A Letter of Credit Part 101

"What did you do with your Sundays?"

"Spent them alone with my Bible. And often they were very, very pleasant; though I found it difficult to keep up such study all alone, through the long days."

"I must not let you stand here any longer! Will you be ready for me at eleven o'clock to-morrow?"

"Yes. There is no difficulty in that."

"Then I will be here at eleven. Good bye!"

He gave her his hand, looked at her a little steadily, but Rotha could not tell what he was thinking of; then as he let go her hand he lifted his hat and turned away.

A flush of colour came over Rotha's face, and she was glad to turn too; to hide it. Walking up to the house, she tried to think what Mr.

Southwode meant by that last gesture. She was half pleased, and half not pleased. It was the manner of a gentleman to a stranger; she was no stranger. But it was also the manner of a gentleman towards a lady. Did he recognize her then for one? for a grown-up woman? a child no longer?

and was he going to take on distance in his behaviour to her? She did not like the idea. That thought however, and all thoughts, soon merged in a feeling of exceeding joy. In the surprise and strangeness of the first meeting, Rotha had hardly had time to know how she felt; no Aurora Borealis is more splendid than the rosy rays of light which began now to stream up into her sky. She knew and began to realize that she was overwhelmingly happy. There were questions unsolved and not easy to solve; there were uncertainties and perplexities in her future; she half discerned that; but she could not give attention to it, in the present she was so exceedingly glad. And she need not; for did not Mr. Digby always know what to do with perplexities? She belonged to him again, and he, not her aunt any more, had the disposal of her; it was the old time come back. She was no longer alone and forlorn; no longer divided from her best friend; what of very hard or very evil could come to her now?

She felt she was too much excited to bear the sight of Mrs. Purcell just yet; she turned into the old garden to gather some pears. For the last time! It rang in Rotha's heart like a peal of bells. The glint of the October sun, warm and mellow on yellow leaves and on leaves yet green, on tree branches and even garden palings, was like a reflection from the inner sunshine which even so shone upon everything. The world had not looked so when she came out of the house that afternoon; everything was changed. No more under the dominion of her aunt Busby! how Rotha's heart leapt at the thought. No longer to be shut up here with the two Purcell people, and having an indefinite prospect of dull isolation and hopeless imprisonment before her. What was before _her_, Rotha did not indeed know; only Mr. Digby was in it, and that was enough, and security for all the rest.

She was thinking this, when it suddenly occurred to her, that she had known all along that the love and power of a heavenly friend had been in her future; and yet the knowledge had never given her the rest and the content that the certainty of the human friend gave. Rotha stopped picking pears and stood still, sorry and ashamed. It was true; she could not deny it; and it grieved her. So this was all her faith amounted to, her faith in the Friend who is better and surer immeasurably than all other friends! She could trust Mr. Digby with a trust that made her absolutely careless and happy; she could not trust Christ so. It grieved Rotha keenly; it made her ashamed with a genuine and wholesome shame; but the fact stood.

CHAPTER XXIX.

PERPLEXITIES.

She went in with a lapful of pears. By the way she had made up her mind not to speak of what had happened. She had been considering. Joe and Prissy were certainly kind to her, and kindly disposed; yet, what had become of her letters? They had all been intrusted to Mr. Purcell, to mail or have mailed in Tanfield. Did that fact stand in connection with the other fact, that no answers ever came? It was plain now that Mrs.

Busby had been playing a deep game; plain that it had been her purpose to keep Rotha hidden away at least from one person. Rotha was the least in.

the world of a suspicious nature; nevertheless she felt uncertain what course Joe and Prissy might see fit to take if they knew of what was planning; she resolved they should not know. If only they had not seen Mr. Southwode already! he _would_ stand so in sight of the house. But Prissy looked very unsuspicious.

"Well, I do think!" she began. "I should say, you wanted some pears. What ever did you s'pose was goin' to be done with 'em?"

"Eat them!" said Rotha cheerily, emptying her ap.r.o.nful upon the table.

"The boards is just scoured! And them aint the kind."

"The kind for what? They are ripe, are they not?"

"Ripe enough for doin' up. I can make pear honey of 'em. They'd ha' been good done with mola.s.ses, if I'd ha' had 'em in time. You can't do nothin'

with 'em as they be. They'd draw your mouth all up."

Rotha looked at her pears and laughed. "Shews how much I know!" she said.

"Folks as lives in the City o' Pride don't know much o' things!" remarked Prissy.

"The City of Pride. Why do you call New York that?"

