THE STRUGGLING PROFESSIONAL
"Serene, and unafraid of solitude,I worked the short days out."—Aurora Leigh.
JEAN had need of much patience during the weeks that followed. Her grandfather was irritable and difficult to please, yet he became so accustomed to her services, that he would never let her leave his room for very long at a time.
It was the old life again, the dreary flat marshland without, and the narrow confined life within, yet Jean wondered sometimes what had changed it all so to her. She was not unhappy; she did not feel the fret and chafe of it as she used to do, and she found herself taking an increasing interest in her poorer neighbours close to the door. She read and talked to her grandfather, and tried to consider all his whims; she gardened with Rawlings, and she found a little time for quiet reading herself.
"I suppose," she mused, "that my life is round a different centre. I hope and trust that it is. What a difference it has made in my life! But how I wish I could get grandfather to see it too!"
She prayed much that she might seize any little opportunity given to her, of speaking to others about the things that were of so much interest to her. She soon found in visiting some of the cottages which were a long way off from the church, that there were great big boys and farm lads who went to no place of worship and hardly knew what to do with themselves on Sunday. With some trepidation, she asked her grandfather if he would object to her starting a class for them, and holding it in an unused room on Sunday afternoons.
He stared at her in surprise at the request.
"What is this fancy? What can you teach them, except how to paint?"
Jean was not repulsed by his sneer. Her opportunity had come.
"Grandfather, I have never told you, but I have been led to look at life so differently since I have been in London. I see that it is so short down here compared with the years that will follow. And it is meant to be a preparation, isn't it? I don't know how to express myself well, but I have learnt to love and follow Christ, and I have taken Him as my Saviour and Master. It has made me so happy that I want others to be happy too."
"Well, keep it to yourself," grunted Mr. Desmond. "Women always are superstitious fools; they have no brains to be otherwise."
But he raised no objection to the class of boys, and Jean started it with great fear and trembling the following Sunday.
It was her first venture, and eight lads in the hobbledehoy stage appeared, four of whom could not read. They had learnt in a manner, but had forgotten, as from the time they had left school, they had never opened book or paper. Their ignorance was dense.
"Can you tell me anything about John the Baptist? Who was he?" she asked, after they had read a chapter together.
"He called out bears to eat the children up!" said one, who thought himself the scholar.
"Him what was thrown in the pit by his brothers," suggested another.
"Him what built the first Baptist chapel!" cried a third.
Jean found she must take them slowly, but her earnestness and sincerity carried weight, and her class increased to eighteen before she had had it for six weeks. It was a great interest to her, and she learnt as much as she taught them.
She heard from several of her friends, and her correspondence with them was a great pleasure to her.
Mrs. Douglas wrote from Cannes with real affection. She said that Colonel Douglas was growing gradually weaker, but "so cheerful and bright, and so interested in all that you are doing, Jean, dear."
Chris wrote bright, chatty letters, begging her to come and stay with them before the summer went, and Sunnie wrote her quaint, original epistles, always ending with—
"And I hope, my dear painter, that you will come to Scotlandsoon again, for we want you badly."
Jean went about with a smile upon her lips at the thought of these writers, and Rawlings said one day to her, as she came out to him in the garden singing to herself—
"I always telled ye, Miss Jean, that you'd find your old home the happiest. Ye've got ten years younger since ye've come back, an' a month o' that there Lunnon do consume more lives away, and destroys more smiles an' music out of a body's heart than fifty year of country toil and honest work do!"
One afternoon, old Mr. Desmond, who was well enough now to creep out of doors with a stick, was walking round the garden with his granddaughter.
"I'm going to take a fresh lease of life," he said, with energy. "I feel stronger to-day than I have done for months."
"I am so glad," said Jean sincerely. "I am sure you are much stronger than you were. I wrote to Charlie to-day, and told him so."
"Ay, that lad is a good sort. If I had left you, he promised to look after you, which is more than you deserve. I never alter my mind, and my will remains as it was when I re-made it the day after you defied me, and took yourself away to London. Don't think—" here he turned upon her half irritably—"don't think that your coming back at this belated hour will change my mind towards you. Not one penny of money will you receive from me after my death."
"Oh, I know, I know," said Jean, trying to speak patiently. "I have not been wasting my time, grandfather. I believe I shall be able to earn my own living, and," she added, with some spirit, "I shall not be in need of any help from Charlie!"
Mr. Desmond gave a dry little laugh.
"Wait till the time comes," he said. "If you continue to please him, your future is provided for."
"What do you mean, grandfather? Do you think I would take any money from Charlie?"
"As his wife you will, I should think."
"His wife!"
Jean laughed aloud.
"I shall never, under any circumstances, be his wife," she said decisively.
"Wait until he asks you. He means to ask you when he returns, and you are a fortunate young woman to have obtained his regard. I think he will improve you in many respects. He has right views concerning women, and is masterful enough to be able to enforce his wishes."
"Poor Charlie!"
That was all Jean permitted herself to say, but she felt very angry. Did Charlie think her affection would be so lightly won, as to be able to discuss her so coolly with her grandfather? She wisely put the subject away from her, and talked of other things. She took her grandfather into the kitchen garden, where he had a long talk with Rawlings, and brought him into the house at length, astonished at the increase of his powers both of body and mind. Late that evening, John came to her.
"The master seems very talkative to-night, Miss Jean; have ye noticed it?"
"Yes, I have," said Jean, looking at him a little dubiously. "Do you think it a bad sign, John? He seems so much better in every way to-day."
John rubbed his hands together.
"Well, miss, I'll sit up with him for a bit. He's a little bit too bright to my mind!"
"Call me, if you want me," said Jean.
She knew that John was pessimistic, and went to sleep with an untroubled mind.
But early the next morning, she was roused.
Old Mr. Desmond had had another stroke, and though the doctor was sent for, and everything was done that could be, he never rallied, but passed away unconsciously before twenty-four hours were over. Jean was almost stunned by the suddenness of it. She had no one to come to her to help at this sad time, but the doctor and her grandfather's lawyer arranged matters, and she, with a few of Mr. Desmond's old friends, followed him to the grave one bright September morning. She telegraphed the sad news to Charlie, and then, packing up her things, moved back to her London lodgings.
The old servants remonstrated with her, and begged her to stay till Charlie Oxton returned.
Jean was quite firm.
"It is not my house," she said. "It never has been. It belongs to Mr. Oxton now, and I know you will have a good master."
