J
UDGE ERSKINE was in his library, pacing slowly back and forth, his forehead lined with heavy wrinkles, and his face wearing the expression of one involved in deep and troubled thought. He had just come home from the evening meeting, the last meeting of the series that had held the attention of so many hearts during four weeks of harvest time.
Judge Erskine had been a silent and attentive listener. All through the solemnities of the sermon, that seemed written for his sake, and to point right at him, he had never moved his keen, steady eyes away from the preacher's face. Thetext of that sermon he was not likely to forget. He had looked it up, and read it, with its connections, the moment he reached the privacy of his library.
"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." That was the text. Judge Erskine said it over and over to his own soul. It was true; it fitted his condition as precisely as though it had been written for him. The harvest that would tell for eternity had been reaped all around him. He had looked, and listened, and resolved; and still he stood outside, ungarnered.
Moreover, one portion of the solemn sermon fitted him, also. When Dr. Dennis spoke of those who had let this season pass, unhelped, because they had an inner life that would not bear the gaze of the public, because they were not willing to drag out their past and cast it away from them, Judge Erskine had started and fixed a stern glance on the preacher.
Did he know his secret, that had been hidden away with such persistent care? What scoundrel could have enlightened him? This, only for a moment; then he settled back and realizedhis folly. Dr. Dennis knew nothing of himself or his past. Then came that other awfully solemn thought—there was One who did? Could it be that his voice had instructed the pastor what special point to make in that sermon, with such emphasis and power? Was the keen eye of the Eternal God pointing his finger, now, at him, and saying; "Thou art the man?"
Heknewall this was true; he knew that the work of the past month had greatly moved him; he knew on the evening when the text had been, "Almost thou persuadestmeto be a Christian," that he had felt himselfalmostpersuaded; he knew then, as he did now, that but one thing stood in the way of his entire persuasion.
As he walked up and down his library on this evening, he felt fully persuaded in his own mind that the time had arrived when he was being called on persistently for a decision. More than that, he felt that the decision was to be not only for time, but for eternity; that hemustsettle the question of his future then and there. He had locked the door after him, as he came into the library, with a sort of grim determination to settle the question before he stepped into theoutside world again. How would it be settled? He did not know himself. He did not dare to think how it would end; he simply felt that the conflict must end.
Meantime, Ruth was up-stairs on her knees, praying for her father. Her heart felt very heavy. She had prayed for this father with all her soul; prayed, with what she felt was a degree of faith, that this evening, at the meeting, he might settle the question at issue, and settle it forever. She had felt a bitter, and almost an overwhelming, disappointment that the meeting closed and left him just where he had stood for a month.
There seemed nothing left to do. She had not spared her words, her entreaties. She had gotten bravely over her fears of approaching her father. But now it seemed to her that there was nothing left to say. She could still pray, and it was with a half-despairing cry that she fell on her knees, realizing in her very soul that only the power of God could convert her father. Into the midst of this longing, clinging cry for help there came a knock.
"Judge Erskine would like to have you cometo the library for a few minutes, if you have not retired."
This was Katie Flinn's message. And Ruth, as she swiftly set about obeying the summons, said:
"Oh, Katie, pray for father!" for among those who, during the last few weeks, had learned to pray was Katie Flinn. Poor Katie, with the simple child-like faith and loving heart which she brought to the service, was destined to be a shining light in a dark world; and the glory thereof would sparkle forever in Flossy Shipley's crown.
Judge Erskine turned as his daughter opened the door, and motioned her to a seat. Then he continued his walk. Something in his face hushed into silence the words that were on her lips; but presently he stopped before her, and his voice startled her with its strangeness.
"My daughter, I have something to tell you, and something to ask you. I shall have to cause you great grief and shame, and I want to begin first by asking you to forgive your father."
Ruth felt her face growing pale. Whatcouldhe mean? Had she not always looked up tohim as above most men, even Christian men?—faultless in his business transactions, blameless in his life? She attempted to speak, and yet felt that she did not know what to say. Apparently he expected no word from her; for he went on hurriedly:
"You have, during these few weeks past, shown a sort of interest in me, that I never saw manifested before. I have reason to think that you have concluded, lately, that the most earnest desire you can have concerning your father, is to see him a Christian man? I can conscientiously tell you that I have felt the necessity for this experience as I never did before; that I realize its importance, and that I want it; yet there is something in the way, something that I must do, and confess, and abide by for the future, that I shrink from more on your account than my own. My child, do you want this thing enough to endure disgrace and humiliation, and a cross, heavy and hopeless, all your life?"
"Father," she said, half rising, and looking at him with a bewildered air, a vague doubt of his sanity, and a half fear of his presence, creeping into her heart, "what can you possiblymean? How can disgrace, or cross-bearing, or trouble of any sort, be connected withyou?I cannot understand you."
"I know you can not. You think I am talking wildly, and you are half afraid of me; but I am perfectly sane. I wish, with all my soul, that a certain portion of my life could be called a wild dream of a disordered brain; but it issolemnlytrue. Ruth, if I come out before the world and avow myself a Christian man, with the determination to abide by the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, it involves my bringing to this house a woman who will have to be recognized as my wife, and a girl who will have to share with you as my daughter; a woman whom you will have to call mother, and a girl who is your sister. Are you equal to that?"