"Aint it?"

"I do not know that there is more pride there than in other places. Pride is in people--not in the places where people live. I think _you_ are pretty proud, Prissy."

"That's all us has got to keep us up," rejoined Mrs. Purcell. "Do you think pride's wrong?"

"Yes, and so do you, if you believe your little book up there on the mantelpiece."

"What's in it about pride?" inquired Prissy quickly.

"Do you not recollect? The Lord said, 'How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another.' Here it is." She took the little volume from the mantel shelf and found the place. Prissy looked at it.

"What's the harm?" she said.

"Never mind, if you don't understand. The Lord said it; and he knows."

"What's come to you?" Prissy asked suddenly. "You're twice as much of a girl as you was this mornin'."

"Am I?"

"Somethin's done you a heap o' good. Your face is fired up; and your eyes is two colours, and there's somethin' shinin' out o' 'em."

"I do feel better," said Rotha soberly. And after that she was careful to be sober as long as supper lasted.

When she went up to her room she sat down to think at leisure. The light was fading out of the depths of the tulip tree; the stars were twinkling in the dark blue; the still air was a little frosty. Yes, the year had sped on a good part of its course, since that May evening when Rotha had first made friends with the big tulip tree. Near five months ago it was, and now the days were growing short again. O was it possible that her release had come? And not the release she had hoped for, but this? so much better! Only five months; and her little imprisonment was ended, and its lessons all--_were_ they all--learned? With her heart filling and swelling, Rotha sat by her window and thought everything over, one thing after another. She had trusted; she might have trusted better!

Her aunt's sending her to this place had separated her from nothing, not even from Mr. Digby. Here he was, and had her again under his protection; and it was _he_ henceforth who would say what she should do and where she should go. Not Mrs. Busby henceforth. Rotha's heart thrilled and throbbed with inexpressible joy. Not without queer other thrills also, of what might be described as an instinct of scruple; a certain inner consciousness that in this condition of things there was somewhat anomalous and difficult to adjust. Yet I am by no means sure that this consciousness did in any wise abate the joy. Rotha went over now in imagination all her interview with Mr. Southwode; recalled all he said, and remembered how he looked at each turn of the conversation. And the more she mused, the more her heart bounded. Till at last she recollected that there was something else to be' done before eleven o'clock to- morrow; and she went from reverie to very busy activity.

It was all done, all she had to do, before breakfast time next day. After breakfast Rotha was in great doubt how to manage. If she dressed for her departure, Mr. and Mrs. Purcell would find out that something was going to happen, and perhaps try to hinder it. If she waited in her room until called for, she did not know but they would deny her being in the house at all and bar access to her. Doubtless Mr. Digby would not be permanently barred out, or thwarted in what he meant to do; but Rotha could not endure the thought of delay or disappointment. She would have gone out to meet him; but she was no longer a child, and a feeling of maidenly reserve forbade her. She made everything ready; knew she could change her dress in five minutes; and went down to the kitchen about ten o'clock; she could not stay any longer away from the scene of action. She took a knife and helped Mrs. Purcell pare the pears for stewing.

"You have been very kind to me, Prissy," she said, after some time of busy silence.

"'Cause I warnt no more put out about the pears, you mean? Well, I'll tell you. I was fit to bite a tenpenny nail off, when I see you come in with that lapful last night. But I knowed you didn't know no better. If Joe warn't so set I'd make him pick the pears; but he always says and sticks to it, the fruits o' the earth what grows on trees aint no good.

He'll eat 'em fast enough, I tells him, and so he will; as long as I'll stand to cook 'em; but he won't lift never a hand to get 'em off the trees. No thin' but corn and oats, and them things, is work for a man, he thinks."

"Unreasonable--" said Rotha.

"When isn't men unreasonable?--What do you want, sir? This aint the front o' the house."

And Rotha came round with a start, for there, at the door of the kitchen, at the top of the steps leading up from the scullery, stood Mr.

Southwode; and Prissy's question had been put with a strong displeased emphasis.

"I know it," said the intruder in answer, "and I beg your pardon; but-- Does anybody live at the front of the house?

"Them as tries, finds out," said Mrs. Purcell, with a fierce knitting of her brows.

"That is also true, as I have learned by experience. I found that n.o.body lived there."

"Who did you think lived there? Who do you want?" asked Prissy, ungrammatically, but pointedly.

"Am I speaking to Mrs. Purcell?" And then the new-comer smiled at Rotha and shook hands with her.