"We are going to sing hymns," said Sunnie eagerly. "We always do on Sunday, and we like all the people we can get to help us. Nurse rings a bell down the back stairs, and we sing for an hour, don't we, Cousin Leslie?"
Jean sat down.
"I'm not a singer," she said, "but I'll do what I can."
"This is Sunnie's service," said Dr. Fergusson, as he struck a few chords on the piano.
"What do you do with yourself all day on Sunday?" Jean asked the child.
"Oh, lots and lots of things. Nurse and I make up sermons in the morning and say them to each other, and I paint texts for hospitals, and in the afternoon we always look at the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' Have you seen it? It has a picture on every single page. I did want Cousin Leslie to play it on the piano, but nurse says the Sabbath would be broken, if he did. I think I should like to hear the lions roar on the piano and shake their chains when they can't get at poor Christian, wouldn't you? Here comes nurse. Now you must have a hymn-book, and we each choose in turn."
Jean wondered, but said nothing. Quite a number of servants filed in. Four maids, the old cook, two young grooms, the old butler, and a very small stable boy.
Sunnie nodded to each as they came in. She was complete mistress of the ceremony, and when the singing began, Jean was astonished at the heartiness of it all, and still more at the sweetness and power of the child's voice.
Some of the hymns were strange ones to her, some took her back to her school days. When her turn came to choose, she hesitated.
"I'll leave you to choose for me, Sunnie."
"Oh no, that won't be fair. You must know one you'd like."
Jean shook her head, then as her eye fell on the old hymn, "Jesu, lover of my soul," she chose it without a thought of the words or meaning.
Every one sang away with cheerful smiling faces, but after the last one came to a conclusion, Dr. Fergusson surprised Jean by standing up to speak. He took every hymn that had been sung in succession, saying a few simple words on each.
Jean had never heard any one speak so before, and when her hymn came to be commented on, she listened with special interest.
The doctor only took the first line. "It is the key to the whole," he said. "We think a good deal of our bodies, and have a selfish love for ourselves, but what care are we taking of our souls? There is One who knows the value of them better than we do, and who loves them. He would not have given up His life for a light thing, nor left His glorious throne and lived a life of poverty and scorn for a trifle. What brought Him from heaven to earth? My soul. He has proved His love for it, and He asks us now to hand it into His keeping."
He passed on to another hymn, but Jean was profoundly touched by his words. She thought of her letter to Miss Lorraine written only an hour before.
"An outsider to every one in the world but you." Here was One who loved the best and immortal part of her.
"I can't be an outsider to Him. I can't get outside His love."
She repeated this over and over to herself. It was another link in the chain of love that was gradually drawing her nearer to the great Soul-lover.
THE FIVE MARGARETS
"They're only truly great, who are truly good."—Chapman.
"AND now," said Sunnie, when the singing was over, and all had withdrawn except the doctor and Jean, "now you're going to have tea with me, Miss Desmond. It's to be a Sabbath treat, and Cousin Leslie will have it, too. Mother and Cousin Meta have each other downstairs, and we'll have ourselves up here."
Jean was delighted to stay. Dr. Fergusson drew up another chair to the fire, and nurse presently wheeled a round tea-table up to the couch. It was daintily laid; hot scones were there, home-made jam and honey, and several varieties of cake and bread and butter. Sunnie poured out the tea with important pride.
"Now isn't this good!" exclaimed Dr. Fergusson. "I always say you are a born tea-maker, Sunnie. No tea downstairs tastes like this."
The child flushed all over with pleasure.
"Now," she said, clapping her hands, "we'll pretend—" Her face fell—"I forgot it was the Sabbath."
"We won't pretend anything. We'll be real, and be thankful for what we are," said the doctor.
Sunnie looked down at her little legs under the fur rug.
"Yes," she said, "I might have had my hands and arms cut off, then what should I have done?"
"And I," said the doctor, "might be sweeping a crossing in Edinburgh, with a cough shaking me to pieces, and only a cellar to sleep in, a crust of bread soaked in hot water for my tea, and twopence in my pocket to keep me from the workhouse."
"And I," remarked Jean, "might be a prisoner shut in for life, with only a cell to pace up and down day and night, and without a sound or sight of any human being but my gaoler."
Sunnie's face became grave.
"And there are prisoners, and crossing-sweepers, and children with hands cut off. That isn't pretence. Can't we do anything for them?"
"Yes," said Dr. Fergusson, "you can knit a scarf for an old crossing-sweeper that I know. You are always knitting for somebody, are you not?"
"That will be lovely. I will begin to-morrow."
Sunnie's face was beaming again.
"Have you many patients amongst the poor?" asked Jean, turning to the doctor.
"Yes, a good many. Would you like to visit some?"
"Oh, goodness, no!" said Jean hastily. "I can't bear to see suffering, and when dirt and poverty accompany it, it must be awful."
"It is sometimes. I suppose your artistic nature can only see beauty in beautiful surroundings?"
Jean looked at him.
"You mean that for sarcasm? It is my selfishness, I suppose, and not my artistic nature, as you call it, that makes me shrink from the disagreeables in life. But I haven't been called to do it, so I don't see why I should."
"You would agree with my mother. She thinks that everything ugly should be put out of sight and kept there."
Sunnie broke in eagerly.
"Cousin Leslie, tell Miss Desmond the story of Margaret Gordon."
"I think you tell that story best. We will listen. Go ahead."
"She was a beautiful lady and very good. We've got her picture in the hall downstairs, and she was a—a—an—"
"Ancestor," prompted the doctor.
Sunnie planted herself well back amongst her cushions, and brought the long word out with much emphasis.
"Ancestor. She used to wear a grey gown and a snood of pearls and muslin apron, and doves always flew about her, because she was so good. She used to take baskets of food to every one who was hungry, and she walked with her hands in God's. And one day, her husband came tearing into the yard on his black horse."
"'Margaret, my enemies are after me. It is a false charge of high treason. I am a dead man if they take me.' So she hid him away in this very house as quick as she could."
"And the soldiers came up, and the officer called out, 'Give up your traitor husband!' and Margaret stood still and calm."
"'He is no traitor, but loyal and true.'"
"Then they searched the house, but couldn't find him. 'We shall stay here till we do,' said the officer, 'and you, madam, shall be our prisoner.' So they lived in the house and guarded her night and day."
"But her doves flew in and out of the window, and under their wings they carried messages that she wrote to her husband and he wrote to her, and she sent nearly all her food to her husband by them, too. And she got thin and ill, for she wasn't having enough food. Then one day, they called her out of her room, and said she must tell them where her husband was, or they would burn the house down over her head. She looked at them and said, 'I could no more be a traitor to my husband than my husband could be to his king.'"