"But we want a missis," said Rawlings. "Mr. Charles never could manage here. Look at the downfall after Elsie went away! I never said much, but it sheer disgusted me to see the place go down so. Mary be too on in years, Miss Jean. Well, there, I'll say no more, for I know Mr. Charles's mind, and we'll see you back as missis yet!"
Jean went back to town with a sad heart. She parted with her Bible-class lads with real sorrow, for she felt they were being influenced. She did not regret her time spent with her invalid grandfather, but she did regret not making better use of her opportunities in her intercourse with him. "I might have talked to him more about unseen things. If I had only known! He seemed so uninterested, so bitterly disposed towards any religion. Oh, how I wish I had a readier tongue about the things I love! I ought to be longing to bring others to my Master, to win them for His cause, and I am silent and tongue-tied when the opportunity comes."
She opened her heart to Mrs. Douglas, who answered her very lovingly.
"Only the close presence of your Saviour, dear Jean," she wrote, "will give you the longing and the power to speak for Him. Do you remember after the disciples had walked and talked with their Master on the road to Emmaus, how they said their hearts burned within them on the way? It is this heart-burning that we want so badly nowadays, when there is so much slackness and half-heartedness in our Christianity. Pray for it, dear, and ask for the realisation of the Master's presence. That alone will give it to you."
Jean pondered and prayed, and very shyly and diffidently began to bear witness for her Master amongst the art students with whom she associated once again. She was hard at work now, for she realised as she never had before, that she must be in future a working woman. She had not a big balance in the bank, and she knew that she would miss her yearly income intensely. So she began to economise in matter of food and clothing, and inquired amongst her friends whether they could get her any commissions for portraits. Then suddenly one afternoon, Charlie Oxton appeared at her lodgings.
"Yes," he said when he had shaken hands with her, "I'm back again. I hurried up my business and took the first boat home, after I heard of the governor's death. Poor old chap! He was very good to me. Why did you come away? That house ought to be yours, you know. But we'll make that all right, I hope. You're a sensible girl, aren't you, Jean? I won't beat about the bush, but ever since I first saw you, I knew we were cut out for each other. I believe if I searched the whole earth, I couldn't find another your equal. And you like me, don't you? I know you do in a sneaking, underhand fashion, though you're too proud to confess it! You see, I couldn't walk in and take the whole of your inheritance because you happen to have offended the old man; but if we go shares, we shall both be happy and comfortable, and have the old man's blessing. He told me he wished it, though he said—" here the twinkle of humour crept into his eye—"you didn't deserve it. That was the money, of course, not me. Well, what do you say, Jean? Are you willing to take me 'for better for worse?' I'm sure I am, with all my heart and soul, and I promise to be a model husband."
He stopped from sheer breathlessness, and perhaps there was a tinge of nervousness in his tone at this epoch.
Jean gazed at him as one petrified. Then she found her voice.
"I am sorry, Charlie—very. I like you immensely as a friend, but we can be nothing more to each other, never!"
Very clear and determined was her voice.
Charlie had been standing by the window as he talked and she sitting at her tea-table. He came over to her.
"Of course I expected you to say something of this sort; but, Jean, I won't take 'no.' I'm not going to be dismissed. You belong to me, I consider. Why, your grandfather bequeathed you to me with his money. I said I wouldn't take one without the other, and you know which I value most. And I've had some experience with girls—don't look so furious! Not in the way you imagine; but I know that if I'm not built as a hero, I'm built for a jolly good husband, and I haven't a vice about me. Don't smile! I'm in dead earnest. We shall be as happy as turtle-doves together. You don't know your own mind, but let me make it up for you. If we were only living a century or two ago, I would run away with you—carry you off by force—and it would be a complete success. Now, honestly, have you any real dislike to me?"
"I like you very much," faltered Jean, edging away from him as she spoke, "but not as a possible husband, Charlie."
"Then it's only a question of time. I'm sure of it. I won't worry you, but you won't get rid of me very easily. You'll find yourself in quite a different mind one of these days. I won't stay longer now, but remember I'm not a rejected lover, I'm a postponed one."
He took up his hat and held out his hand. When Jean took it, he raised her hand to his lips.
"There! That's a pledge of what will follow. Now, I'm off to the old place, and I sha'n't know a happy hour till you come to me."
He swung out of the house, and Jean felt quite dazed by his vehemence. She was amused in spite of it by his original wooing.
"There wasn't one word of love," she said. "Charlie is essentially practical, and yet I know he likes me."
She dismissed him from her thoughts, but as time went on, she began to be annoyed by the continual presents he sent her—game, fish, flowers, honey, dairy produce; and her landlady at last had the boldness to say with a smile—
"From your young gentleman again, miss."
The crowning blow was when Jean discovered that two hundred pounds had been paid into her account at the bank. She wrote off in hot haste to Charlie, sending him a cheque for it, and asking him for an explanation. He came up in person to do her bidding, which was not what she desired.
"I'm not a good hand with my pen. It is only your usual allowance, my dear Coz, which, of course, your grandfather wished continued. Wasn't it two hundred he allowed you? Or was it more?"
"It was one hundred and fifty," replied Jean severely. "And you know my grandfather did not wish it continued. I had a talk with him about it before he died. He never left me a penny, and you know he did not. Do you think I shall ask you to support me?"
"You needn't be so tragic and scornful. I know what the governor did wish, and you know it too. Ah! my lady fair, blush away! Have you no regard for his wishes?" Then, changing his tone, he said earnestly: "Look here, Jean, you're leading me an awful life at present. How can I eat, drink, or sleep, when I'm consuming everything that you ought to be sharing? If I thought you knew your own mind, I'd chuck it all up and go back to Australia, but I'm dead certain you'll come round. Oh, Jean, we could be so stunningly happy together! Do listen to me."
Then Jean lost her temper.
"It is cruel of you to persecute me like this, Charlie. It is not gentlemanly. You know my defenceless position, and you take advantage of it. I have no parents, no brother to take my part. I never wish to see you again—never!"
Charlie took up his hat and walked off in high dudgeon, and for the time his gifts ceased.
Jean was working very hard just now. She was painting the portrait of an alderman's wife, giving lessons in the place of one of the teachers in the art school, and attempting a fancy picture of her own, which she hoped might be accepted for the next Academy. In the midst of this, she received another invitation from Mrs. Fergusson, begging her to come to her for a little rest and relaxation. It was a bitter disappointment to her to decline, but she literally could not afford to go. She had neither the time nor the money to do it.