Every trace of blood left Ruth Erskine's face. Her father watched her narrowly, with his hand touching the bell-rope; it seemed as if she must faint; but she motioned his hand away.
"Don't ring," were the first words she said; "I am not going to faint. Father, tell me what you mean."
The actual avowal made, and the fact establishedthat his daughter was able to bear it, and to still keep the story between themselves, seemed to quiet Judge Erskine. His intense and almost uncontrollable excitement subsided; the wild look in his eyes calmed, and, drawing a chair beside his daughter, he began in a low steady voice to tell her the strange story:
"Acts that involve a lifetime of trouble can be told in a few words, Ruth. When your mother died I was almost insane with grief; I can't tell you about that time; I was young and I was gay, and full of plans, and aims, and intentions, in all of which she had been involved. Then came the sudden blank, and it almost unsettled my reason. There was a young woman boarding at the same house where I went, who was kind to me, who befriended me in various ways, and tried to help me to endure my sorrow. She grew to be almost necessary to my endurance of myself. After a little I married her. I did not take this step till I found that my friendship with her, or, rather hers with me, was compromising her in the eyes of others. Let me hurry over it, Ruth. We lived together but a few weeks; then I was obliged to go abroad.Away from old scenes and associations, and plunged into business cares, I gradually recovered my usual tone of mind. But it was not till I came home again that I discovered what a fatal blunder I had made. That young woman had not a single idea in common with my plans and aims in life; she was ignorant, uncultured, and, it seemed to me, unendurable. How I ever allowed myself to be such a fool I do not know. But up to this time, I had at least, not been a villain. I didn't desert her, Ruth; I made a deliberate compromise with her; she was to take her child and go away, hundreds of miles away, where I would not be likely ever to come in contact with her again, and I was to take your mother's child and go where I pleased. Of course I was to support her, and I have done so ever since; that was eighteen years ago; she is still living, and the daughter is living. I have always been careful to keep them supplied with money; I have tried to have done for the girl what money could do; but I have never seen their faces since that time. Now, Ruth, you know the miserable story. There are a hundred details that I could give you, that perhaps would leadyou to have more pity for your father, if it did not lead you to despise him more for his weakness. It is hard to be despised by one's child. I tell you truly, Ruth, that the bitterest of this bitterness is the thought of you."
The proud man's lip quivered and his voice trembled, just here.
Poor Ruth Erskine! "I am willing to doanything," she had said to Marion, not two hours before; and here was a thing, the possibility of which she had never dreamed, staring her in the face, waiting to be done, and she felt that she could not do it. Oh, why was it necessary? "Why not let everything be as it has been?" said that wily villain Satan, whispering in her ears. "They were false vows; they are better broken than kept. He does not love her, though he said he did. And how can we ever endure it, the shame, the disgrace, the horrid explanations, our name, theErskinename, on everybody's lips, common loafers sneering at us? And then to have the family changed; myself to be only a back figure; a mother who is not, and neverwasmy mother, taking my place; and the other one— Oh, it can not be possible that we mustendure this! There must be some other way. They are doubtless contented, why could it not remain as it is?"
As if to answer her unspoken thoughts, Judge Erskine suddenly said:
"I have canvassed the entire subject in all its bearings, you may be sure of that. I am living a lie. I am saying my wife is dead, when a woman to whom before God I gave that name is living; I am saying that I have but one child, when there is another to whom I am as certainly father as I am to you. I am leaving them, nay, obliging them, to live a daily lie. I have assured myself to a certainty that one sin can never be atoned for by another sin; there is but one atonement; and the Source of all help says, 'If weconfessour sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins; and to cleanse us fromallunrighteousness.' I know there is only one way of cleansing, daughter."
"Get thee behind me, Satan." The only perfect life gave that sentence once, not alone for Himself; thank God he has many a time since enabled his weak children of the flesh to repeat it in triumph. The grace came then and thereto Ruth Erskine. She rose up from her chair, and going over to her father did what she had never remembered doing in her life before. She bent down and wound both arms around his neck and kissed him. Her voice was low and steady:
"Father, don't let this, or anything earthly, stand between you and Christ. You are not a sinner above all others. It is only the interposing hand of God that has kept me from taking sinful vows upon my lips. Let us do just what is right. Send for them to come home, and I will try to be a daughter and a sister; and I will stand by you, and help you in every possible way. There are harder trials than ours will be, after all."
It was his daughter who finally and utterly broke the proud, haughty heart. Judge Erskine bowed himself before her and sobbed like a child in the bitterness and the humiliation of his soul.
"God bless you," he said, at last, in broken utterance. "There is an Almighty Saviour; I need nothing more than your words to convince me of the truth of that. If love to him can lead your heart to such forgiveness as this, what musthis forgiveness be? Ruth, you have saved my soul; I will give up the struggle; I have tried to fight it out; I have tried to say that I could not; for my own sake, and for my own name, it seemed impossible. Then when I got beyond that, and felt that for myself, if I could have rest in the love of Christ, and could feel that he forgave me, I cared for nothing else. Then I said, 'I can not do this, for my child's sake; I can never plunge her into this depth of sin and shame.' Then, my daughter, there came to me a message from God, and of all those thatcouldcome to a miserable man like me, it was this: 'He that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.' Then I saw that I must be willing even to lose your love, to make you despise me; and that was the bitterest cup of all. But, thank God, he has spared me this. God bless you, my daughter."
