and the next evening Di arrived. She was a handsome girl still, but she looked worn and weary, and Rowena saw that she was in a restless unhappy state of mind.
She talked recklessly at dinner and showed her worst side to the General, who was wonderfully forbearing and courteous in his manner towards her.
Bertha Holt looked at her in amazement; never had she in the course of her quiet life come across this type of woman. Di's horsey slang, her astounding statements, and her perfect indifference to the impression she was making upon those around her, startled and puzzled the young girl. When dinner was over the young people disappeared into the garden. Rowena walked her guest along the terrace and down a grassy path which led to a low wall overlooking the loch.
Di promptly lit up her cigarette.
"At last I've got you to myself," she said. "It's no go, Rowena, I can't put on pretty manners to charm your out of date husband. I've come down here hoping you can tip me a wrinkle or two. I've run to earth, and unless I can find a way out I shall come to a bad end like the villain in the story book. I cannot live on my income, and it's no good talking about it. I hate cadging on my friends, but there seems nothing else to do. I know a woman who has any amount of houses open to her the whole year round; but she's one of these adaptable pussycats who settle down by any fireside, and do errands for the hostess, and make up an even number at bridge or dinner, or chaperon a schoolgirl when the mother is too busy or bored to go round with her. I'm not that sort, and in the hunting season I expect my host to mount me well, or I'm off him! I demand too much, and that's the fact, and people aren't keen on having me. To stay in a London flat the whole year round is unthinkable. If Bob would only hand out a little of his superfluous cash, I would try my fortunes at Monte Carlo. I must get money somehow, but I can't rise to the ticket out there!"
"I hoped you had made a fresh start as far as your debts were concerned," said Rowena slowly and thoughtfully.
"Oh, you knew that transaction between Mrs. Burke and myself? She was a trump. But she's gone now, and I haven't a friend in the world. Town life makes money go like water. There's nothing for me but a wealthy marriage. I know one man who would have me to-morrow, but he's nearer seventy than sixty, and is rotund, and gouty and jocular. I shudder at the thought of my spending my years with him. Fate is against me. I never ought to have been born. You'll hear one day of the suicide of a society spinster. I shall be driven to it."
"Now, Di, listen to me. It's wicked and foolish for a girl of your intelligence and gifts to talk so. You're just drifting down the stream with all the garbage and useless rubbish that is being washed away. Do, for goodness' sake, pull yourself together and have a better outlook. Is there any real reason for your always living neck-deep in debt? Couldn't you with determined effort cut your coat according to your cloth?"
Di shook her head gloomily.
"What's the use? I've no purpose or interest in life. The only thing I did care for was hunting, and it has been taken from me. Go on, pitch into me. It does me good, but I'm almost past feeling it."
"You're not past feeling. You would never have come to stay with us if you were. You know you're reaching out towards something that will lift you out of your sordid life. There's no other word for it. You're an earth grub, that's what you are. The life you're leading—spending money because other people do it, treating those who take your generosity as a matter of course, and living in mortal dread of every post because it brings you bills and duns which you cannot pay—why, it is a hell on earth!"
"Say on! Hammer me down!"
Rowena laughed a little unsteadily.
"Di, dear. I've always liked you, partly because Mrs. Burke was so fond of you, partly for your own sake. Do use your mental powers. There are many circles in the world, all different, but all moving round their own centres. Change your centre. If one circle fails you—or one centre I'll say—for goodness' sake don't go on tramping it for ever, but leave it and try another."
"Now this is what I like. My brain is just clever enough to understand it!"
"You may laugh and mock at me, but I'm in dead earnest. I feel like Alice through the looking-glass, as if I should like to shake the red queen into a kitten. I would like to shake and shake you till your foundation tumbled down, and you were shaken into a new kind of creature altogether, with fresh joy in life, and fresh springs in your heart, and fresh hopes and ideals in front of you."
"Don't mix your metaphors. Keep to the circles. I won't be shaken into a kitten."
"There's only one circle I want you in."
"Of course, I know which one that is—the one you're in yourself, the one into which you dragged Mrs. Burke. I'll allow it made her happy; but she always was a happy creature, and always would be in any circumstances."
"Do you think she would have been when everything that she cared for was taken from her?"
"Perhaps not; but that was where you and your circle came in. Just in the nick of time you moved her out of the one that was destroyed and planted her in another. Now, I haven't come to the end of mine."
"I thought you had."
"No; I'm not crippled and confined to bed. I can move, and have all the faculties for still enjoying life, but want of money and position prevents me from using them."
"Do you think it's a good thing to wait till utter ruin comes to you?"
"How comforting you are! I honestly want worldly wisdom from you, not pious talk."
"I'm not worldly wise, but I'll try to be. Live within your income, and make the best of your circumstances. Take up some other hobby that will take the place of the one in which you now cannot indulge."
"What dull and impossible counsel. As well tell a fish to live out of water and cultivate the air for his home."
"Exactly," said Rowena. "You've hit the nail on the head."
There was a little silence between them, then Di threw away the last bit of her cigarette, and stared gloomily down from the wall to the waters of the loch below.
"The centre of my circle is, of course, myself. I see that," she said. "Whom else should I revolve round but my dear precious self? It is so very disappointing if you revolve round another. I did that once, but never again."
Rowena knew she was alluding to her unfortunate love affair some years previously.
"I think we're a great disappointment to ourselves," said Rowena. "I see my husband coming. Cheer up, Di. I believe you're going to see light soon. We'll have another talk later."
Di turned to the General with her most charming smile.
"Here is your treasure! I make no apology for having purloined her from your side for a bit. Have you discovered any faults in her yet General?"
"Yes," said General Macdonald promptly. "She has too big a heart."
"You mean that you can't keep every hole and corner in it for yourself! Isn't that a man all over? And you've brought her away into your lonely stronghold, where you mean to keep her under lock and key. Oh, you are all alike! A woman's heart must be satisfied with her house, and man, he can roam the whole world over, and open his heart to all the treasures in it."
General Macdonald was about to reply when Di said:
"Rowena and I have been talking ourselves dry. I want to see your stables; may I?"
He led the way without a word, and when she saw a beautiful brown cob which had been a noted hunter, and was offered the use of him for the time of her stay, she was quite elated.
"I'm going to make hay while the sun shines," she said to Rowena, when they were wishing each other good night, later on, "so you'll get no more grave talks out of me for the present."