Sometimes when she came back to her lodgings tired and weary, she wondered if this incessant grind for daily bread would be her lot in life. Yet she was not unhappy, and she pluckily and cheerfully put her shoulder to the wheel. Few of her fellow-students, hearing her bright tones and ringing laugh, realised that she had changed from the comfortable amateur into the struggling professional.
IN DIRE STRAITS
"I do not ask my cross to understand,My way to see;Better in darkness just to feel Thy handAnd follow Thee."—Adelaide Procter.
"SURELY it is Jean Desmond? How strange that I should not have run up against you before. I have been in town for six weeks. Are you still studying art?"
It was Meta Worth. She met Jean out of doors one day, and was looking very bright and pretty. Jean was conscious of her own shabbiness by the side of this stylish young woman.
"Yes," Jean responded. "I am working hard now, for I am obliged to."
"I saw your grandfather's death in the paper, and strangely enough I know your cousin, Mr. Oxton. He is a great friend of some friends of mine, and last time I met him, we discovered that you were a link between us. Am I to congratulate you?"
"Certainly not," said Jean, with hauteur.
Meta laughed.
"The great charm about Mr. Oxton is that he is so absolutely natural and confiding. He told me that it was a question of time with you, and I think you are very fortunate—your old home and inheritance waiting for you, and an awfully good sort of husband in the bargain."
"Have you been to Scotland lately?"
"Yes, I came from Aunt Helen's to town. I really meant to find you out, for I was charged with messages for you, but I have been simply bewildered with engagements."
"How is Sunnie?"
"Isn't it a miracle about that child? She is going through a course of massage at present. Has a massage nurse, who fights with the old one like anything! Aunt Helen seems a different being. I suppose it is Sunnie's cure that has brightened her up so. She is bound up in her child, of course, but in a different way, and has lost that iron inflexible look in her face and tone."
"Did you see anything of Mrs. Fergusson?"
"As much as usual. Why doesn't she take to me, I wonder? She won't ask me to stay with her, and I hear that she has even asked you."
Jean laughed. There was something very frank about Meta with all her society airs.
"Perhaps she knows that it isn't her society that you covet."
"George is in town," said Meta, with a little answering laugh. "He is as devoted as ever, but this is in confidence. There is no open engagement, remember. We must wait. He has so little money, poor fellow!"
Then, she hurriedly bid Jean goodbye.
"I'll come and see you one day, but I must rush away now. I have your address."
But she never came, and Jean was not surprised.
In after years, Jean often looked back to this winter as the darkest time in her life. Her portrait of the alderman's wife was finished, but not to that lady's satisfaction. Her full-blown face was stamped with her plebeian origin, and the masses of jewellery and lace she persisted in wearing did not add to her beauty. She insisted that Jean should try to show it in the Academy, and when it was refused, she was so angry that she refused to pay for it.
"I do not consider it a likeness. I would never have dreamt of paying so much for a picture that wasn't going to be shown. I would never have given you the order, only I thought your pictures would be accepted for the Academy. You have had one in it. If mine was worth anything, it would be there. My husband says you have made me a fright. Unless you can alter it, I won't pay you for it!"
Poor Jean happened to be at a very low ebb at this juncture in her money affairs. And she found it necessary to change her lodgings and take one room in a much cheaper neighbourhood, where she waited upon herself, and could economise in many little ways. The change was not beneficial to her health, but she was thankful to be able to pay her way.
Eagerly and feverishly, she worked at a picture that she hoped would bring her in money. She had taken a Bible scene, and was depicting Hannah giving her tiny boy into Eli's keeping. The three figures showed power. The mother's heart seemed divided between the anguish of parting, and pride of giving up her son for such a service. Eli was drawing the boy gently away from his mother's lingering clasp, and the child had the big tears in his eyes and the frightened look upon his face that told how much the parting meant to him. The models she hired for this picture were an expense, but they were the means to the end, and she worked on, hardly giving herself time to sleep or eat. Her face grew thin, but her spirits were good.
"It is hard times," she said to herself; "but I shall weather through."
She had many nice thoughts over her painting. The subject itself interested her. She thought over various titles for it. "A Mother's Gift" and "Lent to the Lord" were her favourites. When she came back from her teaching at the art school, her eyes would brighten as she settled to her picture, and it was only when daylight faded that she permitted herself to rest.
One day she met with a slight accident. In opening a tin of sardines for her frugal supper, she cut her right hand very severely with the tin. She did not think much of it at the time, but bandaged it, and though for a few days it was very inconvenient, she hoped it would heal speedily. This it did not do, and after a great deal of pain and inflammation, she took herself off to a doctor. He thought rather seriously of it, and told her she must give her hand complete rest or he would not answer for the consequences.
Jean stared at him blankly.
"I cannot rest it," she said. "I live by it. I am an artist."
"I am very sorry, but I say emphatically that you must give up your painting till your hand is well. I do not want to alarm you, but it has every appearance of blood-poisoning. You must take plenty of nourishment and have complete rest."
Jean walked home feeling almost crushed. Then she threw up her head and looked away to the grey fleecy clouds that were passing overhead.
"It must be all right for me," she said. "I am in God's keeping. He knows best. 'I will trust, and not be afraid.' She went into her forlorn little room. Lately, she had been feeling so tired and unfit, that she had rather neglected its appearance. She sank into a chair and looked round her.
"Oh, what would I give to see some one walk in with a cup of tea ready made!"
She felt too tired to get out of her chair and light her small oil-stove, but after making an effort to get her kettle to boil, she thought she would go straight to bed.
"I may feel better to-morrow."
Half an hour later, a little girl, her landlady's child, came up to the door.
"Please, miss, a gent wants to see yer. He giv' me this 'ere bit o' card."
Jean took it and read, as she expected—
"Mr. Charles Oxton."
Underneath was a pencil line—
"Must see you. Won't keep you a minute."
Jean's eyes looked wistful. It would be nice to see some one who might be able to help her; and how Charlie would help!
As she thought of the quantity of good things he would order in, and the money he would spend on her, she set her lips firmly together.
"I can give him nothing in return. I mustn't see him, I cannot."
She asked the child to take him a message, and wrote a note at once, sitting up in bed as she did so.