"So they locked her in the house and set fire to it. But Margaret looked up to God, and asked Him to help her, and He sent a storm and the rain put the fire out, and Margaret never came out of the house, and the soldiers thought she and her husband were starved to death. But they weren't, for Margaret went into the secret room, and took her husband along an underground passage, into the pine-woods, and they crossed the sea until it was safe for them to come back again. There, wasn't she a brave woman?"
"She was," said Jean warmly. "That's a very nice story, Sunnie, only I think she had the easiest part to play."
"Why?" asked the doctor.
"Think of her husband shut up in that secret room. How could he stand it? I would rather have died than been imprisoned! It is not a man's part to play—that of hiding and letting a woman bear the brunt of his enemies' anger. I don't admire him for it; one pities him, that is all!"
"Have you ever been imprisoned? You speak so emphatically on the subject."
"Yes," said Jean with warmth. "For two years after I left school, I was shut up in an old house with a grandfather who tried to crush the life out of me."
"Oh!" said Sunnie, with big eyes. "What a cruel man!"
"I must be free!" said Jean earnestly. "I would rather be a beggar in the streets than confined in a palace."
"I must add a sequel to Sunnie's story," said Dr. Fergusson. "When the exiles came back, Margaret's husband carved these lines over the front door in Latin—"
"'Loyal and true in trial was she,Margaret saved this house and me.'"
"And are they there now?" asked Jean, with interest.
"Yes; I will show them to you if you like."
"I am glad he knew her worth."
Dr. Fergusson looked at her with a twinkle in his eye.
"Yet you think he had the hardest part to play, and certainly it was a part that brought him no renown."
"I have no patience with him," Jean said shortly.
"Where did he hide? Is the secret room still in existence?"
"It has never been found."
"How interesting! Have you not looked for it?"
"Many and many a time."
"The exit was in the pine-woods," said Jean thoughtfully. "So the saying is."
"And Margaret's picture is in the hall," said Sunnie. "That's where my picture will be when you've done it, Miss Desmond. I shall be the fifth Margaret there."
"Are you her namesake, then?" Jean asked.
"Yes," said Sunny dreamily, "and all the Margarets have done something brave, except me. People will say by and by, 'And who is this little Margaret, and what did she do?' And the answer will be, 'She did nothing, but lie on a sofa.'"
Jean glanced quickly at her. The sweet merry eyes were swimming with tears.
Dr. Fergusson laid his hand on the little white one that was struggling to extricate a handkerchief from under the cushions.
"They will say—"
"'Patient and cheery in trial was she,Margaret brightened this house and me.'"
The tears ran over, but a rippling laugh rang out Sunnie's face was a picture of an April shower.
"Oh, you clever man!" she said. "How quick you make rhymes! Shall I tell Miss Desmond about the other Margarets?"
"Please do," said Jean.
She felt already keen pain when Sunnie's radiant spirits deserted her, if only for a moment, and longed to keep the sunshine for ever on her face.
"The first Margaret was a martyr," said Sunnie, with big eyes. "You will see her downstairs dressed like a Puritan. She was burned at a stake, because she wouldn't give up her Bible. The second one was a lovely lady. She is dressed in white satin and pearls, and she helped her husband to defend their castle against their enemies. The third is the old lady with white hair. She rode forty miles to see the king, and get a pardon for her son. And then comes my Margaret that I told you about. I like her best, because an old book says, 'Her hands were in God's.' And that's where I want mine to be."
Sunnie folded her own small hands and looked at them.
Dr. Fergusson looked at them too, then he said—
"With her hands in God's, and her heart at rest,Perfectly sure that all's for the best."
"There!" said Sunnie, with shining eyes, "that makes a beautiful verse, and I'll write it down in my rhyme book. Only it's too good for me."
"Well," said the doctor, jumping up, "I must be off. When I next come, Miss Desmond, I shall ask to look at the picture."
"I'm longing for to-morrow," said Sunnie.
"You say that every day," laughed Dr. Fergusson.
The little party broke up. Nurse came back to her charge, and Jean went down to the drawing-room. On her way, she paused in the big square hall, and looked up at the family portraits.
"All beautiful women," she commented. "But if I do her justice, Sunnie will eclipse them all. They seem to want soul, their faces are so wooden. I wonder if I shall be able to paint the wonderful charm in the child's sweet face."
In a very short time, Jean had settled down in her new surroundings. When she was not painting Sunnie, she was out of doors. The keen bracing Scotch air, and bright clear atmosphere exhilarated and stimulated her, after London fog and mud. She loved the pine-woods, and wrapping her thick cloak round her, would spend an hour or so sitting on a fallen tree, and learning from Nature's book.
One day, Mrs. Gordon took her into the library, and seeing the girl's glistening eyes, asked—
"Are you fond of reading?"
"Devoted to it," said Jean breathlessly. "I was debarred from reading after I left school, and I think that is the very time one pants for book knowledge. In London, I felt it wrong to read too much, though Miss Lorraine encouraged me to do it. I wanted to devote all my time to art."
"But I should think book knowledge would help art, not hinder it."
"Yes, it does."
"Then do use this library as you like. No one comes here now."
Mrs. Gordon's low even voice never faltered, but Jean's thoughts at once flew to the master of the house, who had once used this room. She looked up gratefully.
"Thank you so much. It will indeed be a treat to me."
And after that, she divided her leisure time between the library and the pine-woods.
But the time she loved best was when she was painting Sunnie. She did this now in the afternoons before the light entirely failed, and when the firelight was at its best. Occasionally Dr. Fergusson would come up and go to the piano, and then it was that Sunnie's face became rapt and absorbed in the music. Jean painted away then as hard as she could at her face alone, leaving all else for a less auspicious time. The child's quaint fancies, and the doctor's humorous fun, helped rather than hindered her in her work. Sometimes the doctor would criticise the portrait, and Jean learnt to value his criticism, for it was always just and true.
"That Sunnie!" he exclaimed one day. "Now, Miss Desmond, we will have you up for libel! The only thing the sun has touched in your picture is her hair; you must make it peep out of the corners of her eyes, be lurking in the corners of her lips, her very nose must be quivering with it. If her face belies her name, how can she take her place amongst the family portraits! Get your brushes full of sunshine, and lay it on thick."
"Between sunshine and firelight I feel rather mixed," said Jean, ruefully.
