"I'm sure it will all be spoilt to me, any way," said poor Aunt Rose, half choked.
"But you will bear the burthen alone, for your brother's sake and Charlotte's," said Miss Manners, cheerfully; "besides,you have your own dear old Amy to help you to bear it, and that is like old times."
This comforted Rose a good deal. Miss Dora—as she and her sister Amy still called her—said she would not say good-bye, she would look in before the Cuthberts went, and say how the child was.
The younger Amy was glad at first of the respite, but altogether it was the most dreadful day she ever spent. There was her father in his Sunday best coming out tomeetthem, wondering what had made them stay so long. Mrs. Cuthbert answered, to save Aunt Rose, that they had found the child much worse, and that Miss Manners had come in. This satisfied him, and they went in to the meal Aunt Charlotte had prepared—a very late luncheon, or early and solid tea, whichever it might be called—in the parlour, with the best china, and everything as nice as possible.
Really Amy felt as if it would have beenless dreadful to have been locked up in her room, or sitting sewing with Jessie in the workroom, than sitting up in the parlour with the rest, and hearing her father show his pride in her, making her fetch her prize for the religious examination, and talking of her almost as if he wanted to compare her with Aunt Amy's missionary son.
And then when Ambrose Cuthbert was questioned about his plans, and told in a very modest quiet way where he was to go, and the work he was to do under a missionary to the Red Indians, Amy saw more and more how foolish she had been. What was that conceited groom whose boast was of the horses he had ridden, and the bets laid on them, compared with this young man? Which was the gentleman of the two? And this was her own first cousin, and she had forfeited the respect and esteem which he might have carried out with him! He would only—inthose far countries—think of his cousin, Amy Lee, as a giddy, deceitful, hypocritical girl, who had carried on a flirtation under cover of a good work.
Amy burnt to tell all the excuses she thought she had, and how she had been led on, and that it was not so bad as no doubt Aunt Rose thought; but she must keep all back. Only at last her father remarked that his darling was very silent—shy, he thought, with her grand scholarly cousin. He said he should like them to hear what a pretty voice she had, and told her to sing one of her hymns, such as "Abide with us;" but Amy could not do that. She put her face in her hands, choked, and began to cry.
"Ah!" said Aunt Charlotte; "poor dear, it has been a great shock to her, the poor little boy being taken so much worse."
It was a comfort to every one that at that moment Miss Manners came inthrough the shop, asking for Jessie Hollis.
"The poor little boy is very ill," she said. "The only thing that seems to soothe him is a bit of a verse that his sister Mary says her teacher taught her. That was you—is it not, Jessie? Mary can only say half, and we can't make it out; but she says, 'If teacher was but here.'"
Of course Miss Lee was ready to spare Jessie for such a reason, and she folded up her work while Miss Manners had a little talk with Mrs. Cuthbert, on the mingled pain and sweetness of the giving up her only son to be one of those sent forth "to sow beside all waters."
"I am so glad he should have seen you, ma'am, before he leaves us," said his mother, the tears rising in her quiet eyes. "I only wish he could have seen Miss Edith—Mrs. Howard; for indeed, ma'am, I always feel that whatever good mychildren have learnt at home, was owing to the way I was brought up and the way Miss Edith used to talk to us."
"Nothing will make my sister so happy as to hear it, Amy," said Miss Manners. "Somehow it seems to chime in with what I had ventured to bring as a little remembrance of your old home for your son. I had prepared it to send the St. Augustine's scholar, before I knew I should see him."
She gave him a beautiful littleChristian YearandLyra Innocentiumin a case together, and as the book-marker was the illuminated text—
"In the morning sow thy seed,And in the evening withhold not thine hand,For thou knowest not which shall prosper."
Ambrose Cuthbert thanked the lady in a very nice way, telling her that he should value her gift much, and that he hoped to make the poems his companions and often his guides in his work.