There was something almost terrible to Ruth, in seeing her cold, calm father so moved. She had never realized what awfully solemn thingstearswere till she saw them on her father's cheeks, and felt them falling hot on her head, from eyes so unused to weeping. The kisses shegave him were very soft and clinging—full of tender, soothing touches. Then father and daughter knelt together, and the long, long struggle with sin and pride andsilencewas concluded.
Do you think this was a lasting victory for Ruth Erskine? You do not understand the power of "that old serpent, the Devil," if you can not think how he came to her again and again in the silence of her own room, even into the midst of her rejoicings over the newly-washed soul, even while the joy in heaven among the angels was still ringing out over her father, came whispering to her heart to say:
"Oh, I can't, I can't. Think of it! The Erskines! Howcanwe endure it? Is itpossiblethat we must? Perhaps the woman would rather live as she is."
As ifthathad anything to do with the question of right and wrong! The very next instant Ruth curled her lip sneeringly over her own folly. She never forgot that night, nor how the conflict waged. She tried to imagine herself saying "mother" to one who really had a nominal right to the title. Not that it was an unfamiliarword to her. The old aunt who had occupied the mother's place in the household since Ruth was a wee creature of two years, she had learned almost from the instincts of childhood to call "mamma." And as she grew older and was unused to any other name for Mrs. Wheeler, the widowed aunt, she toned it into the familiar and comfortable word "mother," and had always spoken to and of her in that name.
Yet she knew very well how little the title meant to her. She had loved this old lady with a sort of pitying, patronizing love, realizing even very early in her life that she, herself, had more self-reliance, more executive ability, in her little finger, than was spread all over the placid lady who early learned that "Ruthie" was to do precisely as she pleased.
Such a cipher was this same old lady in the household, that when a long lost son appeared on the surface, during Ruth's absence at Chautauqua, proving, sturdy old Californian as he was, to have a home and place for his mother, and a heart to take her with him, her departure caused scarcely a ripple in the well-ordered household of the Erskines.
She had been its nominal head for eighteen years, but the real head who was absent at Chautauqua, had three or four perfectly trained servants, who knew their young mistress' will so well, that they could execute it in her absence as well as when she was present.
So when Ruth took, in the eyes of everybody, the position that had really been hers so long, it made no sort of change in her plans or ways. And beyond a certain lingering tenderness when she spoke of her by that familiar title, "mother," there was no indication that the woman who had had so constant and intimate connection with her life was remembered.
But this name applied to another, and that other, one whom she had never seen in her life, and who yet was actually to occupy the position of head of the household—her father's wife, in the eyes of society her mother, spoken of as such, herself asked, "How is your mother?" or "What does your mother think of this?" Would anyone dare to use that name to her? No one had so spoken of her aunt. They all knew she was only her aunt, though she chose to pet her by the use of that tender name. Could she bearall these things and a hundred others that would come up?
"Marion," she said the next day as she chanced to meet that young lady on the street, "I have something to tell you. I want to call on you to witness that I shall never again be guilty of that vainglorious absurdity of saying that I am ready for anything. One can never know whether this is true or not; at least I am sure I never can. What I am to say in the future is simply, 'Lord, make me willing to do what there is for me to do this day.' Remember that in a few days you will understand what I mean."
Then she went on. Marion pondered over it. She did not understand it at all. What trial could have come to Ruth that had brought her the knowledge of the weakness of her own heart? She wondered if it had also brought her peace.
I
SUPPOSE there has never been an earnest worker, an enthusiast on any subject, in this changeful world, but has been a victim at some time to the dismalness of a reaction. The most forlorn little victim that could be imagined was Flossy Shipley on that evening after the meetings, on which her soul had fed so long, were closed.
Everything in nature and in circumstances conspired to sink her into her desolate mood. In the first place it was raining. Now a rain closing in upon a warm and dusty summer day is a positive delight; one can listen to the patteringdrops with a sense of eager satisfaction but a rain in midwinter, after a day of sunless mist and fog, almost amounting to rain, when the streets are that mixture of snow and water that can be known only as "slush," when every opening of a door sends in gusts of damp air that chill to one's very bones, this weather is a trial; at least it seemed such to poor little Flossy.
She shivered over the fire in the coal grate. It glowed brightly, and the room was warm and bright, yet to Flossy there was a sense of chill in everything. She was all alone; and the circumstances connected with that loneliness were not calculated to brighten the evening for her. The entire family had gone out to a party, not one of those quiet little entertainments which people had been so careful to explain and apologize for during the meetings, but a grand display of toilet and supper, and expenditure of all kinds.
Mrs. Westervelt, the hostess, being at all times noted for the display of her entertainments, had lavished more than the usual amount of time and money on the present ones, and waited for the meetings to close with the most exemplary patience, in order that she might gain a very fewamong her guests from those who felt the impropriety of mixing things too much.
To be sure, the society in general which was admitted to Mrs. Westervelt's parlors was not from that class who had any scruples as to what time they attended parties, but there were two or three notable exceptions, and those the lady had been anxious to claim.