"I don't think your eye has been properly educated," Dr. Fergusson went on. "There are two sorts of sunshine—that which shines on the surface and penetrates inwards, and that which dwells within and radiates outwards. I consider that Sunnie has within her a battery—shall I call it?—fully charged with sufficient sunshine to warm herself and others."
"But," said Jean, smiling, "she does not need to turn it on or off, it is perpetually leaking out."
"Exactly. Can't you catch it as it does so?"
"I am not a genius."
Jean's tone was dispirited.
"If you don't succeed at first—you know the old saying. Let me see that face on your canvas alive. At present it is calm and dead. It—it reminds me of her mother!"
He turned sharply away, and left Jean to ponder over his words.
If she had not genius, she had perseverance, and she worked at her picture as she had never worked before. She put her whole heart and soul into it, and then one day the flash of inspiration came, the touches were added that before had been wanting, and Sunnie's little face shone out in all its pathos and winsomeness.
Her mother, looking at it, said quietly—
"Don't touch her face again, Miss Desmond. It wants nothing more."
And the doctor said—
"Well done!"
Meta Worth did not often come to the nursery.
"I don't understand children," she confided to Jean, "and least of all do I understand Sunnie. I don't know how to talk to children, they are so serious over imaginary creations of their own, and so utterly indifferent to all that interests me. I am too matter of fact, I suppose. I always think it shows weakness in Leslie's character, the way he talks and goes on with that child. Do you like men who fuss over children? I don't. They are very well as play-things now and then, but Leslie seems to prefer Sunnie's friendship to any one else's. It's ridiculous!"
Jean laughed.
"Do you feel piqued?" she asked.
"Yes," said Meta with perfect gravity. "I think he ought to prefer talking to us in the drawing-room to spending all his time with that child. It isn't as if he hasn't brains. He belongs to no end of 'ological societies, and is supposed to be a very scientific man. His brains can't be satisfied with Sunnie, if his humour is. I wish you would come and see his mother with me one day, will you?"
"With pleasure, if you think she would like to see me?"
"Oh, you're her sort. Every one, according to her, ought to have a Purpose or Plan in their life with a capital P. And one Purpose is better than a hundred, strange to say. She doesn't approve of me because I have so many, and change them so often. A person of one idea is the one she commends. I hate such a creature, for they bore you to death, and have only one subject of conversation."
"Do I bore you to death?" asked Jean. "I think art is my one idea at present."
"No; I'm interested in you, for as you say it is only a temporary hobby, and I am quite certain that you will try another line soon. I think if I were to begin to philosophise, you live too fast. It's like a race. If a runner puts his whole strength and runs his swiftest the first start off, he'll never keep it up."
Jean looked thoughtful.
"I can't help being in earnest," she said; "but I was nearly put off my art altogether before I came here. I had got a sickening of it in Paris."
"And what were you going to do?"
"Nothing. Life seemed a blank."
"You're very young!"
Meta's tone had pity in it.
"And I think you old," retorted Jean. "Have you got beyond everything?"
Meta shook her head and laughed.
"Come with me to see Mrs. Fergusson," she said; "then I will tell you one of my many purposes. We will go to-morrow, if Aunt Helen approves."
"I don't know Mrs. Gordon any better to-day," said Jean thoughtfully, "than the first day I came."
"She doesn't care to be known," said Meta conclusively.
The next day came. Jean ran up to the nursery the last thing before she went out. It had been one of Sunnie's bad days. She did not often get them, but now and then, headache and backache laid her low, and Jean had been told that her painting must be put aside for that day. She found the day nursery empty. Nurse came out from the bedroom beyond.
"Come in and speak a word to the poor bairn," she said with her homely smile. "Ye'll no stay long, for she's that low to-day, an' the doctor has not been. His voice be more to her than his physic."
Jean went into the darkened room with softened footstep, but Sunnie looked up and smiled at her. Her small face looked pinched and white, and there were dark circles of pain and weariness round her eyes. Yet her words were characteristic of her.
"I'll be better to-morrow," she said. "I'm longing for it to come."
"My darling, I wish I could bear your pain for you."
Jean's voice was full of pity as she stooped and kissed the child.
Sunnie put her little hand up and stroked her cheek. "I'm saying Cousin Leslie's rhyme over—"
"'With her hands in God's, and her heart at rest,Perfectly sure that all's for the best.'"
"But I want to hear him play it on the piano. I'm longing for him to come. It would make my head better."
"I am going to see his mother."
Sunnie's eyes brightened.
"She came to see me a little time ago. She's like a fairy godmother."
"Goodbye, I mustn't stop. I do hope you will be better."
Sunnie moved her head a little restlessly. Then her eyes twinkled.
"If I cut off my head and took away my back, I think the other part of me would be nice and comfortable, but what would I look like? Could you draw me?"
"Yes," said Jean laughing, "I will make a picture of you, and bring it to you to-morrow morning."
She went, and was relieved when she heard the child's low chuckle of delight.
CENTRES
"Not by looking within, but by living without,This centre of self, shall a man grow wise."—Lytton.
META drove Jean over to Mrs. Fergusson's in a small dog-cart. It was a bright crisp afternoon, and Jean enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine, and the long stretch of hills and valleys that lay before them as they went.
They drove into the nearest town, which was five miles away. Mrs. Fergusson's house stood alone on the outskirts of the town, and was surrounded by high brick walls and a thin fringe of Scotch firs and larches. They were ushered into an upstairs drawing-room, but it was her "at home" day, and the room was full of people.
"Lots of these are Edinburgh folk," whispered Meta. "She always gathers clever literary people round her."
And then, stepping up to the hostess, Jean was introduced. Mrs. Fergusson was a tall, handsome old lady. Her white hair and brilliant dark eyes gave her a striking individuality. She looked at Jean kindly.
"The young portrait painter who is staying at Mrs. Gordon's? I am glad to meet you, my dear."
"I told her you would like her because she has an object in life," said Meta, a little saucily.
"Is it painting?" asked Mrs. Fergusson quietly.
Jean looked up at her frankly.
"I don't think it is altogether," she said. "It doesn't satisfy me."
"I am glad to hear that."
"Well," said Meta, looking puzzled, "I should have thought, if a girl throws away a fortune for it, as Miss Desmond seems to have done, it ought to be her object in life, if it isn't."
"You don't quite understand," said Jean. "It was not for painting, so much as for liberty, that I left my grandfather."
"Ah," said Mrs. Fergusson, "liberty is the young people's god nowadays."
Jean fancied she saw reproach in her eyes.