So with a warm pressure of the hands of both mother and son, Miss Manners walked away with Jessie.
"I think," she presently said, "some of your bread on the waters is coming back to you, Jessie. They say that little Mary Smithers has been such a comfort to her little brother, by repeating to him what she learns on Sundays, and that she has been so much more good and attentive to him of late."
"I am sure, ma'am," said Jessie, "I never thought Mary Smithers seemed to understand anything."
"We can never judge where the seed we sow will prosper," said Miss Dora, thinking within herself of the different results with Amy and Jessie.
The little boy had been carried up to the bedroom. Old Mrs. Rowe was there, and his mother, who was trying to help him to lie more easily, while he moved feebly, but restlessly, and still looked atlittle Polly, who was repeating over and over some verse in which "Shepherd" was the only word that Miss Manners, well as she knew the children's tones, could make out. Jessie, however, knew it directly, and repeated—
"Gracious Saviour, gentle Shepherd,Little ones are dear to Thee,Gathered in Thine Arms and carried,In Thy Bosom may we beSweetly, fondly, gently tended,From all want and danger free."
She could say the whole hymn, but the child grew restless as soon as she had passed beyond the first verse. She returned to it, once, twice, and then Polly got back what she had partly forgotten and went on with it, which was evidently what quieted the boy best. He seemed too far gone to attend to anything else; the sense of other words did not reach his ears, but these evidently gave him pleasure. The doctor had said he wasdying, and the women thought he would sleep himself away. There seemed no more to be done. Polly had her verse to say to him, and no help seemed needed; so Miss Manners and Jessie went down the stairs again, and out into the garden, Jessie shedding many tears, but very far from sad ones. When she could speak, she said that the young woman in the hospital to whom she owed so much knew the hymn, and had so often repeated it, that Jessie had learnt it. She had used the first verse one Sunday when teaching the children about the Good Shepherd, and, having a little more time than usual, had tried to teach it to them—little thinking how she should thus meet it—but using it because she had grown fond of it for the sake of her friend, and of the new and higher feelings that were linked with the first learning of it.
There was a great peace and thankfulnessin her heart at having thus tasted a sort of first-fruits of her little attempt at sowing. It was soothing a death-bed! Might not she well rejoice that she had persevered, in spite of the temptation of gain, in not letting her head and heart be carried away with the fever of work, but giving the best part of herself to the task she had undertaken?
Not that Jessie saw or thought that this had been the case. Yet if she had let herself be swept away with Grace's vehement desire to engross all the needlework, she must have given up her preparation; she would have been wearied, hurried, and very likely fretful and impatient. At any rate, there would not have been that kindness and earnestness which leads others to be good far more than the actual words of teaching.
"Itis a right punishment for our sinful pride in her," said Aunt Rose, as she had a few last words alone with her elder sister.
"Well, Rose," said Mrs. Cuthbert, "I would not be so very hard on the poor child. I've been watching her, and I think, though no doubt she has done very wrong, it was in a childish sort of way, and that you won't find there's been any real love-making or nonsense of that sort."
"I'm sure, now I find the child could deceive us so, and act such a part, there'snothing I could not believe," said poor Aunt Rose.
"That is sad enough, but I think you'll find it the worst, and that she was led into it by others."
"That Florence Cray!" exclaimed Rose; "and what to do about her? How hinder her from spoiling our child, when she's bound apprentice to me? I wish I'd never listened to her father!"
Here came Amy herself, sent up to say that the trap was ready, and her aunt must not be late for the train. She felt as if the last protection was gone when she saw her aunt and cousin driven away in the conveyance they had hired at Ellerby.
Girls bred up like Florence Cray would have thought it all a great fuss about nothing. First and last Florence had seen nothing but fun in Amy's cheating her strait-laced aunts and getting a little diversion, while they wanted to shut herup with a cross child; but Amy had been bred up to a very different way of looking at things, and the whole afternoon had only been setting more fully before her how she had fallen from what she had imagined of herself last Lent!