Prominent among them had been the Erskines, it never seeming to occur to Mrs. Westervelt's brains that there could be other excuse found for not accepting her invitation save the meetings that Ruth had taken to attending in such a frantic manner. Let me say, in passing, that neither Ruth Erskine nor her father honored the invitation; they had other matters to attend to.
Meantime, Flossy Shipley, had utterly disgusted her mother, and almost offended her father, by giving a peremptory and persistent refusal. Such a storm of talk as there had been over this matter almost exhausted the strength of poor little Flossy, who did not like argument, and who yet could persist in a most unaccountable firm manner when occasion required.
"Such an absurd idea!" her sister Kitty said,flashing contemptuous eyes on her. "I wonder what you think is going to become of you, Flossy? Do you mean to mope at home all the rest of the winter? I assure you that Mrs. Westervelt is not the only one who intends to give a party. We are going to have an unusually gay season to revive us after so much bell-tolling. Don't you mean to appear anywhere? You might as well retire into a convent at once, if that is the case."
"People will be saying of me, as they do of Mrs. Treslam, soon, that I do not allow you to appear in society while Kitty is still a young lady." This Mrs. Shipley said, and her tone, if not as sharp as Kitty's, had a note of grievance in it that was hard to bear.
Then Charlie had taken up the theme: "What is the use in turning mope, Sis? I'm sure you can be as good as you like, and go to a party occasionally."
"I don't mean to mope, Charlie," Flossy said, trying to speak cheerfully, but there were tears in her eyes and a tremulous sound in her voice. "I am truly happier at home than I am at those places; I don't like to go. It is not entirely becauseI feel I ought not; it is because I don't want to."
"She has risen above such follies," Kitty said, and it is impossible to tell you what a disagreeable inflection there was to her voice. "Mother, I am sorry that the poor child has to associate with such volatile creatures as you and I. She ought to have some kindred spirit."
"I am sure I don't know where she will find any," Mrs. Shipley said, with a sigh, "outside of that trio of girls, who among them have contrived to make a perfect little slave of you. I am sure I don't know who has any influence over you. I used to think you regarded your mother's wishes a trifle, but I find I am mistaken."
"Oh, mother!" Flossy said, and this time the tears began to fall, "whywillyou talk so? I am sure I try to please you in every way that I can. I did not know that you cared to have me go to parties, unless I wanted to go."
Either the tears or something else made her brother indignant. "What a scene about nothing," he said, irritably. "Why can't you let Flossy go to parties or not, as she pleases? Partiesare not such delightful institutions that she need be expected to be in love with them. I should be delighted if I never had to appear at another. Why not let people have their fun in this world where they choose to find it? If Flossy has lately discovered that hers can only be found in prayer-meeting, I am sure it is a harmless enough diversion while the fit lasts."
Mrs. Shipley laughed. Her son could nearly always put her into good humor. Besides, she didn't like to see tears on her baby's face; that was her pet name for Flossy.
"Oh, I don't know that it makes any serious difference," she said; "not enough to spoil your eyes over, Flossy. I don't want you to go out with us unless you want to; only it is rather embarrassing to be constantly arranging regrets for you. Besides, I don't see what it is all coming to. You will be a moping, forsaken creature; old before your time, if this continues."
As for Mr. Shipley, he maintained a haughty silence, neither expressing an opinion on that subject nor on any other, which would involve him in a conversation with Flossy. She knew that he was more seriously displeased with herthan were any of the others; not so much about the parties as about other and graver matters.
Col. Baker was the son of Mr. Shipley's old friend. For this reason, and for several others, Mr. Shipley was very fond of him. It had long been in accordance with his plans, that Flossy should become, at some future time, Mrs. Col. Baker, and that the estates of the two families should be thus united.
While he was not at all the sort of man who would have interfered to push such an arrangement against the preferences of the parties concerned, he had looked on with great and increasing satisfaction, while the plans of the young people evidently tended strongly in that direction.
That his daughter, after an absence from home of only two weeks, should have come in contact with that which seemed to change all her tastes and views and plans, in regard to other matters, but which had actually caused her to turn, with a steady and increasing determination, away from the friend who had been her acknowledged protector and attendant ever since shewas a child, was a matter that he did not understand nor approve.
"I am not a tyrant," he would say sullenly, when Mrs. Shipley and himself talked the matter over; when she, with the characteristics of a mother, even while her child annoyed and vexed her, yet struggled to speak a word for her when a third person came in to blame. "I never ordered Flossy to be so exceedingly intimate with Col. Baker that their names have been coupled together ever since she was a baby. I never insisted on her accepting his attentions on all occasions. It was her own free will. I own that I was pleased with the inclination she displayed, and did what I could to make the way pleasant for her, but the thing is not of my planning. What I am displeased with is this sudden change. There is no reason for it and no sense in it. It is just a mere baby performance, a girlish freak, very unpleasant for him and very disagreeable for us. The child ought not to be upheld in it."
So they did their best not to uphold her, and succeeded among them in making her life very disagreeable to her.
The matter had culminated on the evening before the party in question. Col. Baker, despite the persistent and patient efforts on Flossy's part to show him the folly of his course, had insisted on obliging her to speak a decided negative to his earnestly pressed question. The result was, an unusually unpleasant domestic scene, and a general air of gloom and unhappiness.