"DEAR CHARLIE,—Excuse shaky writing, it is my left hand. I have hurt my right one. I am sorry I cannot see you, but I am not very well, and have gone to bed. I shall be all right again soon. Leave a note with my landlady, if it is anything particular.""Yours in haste,""JEAN."
The little girl stumped downstairs, but Jean's quick ears caught the sound of a very long colloquy on the doorstep, and her landlady's shrill tones predominated. Then, at last she heard retreating footsteps on the pavement outside, and burying her hot head in her pillow, she felt for the moment that her last chance of relief had gone.
When the next day came, after a night of sleeplessness and fever, Jean found herself unable to raise her head.
All that day she tossed on her bed. Her landlady, Mrs. Sykes by name, a rough but good-natured woman, came up and attended to her, but when the second day came and went without any improvement, the landlady began to be anxious.
"I'd best call in a doctor, miss. You be almost light-headed at times!"
"Oh no," said Jean. "I can't afford it. I shall be better. I'm tired. I hope to be up again to-morrow. I am so sorry to be such a trouble."
Mrs. Sykes left her with ominous head-shakings, and Jean caught the murmur.
"She oughter go to hospital, an' she'll 'ave to it she don't get better, for 'tis more than a hard-workin' widder can do, with four days' charin' a week an' six troublesome children!"
Hot tears ran down Jean's cheeks. Her head was aching, and her hand throbbing and burning painfully. Her landlady's words seemed the last straw. Never in all her life, had the fact of her being without any near relations so come home to her.
"Hospital will be my portion and strange nurses, and I shall be a 'number' and a 'case.' I haven't a single friend in town. Not one that would prevent me from such a fate! I have prayed and prayed. I have been willing to do and be what God wills. Is this His will for me now? Or has He never heard me, and are my prayers in vain?"
It is in the hours of weakness, that the tempter exerts all his power. Jean realised this now, but she cried again to the One who was now testing her faith.
"Help me to be like Job. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.' If it is Thy will that I should die in hospital without any one knowing where I am, or what has become of me, yet come so close Thyself and wrap me so tightly in Thy arms, that I shall feel and care for nothing else."
And as she prayed a deep, restful peace stole into her soul.
She forgot that she was at her last penny; that sickness and want had stricken her down, and that even her landlady was wanting to get rid of her. A verse that had comforted her during these dark days came with fresh force into her mind:
"The eternal God is thy refuge,and underneath are the everlasting arms."
And Jean had a wonderful realisation that she was in those wonderful arms, and that she could leave herself there without any fear.
Mrs. Sykes, downstairs, was now answering a sharp ring at the door. Opening it, she was confronted by a sweet, fresh-faced young woman who had her portmanteau on a cab outside.
"If you please, does Miss Desmond live here? She is ill, is she not? May I see her? I have come to nurse her."
"It's time some one did," said Mrs. Sykes volubly, "for she be half-starved, poor thing, and now redoocing herself with fever. These 'ere hartists be very slow at makin' a livin'. Can't do it nohow. Only comes to grief."
With swift light steps, the visitor made her way to Jean's room. She drew a quick breath, as she took in with one glance the bareness and poverty of her surroundings. Then she bent over the invalid. Jean was breathing softly, and a smile was on her lips, but her face, with its hot fever-flush, looked almost transparent, and her cheek-bones showed prominently through their thin covering.
"Underneath—the everlasting arms," she murmured. And then she opened her eyes, and a quick, surprised light of recognition sprang into them.
"Barbara! You! Oh, how good of God!"
Barbara steadied her voice, for she had been near tears, but she was well versed in a sick-room, and was quite aware of the necessity of self-control.
"Yes, dear, I have come to nurse you, and I shall not leave you till you are well again."
Jean took hold of her hand.
"Can Chris spare you?"
"Perfectly. You wonder how I knew about you? Mr. Oxton came down to us and told us. He is going to stay and help with the farm, till I go back. He loves farming, you know, and Mick will be very glad to have him. Now I must leave you for a minute, while I have my luggage brought up."
She slipped away, and after a few minutes' talk with Mrs. Sykes, engaged a room for herself next to Jean's. Then after depositing her belongings in it, she walked out of the house. Half an hour later, she returned with her hands full of purchases. Jean was drowsy when she came back to her, and Barbara did not disturb her. She turned her attention to the oil-stove, and presently came up to her.
"Now, Jean dear, here is some hot soup, which I want you to take."
Jean sat up and took it, asking no questions.
"I won't talk to you yet, Barbara. You are here, and I am so thankful. I will lie still and get well. Your soup seems to have given me strength already."
She dropped asleep, and Barbara began to make herself, as well as Jean, thoroughly comfortable. She was one of those women who understand that art to perfection, and in an hour's time, Jean's room looked a different place. Then she brought in a chair-bedstead from the adjoining room, and after having some supper, went to bed. Jean was rather restless, but she told Barbara the next morning that she had not slept so well for weeks.
Barbara kept her well supplied with nourishment, and in the afternoon, she felt so much better that she was able to sit in a chair by the window and talk.
"I can't thank you, Barbara. It is just like you to come off to London to nurse a girl who happened to stay with you once for a few weeks. Who but you would have done it? But you were sent at the right time, just when I wanted you most. I need not have feared."
"You ought to have let us know, Jean."
"I couldn't! You don't know all. I'm desperately poor; I am not going to worry, but I'm terribly afraid my painting will come to a standstill, and then, how shall I live? It is such a bitter disappointment to me about my picture. I could have finished it, and I think I was doing good work."
"Mr. Oxton was in a dreadful state about you. Jean, dear, may I ask you if there is anything—"
"Anything between us? Nothing, and there never will be. He does not know what he wants. I know. It is a wife, but it will not be me. I have told him so. And Barbara, you have been getting me lots of invalid food. We must settle up accounts."
"Now look here," said Barbara, laying her hand affectionately on Jean's shoulder, "I want to tell you something. Years ago, I put aside a certain sum of money as a nest-egg for sickness or misfortune. None of us have ever needed it. I am using it now for your benefit, and you can pay me back later on, when you are busy painting again. You will let me have this pleasure, will you not?"
For a moment Jean's pride rose, then she crushed it back.
"I will regard it as a loan, Barbara. You don't need me to say how grateful I am."
She choked back a sob, and added: "Barbara, you have been my salvation. I think I should have died, if I had been taken to a hospital."
"And yet I found you so happy," said Barbara thoughtfully. "Jean, you have something that I have not. And I believe you found it enough, when you had everything else wanting!"