"It doesn't sound nice," she admitted hastily, "but if you knew my circumstances you would understand better. I was becoming a vegetable; nothing more or less would have pleased my grandfather."
"How is little Sunnie?"
Mrs. Fergusson quietly ignored Jean's speech. It made her feel ashamed of protruding her own personality before a comparative stranger.
"She is not well to-day, poor mite! When I left her she was longing for her doctor."
Mrs. Fergusson smiled.
"You have a fortunate subject for your study. I can imagine no greater pleasure than painting such a child, if art is your forte."
She moved away to speak to some one else. Jean was disappointed. She would like to have talked with her longer. Meta had left her and was having an animated conversation with a tall handsome man who was standing in the deep bay window with one or two other young people.
Jean sat down by an old lady, who eyed her curiously. In a few minutes they drifted into talk.
"Is Dr. Fergusson here?"
"Indeed, no," replied her neighbour, with a strong Scotch accent, "he'll be away visiting and curing his patients. He's a busy man, Leslie Fergusson is; not after George's pattern over there, who whiles away his time in ladies' drawing-rooms, and makes his mother wish she hadn't brought him into the world at all!"
"Is that Dr. Fergusson's brother? I did not know he had one."
Jean was smiling at the old lady's energetic disapproval.
"There are only the two, but I always say it is one too many for their mother's peace of mind! Clever? Ay, he may look so, and I will not say he isna, but he uses up his brain in composing trashy poems for local papers, and cultivating compliments and flirtations with any pretty lass about. He will tell you he is a barrister in Edinburgh. He's a briefless one, and will be never anything else in my estimation!"
Jean was silent. Her eyes left Meta and her companion, and travelled after Mrs. Fergusson. She longed, as she saw her move about and entertain her guests, to come one afternoon when she had no visitors and have her to herself. And she began to feel a little lonely. Every one seemed to know each other, and call each other by their Christian names. She realised that she was a stranger in a strange land, and thought it a little ill-natured of Meta to forsake her.
Then, in another moment, Mrs. Fergusson was before her and speaking to her.
"Miss Desmond, I would like to show you some favourite pictures of mine. They are in the library; will you come?"
"With the greatest pleasure."
Jean crossed the room with her in quite a flutter of delight.
As they passed up a low staircase, Mrs. Fergusson laid her hand on her arm.
"And how do you like us?" she asked, quaintly. "I hear this is your first visit to Scotland."
"Yes," said Jean impulsively. "It is my first visit, but I find Scotch people are hard to know. I don't think I should ever make friends here. I am willing, but—well—perhaps Mrs. Gordon is extra difficult to know, and of course, I am in a peculiar position. Everybody is very kind, but—"
"But they don't embrace you with open arms? No, they will not do that. We are slow and cautious folk, and take time to form friendships."
Jean coloured.
"I have no right to speak so, only I can't help getting interested in people. I just love little Sunnie, and hoped to like her mother. I feel so sorry for her. But I am nothing to any of them. Meta is very friendly, but she is variable."
Mrs. Fergusson looked at Jean rather searchingly.
"My dear," she said, "round whom or what does your life centre?"
Jean gazed at her uncomprehendingly.
Mrs. Ferguson smiled.
"I am not going to preach you a sermon," she said. "Now what do you think of these?"
The library was hung with numbers of valuable paintings, many of them genuine works of the old masters. Jean's eyes brightened. She forgot herself, and for the next ten minutes, became quite absorbed in them. Mrs. Fergusson's comments, and the information she gave Jean, proved her to be a true lover as well as a patron of art.
When they returned to the drawing-room, tea was being handed round, and shortly afterwards, Meta and Jean took their departure.
"Well?" asked Meta. "How did you get on with the old lady?"
Jean resented her tone.
"I don't think you went to see her this afternoon," she retorted.
Meta gave a low laugh.
"No; I took you to see her. But I told you what to expect. What do you think of George Fergusson?"
"I had no opportunity to judge. I was told he was a ne'er-do-weel and spent his life in drawing-rooms."
"What old cat told you that?"
Meta's tone was indignant.
"He very seldom appears on his mother's 'at home' days. He is nearly always in Edinburgh. He is quite as clever as the doctor, and much more genial and brilliant in society."
Jean made no reply.
After a few minutes she said—
"Why did you never tell me there was another son? I thought Dr. Fergusson was the only one. He never mentions his brother."
"Leslie never talks of his own people or of himself at all. I wonder you have not discovered that. And George is not often at home. They hardly ever meet. How would you like Mrs. Fergusson as a mother-in-law? Do you think she would make a nice one?"
Jean looked at Meta in astonishment; then she said quietly—
"I should not think Dr. Fergusson was at all a marrying man."
"Leslie! Gracious, no! If he ever marries, it will be Aunt Helen. You look surprised, but he is so devoted to Sunnie, that it would be a good arrangement all round. And if there is any one that Aunt Helen cares for, it is he."
This idea was such a novel one to Jean that she took time to consider it.
Meta rattled on—
"I told you that I would let you know my present purpose when we came away from Mrs. Fergusson's. Can you guess?"
"Yes," said Jean, smiling at her frankness. "You wish to become her daughter."
"Hush, you needn't proclaim it! George and I have known each other for years. There is an understanding between us, but it's a question of money. Of course if anything happened to Mrs. Fergusson, the sons would be well off. She is a very wealthy woman."
"But if I were a man," said Jean hotly, "I would earn my own living, not wait in idleness for money that I didn't make."
"Would you?" said Meta, in an offended tone. "You would be an immaculate being, then!"
Conversation languished after this. Each girl pursued her own thoughts.
When they arrived home, Jean's first question was about Sunnie. Mrs. Gordon answered her gravely—
"She is better. She has now gone to sleep. Dr. Fergusson has been to see her, and has just left."
Jean went to her room. There she sat down by her fire, and went into a reverie, from which she did not rouse herself till it was time to dress for dinner. The Fergusson family were engrossing her thoughts at present.
"I wish I could know Mrs. Fergusson. And I should like to see the doctor in his own home. He seems unapproachable, unless in Sunnie's company. I am sure he is truly good; but then most of my friends are that. I am sure that Colonel Douglas and Miss Lorraine are. And Mrs. Fergusson has a way of asking the same kind of questions that they do. 'Round what or whom does my life centre?' Round myself. I can answer that easily enough. But the answer would not please her. I wonder if it would the doctor. I think I shall try to get his opinion on the subject."