After all, the delay had made it better for her. Aunt Rose did not tell the story quite so hotly and violently as it would have come out in the first shock of wrath, but it was dreadful enough to hear her father say—
"Amy, child, what is this? I never thought you would go for to do such a thing."
"You that we had trusted from a baby," added Aunt Rose.
Aunt Charlotte said nothing, but her looks were the worst of all to bear, they were so gentle and so sorrowful. And when Amy had sobbed out her story they told her that she had been so sly that they did not know how to believe her word.
"Oh, father! you may believe me. I never told a story—no, I never did!"
"And yet you could make as if you were going day by day to sit with that poor little chap, only that you might be tramping about the lanes with that there scamp!"
It was what he took as the hypocrisy of the thing that chiefly wounded Mr. Lee, and when Amy declared she had always gone into the cottage and spoken to the boy, she was told, "Much she could have attended to him, since she had never seen that the poor child was dying."
The fact was that Florence had hurried her a good deal, because Mr. Wingfield was to show them the rosettes the horses were to wear on the wedding-day.
After all, Amy had to go up to her room only half believed and unforgiven. Her father had a great mind to have gone to have had it out with Florence Cray that night, but as some holiday peoplewere there, he doubted whether he could see her alone, and waited till the morning. Then he called her into the parlour and said:
"Florence Cray, what have you been doing with my girl?"
"No harm, Mr. Lee," said Florence, frightened, but therefore pert, and resolved to stand up for her friend. "You may trust me for that! I know what is proper."
Mr. Lee made an odd sort of noise, and said: "You do, eh! Proper to deceive her friends—"
"Oh! now, Mr. Lee," said Florence, looking up in the droll, saucy way that served her instead of beauty, "it was only two old aunts. One always reckons it fair play by an old aunt."
"Have done with nonsense like that," said Mr. Lee. "Now, Florence Cray, mine is a girl with no mother. My sisters, and I have done our best to keepher a good, innocent girl, and we can't but feel it a hard thing that you should come leading her to keep company, without our knowledge, with a fellow that you must know is not such as we would approve."
"I'm sure I meant no harm," said Florence, beginning to cry; "I only thought it was dull for her, and took her for a walk. And you needn't be afraid, Mr. Lee, I never left them alone not one minute, nor he never said one word; nor did more than just shake hands. You may trust me, Mr. Lee."
On the whole the Lees were satisfied that the mischief had not gone as far as such imprudence might have led. Mr. Wingfield would be gone in a few days, for the wedding was coming on, and Amy was certainly not in love with him. When she compared him with Ambrose Cuthbert, she felt sick of having been flattered for a moment by his attentions,and looked on the whole with the bitterest shame, as having led her away from all her good resolutions, and made her thus deceive and disobey her father and aunts. And when the knell rang for poor little Edwin Smithers she cried more than ever, feeling almost guilty of his death.
She never wished for a moment to accept the invitation for which she had once been so eager, to see Miss Robson's wedding clothes and wedding presents. Grace Hollis went and took Jessie, and Florence Cray went too.
These were a sight! Such gilt clocks! Such extraordinary contrivances for ink-stands, toilette apparatus, dinner services, and every service that could be thought of! Such girdles, chatelaines, rings and bracelets! Such silks and satins! such garments for morning, noon, and night, and even afternoon tea! And oh! such dressing-gowns!
They sent Florence Cray home thinkingover all the novels she had ever seen, where a girl at an inn married a rich man, and also thinking how to alter her best hat.
They sent Grace Hollis home deep in plans how to get another order for plain work.
And they sent home, Jessie very happy indeed, for a lady's-maid had asked whether a dozen more handkerchiefs could be marked with "Maude" in the same style as the Nina.
Miss Needwood was really getting quite prosperous.