"Yes, I believe I did," Jean confessed.
AN ARRIVAL
"Two human loves make one divine."—E. B. Browning.
THE next afternoon, Barbara took Jean out of her bedroom into the one adjoining it, which was now prettily arranged as a sitting-room. Flowers were on the table, and a dainty little afternoon tea was awaiting her.
As they were sitting down to it, Mrs. Sykes's little girl appeared at the door.
"Please'm, a gentleman would like to see you."
Jean's white cheeks flushed crimson.
"If it is Charlie, I can't see him, Barbara. I don't feel well enough. Go down to him and tell him so. Don't let him come up. Be firm, for he is very obstinate."
"Yes, dear; don't be afraid. I shall not let any one come near you."
She remained away a long time. Jean began to wonder when she was coming back. But she came in at last, and her voice was very quiet and gentle as she said—
"It was not Mr. Oxton, dear, but Dr. Fergusson. I think if you could make up your mind to see him it would be a good thing, for he could tell you as a friend about your hand. It is not healing as fast as it should, and he would like to see it. He has come for the express purpose."
Jean was weak, and easily upset. She trembled all over.
"I can't see him, Barbara—not as a doctor—I couldn't; don't ask me to."
"Very well, dear. I won't ask him to look at your hand. See him as a friend. We will give him a cup of tea, and then you will be able to hear about little Sunnie."
Before she had time to make further objection, Dr. Fergusson was in the room.
When he took her hand in his, and asked in his quiet, grave manner how she was, Jean's throbbing pulses were strangely soothed and stilled.
"I am up in town for a few days, and my mother asked me to call and see you. Miss McTaggart has been telling me how ill you have been."
"I am better now," Jean faltered, looking round for Barbara. But Barbara had left the room.
Dr. Fergusson drew a chair up opposite her—
"You look like a shade or ghost of your former self," he said in his most cheerful tone. "Now I am going to take you in hand. Tell me what you have been doing with yourself."
There was a tone of masterfulness in his voice that Jean could not resist.
She obeyed him at once, and then, without asking her, he gently took hold of her bandaged hand, and began asking her various questions as he unbound it. She winced once or twice under his touch, but his presence gave her confidence, and he talked to her so professionally that she was soon at ease with him.
When Barbara came back, she found the doctor talking in his most genial tones, and Jean, lying back amongst her cushions, was smiling brightly at him.
She sat down and poured out tea, and Dr. Fergusson gave them as much Scotch news as they wished for.
"You would never have seen me, if it had not been for a letter your sister wrote to my mother," he said, addressing Barbara. "She mentioned your sudden departure for London and gave your address."
"I moved some time ago," said Jean.
"Yes," he replied, looking at her keenly; "but this isn't the right part of town for you to be living in. It is too far from your art classes. You should economise your strength and time, remember. What have you been painting?"
"A portrait that has been a failure," said Jean a little sadly; "and that picture over there. Would you like to see it? I should be so glad of your criticism. Barbara, will you uncover it?"
The canvas was drawn forward into the light, and Dr. Fergusson looked at it in silence.
The little child's figure was beautiful, and was the centre of the picture. His mother looked life-like in her yearning tenderness over her baby, but her figure as well as that of Eli's was partially unfinished.
"It is good work," pronounced Dr. Fergusson slowly. "I congratulate you on your subject."
"'Lent to the Lord' I think I shall call it," said Jean, looking at it wistfully.
"Happy child!"
Dr. Fergusson murmured the words. Barbara looked at him with interest.
"A good man," she thought, "and a clever one. I am glad to have seen him."
Then she covered the picture up and changed the subject of conversation, for her quick eyes noted Jean's downcast looks.
"Now," said Dr. Fergusson presently, "may I ask for paper and ink? I want to write a prescription for our patient, Miss McTaggart."
He sat down, and glanced more than once at Jean, as he wrote. Then he came over to her and held out his hand.
"I am going, but you will see me again to-morrow. I am ordering you a tonic, and a lotion for that hand. You are fortunate in having such a friend as Miss McTaggart to look after you."
"I am," said Jean, gratefully.
Dr. Fergusson still kept her hand in his whilst he talked, and Jean knew he was quietly feeling her pulse. When he went downstairs, he turned to Barbara, who was following him.
"You are right," he said in his quick, incisive tones. "She is half-starved and thoroughly below par. Has it been necessary for her to neglect herself so?"
"I am afraid it has," said Barbara. "I found her, as I told you, with absolutely nothing in the way of nourishment."
"Give her something every two hours. If we wish to prevent blood-poisoning setting in, she must be thoroughly well fed and strengthened. She has evidently had a slight attack of low fever from general debility. I will come in to-morrow afternoon. Is Mr. Oxton in town? I thought he would have looked after her interests better."
Barbara looked straight at him. Her quick woman's eyes had seen that this grave silent man was more than slightly interested in Jean.
"Mr. Oxton is only a distant cousin," she said.
"He did come down to us and sent me to her, but he is in a difficult position, for Jean will accept nothing from him, and I quite understand why it is that she cannot."
Dr. Fergusson raised his eyebrows.
"I tell you this in confidence," said Barbara, determining to make things clear. "He is very pertinacious, but Jean will have nothing to do with him. She likes him as a cousin, but nothing more, and she is not one to change her mind."
"I heard they were engaged," said Dr. Fergusson; and without another word he went straight out of the house.
Barbara went back to Jean, murmuring to herself, with a smile upon her lips, "It will all come right."
Jean was very quiet all that evening. She lay back in her chair, looking out into the London sky, and wondering how soon she would be able to be at work again.
The next morning, she assured Barbara that she was feeling almost well enough to go out.
Barbara laughed at her.
"When you are well enough, you shall come down to Kingsford Farm with me. That will be your first outing, I hope."
"It would be delicious," sighed Jean; "but I cannot do it, Barbara."
It was about three o'clock, when a ring at the door and a step on the stair caused Jean's colour to ebb and flow. Dr. Fergusson's previous visit had given her almost as much pain as pleasure. She now looked forward to meet him again with a mingled feeling of dread and delight. Though she had comparatively seen a great deal of him, his impenetrable reserve had always prevented great intimacy between them, and she found herself wondering now, if he was merely obeying his mother's wishes and coming to her entirely from a professional standpoint.
Another cause was making her nervous: she meant to come to a definite understanding about her injured hand.