Mr. Shipley had not ordered his daughter to marry Col. Baker. He would have been shocked beyond measure at such a proceeding on the part of a father. But he made her so unhappy, with a sense of his disappointment and disapproval, that more than once she sighed wearily, and wished in her sad little heart that all this living was over.
Finally, they all went off to Mrs. Westervelt's party, and left her alone. She had never felt so much alone in her life. The blessed meetings, which had been such a wealth of delight and helpfulness to her heart, were closed. The sweet, and holy, and elevating influences that had surrounded her outer life for so long were withdrawn. She missed them bitterly.
It almost seemed to her as if everything were withdrawn from her. Father, and mother, sister, and even her warm-hearted brother, were all more or less annoyed at her course. Charlie had been betrayed into more positive sharpness than this favorite sister had ever felt from him before. He felt that his friend Col. Baker had been ill-treated.
There was a very sore spot about this matter for Flossy. The truth was, she could not help seeing that in a sense her father was right; she had brought it on herself; not lately, not since her utter change of views and aims, but long before that. With what satisfaction had she allowed her name to be coupled familiarly with that of Col. Baker; how much she had enjoyed his exclusive attentions; not that she really and heartily liked him, with a liking that made her willing to think of him as belonging to her forever; she had chosen, rather, not to allow herself to think of any such time; she had contented herself with saying that she was too young to think of such things; that she was not obliged to settle that question till the time came.
But, mind you, all the time she chose to allow, and enjoy, and encourage by her smiles and herevident pleasure in them, very special attentions, that gave other people liberty to speak of them almost as one. To call it by a very plain name, which Flossy hated, and which made her cheek glow as she forced herself to say it of herself, she had been flirting with Col. Baker. It isn't a nice word; I don't wonder that she hated it. Yet so long as young ladies continue to be guilty of the sort of conduct that can only be described by that unpleasant and coarse sounding word, I am afraid it will be used.
All that was over now, at least it was over as much as Flossy could make it; but there remained an uncomfortable sense that she had wronged a man who honestly loved her; not intentionally—no decent woman does that—but thoughtlessly; so many silly girls do that. She had lost her influence over him now; rather, she had been obliged to put herself in a position to lose all influence. She might have been his true, faithful friend now, and helped him up to a higher manhood, only by her former folly she had put it out of her power. These were not pleasant reflections. Then there was no denying that she felt very desolate.
"A forlorn friendless creature," her motherhad said she would become, or words to that effect. The thought lingered with her. She looked over her list of friends; there was always those three girls, growing dearer by every day of association; yet their lives necessarily ran much apart; it would naturally grow more and more so as the future came to them. Then, too, she was equally intimate with each of them; they were all equally dear to her.
Now a woman can not have three friends who shall all fill that one place in her heart which she finds. She thought of her home ties; strong they certainly were; growing stronger every day. There were few things that she did not feel willing to do for her father; but the one thing that he wanted just now was that she should marry Col. Baker; she could not do that even to please him.
He would recover from that state of feeling, of course; but would not other kindred states of feeling constantly arise, both with him and with her mother? Could she notforeseea constant difference of opinion on almost every imaginable topic? Then there was her sister Kitty. Could any two lives run more widely apart than hersand Kitty's were likely to? Had they a single taste in common?
As for Charlie, Flossy turned from that subject; it was too sore and too tender a spot to be probed. She trembled for Charlie; he was walking in slippery places; the descent was growing easier; she felt that rather than saw it; and, she felt, too, that his friend Col. Baker was the leader; and she felt, too, that her intimacy with Col. Baker had greatly strengthened his.
No wonder that the spot was a sore one. Grouping all these things together and brooding over them, with no sound breaking the silence save the ceaseless drip, drip of the rain, and the whirls of defiant wind, sitting there in her loneliness, the large arm-chair in which she crouched being drawn up before that glowing fire, is it any wonder that the firelight revealed the fact that great silent tears were slowly following each other down Flossy's round smooth cheek? She felt like a pitiful, lonely, forsaken baby.
It was not that she was utterly miserable; she recognized even then the thought that she had an almighty, everlasting, unchanging Friend.She rejoiced even then at the thought, not as she might have rejoiced, not as it was her privilege to do, but I mean she knew that all these trials, and mistakes, and burdens, were but for a moment. She knew that to-morrow, when the sun shone again, she would be able to come out from behind these clouds and grasp some of the brightness of her life, and endure with patience the little annoyances that were to be borne; remembering that she was still very young, and that there was a chance for a great deal of brightness for her, even on this side.
But, in the meantime, her intensely human heart craved human companionship and sympathy; craved it to such a degree, that if it had not been for the rain and the darkness, and the growing lateness of the hour, she would have gone out then after one of those three girls to share her mood with her.
Into the midst of this state of dismal journeying into the valley of gloom there pealed the sound of the bell. It did not startle her; the callers in their circle would be sure to be engaged at the party, and to suppose that she was. Besides, it was hardly an evening for ordinary callers—somethingas important as a party was, would be expected to call out people to-night. It was some one with a business message for father, she presumed; and she did not arouse from her curled-up position among the cushions of that great chair.
Half listening, half giving attention to her own thoughts, she was conscious that a servant came to answer the bell, that the front door opened and shut, that there was a question asked and answered in the hall. Then she gave over attending to the matter. If she were needed the girl knew she was in the library. Yes, she was to be summoned for something, to receive the message probably, for the library door quietly unclosed.