She took George out with her for a ride over the moor the next morning, and they were away for most of the day. George, of course, was very flattered at being chosen as her cavalier. He was not so critical as his sister Bertha, and thought this new acquaintance most amusing and entertaining.
Two days later, General Macdonald went to Inverness on business. He had to stay away the night, and when he returned home the following afternoon, Rowena saw at once that he had something on his mind.
He called her into his study.
"Have I ever mentioned my cousin Hector Ross to you?" he asked.
"Never," said Rowena.
"He and I were brought up together as boys, and went to the same school, but he went abroad when he was quite a young man, and we have drifted apart. He was rather wild, and got through a lot of money. Then settled down on a South American ranch. I tumbled across him in Inverness yesterday. He has come home, and is thinking of buying back his father's old place in Fifeshire. I told you I have an old cousin living in Inverness. He is her nephew, and I met him at her house."
A smile flitted across his face. "It was like seeing a bull in a china shop! His aunt lives in a tiny terrace house, and everything as orderly and neat as an old maid could have it. He's a big, broad, happy-go-lucky fellow still, but he's made his money, and seems to have steadied down. He came across to the war; I never knew it, and he never told any of his people. I think his experience at the Front altered him, and made him determine to come home and look up his relatives. He wants to come to us."
"Of course he must."
Rowena laughed; she was standing by the open window as her husband talked. Now she turned and gave him a swift little kiss on his forehead.
"You dear old hermit! Has the thought of another visitor brought these aged wrinkles to your brow? We have plenty of room, and I personally shall be delighted to welcome him."
"He's not our sort," General Macdonald said. "And the fact is, Rowena, I am always longing to have you to myself. We have the house full enough now; every additional visitor absorbs more of your time. It sounds selfish—but it's a fact. I want a quiet life."
"My dear Hugh, think of the coming winter. In another month or so all our neighbours will have departed, and you and I will have our fireside to ourselves. I am looking forward to a winter with you alone. And we shall enjoy it all the more for not having the house to ourselves now. When does Mr. Ross want to come?"
"In a few days. Next Saturday—he mentioned. Of course, I could not refuse him; and I know you'll make him welcome. But I only hope he won't hang round me and want me to do the entertaining."
"Is he married?"
"No, he says not."
"I think he'll manage to amuse himself without worrying you; and if you were boys together, you must have some interests in common. It will do you good to have a man to talk to, Hugh. We females are so much in the majority."
Rowena had been so accustomed to a constant relay of visitors at Mrs. Burke's, that she could not understand her husband's dislike to them. And she felt that unless she got him to shake off his solitary habits now she would never succeed in doing it later on.
Beyond preparing a room for this fresh guest she gave little thought to his coming. When she mentioned it to Diana, that young woman shrugged her shoulders:
"What a bore! If he's like your husband, Rowena, I shall elude him all I can. We'll shut them up in the sacred study with their pipes, and leave them to themselves."
Rowena shook her head.
"No, my husband won't have that. But if this glorious weather lasts, there will be no need to amuse him. The beauties of the loch and glen are enough for any man; and there's shooting and fishing for him. I must speak to Donald about that—or Hugh will. He has not preserved his coverts this year. But there's always plenty of rough shooting here they say."
"A man of integrity, sincerity and good nature can neverbe concealed, for his character is wrought into his countenance."Marcus Aurelius.
ROWENA and Di were on the lawn in front of the house when Hector Ross arrived.
The children were all out on the loch with Donald. It was a very hot afternoon; Rowena was sewing, and Di was lazily reclining in a hammock under the old cedar tree. The car had gone to the station to meet an earlier train, but he had not come by that. Now he walked up to the house, and came striding across the lawn directly he saw the white-gowned figures under the old cedars.
Rowena rose to meet him in her usual happy way.
"My husband had to attend a quarterly parish meeting this afternoon," she said, "or he would be here to welcome you. You must accept my welcome instead."
She introduced him to Di, who was rather taken aback by his youthful figure and brisk alertness of his speech and manner.
Hector Ross was a good-looking man, with blue eyes and fair hair. His face was tanned and rather weather-beaten. One could see he had had an open-air life for many years. As Rowena looked at him, the determination of his mouth and chin, the resolute look in his eyes, and the quick short way in which he clipped his words, showed her that, whatever else he might be, he was very wide awake.
"Couldn't wait to be driven," he said, "so I left my baggage to follow. I'm not a stranger in these parts, you know."
Then he turned to Di.
"Can you be Hugh's daughter?"
Di laughed frankly and freely.
"My good man, his daughter is still in the submissive stage. Her years demand it. Can you see me as the General's daughter, Rowena? What high jinks I would lead him! I'm just a stray visitor, Mr. Ross; and your cousin will be more relieved than otherwise when I've gone!"
Then she swung herself lightly out of the hammock and, leaning against the tree, took out her silver cigarette case and began to smoke.
"Have one?" she said, offering her case to the newcomer.
He shook his head with a smile.
"I go in for a pipe."
He looked at her reflectively, then at Rowena.
"I'm taking stock of you both," he said pleasantly. "Mrs. Macdonald is the old order of woman, and you are the new. I've come across plenty of the modern girls, but the old-fashioned ones are rare."
"I suppose I am old-fashioned," said Rowena laughing, "but it gives me rather a shock to hear you say it. I used not to be considered so a few years back."
"It's good manners does it," said Hector tersely.
"Complimentary to me," laughed Di.
In a few minutes he was talking to them as if he had known them all his life. Incidentally he touched upon his ranch life.
"Why have you given it up?" Di asked. "If you were making your pile, and having a jolly free life out, there, why on earth didn't you keep on a few years longer?"
"I sold up when I went over to France—or, rather, when I went over to Canada to train. I went out with the Canadians, and had a stiff two years at the Front. Then I went back, for I'd a few things to settle up; and I came over here three months ago. I meant to look up Hugh when my aunt had had enough of me. I'm going to my people's old place. It came into the market the beginning of this year, and I was able to buy it in the nick of time."
"And you're going to settle down as a laird, I suppose?" said Di. "Everybody is a laird over here. I've seen some funny specimens."
"And here's another," he returned. "My good aunt told me solemnly, when I left her, that she had never seen my like before. I was a complete bewilderment to her—I believe that was the word she used. I'm going to take her in my pocket when I go back to Kestowknockan; she'll keep house for me and look after my morals and manners."
Rowena looked at him with fresh interest.
"You'd better get a wife to keep house for you," said Di carelessly. "Aunts are out of fashion."