Barbara, as usual, slipped out of the room, but Dr. Fergusson sat down and talked to her about ordinary things, until Jean began to think that she would not be able to get the information she wanted. At last, he came over to her and inspected her hand, and then with desperate earnestness Jean looked up at him.
"Dr. Fergusson, please tell me the truth. So much depends on it. When shall I be able to paint again?"
He did not answer for a minute; then he said slowly—
"I think your hand will have to have a six months' rest."
Her lips quivered and a blank look of dismay filled her face, but she did not speak, only drew herself up straighter in her chair.
He looked at her.
"Will that be difficult?"
His voice was very gentle. It might have been Sunnie he was addressing.
Jean thought of her circumstances. She had drawn her last cheque, and had no more money in the bank to fall back upon. She was now living upon Barbara's hard-earned nest-egg. Her pride was broken, but the future seemed impossible to her. Difficult? What could she say? How could she tell him that she was penniless? She struggled to control herself and looked up bravely, but his keen, searching eyes seemed to be reading her through and through, and there was a look upon his face that she had never seen before.
"It will—be more than difficult," she said brokenly.
It was no good. The tears would come, and a sob stopped further speech.
Then Dr. Fergusson bent forward and took her hand in his.
"Jean, will you let me make it easy for you? Don't cry! You have been such a brave little woman all this time. Will you let me have the right to look after you in the future? I have been long in speaking, but I thought—I was told—that some one else—"
It was a halting, nervous speech, but Dr. Fergusson's self-control and self-repression failed him for once. He only saw the girl he loved getting whiter and whiter in dumb misery, and tears dimming her expressive eyes. He had his arm round her now, and Jean's tears were literally wiped away for her.
For her glance gave consent, though she hardly realised as yet the great happiness that had come to her. She only knew that the night had gone and a dawn had begun that was going to last throughout eternity.
Barbara came into the room at last.
"I had a premonition of what would happen," she said, with a bright smile; "and as I don't know you very well, Dr. Fergusson, and I do know Jean, I congratulate you with all my heart."
"But I am to be congratulated most," said Jean, with some of her old spirit flashing out, as she gave the doctor a little shy glance, "for he will find me very disappointing, I am sure."
"I am going to carry her off to my mother's," Dr. Fergusson said, standing up, and looking down upon Jean with a proud sense of proprietorship. "We will see what a few months of Scotch air and feeding will do."
"Then, I shall not have the pleasure of taking her back with me," said Barbara.
Jean looked from one to the other with a little perplexity.
"Am I to have no voice at all?" she asked.
"None, until you are entirely convalescent," said Dr. Fergusson. Then, his decided tone softened, and he placed his hand lightly on her shoulder. "My mother wants you, and so do I. Don't you want to come?"
Jean's smile was sufficient answer.
Then Barbara and the doctor began making rapid arrangements, and before he left, it was settled that two days later Jean should start for Scotland.
"I feel quite bewildered," said Jean, when she and Barbara were left alone. "It has all come so suddenly and so unexpectedly; and I don't see my way clear even yet, Barbara. I cannot go on living on your money like this. I have just thought of my portrait. They really ought to give me something for it. I wonder if I could get them to take it at half-price. If only I had a little ready money of my own!"
"Oh, Jean," said Barbara, laughing, "you are hopelessly practical. If ever you could let your money affairs slide, I should think it would be to-day! But give me this Mrs. Alderman's address, and I will see what I can do."
Barbara was a clever woman. She went into the city the next day and interviewed the alderman's wife. A little pressure and a threat to sell her portrait to a second-hand dealer, and she gave in, writing Barbara a cheque for the stipulated amount before she left the house.
"It was an unpleasant business," admitted Barbara, "but a profitable one."
And Jean's cares seemed to melt away with this sum in hand.
When the doctor came to see her again, he was surprised at the rapid progress she had made.
"My mother will not believe that you are an invalid, if you go on like this," he said. And then he and Jean plunged into a long talk, which was delightful only to themselves.
"I am a little shy of you still," said Jean, laying her hand lightly on his coat sleeve. "You have always been so grave and silent to me, that I feel I don't properly know you."
"Are you afraid of my unknown qualities?" the doctor asked, imprisoning her hand in his, and looking at her with his old humorous twinkle in his eyes.
She looked up at him sweetly.
"'Perfect love casteth out fear,'" she said. "I used long ago to pride myself upon my strength of will and purpose. I gloried in standing alone, but I have come to see that dependence is sweeter. I somehow think I have made a mess of my life, and now I am going to put the fragments of it into your keeping, and never have an anxious thought again of what I am to do and how I am to do it."
"But that is deepening my responsibility."
"You are strong enough to bear it."
He shook his head.
"We are both subjects of a King, Jean, whose wishes must come first. You owe an allegiance to Him as well as I. I cannot relieve you of your individual responsibility in the King's service."
"But you can share it," said Jean quickly.
His face brightened.
"Yes, I can do that."
"God's claim will come first with us," said Jean. "I would not have it otherwise. He has led me every step of the way, and I would not have one step altered. But He led you to me, and—"
"And I will never relinquish the charge of you, till He takes you from me," he said tenderly and solemnly.
On the morning before she started for Scotland, Jean received the following letter:—
"DEAR COZ,—Don't expect me to congratulate you! If I'm not a despairing, ruined, heart-broken man, it isn't your fault. I always had my suspicions that I had a rival. Now, honestly, do you think that grim, long-legged doctor will make you as happy as I should? But I won't reproach you. He played his cards better than I did, and got near you when I could not, and took advantage of your weakness when I was at a distance. I was lacking in perseverance, or I know I should have won the day. However, I'll play the part of a hero, give you my blessing, and retire into private life for a bit. I'm afraid the shade of your grandfather will visit you.""I shall look to Rawlings for comfort. He will say, 'I allays knewed Lunnon would change Miss Jean for the worse. An' if she do prefer a Scotch barbarian to her own kith and kin, and take to porride and broth instead of English beef and puddin', why 'tis Lunnon that have twisted and perverted her head and her heart!'""Yours reproachfully,""CHARLIE.""Chris sends love. She is a jewel!"
"I don't think Charlie knows what real love is," Jean mused as she finished reading this epistle. "How I wish he would marry Chris!"