"What is it, Katie?" she asked, in a sort of muffled undertone, to hide the traces of disturbance in her voice, and not turning her head in that direction; she knew there were tears on her cheeks.
"Suppose it should not be Katie, may any one else come in and tell you what it is?" This was the sentence wherewith she was answered. What a sudden springing up there was from thatchair! Even the tears were forgotten; and what a singular ring there was to Flossy's voice as she whirled round to full view of the intruder, and said, "Oh, Mr. Roberts!"
Now, dear friends of this little lonely Flossy, are you so stupid that you need to be told that in less than half an hour from that moment she believed that there could never again come to her an absolutely lonely hour? That whatever might come between them, whether of life or of death, there would be that for each to remember that would make it impossible ever to bedesolateagain. For there is no desolation of heart to those who part at night to meet again in the morning; there may be loneliness and a reaching out after, and sometimes an unutterable longing for the morning, but to those who are sure,surebeyond the possibility of a doubt, that the eternal morningwilldawn, and dawn for them, there is never again a desolation.
T
HAT same evening was fraught with memorable associations to others beside Flossy Shipley. It began in gloom and unusual depression even to bright-faced Marion. The day had been a hard one in school. Those of the scholars who had been constant attendants at the meetings felt the inevitable sense of loneliness and loss that must follow the close of such unusual means of help.
I have actually heard some Christian people advance this fact, that there was a reaction of loneliness after such meetings closed, as a good reason why they were unwise efforts, demoralizing in their results. It is a curious fact, that such reasonersare never found to advocate the entire separation of family friends on the plea that a reunion followed by a separation is demoralizing in its results because it leaves an added sense of loneliness.
It is, perhaps, to be questioned whether loneliness is, after all, demoralizing in its effects. Be that as it may, many of the scholars felt it. Then there were some among their number who had persistently shunned the meetings and their influences, who, now that the opportunity was passed, felt those stings of conscience that are sure to follow enlightened minds, who have persisted in going a wrong road.
Also there were those who had been almost persuaded, and who yet, so far as their salvation was concerned, were no nearer it that day than though they had never thought of the matter, foralmostnever saves a soul. All these influences combined served to make depression the predominant feeling. Marion struggled with it, and tried to be cheerful before her pupils, but sank into gravity and unusual sadness at every interval between the busy hours of the day.
Late in the afternoon she had a conversationwith one of the girls which did not serve to encourage her heart. It was the drawing hour. Large numbers of the young ladies in her room had gone to the studio with the drawing master; those few who remained were engaged in copying their exercises for the next morning's class. Marion was at leisure, her only duty being to render assistance in the matter of copying wherever a raised hand indicated that help was needed.
Answering one of these calls she found herself at the extreme end of the large room, quite near to Grace Dennis' desk, and in passing she noticed that Gracie, while her book was before her and her pen in hand, was not writing at all, but that her left hand was shading a face that looked sad and pale, and covering eyes that might have tears in them. After fulfilling her duty to the needy scholar she turned back to Grace.
"What is it?" she said, softly, taking the vacant seat by Grace's side, and touching tenderly the crown of hair that covered the drooping head. Grace looked up quickly with a gleam of sunshine, through which shone a tear.
"It is a fit of the blues, I am almost afraid. Iam very much ashamed of myself; I don't feel so very often, Miss Wilbur. I think the feeling must be what the girls call blues; I am not sure."
"Do you feel in any degree sure what has caused such a remarkable disease to attack you?" Marion asked, in a low, tender, yet cheery and a half-amused tone.
The words made Gracie laugh, but the tenderness in the tone seemed to start another tear.
"You will be amused at me, Miss Wilbur, or ashamed of me, I don't know which. I am ashamed of myself, but I do feel so forlorn and lonely."
"Lonely!" Marion echoed, with a little start. She realized that she herself knew in its fulness what that feeling was, but for Gracie Dennis, treasured as she was in an atmosphere of fatherly love, it was hard to understand it. "If I had my dear father I don't think I should feel lonely," she said gently.
"I know," Grace answered; "he is the dearest father a girl ever had, but there is only a little bit of him mine, Miss Wilbur. I don't mean that either; I am not selfish. I know heloves me with all his heart, but I mean his time is so very much occupied that he can only give me very little bits now and then. It has to be so; it is not his fault. I would not have him any different, even in this; but then if I had a sister, don't you see how different it would be? or even a brother, or," and here Gracie's head dropped low, and her voice quivered. "Miss Wilbur, if I had a mother, one who loved me, and would sympathize with me and help me, I think I would be the happiest girl in all the world."
There was every appearance that, with a few more words of tender sympathy, this young girl would lose all her self-control and be that which she so much shrank from, an object of general wonderment and conversation. Marion felt that she must bestow her sympathy sparingly.
"I dare say you would give yourself over to a hearty struggle not to hate her outright," she said, in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone. The sobs which were shaking the young girl beside her were suddenly checked. Presently Gracie looked up, a gleam half of mirth, half of defiance in her handsome eyes. "I mean arealmother," she said.