"Same as parents, I suppose," he said, with a slight curl coming to his lips. "I came over with some flappers all intent upon a high old time in London. I asked them if they were orphans. You should have heard them yell."
"Oh, the world is out of gear," said Rowena, "but the pendulum will swing back again. And here, amongst our lochs and glens, we do not see much to puzzle or alarm us. Here come the children! Now you will see Hugh's little daughter. And shall we go indoors to tea? We are having it in the hall to-day. It is cooler than out here."
They moved towards the house. The children met them on the way. Mysie looked up frankly into Hector's face when she was introduced to him.
"Did you know Dad when he was a boy? He says you did. What was he like? Always good, or did he sometimes get into scrapes?"
"Ah! Ask him to tell you about Adolph and the cave, or the night he was left alone, and his parents were in town."
"What cave?" gasped Mysie. "Mine? Oh, do you, know the caves about here? Do tell me all about them."
She seized hold of him, and during tea he enlivened them all by tales of boyish pranks in the holidays.
Towards the close of it General Macdonald came in, and the younger members of the household slipped out into the garden again.
Before the evening was over Hector was a universal favourite, and his hearty laugh and cheery talk caused Di to say to Rowena—
"Make him stay on, do; I like him, and he wakes the General up!"
But she and he had some pitched battles about the present generation. Di was for progress and liberty of speech, and action for all women; he was by way of relegating them to the back shelf. Sometimes he amused himself by rousing her ire, and would be dogmatic in denouncing modern habits with which he was really in sympathy.
Rowena listened to the two, and smiled to herself. It did not hurt Di to hear a man of the world's impression of the present race of girls. She had had very few who had hitherto dared to criticize and contradict her. One bond they had in common was their love for horses. Hector said he meant to breed them when he took possession of his place.
"I'm having proper stables built before I get in," he said. "I'm sick of these cars. Give me a horse, and I want nothing more."
"Hear! Hear!" said Di, and the next morning she and he rode off together. Hector was very sociably inclined—a marked contrast to the General. In a few days' time, he was friends with the Arnold Rashleighs, and with several of the other neighbours round. He had invitations to shoot and fish and to dine and sleep, and sometimes his host did not see him for three or four days.
But on Sundays he invariably turned up at the morning service in the little church of Abertarlie.
Di laughed at him for it one day.
"You are going back to the training of your youth," she said. "Church-going is not the fashion now."
"Neither is heaven or hell," he retorted; "but I'm not a man of fashion—never was."
She looked at him meditatively.
They were smoking together on the terrace. It was Sunday afternoon, and there was a peculiar stillness in the air and scene. Rowena always had Mysie for an hour after lunch in her boudoir upstairs. She had told her frankly that she was going to try to teach her to love her Bible. Milly and Bertha had asked to come too, so the hour's Bible reading was now quite an institution. Sometimes George joined them, but upon this occasion he had gone for a walk with the General. Hector raised his eyes, and when they met Di's, he smiled.
"Well, what's the verdict?"
She shook her head.
"You're too complex for me!"
"I'll give you a chink of light to help you on. I was three years in the war. As you say, religion is now not the fashion, and it isn't good form to talk about it; but in the trenches we did a good bit of talking, and we didn't care a hang if a chap started a yarn about life and death and hereafter, for we were all interested in it. Of course we were. We were shot out of this world into the next all day long. We all had our theories; but in my section at one time there was a parson who knew his job, and did it; and he was a jolly good fellow all round. He made us believe in him, and then he got us to believe in the things he believed. And my belief has stuck ever since; see?"
There was for a second a wistful gleam in Di's eye. Then she said coolly:
"Oh, yes, I see. And Rowena is doing the same with me as your parson did with you. But I'm as hard as nails, and she has a tough job."
"They say," said Hector, as he leant over the stone balustrade, and puffed away at his pipe, "that we all drift back in time to our starting-point. I was an irreligious little beggar when I was a boy, but every Scotchman is brought up in the way in which he should go. I had the head knowledge, and then I chucked it and ran amok for a few years. I found that didn't pay, and settled down to be steady. But it was at the Front I found my early Faith was the only one worth having. And our parson taught us how to live as well as how to die. I never shall be a shining light as, for instance, my cousin Hugh is; but I've got the comfort of settled and rooted convictions. And they make life a bigger and a more understandable thing!"
Di was mute. If a bolt from the blue had tumbled down at her feet she couldn't have been more amazed. She began to wonder if she was always going to be beset with people who would worry her with their religious convictions. To her great relief Hector did not pursue the subject, and she listened with interest to an account he gave her of a journey of his across the Rocky Mountains, when he was shooting bears. But the following Sunday she accompanied the others to church, and never missed a service from that time forward.
Hector only stayed a fortnight with them. He and Di had a long ride together the afternoon before he went, and when they were returning, he said:
"You'll have to come and see my horses one day, when I'm settled in. I shall give a house-warming about Christmas time. Will you come?"
"Is this a bona fide invitation?"
"Rather!"
"Then I accept, with thanks. I'm wondering what kind of a house you'll run. You'll be a bit of a despot I know."
"I jolly well will. I mean to be master in my house, I can tell you."
"Don't try to take to yourself a wife; disaster will follow if you do."
"Why?"
"Because now no woman will lie down for a man to walk over her."
"That's a bit of clap-trap."
"No; it's real fact. You want a wife who will meekly do her lord's will, and that kind of women are out of date. They don't exist."
"I'll wait till they come into fashion again. I'm in no hurry."
"You're so cocksure of yourself!"
"I'm not going to make a mess of my life now," he responded with emphasis. "Look through the daily papers and see the result of these modern wives and husbands. They both want to rule, they both want their own ways, and they go them, and then the fat is in the fire, there is a flare up, and divorce follows."
"But it's all wrong," said Di with sudden heat. "Why should men be selfish brutes? Why should they make life impossible for their wives unless they are their slaves and tools? Women will never again be subjugated by men, never! And I hope you'll never marry; I hope you'll never get a girl whom you are able to crush and mould according to your liking."
He looked at her with a gleam of mischief in his eyes. "Women really like to meet their masters," he said. "I've knocked about the world a good bit, and I assure you they do. There's still the instinct of the ages left in most of them, that they're really made to be loved and protected. You've only to read some of the present-day novels written by your sex to see that the strong man always prevails."
"I shan't argue with you any more," said Di a little huffily. "But you'll meet with your deserts one day, I hope." She parted with him later in the most friendly fashion, and when he had gone told Rowena she felt quite flat.