THEIR FUTURE
"Come, my beloved! we will haste and goTo those pale faces of our fellow-men!Our loving hearts, burning with summer fire,Will cast a glow upon their pallidness;Our hands will help them, far as servants may;Hands are apostles still to saviour hearts,So we may share their blessedness with them."—MacDonald.
IT was a bright, frosty day, the latter end of February, when Dr. Fergusson and Jean paid their first visit together to Sunnie and her mother.
As Jean entered the familiar hall, and her eyes wandered to the family pictures and the race of Margarets, she gave a little start as she recognised Sunnie's picture amongst them.
"A framed sunbeam," said Dr. Fergusson, following her looks. "You will never paint a more successful picture, Jean."
Then they went up the stairs to the old nursery. Jean wondered if she were dreaming; everything seemed exactly the same. She almost expected when the door was opened to see the little golden-haired figure on the couch in the firelight, but instead, she saw Mrs. Gordon in a low chair by the fire and Sunnie sitting on the rug with her head resting against her mother's knee.
The child was on her feet in an instant, and with a joyous cry, started forward and precipitated herself into Jean's arms.
"My painter has come at last!"
Mrs. Gordon welcomed Jean affectionately.
"Sunnie has done nothing but talk of you ever since we heard the news. We hoped you might come over this afternoon, but were not sure."
"Now," announced Sunnie, "we will all sit round the fire and have a talk like we used to do; but may I place the chairs, mother?"
Assent was given. It seemed strange to Jean to watch the child's active movements. She looked White and fragile still, and seemed taller than when she had lain on her couch, but her cloud of soft hair floated over her shoulders in the old bewitching way, and her little expressive face had lost none of its fascinating sweetness and joyousness.
"The big cushioned chair for my painter, for then she can take me on her knee, and mother will be in her own chair on one side of her to talk to her, and Cousin Leslie will have his own lounge seat on the other side of her, and we'll all be as close together as ever we can manage, for we all love each other so, don't we! And this is my party, for mother said it was."
"I think I am the favoured one," said Jean as, after settling every one to her satisfaction, Sunnie climbed into her lap. "I don't think I have ever held you in my arms before."
"She is not very heavy, is she?" said her mother, looking at her child rather wistfully as she spoke.
"Leslie, what do you think of her?"
"She is first rate," he replied cheerfully. "Perhaps she ought to be fattened up a bit, but you must expect her running about to take it out of her a little."
"I do run about, don't I, mother?" Sunnie put in, "but my days now are like the days in heaven."
Then she put her arms round Jean's neck and drew her face down to kiss.
"I'm going to call you Cousin Jean now. Do you remember I dreamt long ago, soon after you came to paint my picture, that you and Cousin Leslie, were holding hands and running away from me? You won't do that, will you? I'm so excited about it. When will you be married, and where will you live? Close to us, won't you? And then I can come and have tea with you sometimes. Cousin Leslie, do go to the piano and play all about it, and play the wedding-bells ringing? Please do!"
She was off Jean's lap and by Dr. Fergusson's side in a second. Jean's face got crimson, but Dr. Fergusson, with a little laugh, went over to the piano. He dashed into a merry chime of bells, and then drifted into the Wedding March, which delighted Sunnie and rather embarrassed Jean. Then he got up, and placed his hand lightly on Jean's shoulder.
"I hope that day will not be far off," he said.
She looked up at him with a smile, but could not speak, and then Mrs. Gordon carried her cousin off, leaving Sunnie with Jean alone.
"I know you will excuse us," Mrs. Gordon said, "but I do want to talk a little business with Leslie; I shall not keep him long."
They went, and Sunnie returned to Jean's lap.
"Now we'll be properly cosy. Isn't it a wonderful thing about my legs?"
She stretched her tiny tan-stockinged legs out admiringly.
"They hardly ache at all, nor more does my back, and I walk and run miles and miles every day. And, Cousin Jean, I've made a present of my legs to God. I tell Him to make them do just what He would want them to do, if they were in heaven! And then I think Jesus leads me about, and it is so lovely, and I've been to see three sick people in the village, a man who has a cough and a woman who has a bad leg, and a boy who is very ill and is going to heaven very soon. And mother lets me carry them things, soup and jelly, and puddings, and my legs do love it so!"
"And when I'm out of doors, and the sun shines, and the birds sing, and the flowers smell, I wonder if I'm in heaven after all. It is so like what I used to make up to myself about heaven. But do you know, Cousin Jean, I'm sorry for one poor thing! It's my old sofa. He looks so dull and lonely without me, I'm afraid his heart must be nearly broken. He always had me with him, and we used to go for such lovely rides together. He seems to look at me and say, 'You're forgetting your old friend'; and then sometimes I go and cuddle him, and tell him how lovely it is in the world outside the windows. And I ask nurse to leave him to me to dust every morning; he likes me to fuss over him, I'm sure he does!"
Jean looked across at the old sofa and smiled.
"But I expect you haven't quite done with him yet, Sunnie. Don't you sometimes lie down on him?"
"Oh yes, but I don't live on him, as I used to do," Sunnie replied.
She chatted on in her quaint sweet fashion, and Jean was almost sorry when Mrs. Gordon and Dr. Fergusson returned.
When they were saying goodbye, Sunnie looked up into Dr. Fergusson's face rather wistfully.
"I should like to give both of you my blessing, but I'm not on my sofa now—"
Jean smiled.
"Can't you give it off the sofa, Sunnie? I should dearly like to have it."
Sunnie climbed into a high chair.
"Will you bend your heads prop'ly?"
Dr. Fergusson put his arm lightly round Jean, and both heads were bowed before the little maiden. She gravely put her hand on each head and shut her eyes devoutly.
"God bless my dear two cousins, and keep them good and happy, and marry them quick, and make their house like heaven. For Jesu's sake. Amen."
Jean had tears in her eyes as she clasped the child in her arms.
"Sunnie," she whispered, "I have to thank you for making me wish to be good. It was the first step to happiness with me."
And then they went away.
That same evening, Jean and Dr. Fergusson were having a tête-à-tête over the drawing-room fire. Mrs. Fergusson was confined to her room with a bad cold.
"Poor little Sunnie!" Jean said. "I can't bear to think she will grow up and be disillusioned."
"Why should she be?"
"Oh, she must. She thinks every one is sincere and good, and all the world as it should be. I hope her faith will stand the shocks it is bound to have."
"Sunnie is in the care of One who loves her, the One who has power enough to keep her from the evil in the world."
"Yes."