The next day, almost every one, who could, went to see as much as possible of the wedding; so Aunt Rose had not yet to endure the presence of Florence, and to keep watch that she did not chatter to Amy, who was drooping and shame-stricken enough.
That morning came a letter from Mrs. Cuthbert. She said she should belonesome without Ambrose; and would her brother lend her his Amy for a few weeks, when she would do her best for the child, and not let her forget her needlework? This made things much easier to all; but Amy knew it was a very different going from home from what it might have been.
Before she came back, Florence Cray had found what she called "working at Old Lee's" so dull, that she had teased her parents into requesting the return of part of her premium, and binding her to the chief milliner in Ellerby.
Mr. Somershad come home from his six weeks' holiday, and was talking over the village news with Miss Manners.
She told him of little Edwin Smithers's death, of the summons to Jessie Hollis, and of the visit of Mrs. Cuthbert.
"Of course it is wrong to judge," she said, "but do you remember that Lenten sermon, and the impression I told you it made?"
"I remember well. It was on the seed, and on bringing forth fruit."
"Well, when we had the Parable of the Sower the other day, I could not help thinking how it had worked out.There were some, like that Cray girl, who never seemed to take it in at all, but left it as something outside of them. Then three distinctly were moved to undertake something, the two Hollises and Amy Lee. Well, Grace dropped her missionary needlework as soon as that wedding order come in her way——"
"Don't be hard on her, Dora."
"No; but I'm afraid I can't help seeing that she does not seem to keep up her Sunday ways as she used. Then there's a sharp, worn, fretted way. I am very much afraid she is getting choked with the thorns."
"I don't know Miss Hollis well," he said, thoughtfully, "but I am afraid she does not look much beyond her shop."
"And my poor little Amy Lee responding so readily—seeming all that could be wished, and then showing herself so little able to stand temptation from that silly girl."
"I hope there was no more than silliness."
"I don't think there was; but still, after all the care Rose and Charlotte have taken to bring up that girl really refined, it was very disappointing to find her ready to be led away in an instant by foolish, vulgar admiration; above all, when it led her to neglect the good work she was supposed to be doing, it showed such shallowness."
"It is a comfort that often trials, and even falls, do deepen the soil, so that the roots may have a better hold another time," said Mr. Somers. "I think there is good hope that so it will be with poor little Amy. And I think you have some good soil to tell me of."
"Indeed I have. I am sure Jessie Hollis has shown herself good soil, and her work upon that very unpromising Mary Smithers showed itself remarkably.But that was not all I was thinking of. It seems to me that we have had a glimpse of what the hundredfold produce may be. Think of my dear sister Edith, working away at her class when there was much less help than now, and see what some of them have grown up, especially Amy Cuthbert. I know she had a good home, and other helps; but still I heard what she said of Edith's teaching and training. It has helped her to make that young Ambrose Cuthbert what he is,—and what may not be his harvest!"
"As though a man should cast seed into the field," said Mr. Somers, thoughtfully. "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."
"Ah! I am leaping on too fast. We only see a little of the first-fruits," said Miss Manners, "and take it for an earnest of the rest." And then sherepeated Bishop Heber's hymn, which she had often taught the children:—
"O God, by Whom the seed is given,By Whom the harvest blest,Whose Word, like manna showers from heaven,Is planted in our breast."Preserve it from the passing feet,From plunderers of the air,The sultry sun's intenser heat,And weeds of worldly care."Though buried deep or thinly strewn,Do Thou Thy grace supply:The hope in earthly furrows strewnShall ripen in the sky."
THE END.
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Transcriber's Note:Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.In the original text, in the Books for Presents section, the author's names wereSmall-capped, ALL-CAPPED or both within the same name depending on which line or lines the name fell on. For the HTML version, these were changed for uniformity.The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.
Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.
In the original text, in the Books for Presents section, the author's names wereSmall-capped, ALL-CAPPED or both within the same name depending on which line or lines the name fell on. For the HTML version, these were changed for uniformity.
The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.