"He kept us alive; and though I hate some of his principles, he's good company," she said.
She was the next to go. She had been with Rowena much longer than she had intended.
Rowena came into her bedroom the last evening of her stay.
"I'm sorry to lose you," she said; "but you must come again, if you don't find we are too quiet for you."
Di squeezed her hand.
"You're a trump. I wish I could tell you that all your talks have had the effect you want, but I'm too old to change my ways. And I don't want to, if I could. You have made me believe that I'm living on a lower level than you. You're in touch with Unseen Things, and I'm not. And you've made me see I'm a useless cumberer of the earth, and I'm not fulfilling the purpose of my creation. But I've no ability to alter my line, or any desire in that direction. I think you've left me a little more hopeless than when you found me."
"Oh, how dreadful!" exclaimed Rowena. "What can I do to remedy that? After all, dear Di, it's only a question of your will. You know Who will help you to adjust your life differently. You have only to ask, and it will be done."
"I know! I know! And you're a dear old thing to care a snap about me. No one else does." Then, with a change of tone, she said, "I mean to spend next Christmas with Hector Ross. He's a rum sort, isn't he? My word, how he'll bully that little aunt of his! He wants some one to stand up to him. I wish he'd give me carte blanche to bring a few girls to add to his house-party. I know some who would make him sit up. But I don't care for girls myself, as you know. Give me men, even if they're rotten. And he's hardly that, is he? I rather fancy he'll turn into a man like your good husband if left to develop his own line. These Scotchmen are like blocks of granite. You only hammer yourself if you try to hammer them."
Di left and Rowena thought about her much.
Then the young Holts went back to their grandmother. She was living in Mrs. Burke's country house which had been left to her, and meant to stay there. Marion had returned, and took up lessons again, and the house settled down to a very quiet life, much to the General's satisfaction.
Rowena had a long talk with Marion upon the first evening of her return.
"I feel now that your mother is in such comfortable circumstances that you ought not to be out teaching," she said. "Doesn't she want to have you with her?"
"She has Bertha and Milly. She does not need me. I shall never forget your goodness in getting me this work. Why should I give it up? I've never been so happy in my life as I am with you. And I love Mysie, and she is a real pleasure to teach. If you are satisfied with my teaching, don't try to send me away."
"My dear Marion, I'm only too delighted to keep you. We will say no more about it."
"It is so delicious to see mother living in ease and comfort at last," Marion went on. "Of course she's sad still, and sometimes I think grudges herself the little luxuries she can have, because of the thought of my father and of all that he had to be denied. But she is taking increasing interest in the children, and she loves helping the poor in the village and continuing Aunt Caroline's village charities. I often thank God that you were led to live with my aunt. If you had not gone, how different things would have been with us I don't believe she would have left any money to mother at all, because she was so angry that she refused to be helped for so many years."
"I think it was rather quixotic of her," said Rowena.
"Perhaps it was; but she felt my aunt's marriage was everything that was sinful, and she would have nothing to do with it. I think she and my father were rather too strict in their judgments. You lived with her, and loved her, before she changed her life so."
"Yes," said Rowena thoughtfully. "I do not regret it, though, perhaps, I would not advise others to do the same. The life we lived was very deadening to the soul. I do not know what it was, but the very first day I saw your aunt, there was something peculiarly childish and appealing in her face. I felt she was one who wanted a real friend. And then I soon discovered that underneath all her gaiety and love of fun she was really an unhappy woman. I determined to help her if I could; and that determination helped me in many a bad time when I felt inclined to run away and leave it all."
"You were wonderful!" exclaimed Marion.
"Not at all. I undertook a job, and I stuck to it, just as you are sticking to your job now."
The conversation ended, and Marion took up the lessons happily. She was, as she said, only too happy in the present life to wish to change it, and Mysie adored her.
Oh Winter ruler of the inverted year ...... Thou hold'st the sunA prisoner in the yet undawning East,Short'ning his journey between morn and noon,And hurrying him impatient of his stayDown to the rosy West; but kindly stillCompensating his loss with added hoursOf social converse and instructive ease,And gathering at short notice in one groupThe family dispersed, and fixing thoughtNot less dispersed by daylight and its cares.Cowper.
IF Rowena had been asked if her married life now had fulfilled all her desires, she would have answered emphatically in the affirmative. Her husband adored her, and so did his child. She had full scope for her social activities all the summer; she had time, as she said, to find her soul and brain during the silent winter. For they did not move up to town as her sister-in-law wished. Neither of them had any desire to leave their Highland home.
Rowena tramped round the snowy moors with her husband, sometimes skating on part of the frozen loch, and sledging when the frost held the roads in its iron grip. Then when dusk came, she would sit sewing by the blazing log fires and the General would read aloud to her. He loved the solitude of their life and always protested if there was talk of having any visitors. One afternoon Rowena had taken Mysie with her and they had wandered into some fir woods, cracking the dry leaves and twigs underfoot with keen enjoyment of the aromatic scent of the pines, and of the fresh green moss and moist earth around them.
They were listening to some owls hooting just before turning towards home, when a cooee-ee rang out, and the next moment Dora Arnold Rashleigh came crashing through some undergrowth with her dogs.
"Why, Dora, what are you doing here!" asked Rowena. "I thought the Lodge was shut up and you were all back in town."
"So we were till two days ago, but Joyce suddenly developed scarlet fever, and I hate illness, so I came off out of it, and I remembered how happy you had been at the Lodge by yourself one winter so thought I'd try a month or so. Fact is, the Glen has got hold of me—it's a way some of these Scotch places have! And I arrived yesterday morning with a maid, and Granny Mactavish is delighted to do for me, but she quotes you on every occasion. We've been trespassing in your woods, haven't we?"
Rowena was astonished. She had not seen as much of Dora as she had hoped to do. Di and she had not got on together. They were both too masterful, and Dora had kept away from Rowena in consequence.
"How ripping to be in the Lodge quite by yourself!" said Mysie. "Do ask mother and me to tea one day; it will make me think of the days I went over to tea with her. It was a jolly old time!"
"I invite you to tea to-morrow," said Dora gaily. Rowena looked a little perturbed.
"My dear girl, you can't stay in the empty house by yourself. Surely your parents won't like it. You had better come to us."
Dora shook her head.
"You forget that women can do anything nowadays. I'll come over to you whenever I feel dull. I'm going to have a couple of friends down next week. They're overworked and want a rest."