There was a pause; then Dr. Fergusson leant forward, and put his hand on Jean's arm.
"Jean, my child, I want to unburden myself to you. I want your help."
"I will give it," Jean replied simply, but the deep devotion in her eyes told more than her words.
Dr. Fergusson drew a long breath.
"Will you be willing to cast your lot in with mine wherever I may be led?"
"Yes; as long as I am with you, nothing else matters."
"Listen, Jean. For years, I have been longing for a fuller sphere of work. A doctor has some opportunities, but they are few and far between. A sick-bed and agonies of pain are not conducive to listening to the Master's message. I have longed to go out like the early apostles did, to preach and teach the gospel of the kingdom. For years, I have believed that God intends I shall do so, but I have not seen my way. Even that tiny Sunnie, when she was tied to her sofa, held me with an iron hand from attempting a change of work. How could I leave her, when I knew she depended on me for cheer and comfort and guidance? Now she and her mother are one, she has more interests in her life, and she can stand alone. She does not need me. I have been thinking deeply of the cry abroad for medical missionaries. We sit at home and say people ought to go; thousands are still unreached, unfed, unsatisfied. Will you come with me?"
He stopped abruptly. Jean was conscious of a distinct shock.
"Missionaries," she said doubtfully, "always seem to me rather uninteresting. Why do people look down upon them so? They do."
"Does our Master? Are His ambassadors nothing to Him? Have we to live as the world would have us, or as Christ would?"
The colour deepened in Jean's cheeks.
"I feel at the present moment that I would go anywhere with you, Leslie. You can be certain of me joining you in anything that you undertake, for I know you must be in the right."
"But you do not feel drawn to mission work abroad?"
Jean clasped her hands round her knees, and gazed thoughtfully into the fire.
"I'm such a beginner," she said at last, "that I hardly know. I'm trying to imagine myself being told to go without you, Leslie. I think if it was God's will for me, I should do it, of course. But I should require very definite assurance about it."
"If we love our Master, His last words ought to have weight with us."
"What were they?"
"I shall leave you to find out," Dr. Fergusson said, with one of his rare smiles. "But, Jean, if your desire is to do God's will, so is mine, and I am not afraid of the result. My mother will be against the plan, I am afraid, but if you and I are of one mind, we shall gain her consent before long."
When Jean went to bed that night, she turned over the leaves of her Bible and read the last chapter of each of the four Gospels and the first opening verses of the Acts. Then she sat over her fire, deep in thought. She began to see that her religion was a very selfish one, if she had no desire to communicate it to others, that she was a poor follower of the One who lived to influence and help those around Him.
And it was not strange with such thoughts, that she should have a dream, the vividness and reality of which woke her up in the early hours of the morning, and prevented all further sleep from visiting her.
When she came down to breakfast, her face attracted Dr. Fergusson's attention at once. They were alone together, as Mrs. Fergusson was breakfasting in her room.
"What is the matter, Jean? You look big with thought."
"So I am. I am longing to talk to you and tell you a dream I had."
Dr. Fergusson smiled.
"You are such a practical young person generally, that I am surprised you have any dreams."
Jean laughed lightly.
"Don't say I have no imagination. I am sure I have that."
"Would you like to drive out with me this morning? I have to go to a rather pretty village about eight miles out?"
"I should love it. My dream will keep. I will run up to Mrs. Fergusson, and tell her I am going."
A little later, when they were driving swiftly along in Dr. Fergusson's high dog-cart, Jean told her dream.
"I thought I was seeing a ship off. You were in it, and I was trying to get to you, but I couldn't, and some one behind me kept saying, 'Only willing and cheerful workers go abroad; you are neither, in your heart!' And then a great darkness fell over me, and everything—God Himself, and hopes of heaven, and forgiveness for my past sins—all melted away, and the same voice said, 'Your religion, your Christianity, has been taken away from you. You didn't make proper use of it.' I tell you, Leslie, it was awful! I felt almost as if I were in hell, there seemed no light, no hope, and I had lost God! That seemed the most awful thing of all. I felt that there was no future, and my soul was in abject despair. I couldn't pray; I tried to find my Bible, but I found it was gone; I rushed about trying to find good people, a church, a clergyman, any one or anything that would help me, but every one I met was like myself, and at last some one said to me, 'You are a heathen like ourselves. We don't know anything about God or heaven!' Then I woke up, the tears were streaming down my face, and oh, I can't tell you the blessing it was to find it was only a dream!"
Dr. Fergusson was silent, but he looked down upon her very tenderly. Jean went on rather impulsively: "My dream has finished what you began, Leslie. I feel I have experienced what it is to be a heathen! And oh, what they miss! I am longing, burning, to go and tell them of the love and goodness and mercy of God, to bring sunshine into that awful darkness of soul, to tell them the story of the Cross, and all that it brought to us, and Christ's keeping as well as saving power. I never knew what a glorious thing it is to be a Christian, till it seemed to be all swept away from me last night!"
"I read the passages that gave Christ's last words, and I was convinced in my head before I went to sleep that every Christian ought to be a messenger or a witness, but when I woke this morning, my heart was convinced as well as my head. Leslie, you need not be afraid that I will hang back now. I believe God has shown me Himself what He would have me do."
"I believe He has," Dr. Fergusson said, thoughtfully. "I am not one who says no one can witness at home, Jean. I would not forget the words, 'beginning at Jerusalem,' but there are always those who, from health or circumstances, are unfitted for the foreign field. It has been the dream of my life to go. My mother has hitherto held me back."
"And will she be willing now?"
"I think she will not miss me so much. I daresay you know Meta Worth and my brother are going to marry shortly. My mother wishes them to come and live here with her, and they seem to like the idea of it. I shall be quite easy in my own mind about leaving her, and if you are willing, I shall offer myself at once for foreign work."
Jean laid her hand caressingly on his arm.
"I think, Leslie, if you said you were going to sweep a crossing in London, I would buy a broom and shoulder it joyfully after you!"
Dr. Fergusson smiled down at her.
"I should not like to think that was your only motive for following me out to the mission field."
"No," said Jean, an earnest look succeeding the mirthful one in her eyes. "I shall gladly follow the Master's servant because I love him, but I also love the message he takes, and above all, I love the Master from whom it comes. And, Leslie, we will not be melancholy missionaries. It is a message of good tidings. We will think of the verse—
"'The desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall befound therein; thanksgiving and the voice of melody.'"