"Haven't you one? Doesn't she love her darling and watch over and wait for her coming?" The voice had taken on its tenderness again. Then, after a moment, Marion added:
"It is hard to realize, I know, but I believe it, and I look toward that thought with all my soul. You remember, Gracie, that I have nothing but that to feed on, no earthly friend to help me realize it."
Grace stole a soft hand into her teacher's. "I wish you would love me very much," she said, brightly. "I wish you would let me love you. Do you know you help me every time you speak to me? and you do it in such strange ways, not at all in the direction that I am looking for help. I do thank you so much."
"Then suppose you prove it to me, by showing what an immaculate copy of your exercise you can hand in to-morrow. Don't you know it is by just such common-place matters as that, that people are permitted to show their love and gratitude and all those delightful things? That is what glorifies work."
Another clinging pressure of hands and teacher and pupil went about their duties. But thoughMarion had helped Gracie she had not helped herself, except that in a tired sort of way she realized that it was a great pleasure to be able to help anybody—most of all, this favorite pupil. Still the dreariness did not lessen. It went home with her to her dingy boarding-house, followed her to the gloomy dining-room and the uninviting supper-table.
The most that was the trouble with Marion Wilbur was, that she was tired in body and brain. If people only realized it, a great many mental troubles and trials result from overworked bodies and nerves. Still, it must be confessed that there were few, if any, outside influences that were calculated to cheer Marion Wilbur's life.
You are to remember how very much alone she was. There were no letters to be watched for in the daily mails, no hopeful looking forward if one failed to come, no cheery saying to one's heart, "Never mind, it will surely come to-morrow." This state is infinitely better than the hopeless glance one bestows upon the postman, realizing he is nothing to them.
No friends—father and mother gone so longago! That of one there was no recollection at all, of the other, tender childhood memories, sweet and lasting and incomparably precious, but only memories. No sister, no brother, no cousins that had taken the place to her of sisters; only that old uncle and aunt, who were such staid and common and plodding people, that sometimes the very thought of them tired this girl so full of life and energy.
Girl I call her, but she had passed the days of her girlhood. Few knew it; it was wonderful how young and fresh her heart had kept. That being the case, of course her face had taken the same impress. It was hard for Ruth Erskine to realize that her friend Marion was really thirteen years older than herself. There were times when Marion herself felt younger than Ruth did.
But the years were there, and in her times of depression, Marion realized it. So many of them recorded, and yet no friends to whom she had a right, feeling sure that nothing in human experience this side of death would be likely to come in and take her away from them. The very supper-table at that boarding-house was sufficient to add to her sense of desolation.
It is a pitiful fact that we are such dependent creatures that even the crooked laying of a cloth, and the coffee-stains and milk-stains and gravy-stains thereon, can add to our sense of friendlessness. Then, what is there particularly consoling or cheering in a cup of weak tea and a bit of bread a trifle sour, spread over by butter more than a trifle strong; even though it is helped down by some very dry bits of chipped beef? This was Marion's supper.
The boarders were, some of them, cross, some of them simply silent and hurried, all of them damp, for they were every one workers out in the damp, dreary world; the most of them, in fact, I may say all of them, were very tired; yet many of them had work to do that very evening. Marion ate her supper in silence, too; at least she bit at her bread and tried to swallow her simpering tea.
When her heart was bright and her plans for the evening definite and satisfactory, she could manage the sour bread and strong butter even, with something like a relish, but there was no use in trying them to-night. She even tormented herself with the planning of a daintysupper, accompanied by exquisite table arrangements such as she would manage for a sister, say, if she had one—a sister who had been in school all day and was wet and hungry and tired, if she had the room, and the table, and the china, and the materials out of which to construct the supper. She was reasonable enough to see that there were many ifs in the way, but the picture did not make the present supper relish.
She struggled to rally her weary powers. She asked the clerk next her if it had been a busy day, and she told the sewing-girl at her left about a lovely bouquet of flowers that one of the girls brought to school, and that she had meant to bring home to her, if it was presented. To be sure it was not. But the intention was the same, and the heart of the sewing-girl was cheered.
Finally Marion gave over trying to swallow the supper, and assuring herself with the determination to go early to bed, and so escape faintness, she went up three flights of stairs to her room.
"When I am rich and a woman of leisure, I will build a house that shall have pleasant rooms and good bread and butter, and I will boardschool-teachers and sewing-girls and clerks for a song." This she said aloud.
Then she set about making a bit of blaze, or a great deal of smoke in the little imp of a stove. The stove was small and cracked and rusty, and could smoke like a furnace. What a contrast to the glowing coal-grate where Flossy at this hour toasted her pretty cheeks. Yet Marion, in her way, was less dismal than Flossy in hers.
It was not in Marion's nature to shed any tears; instead, she hummed a few notes of a glorious old tune triumphant in every note, trying this to rob herself of gloom and cheat herself into the belief that she was not very lonely, and that her life did not stretch out before her as a desolate thing. She did not mean to give herself up to glooming, though she did hover over the little stove and lean her cheek on her hand and look at nothing in particular for a few minutes. What she said when she rallied from the silence was simply:
"What an abominable smoke you can make to be sure, Marion Wilbur, when you try. Hardly any one can compete with you in that line, at least."