Then, as Mysie danced along in front, calling the dogs after her, Dora turned to Rowena with an intent look upon her face.
"I want a talk with you. I've been longing for it. I want to have the highest goal. I've discovered mine is pretty low down, and I want to right it."
"Oh, Dora dear, I'm so glad."
As they walked homewards, their talk was a serious one, and when they parted, Dora said:
"Come to-morrow, and we'll make Mysie happy with the dogs somewhere whilst we have another talk. I really came back here to see more of you. Things you said to me have stuck."
Rowena went home with a light in her eyes and a glow in her heart. Di had disappointed her with her irresponsiveness, and all the time another was standing by who was longing to be helped and guided.
The next day she and Mysie went to tea at the Lodge as arranged, and when Mysie, in her old fashion, had gone out to see Granny in the kitchen, Rowena and Dora had a long talk together.
"You see," said Dora after a time, "I don't want to alter my life or give up my work. That's all right. But I want to put something in it that I haven't got. And when we are working away at these women, and getting them into Clubs and Guilds and all that sort of thing, we are continually knocking up against cases embittered by their circumstances and soured by trouble, and then one feels rather helpless. To tell them to go to church makes them smile. I think they feel they want something more. You have a living Power in your life. I can see it. I want to have that too, and I want to tell others how they can get it. You can't cure a vicious minded woman by giving her a dancing club, or comfort a broken-hearted one by teaching her how to make baskets! If one's work is to be a success, you must give of your best; and my best is not worth having. You quoted a verse to me one day in the summer: 'Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it.' And of course I've been thinking we, and every one of these women we try to help, are made or built by God in the first instance, and if we come to grief, there's no one can rebuild us properly except our Maker. I want to put myself in His Hands; tell me how to do it."
It was not difficult for Rowena to help the girl. She was anxious and willing and quite convinced that a life without God was a failure.
Before many days were past, the light came to her. She was very happy in the empty Lodge, spent most of her days with Rowena, and sat chatting in the kitchen with old Granny after her simple dinner was over. But in three weeks' time she went back to town.
"I shall lodge with a friend till our house is disinfected," she told Rowena. "Joyce is nearly well, they tell me. I must be getting on with my work, and now I have got what I came for, there is nothing to keep me. I wish we had a few more of your sort in town, Mrs. Macdonald. You are so very definite. I find people so very vague when you start talking religion. If I get into a fog, I shall write to you. I have made you my father—no—mother-confessor!"
And when she said good-bye to General Macdonald, she said to him with a little laugh:
"I consider Mrs. Macdonald is wasting her life down here. You ought to come to town oftener. Of course, if the mountain won't come to Mahomet, Mahomet must come to the mountain, and that's what I've done, but there are lots of others who couldn't afford the time or money to do it. Think of your fellow-creatures sometimes, General, and bring your wife to town. We want her there badly."
When she had gone Rowena told her husband about her. As a rule she did not betray the confidence of any who confided in her. She had learnt the wisdom of that in her life with Mrs. Burke. And her husband did not understand even yet, the gift that she had for drawing out the best in people, and winning their confidence and love.
"Well," he said, "I'm glad you were able to help her, dear. I must confess these loud-voiced, self-sufficient girls, do not appeal to me. The Miss Rashleighs were ardent suffragettes a few years back. I suppose they may do good in their own set; it is an age for strenuous exertion and work, but I can no more understand Dora Rashleigh than I can Miss Di Dunstan. I suppose Miss Dunstan is the more selfish of the two, as she never seems to think of anything but amusing and taking care of herself."
"I'm afraid you don't care for girls," said Rowena, looking at him rather ruefully. "And yet you have a little daughter of your own!"
"She is more than enough for me," said General Macdonald with a smile. "You say her will ought not to be broken, but I will not have her grow up into one of these modern young women."
"I cannot think why you ever took the smallest interest in me," said Rowena with her laugh. "I was an ordinary young woman—not an old-fashioned one by any means."
"You? Oh, you stand by yourself. You were perfectly adorable from the first moment I set eyes on you! I don't wonder you are so popular with these girls. I wish I could be more sociable and sympathetic. I am just an old bear who likes to remain in his den, and have his family with him."
"Then my dear Bruin," was Rowena's laughing retort; "it will be one of my endeavours to make you dance to our music sometimes. We are not meant to shut ourselves away from our neighbours. How can we help them if we do; how can we bear each other's burdens, as we are told to do? I consider that my time with dear Mrs. Burke was given me to show me how many of the people we consider frivolous and empty-headed, are really needing help and comfort and counsel. Don't think I set myself upon a pedestal above them. I don't. I'm just as foolish and ignorant in many ways as they are, but by coming together and being friendly with a number of them, I have discovered that we all have the same cravings, and needs, and that what has helped me will help them."
General Macdonald was silent, but when a few days later an invitation came from Hector Ross for them to spend Christmas with him, he did not cavil at it, as was his custom.
After talking it over, Rowena and he agreed that they wanted to be in their own home for Christmas; but Rowena wrote, suggesting that they should pay him a visit in the new year, and this was finally settled.
And then came an invitation for Mysie to spend part of her holidays with the young Holts and their Grandmother. Marion said she was not particularly anxious to be at home at Christmas, and would willingly wait, and take Mysie with her later.
At first Rowena had difficulty in getting her husband to consent to this arrangement.
"What does the child want to go away from home for!"
Mysie was enchanted with the invitation. She had never been away alone before, and Milly Holt was her "bosom friend." So she informed her father.
"It does her good to get away from us, sometimes," said Rowena. "Yes, I really mean it. We are too old and staid for her. I would not send her anywhere, but she can get nothing but good where she is going."
"I should have thought it would be better for her to have a change from her governess rather than from us," said her father.
"I agree with you, but as it happens, Marion is not going to stay at home. She has promised to visit some old friends of hers in the North. And Mysie will have her company on the journey there and back, which is necessary, and as we are going to Kestowknockan it will all fit in beautifully."
So General Macdonald gave in to his wife, which he generally did, after making his protest.
Sometimes Rowena wondered if he would ever lose his old bachelor ways and ideas.
Christmas came and the weather was bright and frosty. They had a very quiet time, but a happy one, and Mysie's high spirits never flagged.
She received a gold watch and chain from her father as a Christmas gift, and a most beautiful edition of the Life of Flora Macdonald, with coloured illustrations, from Rowena. It would be hard to say which present she prized most. She was allowed to dine late on Christmas day, and in the midst of the meal she put down her knife and fork and leaned her elbows on the table, looking across at her father very earnestly.