This idea she carried out a day or two afterwards. She was painting Sunnie, and he had been at the piano carrying them through flights of fancies till Sunnie hardly realised where she was.
"Come back to earth, Sunnie," Jean said, laughing. "You look too far away for me to paint. I shall have to get a telescope to see you with."
"Like the stars," said Sunnie dreamily. "I should like to float through the sky on a star, wouldn't you?"
"I think I should prefer the moon," said Jean; "a new moon would be most comfortable."
"The moon turns round the earth, doesn't it?" asked Sunnie, bent on getting information.
"Yes," replied the doctor; "the moon is our satellite. Do you know what a satellite is?"
"No."
"A revolving follower."
Jean saw her opportunity.
"I suppose people are very like planets," she said. "They must all have a centre round which they revolve."
Dr. Fergusson looked at her rather keenly.
"It's a good thing to know what our centre is."
"I should think it was generally the same in every case," said Jean flippantly. "Myself is my centre; isn't it yours?"
The doctor did not answer. He left the piano and came and stood behind her.
"You are managing your firelight well," he said.
Jean's brush stopped working.
"What ought to be the centre of our lives?" she persisted.
"The same as our earth's—the sun."
His tone was grave and quiet.
"Oh!" said Jean, with impatience in her tone. "I wish we didn't keep twisting round to religion. I never could be a saint! I have no wish to be one."
"I think," said Dr. Fergusson, ignoring her speech, "that there are three centres round which most people gravitate: Themselves, as you say, and that centre is the poorest and most unsatisfying of all. Then, the centre of others. It is a wider and more beneficial one. But our Maker created us to revolve round Him. We shall have mistaken our purpose in life, if we do aught else."
"I always have made mistakes," said Jean, "and I shall continue doing it to the end."
"Don't spoil your life here, child, for eternity has begun with you already, remember; and we are told that as a tree falls, so it will lie."
He placed his hand on her shoulder as he spoke.
Jean remembered the light pressure of it for long afterwards, and his words left a heavier pressure on her soul.
She made no reply. Her flippancy died away.
Her heart was saying in the midst of some painful throbbing, "With his hand upon me, I could be anything he liked to make me."
And then her cheeks burnt at the thought, and she recommenced her painting with a fierce abruptness that showed itself in her face.
Dr. Fergusson noted that look, and he turned to Sunnie.
"Now," he said, "I am off. And you won't see me again for a whole week. I am going to Edinburgh on business."
"Ah," said Sunnie, taking hold of one of his hands and laying it against her cheek, "you'll have to see a lot of strange and funny things to tell me when you come back. I like to hear about big towns where the children see no fields and have houses and chimney-pots peeping in at every window. Miss Desmond will have to tell me stories till you come back, and we'll make up what you're doing while you're away, won't we?"
She looked round for Jean, but she was busy packing up her things and moving her canvas away. She was nowhere to be seen, when Dr. Fergusson was taking his departure.
"WORTH SENDING FOR!"
"A friend ought to shun no pain,to stand his friend in stead."—R. Edwards.
AS Leslie Fergusson drove home that night, his brows were furrowed with thought. In common with other lonely men, he had occasionally a habit of uttering his thoughts aloud. His good mare Bess was often the recipient of his confidences.
"I cannot trust myself," he muttered. "I know on the deepest things in life, we are far apart, yet her little gracious ways, her sweet wistfulness in the midst of her wilful words, make me long to win her. It would not be for our lasting happiness, if I did so. I am not a boy, and I suppose as one grows older, one feels more deeply. I think after my week in Edinburgh, I will run up to London for a short time. When I return the picture will have been finished, and she will have left."
Jean little thought, when she left her room so hastily that night, what a long time it would be, before she saw Dr. Fergusson again.
A day or two afterwards, she was startled by receiving a telegram from Colonel Douglas.
"Can you return to Miss Lorraine? She is ill."
Jean did not take long to make up her mind. She went straight to Mrs. Gordon, and showed the message to her.
"I must go at once. She has been so good to me, and she lives alone. There is no one to look after her."
"And what about Sunnie's portrait? You have nearly finished it, have you not?"
"Yes; I am only working up the background. I think perhaps, I can work it up in London, if I take it with me."
"Perhaps that would be the best plan."
Jean's heart sank at Mrs. Gordon's calm acquiescence. She could not help speaking impulsively, as was her wont—
"I must thank you for the nice time I have had here. You have been very kind to me, and I shall be dreadfully sorry to leave."
"I think Sunnie will be sorry, too. I consider you have been very successful with her picture and am glad you have been happy with us. When must you start?"
"This afternoon, if I may," said Jean, turning away to prevent Mrs. Gordon's seeing the quick tears in her eyes.
She hardly knew what she was doing for the next hour or two. Every one was kind, but Jean resented their comparative indifference to her departure. Meta expressed a hope that she would meet her again in London.
Sunnie was the only one who really cared, and when she heard, she put her little arms round her neck, drew her down to her, and began to cry.
"You are one of my friends," she sobbed. "I can't bear a friend to go away."
Jean kissed the golden head.
"I shall not forget you," she said. "I shall write letters to you now and then; will you not like that?"
"Yes," sobbed Sunnie, "but I shall be so empty without you, when Cousin Leslie isn't here. Will you never come back, never?"
Jean could not bring herself to reiterate that mournful word.
"I only came to paint your picture, Sunnie, and now my work is done, and my friend in London is ill. You mustn't wish to keep me back. I wish sometimes that I could live here always, but you see, it isn't my home."
Sunnie lay back on her cushions, and regarded her with tearful eyes; then a glint of sunshine came like a rainbow across them.
"You must marry a prince and drive to Scotland in a big coach, like they used to do long ago. And your prince must come and live close here, and you must come and see me in the twilight, when the fire is blazing and Cousin Leslie is playing the piano. I shall always be here, you know; I shall never move away until—I go to heaven."
"Oh! Sunnie," said Jean, kneeling by the child's couch, and taking her little hands in her own, "how I wish I felt as sure of heaven as you do!"
Sunnie looked perplexed.
Jean went on in a little burst of confidence—
"You are all so good here, and I feel so wicked! Will you ask God in your prayers, darling, to teach me what He has taught you?"
"Has God taught me anything?" questioned Sunnie, wonderingly. "I think Cousin Leslie teaches me most. If you would only stay, he could teach you too."
"I wish I could stay."
Jean's tone was almost passionate.
Sunnie looked at her pathetically.