Then she drew her school reports toward her,intending to make them out for the week thus far, but she scribbled on the fly-leaf with her pencil instead. She wrote her own name, "Marion J. Wilbur," a pretty enough name. She smiled tenderly over the initial of "J"—nobody knew what that was for.
Suppose the girls knew that it stood for "Josiah," her father's name; that he had named her, after the mother was buried, Marion—that after the mother, Josiah—that after the father, Wilbur—the dear name that belonged to them both; in this way fancying in his gentle heart that he linked this child to them both in a way that would be dear to her to remember.
It was dear; she loved him for it; she thoroughly understood the feeling, but hardly any one else would. So she thought she had never given them a chance to smile over the queer name her father had given. She could smile herself, but she wanted no one else to do so.
Then she wrote "Grace L. Dennis." What a pretty name that was. She knew what the "L" was for—Lawrence, the family name—Grace's mother's name. Her mother, too, had died when she was a wee baby. Gracie remembered her,though, and by that memory so much more did she miss her.
Marion knew how that was by her remembrance of her father. All the same she would not have that blotted out, by so much richer was Gracie than herself, and then that living, loving father. Marion smiled over the folly of Grace Dennis considering her life a lonely one. "Yet, I presume she feels it, poor darling," she said aloud, and with a sigh. It was true that every heart knew its own bitterness.
Then she said, "I really must go to work at these reports. I wonder what the girls are doing this evening? Eurie is nursing her mother, I suppose. Blessed Eurie! mother and father both within the fold, brought there by Eurie's faithful life. Mrs. Mitchell told me so, herself. What a sparkle that will make in Eurie's crown. I wonder what Ruth meant this morning? Poor child! she has trouble too; different from mine. Why as to that, I really haven't any. Ruth ought to 'count her marcies,' though, as old Dinah says. She has a great deal that I haven't. Yes, indeed, she has! I suppose little Flossy is going through tribulation over that tiresomeparty. I wonder why one-half of the world have to exist by tormenting the other half? Now, Marion Wilbur, stop scribbling names and go to work."
Steady scratching from the old steel pen a few minutes, then a knock and a message: "Dr. Dennis wanted to see her a few minutes, if she had leisure."
"Dr. Dennis!" she said, rising quickly and pushing away her papers. "Oh, dear me! where is that class-book of mine? He wants those names, I dare say, and I haven't them ready. I might have been copying them while I was mooning my time away here."
The first words she said to him as she went down to the stuffy boarding-house parlor were, "I haven't them ready, Dr. Dennis; I'm real sorry, and it's my fault, too. I had time to copy them, and I just didn't do it."
"I haven't come for them," he said smiling and holding out his hand! "How do you do?"
"Oh, quite well. Didn't you come for them? I am glad, for I felt ashamed. Dr. Dennis, don't you see how well one woman can do the work of twenty? Don't you like the way the primaryclass is managed? Oh, by the way, you want that book, don't you? I meant to send it home by Gracie."
"I don't want it," he said, laughing this time. "Are you resolved that I may not call on you without a good and tangible reason? If that be the case, I certainly have one. I want you to sit down here, while I tell you all about it."
"I'm not in the mood for a scolding," she said, trying to speak gayly, though there was a curious little tremble to her voice. "I have been away down in the valley of gloom to-day. I believe I am a little demoralized. Dr. Dennis, I think I need a prayer-meeting every evening; I could be happier then, I know."
"A Christian ought to be able to have one," he said, quickly. "Two souls ought to be able to come together in communion with the Master every evening. There is a great deal of wasted happiness in this world. I want to talk to you about that very thing."
Dr. Dennis was not given to making long calls on hisparishioners; there were too many of them, and he had too little time; but he made an unprecedentedly long one on Marion Wilbur.
When she went back to her room that night, the fire was gone out utterly; not even a smoke remained. She lighted her smoky little lamp—there was no gas in the third story—and looked at her watch with an amazed air; she had not imagined that it could be nearly 11 o'clock! Then she pushed the reports into a drawer and turned the key; no use to attempt reports for that evening. As she picked up her class-book, the scribbling on the fly-leaf caught her eye again. She smiled a rare, rich, happy smile; then swiftly she drew her pencil and added one more name to the line. "Marion Wilbur—Marion J. Wilbur," it read. There was just room on the line for another word; then it read—"Marion J. Wilbur Dennis!" To be sure, she took her rubber quickly from her pocket and obliterated every trace of that last. But what of it? There are words and deeds that can not so easily be obliterated; and Marion, as she laid her grateful head on her fluffy little pillow that night, was thankful it was so, and felt no desire to erase them.
Desolate? Not she; God was very gracious. The brightness that she felt sure she could throwaround some lives, she knew would have a reflex brightness for her. Then, queerly enough, the very next thing she thought of, was that dainty supper she planned for herself, that she could have prepared for a school-teacher, wet, hungry and tired. Why not for a school-girl? If she had no sister to do it for, why not for a daughter? "Dear little Gracie!" she said. Then she went to sleep.
Meantime, during that eventful evening Ruth sat in her room, alone, busy with grave and solemn thoughts. Her father was already many miles away. He had gone to see his wife and daughter. Eurie at that same hour was bending anxiously over a sick mother, trying to catch the feebly-whispered direction, with such a heavy, heavy pain at her heart. But the same patient, wise, all-powerful Father was watching over and directing the ways of each of his four girls.