"Dad dear, do you remember Christmas last year when you and me sat here alone together, and it was raining and squalling, and you kept sighing, and then we talked of mother, and you said she might possibly be here another year; and then I sat on your knee by the fire afterwards, and you read me bits of her letter to you, and about the poor ill lady she was with! Doesn't it seem years ago! And we've got her now for ever. Isn't it lovely?"
"Haven't you got tired of me yet, Flora?" Rowena said laughingly; but a shadow crossed her face as she, too, cast her mind back to a year ago, when she was nursing Mrs. Burke through that terrible attack of rheumatic fever.
"Tired of you! Oh, mother, what an awful thing to say! Mrs. Dalziel said to Angus the other day that you'd let all the light and sunshine into the dark corners of this old house, and it does seem quite, quite different; doesn't it, Dad?"
"We'll drink Mother's health presently," said General Macdonald, and Rowena declared that they would make her feel quite self-conscious and shy.
Later on, they sat round the fire, in which reposed a huge Yule, and Mysie roasted chestnuts and persuaded her father to tell her some stories about his youth. When she finally went off to bed, Rowena asked her husband if he would come out on the terrace for a moment or two.
He got her fur cloak, and insisted on wrapping it round her. Then, together, they stood for a few moments looking down through the vista of pines and bare trees to the silver Loch in the distance. It was a brilliant starlit night; here and there on the hills and moor in the distance, a faint light from some shepherd's cot or farm shone out. Owls were hooting in the neighbouring wood, but otherwise there was a great stillness.
And Rowena said with a half-caught breath:
"I expect it was just a night like this when the earth was hushed and still to hear the angel's voices. The whole world waiting till the Saviour of the earth was born!"
Something in her voice made General Macdonald draw her very closely and tenderly to him.
"Why, dearest, what is the matter? Tears on Christmas night!"
Rowena smiled through misty eyes.
"I only thought I'd like to tell you to-night, that before another Christmas comes round, I may be a mother. I seem to feel the Manger-throne so close to me to-night."
General Macdonald bent his head and kissed her. For once his composure was shaken.
"My darling," he said, "what a wonderful joy to give me to-night."
"Are you pleased?" she whispered. "I did not know if you would be."
Her husband tightened his hold on her; then he looked up into the starry sky.
"If God sees fit to give us a son," he said in a husky tone, "to carry on the old name and family, I-I think my cup will overflow."
"We will ask Him to do so," said Rowena, smiling up at him.
And then they went back to the fire, and talked together in low happy tones of the future, with all its golden possibilities.
You are endowed with Faculties which bearAnnexed to them as 'twere a dispensationTo summon meaner spirits to do their willAnd gather round them at their need; inspiringSuch with a love themselves can never feel.Browning.
"HERE you are! It's good to see you both. Now come and be introduced to my little aunt."
Rowena and her husband were in the big hall of Kestowknockan, and Hector was welcoming them both in his cheerful, hearty manner.
There was a group of his guests round the big fire, and tea was just beginning. Miss Ross rose from her chair behind the silver urn, and shook hands with Rowena. She was a little grey-haired woman with happy smiling eyes, but she appeared a little flustered. Something in Rowena's face made her say in a low tone to her:
"Come and sit by me, Mrs. Macdonald. I have heard all about you from my cousin Hugh. You will help me. Three utter strangers have arrived to-day. Hector knows them, but I don't."
Rowena took a seat by her, but Di Dunstan seized hold of her.
"Here I am! The bad half-penny back again! I came this morning, and Allan Graeme joined me at Euston, so we've been fellow companions all the way. Also Hawtry Norris; do you know him? I've only met him once at the Graemes'—but it seems that he and Mr. Ross ran a ranch together once."
Di was looking very handsome in a dark blue cloth costume with fur trimming. Her fair hair and fresh complexion were set off by the sombreness of her gown. Captain Graeme was delighted to see Rowena again:
"We owe your husband a grudge for carrying you off to these lonely wilds," he said. "Several have been asking 'Where is that bright, jolly girl with the Saxon name, that used to be about town so much with Mrs. Burke?' And I've answered sadly, 'Married and done for.'"
"Do I look done for?" Rowena demanded; then Hector came up and introduced Mr. Norris to her and a Sir William and Lady Bampford. Sir William had been the English Minister at Panama. He was a thin, wiry little man, a great talker; his wife was a silent, stately woman, who seemed rather out of her element in Hector's free and easy household. The only other guest was a young widow, a Scotch cousin of the Rosses, a Mrs. McClintock.
They were all in very good spirits, and Hector was standing a good deal of chaff about his "ancestral halls."
"I own it isn't up to much at present," he said, looking round his rather empty hall with a grimace of disgust. "The last tenant took away everything with him, and my aunt and I have just got a few things together from Glasgow for the time being. I'll furnish it in good style later on."
"What style do you call good?" asked Mrs. McClintock.
"My own, of course. And I shall go in for simplicity and comfort and not have Birmingham suits of armour, and sham tapestry, and faked bronzes. If I haven't the real article—and I haven't—I shan't counterfeit them."
"You've got a few bearskins of your own," said Mr. Norris. "I should have them stuffed and placed about the hall. Try a few natural attitudes. They would keep away burglars, perhaps."
Through this talk Miss Ross was dispensing tea and talking to Rowena.
"Do help me," she said. "I have never visited country houses and I don't know how to entertain. Hector laughs at me if I ask him who is to take who in to dinner. 'Let them sort themselves out,' he says, 'I'm not going to run the place like the fashionable johnnies! It's to be Liberty Hall.' But if you have guests, you must treat them with courtesy and consideration; and I'm too old to be ignorant. I don't like it."
"I think we all enjoy unconventionality sometimes," said Rowena. "If I can help you, I will; but every one seems very happy at present."
Hector's house was like himself, simple and unpretending. There was an absence of soft couches and cushions, and of all the little knick-knacks that women gather round them. Miss Ross sighed for her comfortable little Terrace home, when she encountered the blasts of air through the long draughty passages and big windows that flanked every room. She had never lived in this house; for Hector's father had taken possession of it when she and her sister were living in London; and he had kept it, till his many debts had forced him to sell it. But she valiantly tried to do her best, and she was so anxious and deferential in her efforts to please her nephew's guests, that they could not but respond to her nervous and timid advances.