"I shall see you in the dark, sitting opposite me, I with your long-tailed paint-brush and my picture. I shall shut my eyes every evening, and see you there, and I shall pretend you're real, and I shall go on talking to you. I have to do such a lot of pretending when Cousin Leslie is away."
"He will be coming back soon. You must wish him goodbye for me, Sunnie."
There was a tremor in her voice. She felt again the touch of his hand on her shoulder: that involuntary, earnest touch that had shown her the secret of her heart, and had made him take a decisive step to remove himself from the fascination of her presence.
"Yes," said Sunnie; "make up a nice message for me to give him. Your love and a kiss?"
"Oh no!" said Jean, laughing though her heart ached. "No special message—just a goodbye."
Then she rose to her feet, and stood looking down upon the little invalid very tenderly.
"Sunnie, I wonder if you would give me what you give the doctor every night. You call it your blessing."
Sunnie's face shone. She brushed the traces of her tears away with her little hands, and then clasped them over Jean's dark head, which was now bent down over her.
"God bless you, and keep you safe and good in London. Amen."
With the echoes of that sweet little voice ringing in her ears, Jean left Strathglen that afternoon, and as the night express whirled her away, she put her head in her hands and sobbed in sheer unhappiness.
"I shall be an outsider always. I went, and now I am returning; it has only been a passing incident in my life. I should have liked to make it my home. I hoped to get to know Mrs. Fergusson; I longed to have more talk with Dr. Fergusson, to know him as—as a friend. He was so reserved, so unapproachable at first, and lately, he has been so different. Oh, I wish I had his religion; I wish I could have the steadfast happiness that he has! They will all forget me. After all, what can I expect? I went on a matter of business. It is done—they want me no more."
She was so occupied with herself and her feelings that it was not till she approached London that her thoughts turned to Miss Lorraine.
"I wonder if she is very ill. It is rather strange Colonel Douglas telegraphing for me. If anything happened to her, I shouldn't have a friend left. I wonder if there is any one else in the world as friendless as I!"
But when she reached Miss Lorraine's house and met the housemaid at the door, when she heard that the mistress of the house had been taken ill three weeks ago with an attack of influenza, and seemed to have no strength to rally from it, but had been lying weak and exhausted, hardly knowing those in the room, then Jean put herself in the background and rose to the occasion.
"Take me to her," she said.
"Please, miss, the nurse said they were not to be disturbed. These nurses are terrible fidgets. We have had two changes already, and this one treats me as if I'm the dirt under her feet! And please, miss, the Colonel is in the drawing-room: will you see him first?"
Jean sped up the narrow stairs, and the next moment had her hand grasped gratefully by Colonel Douglas, who was looking worn and harassed.
"This is good of you, Jean. I have been so anxious. My sister is abroad, and there has been no one I could turn to. Frances has always been the one to nurse and help others, and when she is struck down, it seems strange that she should be left so forlorn. She has been calling for you. The fact is, her old servants and the nurses don't pull well together. The house wants a mistress. You will put things straight."
Jean nodded, then went straight to the sick-room. She was shocked to find Miss Lorraine so weak, and her feeble words, "Stay, Jean. Don't leave me. I want some one who cares for me," touched her to the heart.
She interviewed the nurse and doctor, found that the former's services would be no longer required, and took possession of the sick-room herself. Before a few days were over, she had proved herself an apt and skilful nurse. Miss Lorraine caught the infection of her brightness, and rapidly began to recover.
Colonel Douglas haunted the house. There was something infinitely pathetic to Jean in his attitude. Grapes, flowers, and dainties of all kinds were the plea for him to come in.
"Will you take this to Frances, my dear? And if she is well enough—if it wouldn't excite her—just tell her that I'm on the spot to do or carry messages."
And in watching by the sick-bed, and in consoling and comforting the staunch old friend, Jean learnt many a lesson in patience and unselfishness. It made her realise her own narrow outlook and the poorness of her aims and standards in life.
It was a bright afternoon in early spring when Miss Lorraine first came into her pretty drawing-room. Jean had filled it with sweet-smelling flowers, and when the invalid, looking very white and fragile, was seated in her favourite chair, Jean came and knelt down by her caressingly.
"You will let me go on doing things for you, won't you? You won't get strong enough to do without me?"
"My dear child, you have worn yourself out in looking after me. Humanly speaking, you have brought me back to life again, and though when I was weak and ill I longed to die, it was a very wrong and selfish wish."
"Why?" asked Jean, who was always being astonished at Miss Lorraine's view of things.
"I have done so little, and there is so much to do," was the reply. "However small our influence is, it is ours to use for our Master. A lifetime of a hundred years is not too long to work for Him. We have only one life on earth. I don't believe we shall ever get the same chance of helping one another again."
"What about me?" asked Jean, in her impulsive fashion. "I haven't yet begun to think of any one in the world but myself!"
"Well," said Miss Lorraine, "I was wondering the other day, if I had been brought back to life just to help you along the road of life. I am afraid I have been rather a failure in that way up to the present time."
Jean's eyes filled with sudden tears.
"You are helping me," she said. "You shall help me, for I think now, I am willing."
No more was said then, for the door opened and Colonel Douglas came in. It was their first meeting since Miss Lorraine's illness. He stepped across the room on tiptoe, looking at her with eager, anxious eyes.
"My dear," he said, as he grasped her hand, "how frail you look, and how glad and thankful I am that you have been spared to us."
His voice was husky, and as he sat down by her side, his hands trembled visibly as he rested them on his knees.
Miss Lorraine looked at him with a quiet smile.
"Yes," she said, "when you began to take an interest in a little rebellious girl down in the Essex marshes, you little thought what a good turn you would be doing me, later on."
Jean laughed.
"I haven't done much," she said; "but I am proud to think that Colonel Douglas thought me worth sending for."
But the Colonel did not seem to hear. He had only eyes and ears for Miss Lorraine.
"We have missed you sadly," he said, with a wistful look at her. "I wonder if it is a good thing for you to see your friends so soon. You have had a rest from their worries all this time."
"But I am quite fit and ready to hear everything now," she said briskly.
Colonel Douglas shook his head.
"About as fit as that pale snowdrop would be to bear a weight of any sort," he replied.
And Jean, watching her invalid with a jealous eye, quite agreed with him, for a very little upset her now. Jean sometimes could hardly believe that illness could so change the quiet, self-contained woman. She started and trembled at the slightest sound, and her tears came as easily as her smiles. She was putting a strong restraint upon herself now. The sight of her old friend was almost too much for her.
Colonel Douglas noted her weakness, and with wonderful tact began to talk to Jean of her grandfather and old home.