That evening Di asked Rowena to come into her bedroom the last thing at night. When she did so Di planted her in an easy-chair before the fire and began to talk.
"Isn't it queer that I should be down here so soon again? Why did he ask me, I wonder? What an odd fish he is! Did you hear his butler come to him for orders for to-morrow morning. 'How many for church, sir?' he asked. 'Will the wagonette be sufficient?' And then he looked round the hall and counted us all. 'Ten,' he said, and the widow looked up sharply: 'How do you know we all mean to go?' she said. And he laughed and thrust his hands in his pockets in his Colonial way: 'Oh, everybody goes to church in my house,' he said. 'And I give notice to you all that there'll be no billiards and bridge going to-morrow. I'm going to keep Sunday as it used to be kept when I was a kid.'"
"'Of course, in Scotland, we do things still that we don't do in England,'" I put in, and then he rounded on me:
"'Why should Scotland march into heaven first? Can't you English keep to your old traditions and Faith?' I enjoy watching the faces of his guests as he talks."
"And how is it with you?" Rowena asked affectionately. "Are you happier?"
Di shrugged her shoulders.
"I hate town more and more, and have left my flat already. I won't go back there. I'm going to Vi for a little hunting. For the sake of that I'm going to endure a course of snubs from her; and then I don't know what I shall do. Try to be good like you, perhaps, and see how it pays."
"Oh, Di dear!"
"Well, don't you want another convert? You made Mrs. Burke very happy. Will you make me?"
"I have no power to do it; and you know I haven't."
Di laughed.
"I don't want a sermon to-night; but we'll have some jaws together before I leave. What do you think of Mrs. McClintock? She's very sweet on Mr. Ross. Can hear nobody speak in the room but him; she watches him and listens for his every word. I know her sort well."
"I felt sorry for her," said Rowena frankly. "She lost her husband just this time last year. She told me she had come up here to get it off her mind. It is her first Christmas without him, and she dreaded being alone in her empty house."
"Oh, she'll soon solace herself with another husband," said Di, with a scornful smile. "Lady Bampford is the one I am sorry for. I should think her life is an hourly martyrdom with that foolish chatterbox of a husband. She turns from him so wearily sometimes. I should feel inclined to choke him if he belonged to me. Dear Rowena, I'm so glad you don't look shocked! Now tell me your opinion of Mr. Norris?"
"I have only said half a dozen words to him. He's very Colonial; but he's really fond of Hector. He said very pathetically to me 'I should like to have a home of my own—one that belonged to my family, but we've only owned town jerry-built villas for generations.' He told me he had a superstition against buying an old house from anyone else. 'I know I should see strange spooks in it,' he said. 'One wouldn't mind spooks belonging to one's own people, but strange spooks might be up to any jinks!'"
Di laughed.
"We shall be a scratch pack in church to-morrow. I'm wondering whether Mr. Ross will be able to whip us all in!"
But Di need not have wondered. Hector had a way of getting people to do as he wanted, and the next day there was not one absent guest in the little church, five miles away in the hills.
"You're a splendid whipper-in," Di said to him at the church door.
He nodded to her, and from that time the nickname stuck to him.
There were shooting parties in the following week, and Di was out-of-doors all day. General Macdonald took his wife home at the end of the week, but the other guests remained on. Rowena had had several long talks with Di, and parted from her with real regret. Di promised to correspond with her.
"I'm a tough subject," she said to her, laughing; "much tougher than our old friend, Mrs. Burke; but your words stick, and I'll have plenty of time to think them over when I get back to town."
Husband and wife reached home one wild, stormy evening. The warmth and cosiness of their house when they came into it made Rowena look up at her husband and say:
"Isn't it true that one's own fireside is always best? I was sorry for poor little Miss Ross going about that big house wrapped in her voluminous shawls. Hector ought to have central heating."
"He is going to. At present his place is like a barn, but my house was very like his before you came into it. You women have a wonderful gift for making a true home atmosphere."
He drew her to him for a moment and gave her a kiss, then held her out at arm's length from him, and said with smiling eyes:
"I am criticizing my wife. Wondering about this particular glamour in her composition. Do you know, madam, that Miss Dunstan actually held a long conversation with me in the smoking-room this morning? It was when you were completing our packing, and she told me things that have been simmering in my brain ever since."
"Tell me about them."
Rowena moved towards the library fire as she spoke, and seated herself on an old carved log-box in the wide chimney-corner. Her husband followed her.
"She was talking about you; asked me if I knew what was your power over your fellow-creatures. She made me realize, as I never have before, that you have a distinct gift in reaching out and winning people's confidence. She told me that Lady Bampford poured out her soul to you 'on the sly.' Her words, of course. Is this true?"
"Partly, I suppose. Poor thing! She has so longed for children, and her only little girl died of cholera in India at the age of two. She doesn't like England, and has a twin sister married in South America. She wants to go back there, but her husband's appointment is up. I'm afraid he wasn't quite a success out there. He has not much reticence or dignity, has he?"
"The woman appeared to be an iceberg to me. Miss Dunstan said you had thawed her, and would never leave go of her once you had taken hold. Is that true?"
"Di is so ridiculous; she only heard Lady Bampford beg me to write to her, and I have a confession to make: I asked her to pay us a visit some time next summer." Rowena looked up anxiously into her husband's face as she spoke. But he did not frown; only smiled.
"I guessed as much; and the little widow is to come too, is she not?"
"Mrs. McClintock? Oh, Hugh, my heart ached for her. Do you know that her husband was a really good man? She used to laugh at him for his religion, she told me; but now she's just longing to be like him, so that she may join him again. She has been drawn into these spiritualistic circles in town, and has been rather disillusioned. Says her husband did appear one day, or his form did, but his words were so unlike him that she believed some other spirit must have personated him. I would love to see more of her."
"Of course, that's what Miss Dunstan said, and Graeme has always been your devoted pupil, and even Norris argued for a good hour with you on the Divinity of the Bible. How is it that you attract them all so? I repel them. Miss Dunstan says I ought to open my house every summer to worn out disillusioned worldlings. She says you would make a cure of them all. She calls you 'The Society Shepherdess.' I begin to see that I have been a stumbling block in your path. And so, Rowena my darling, I am going to give you carte blanche to have as many visitors as you like, for short or long visits, in winter or in summer, or all the year round. And I'll help you and back you up as much as I can, for I see now that this is the work that has been given to you to do, and which very few others can do."
Rowena hid her face in her hands, and then she looked up, her blue-grey eyes misty with tears.
"We'll work together," she said, taking her husband's hands in hers. "I feel, as I have told you before, that my time amongst Mrs. Burke's friends showed me their need, as I should never have seen it otherwise; and one can't help loving them all. I can't. I long to draw them into the golden sunlight of Christ's Kingdom on Earth. We'll use our home for that purpose, Hugh. You have made me very happy."
Only a few weeks afterwards Rowena was made happier still.
She had a long letter from Di Dunstan.
"DEAREST ROWENA,—""You shall be the first to receive my news. For I owe my happiness to you entirely. And looking back I bless the day when you first came into my life. I think of it now—Vi and I were curious to see you; Mrs. Burke had told us that she had seen a charming girl who 'viewed life with half-hidden laughter in her eyes.' I remember how we roared over that description of you, and then you came to lunch, and your friendly confiding mischievous eyes—how well I remember them!—they rested on me as if you liked me from the first minute you set eyes on me. And you weren't a bit shocked by our talk and slang. Well, reminiscences are rather fetching, aren't they? Now for my news: Hector Ross has actually proposed to me, and I have accepted him. Now honour bright, did you think that he was taken by your humble servant when we were at Kestowknockan? I thought if he was smitten by anyone it was by the young widow. But after you left, he and I got very pally. And somehow he has your faculty for expecting the best out of one, and knowing how to extract it, too. Not that I have any best, but one day when I said that horses satisfied every part of my soul and body he took me up in his quick way:""'Don't pretend your soul is as small as that, for I know it isn't.' Another day he asked me if I'd come with him to see a keeper who was very ill. 'But I'm not a sick-bed visitor,' I said. 'I run away from sickness always.'""'You aren't going to run away from it now,' he answered, 'for you've a warm heart and a woman's pity. I've seen you nurse a sick dog in my stable, and a man is worth more than a dog. You'll come along with me now, and we'll try between us if we can't give the old fellow a word of cheer, before he gets into the Dark Valley.' I was terrified, but off I went with him, and he told me how he'd been left guarding an empty trench one night with two dying men close to him, and how he'd repeated to them like a parrot, a speech he'd heard from a chaplain the day before. Can I tell you about that shepherd's hut? I'll try. Picture a dark little smoke-filled, smoke-dried hole and a low trestle bed by a peat fire, and a dog lying by it, and then an old blue-grey bony face looking up at us through the folds of a ragged plaid. Quite alone he was. A neighbour came across to him two or three times a day. And then, when I was just going to turn tail and run, what did the Whipper-in do but say in his clear, cheerful voice—'This lady has come to see you, McFarlane, and she'll read you a verse or two to comfort you.' With that he stuffed a little Testament into my hand which he produced out of his coat pocket. 'That's what the Padres always do,' he said.""Imagine me, Rowena. I nearly went into hysterics, and then I thought to myself that I always was considered good at acting any part, and I would do the same now. And I opened the Testament and read the first words I came across. They actually seemed to interest him, but I was in such a state of bewilderment that I can't remember now what they were, and the old chap looked up in my face and thanked me quite gratefully, as if I'd given him a tenner! And then the Whipper-in sat down and talked to him like a father. He made me gasp—the things he said. He told me afterwards he had seen many a life flicker out in France, when there was nobody near to have a word with them, and then he said quite humbly, like a boy, 'And if I can't tell them all the orthodox doctrines of our Creed, I can just tell them to catch hold of the Hand that was pierced for them, and that wants to hold them safely.' I tell you, Rowena, he almost made me choke—the way he said it.""Well, we were good friends till I came away, and I thought I had seen the last of him. And then a week ago he turned up in town and I happened to run across him in the open street. I was staying with the Clarkes—one of the girls was being married. He asked me with beaming eyes whether I would help him choose a few carpets for his house. Said he had meant to come down and see me at Vi's—for that was the only address I'd given him—and he told me his little aunt was ill of bronchitis, and she had only rugs on a polished floor in her bedroom and he wanted to carpet her room from corner to corner and with carpet 'three inches thick.' It was no good laughing at him. He was in dead earnest, and we went off together, and he ordered me about as if I were a two-year-old, and stood me lunch at the 'Carlton.' And then we chose his carpets, and the shopman, of course, alluded to me as his 'lady.' When we came out, we walked in the Park, and he said he wanted me as his 'lady' for life! I was quite bowled over. I am no young girl, and, as you know, I've had my disillusion, but there's something about him I can't resist. You feel he has been everywhere and done everything and knows the world as the majority of us don't know it, and yet he has come back as simple and fresh and believing as any boy. The War taught him, he says, some of the best lessons in life, and he is going to pass on his lessons to me. And I tested myself, Rowena, when he had gone. I said to myself, 'If he lost all his money to-morrow, and his horses, would you be happy married to him?' And I told myself that I would follow him round the world with only a crust between us! So I have no qualms or misgivings. Of course, Vi is enchanted. She's seen him and likes him and the wedding is coming off next June.""So now my heart thumps madly when I realize that I shall be a close neighbour of yours. Only thirty or forty miles between us, isn't it? And his dear little aunt can stay with us, unless she would rather go back to her doll's house. The Whipper-in thinks she would like that best. Do you think I shall make him a good wife, Rowena? He is determined to make me a good woman. And I've come to the conclusion that the truly good people in this world must of necessity be the happiest, for they have the assurance and hope of a perfect life beyond the grave, and a very comforting one in this.""So, so—well, you raked my soul fore and aft when you talked to me, so in simple words I tell you that I've taken hold of the Pierced Hand, and believe It will hold me safe through all Eternity.""My love for always, my dear Shepherdess,""One of your grateful flock,""Di."
Rowena read this to her husband.
"I know she would not mind. It will show you that she is not so hard as we have thought her."
"I will never think anyone hard again," said General Macdonald gravely, when his wife had finished reading.
And then his eyes rested on her with peculiar satisfaction and trust.
"At least," he added, "I shall never think anyone too shallow, too frivolous, too worldly-minded, to be influenced for good by you, Rowena. I humbly hope I may catch some of your love and tolerance for your fellow-creatures as we journey on together."
Rowena was not fond of hearing her praises sung, but she turned to him with one of her sweet smiles.
"And may I catch some of your single-heartedness and just uprightness. There now, aren't we a model couple! After all, Hugh, we may be seed-throwers, but the real vital work is not done by us at all. Thank God He takes it out of our hands and does it all Himself!"
FINIS