"I was down there for a couple of days last week," he said. "We had some snipe shooting. Your cousin is a pleasant young fellow; have you never met him yet?"
"No," said Jean. "I have heard nothing from my old home since I left. I only knew of his existence from you."
"He is trying his hand at farming down there. I shouldn't say he will make his fortune at it, but it gives him something to do, and keeps him from getting into mischief. He asked me after you, how you were getting on, and said he would like to meet you. I thought perhaps when he next comes up to town, Frances—if you are strong enough—"
"Yes," she said, as he hesitated, "certainly ask him to come and see us. I shall be very glad to see him."
"And my grandfather?" asked Jean slowly. "Did he mention me at all."
"I cannot say he did. He made no response when I told him what you were doing."
"I shall never be forgiven," said Jean. "Would you like to see my picture of little Sunnie, Colonel Douglas? Miss Lorraine made me promise to show it to her this afternoon."
She left the room to get it. Colonel Douglas stood up by the fire and looked down upon Miss Lorraine, with a smile of content.
"Jean's character is developing," she said. "She is growing out of that heedlessness and irresponsibility. Her thoughtfulness and patience in a sick-room has filled me with astonishment."
"She was very young when we took her in hand," said the Colonel, smiling. "I think her emancipation was a success; she would have become bitter and self-centered, had she stayed with her uncle."
Jean returned, and with the help of Susan, got her large canvas into the room. When she threw back the covering over it, Miss Lorraine caught her breath.
The picture glowed with life and colour. Sunnie lay back amongst her cushions with the firelight playing over her face and cloud of golden hair. Her little face seemed almost to be alive, the eyes were looking upwards with that peculiar mixture of dancing fun and sweet seriousness, her mouth was slightly parted, and her attitude was that of a listener to the unseen.
As Jean looked at it a lump came into her throat. It brought back with a rush those happy hours in the firelight.
"I am thinking," she said, "of calling it 'What the fairies told her!' Do you like it, Miss Lorraine?"
"So very much, dear. It is intensely life-like. Why, Jean, you ought to try to get it into the Academy."
"I did think of it, and asked Mrs. Gordon if she would mind. She said she would not. Do you think there might be a chance of getting it taken?"
"Certainly," said Colonel Douglas, looking at it intently. "You have surprised me, Jean. You must have made rapid progress with your art. This is something more than a mere portrait. You have treated it so artistically."
"Her surroundings were artistic," said Jean. "I never got the first sight of her out of my mind. It burnt itself into my brain, and I determined to reproduce it, if possible. I am glad you like it. I love to look at it myself, for it gives me Sunnie, and I am sure there isn't another child like her in the whole world!"
"Let it stay there, Jean," said Miss Lorraine. "I shall enjoy looking at it."
Jean slipped out of the room soon after this, leaving the Colonel and the invalid to talk together, and though Miss Lorraine was rather tired after the interview, she was none the worse for it.
The next day Jean brought her a letter to read.
"As you have seen what Sunnie is like, I thought you might be interested in her letter."
Miss Lorraine took it and read:
"MY DEAREST PAINTER,—I do not call you Miss Desmond any more. I miss you always, but most I miss you when Cousin Leslie is making the piano talk, because there is only one to listen, and it was two when you were here.""I got my sofa to take me to see you last night. We were half an hour doing it, for I told nurse not to talk till I told her, and she says it was half an hour by the clock. I tell you what we did, and you must tell me if it was right. We went very quickly and not too high, just on a line with the telegraph wires that I see from the window. I knew they led to London, so I could not go wrong. Then we flew over hundreds and hundreds of roofs, till we came outside your house; then we dropped until I could peep in at the window. And this is what I saw:""You were in your pretty pink dressing-gown giving nasty medicine to a little old lady in curls in bed, and she was making faces like I do, and then you laughed at her, and began telling her one of your nonsense stories, and then she drank it up and laughed, too. Then you went into another room, and sat down by the fire and thought of Sunnie, and a nice hot dinner was brought in on a little round table, and you sat up, and eat it.""When you'd finished, you went back to the fire, and then I crept in at the window, and crept on to your lap. Didn't you feel me cuddle you? You were looking tired and had sad eyes, but I kissed you happy again. And then, I had to come back, and the journey home was long and very cold. My sofa says he doesn't like London, but we shall come and see you again soon. I will make him take me.""Write me a letter and tell me you will be looking out for me when the fire flares up and the lamps are out. You won't see me, but you will feel me. Nurse has helped me spell this; she says it is all nonsense, but she doesn't understand what you and me and Cousin Leslie make up together. Cousin Leslie played to me about you the day before yesterday. We had the train that took you away and the barrel-organs that played in the London streets when you got there, and the poor, sick lady whispering, and you making her better.""Write me a long letter soon. I send you this new blessing: I made it up myself yesterday—"
"'God keep you beautiful, and good,and bring you back to Scotland and usfor ever and ever. Amen.'"
"Your loving""SUNNIE."
Miss Lorraine smiled as she handed this back to Jean.
"You have won her heart," she said.
"Every one loves her," was Jean's reply. But there was a wistful look in her eyes as she spoke, that Miss Lorraine noted and remembered.
AN EVENTFUL RAILWAY JOURNEY
"It was the Voice of RevelationThat met my utmost need;The wondrous message of salvationWas joy and peace indeed."* * *"For now is life a lucid story,And death a rest in Him;And all is bathed in light and gloryThat once was dark or dim."—Rev. Canon Twells.
MISS LORRAINE was now quite convalescent, and Colonel Douglas and she resumed their old friendly relations with one another. She was soon listening to his usual troubles with ungrateful protégés, but her sound common sense and good advice comforted and helped him as she often had before.
One afternoon, the Colonel brought a tall, sturdy young fellow with him, whom he introduced as Charlie Oxton. He was Jean's distant cousin and her grandfather's heir, and he made himself at home at once. Miss Lorraine liked his honest frankness and Jean soon began asking him about her former friends and the old servants at her grandfather's.
"Yes," he said, "they are all there, waiting to welcome you back; aren't you coming?"
"Don't you know," said Jean, "the reason of my leaving?"
"Oh, yes, but I expect you are tired of painting pictures by this time, aren't you? And you'll never make your fortune at it. All the artists I have met—and I've knocked about with a good few—are all poor, miserable beggars. I wish you would chuck it up, and write and tell the old man so."
Jean looked a little offended; the young man went on—
"I'm out a good bit, and we only see each other in the evening, but he's getting old, and I fancy the house wants a woman to look after it."
"There are Elsie and Mary," said Jean. "He does not like women; he never has. And if I gave up painting to-morrow, which I shouldn't think of doing, he would never take me back; he said he wouldn't."
"Oh, I'd talk him round," the young man said cheerfully. "He isn't half a bad old chap, if you take him the right way. Do you remember old Rawlings?"
Jean smiled.
"As if I could forget him! Does he still potter about and talk philosophy amongst his flowers?"
"He talks of you sometimes, and asked me if I was coming to London to find out whether you had done your grand picture yet that was going to make every one talk."
"I can see the curl of his lip as he spoke," cried Jean. "Tell him from me when you go back that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that the Crimson Rambler is going to astonish him yet. Do you learn lessons from him in the garden?"
"We have differences of opinion there."
"Oh," said Jean impulsively. "I should like to go down there for a day and see them all, but I have never yet regretted leaving, and I never shall!"
"And you are still studying art?"
"I have been away, but I am going to have three months now at the Royal College of Art. I am going in for portrait painting, and I want to perfect myself in it."
He looked at her meditatively; then shook his head. "You will neither make money nor fame at it," he said. "You haven't the look of it."
Jean was inclined to be indignant.
"I daresay you think me impertinent," he went on, with his imperturbable good-humour, "but I take an interest in you, for, as you know, I have cut you out, and will have in due time what was originally meant for you. Now I pictured you one of those stout, square young women with big voices and untidy hair who can elbow their way along quite easily and are indifferent to snubs. Those are bound to get on."
"I have got on, haven't I, Miss Lorraine?"
Jean did not know whether to be vexed or amused with this young man, but she was not going to be disheartened in her choice of a profession.
"I think you had better show him your last production, dear."
"No," said Jean; "that I will not do. I am, in fact, packing it up to go to the framers. Mrs. Gordon wrote asking to have it back when I found out it was too late for the Academy this year. But I am going to try again for next year. Mrs. Gordon is quite willing."
"I will bring Rawlings up to see it when it is hung there," said Charlie Oxton.
He stayed a good while, and when shaking hands with Jean said—
"We are good friends, are we not?"
"I don't make friends quite so fast," said Jean. "We are acquaintances at present."
"How many visits will make me into a friend?"
She would not answer, though the quizzical look in his eyes brought an answering gleam in hers.
A week afterwards she received some snipe in a tin box with the inscription inside—
"For COUSIN JEAN,From an acquaintance!"
And after this vegetables, fruit, and flowers followed at intervals.
Jean was studying again hard. Miss Lorraine went away to visit her mother and left her alone for a time, but when the summer came on, and Jean became pale and languid with the heat, Miss Lorraine begged her to take a rest.
"I don't know where to go," she said. "I am getting unsociable, I fancy. Two girls I work with, want me to go with them to Brittany, but they are rather go ahead, and I am old-fashioned. After my Paris experiences, I fight shy of art students. I could go down and do some painting in a farmhouse. I want to study some interiors, if I can, but I don't know where to go."
"We will make some inquiries. I wish you and I could go off together somewhere, but I have promised to keep house for a friend while she is away for a much-needed change."
Very shortly afterwards, Miss Lorraine came to Jean.
"My dear, I think I have heard of the very thing for you. It is an old farm down in Devonshire, and was originally a manor house. It has a beautiful oak-panelled room in it, and the whole of it is most picturesque, I am told. Part of it is in a very tumbled-down condition. Two daughters of a clergyman I used to know live in it. They got it cheap, and they are anxious for lodgers or paying guests in the summer time. What do you think of it?"
"Have you any photo of it?" asked Jean. "You know I do not care for strangers much, and I would rather lodge with quite common people. I should be far more independent. Perhaps I would not be allowed to paint in peace."
"I am quite certain you would be perfectly independent there; they are a Scotch family, well connected, but very poor."
"Scotch, are they?"
It was a magnetic word. From that instant, Jean wanted to go. It did not take long to make her arrangements, and she packed up her clothes and painting materials in no time.
"Miss Lorraine," she said the evening before she went, "do you think I am wasting my life?"
Miss Lorraine looked at her.
"Are you feeling you are?" she asked.
Jean fidgetted in her chair. She was sitting by the window, which was open, and enjoying the scent of the mignonette and heliotrope in the balcony.
"I remember," she said, without answering the question, "that Colonel Douglas said to me just before I came to London, 'Seek the best thing first, not last.' I asked him what he meant, and he said that it would be the one thing that would bring no disillusion or disappointment; he warned me that it must not be the sham or counterfeit, but the genuine article. I thought he meant fame then, but I have begun to think differently lately. And I have had disillusions in my art life. What do you think is the best thing to seek after?"
Miss Lorraine was silent for a moment; then she said softly—
"'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,and all these things shall be added unto you.'"
"I felt you would say something like that," said Jean after a pause; "and I want to tell you something before I go away from you. I have been—what you call seeking, but I can't find."
Miss Lorraine looked her sympathy. Jean went on hurriedly—
"I may not be enough in earnest or I may not have the right motives, but I do want to be really good like you and Colonel Douglas and—and others are. And I've asked to be made so, but nothing has changed me. I have even begun to read my Bible regularly, but I don't care for it. Were you born good? How did you arrive at it? Don't laugh at me. I'm really in earnest."
"My dear child, I am the last person in the world to laugh at you. Let me ask you this, Jean: do you feel that your life is a failure in the sight of God?"
"Well, no—not exactly. I am making use of one of the talents that He has given me. And I can't say I'm a very wicked sort of person, am I? I was looking at a little devotional book the other day—One of yours, I think it is—and I could not work myself up to such a pitch as I was told to. I don't loathe myself for being such a sinner; I don't feel sometimes that I am one at all."
"But whether you feel it or not, the fact remains the same. If you believe the Bible, you must believe in sin. If you have had any knowledge of life, you must believe in it."
"Let us take the great centre truth of the Bible, Jean. God's own creatures that He made for His own glory were estranged from Him; He sent His Son to bring them back to Himself. Christ died for this purpose. He offered Himself a sacrifice to reconcile us to God. Have you been reconciled? Or are you still estranged? If you are estranged, you are virtually rejecting and ignoring that great sacrifice. That is the one sin which shuts out a soul from the presence of God."
"Christ said, 'This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.' Do you know God, Jean, dear? Have you any interest, any love for Him?"
"Very, very little," murmured Jean, with downcast eyes; "but I am groping after Him."
"And do you know the one thing that will make you really in earnest in your search?"
"No."