A Princess in Calico Part 5

_Chapter VII_

A GREAT SURRENDER

The beautiful summer had slipped away and the glory of October was over the land. Pauline had crossed the borders and plunged, with all the zest of her thirsty soul, into the fair world of knowledge which lay stretched at her feet. Her three months of conscientious study had been of great service as a preparatory training, and already more than one of the professors had complimented her on her breadth of view, and the rapidity with which she was able to grasp an idea.

A subtle sense of power stole over her. Every part of her being seemed to expand In the congenial atmosphere. A brilliant future seemed opening before her enraptured gaze. The world should be the better for her life. G.o.d had endowed her with gifts. She would lay them at His feet. She would devote herself to the up-lifting of others. She would strive to lift them from the torpor of their common-place into a higher life. Life was magnificent! Poor Tryphosa, in her narrow sphere of pain, how could she be so happy!

Belle hurried along the hall and stopped at the door of the blue-draped chamber.

'My dear Paul, do you know we are all waiting? What have you been doing?

If I could only get a snapshot at you now I should call it "The Intoxication of Success." You would make a splendid Jeanne d'Arc, with the light of high and holy purpose in her eyes; but as this is the last Sat.u.r.day in the year that we shall have the chance of a ride to Forest Glen and home by moonlight, I move that we postpone our rhapsodies until a more convenient season. The boys are waiting below with the horses, and the servants started long ago with the hampers. Even Gwen has been wooed by the beauty of the morning to accompany us, though I think there are about a dozen meetings on her calendar. Here is a letter for you, but you have no time to read it now.'

'Have I kept you? Oh, I am sorry!' and catching up her silver-mounted riding whip Pauline threw her habit over her arm, and ran down to where Richard Everidge held the handsome bay mare which had been her uncle's gift. The letter she had tossed lightly on the table. It was from her father, but it would keep. There was never any news at Sleepy Hollow.

Aunt Rutha watched the merry party as they cantered off.

'How well Pauline looks in the saddle. We have been very fortunate in our adopted daughter, Robert.'

'Yes, she is a sweet girl, and her pa.s.sion for knowledge is just the incentive that our lazy little Belle needs. I only hope her father will never take it into his head to claim her again. She is a blessing in the house.'

On and on the riders travelled, through the exhilarating autumn air, until they stopped for lunch on the borders of a forest which Jack Frost had set ablaze, and which glowed in the sunshine with a dazzling splendour of crimson and bronze and gold. The hours flew by, and when they started homewards the sun was sinking in majestic glory, while on the opposite horizon the moon rose, silver clear. Pauline's every nerve quivered with delight. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day.

When she went up to her room that night her eye fell on the forgotten letter. She opened it slowly with a smile on her lips. Suddenly the smile faded, and a cold chill crept into her heart.

'It has been such a happy day,' she had told Aunt Rutha, as, after the merry supper was over, she had stood by her side in the soft-lighted library. 'Such a happy day, without a flaw!' And now already it seemed to be fading into the dim, dim past! And yet it was only a few hours since Richard Everidge had climbed lightly up after the spray of brilliant leaves which she had admired, and she had pinned them against the dark background of her riding habit; even now they were before her on the table. She looked at them with a dull sense of pain.

'Mother has had a stroke of some sort,' Mr Harding wrote, 'the doctor doesn't seem to know rightly what. She is somewhat better, but she can't leave her bed. The children are well, except Polly, who seems weakly.

The doctor thinks her spine has been hurt. Mother had her in her arms when she fell.'

Pauline shivered. Was this G.o.d's 'best' for her? The letter dropped from her hand, and she sat for hours motionless, her eyes taking in every detail of the pretty moonlit room, until it was indelibly engraved upon her memory.

When the morning came she took the letter to Tryphosa. She could not trust herself to tell the others yet.

The eyes that looked up at her from the open sheet were very tender.

'Dear child, are you satisfied?'

'With what, my lady?'

'With Christ, and the life He has planned for you?'

She hesitated. If it had been this other life that she had been planning for herself only the day before, how gladly she would have answered: but, if it should be Sleepy Hollow, could she say yes?

With her keen intuition, which had been sharpened by pain, Tryphosa divined her thought.

'I am going to give you a new beat.i.tude,' she said, brightly. 'Blessed be drudgery, for it is the grey angel of success.'

'That is a hard gospel, my lady.'

'Perhaps, but ease and victory are for ever incompatible. The Father loved the Son, yet He surrendered Him to a life of toil, and Christ Himself gave His chosen ones the heritage of tribulation, crowned with the sweet, bright gift of peace. It is the tried lives that ring the truest. The idea runs all through the Bible. "Silver purified seven times," and "gold tried in the fire," and "polished after the similitude of a palace." Have you ever thought of the friction that involves? The finest diamonds bear the most cutting, and it is the mission of the diamond to reflect the light. If we would have our lives a success, we must seek not happiness but harmony.'

'Harmony! With what, my lady?'

'The will of G.o.d, dear child. We are out of tune when G.o.d finds us. He puts us in tune with our great keynote Jesus, and then we are like an aeolian harp. The west and the east winds make music through it, and the shrieking storm the sweetest music of all. But remember, little one, it is the "joy of the Lord" which is our strength. We must sit in the sunshine if we would reflect the rainbow.'

That night Pauline spent upon her knees.

'It is ridiculous,' exclaimed Mr Davis, when, the next morning, she announced her decision to the family. 'I will send a nurse down by the early train, but it is not fit work for you, my child, and besides we cannot spare you.'

Her eyes filled.

'It is so good of you to say that! But my Father has called me, and I must go.'

'He does not say anything about your going in the letter,' said Mr Davis, as he ran his eyes over the words.

'I mean my heavenly Father, Uncle Robert.' she said simply. 'The message came last night.'

After that they could not shake her, although Belle hung about her tearfully. Russell and Gwen protested, Aunt Rutha looked at her with sorrowful eyes, and Mr Davis repeated that the very idea was absurd, as he paced up and down with a strange huskiness in his throat.

'I have come to say good-bye, my lady.'

Tryphosa looked wistfully at the brave, sweet face, which she knew she would see no more.

'So soon, dear child?'

'I have given Christ the key, as you said, and now I am under orders.'

'Well, I knew it would come. It is only that we must travel by different roads. We shall meet at the end of the journey.'

'But you never told me that my way to the kingdom lay through Sleepy Hollow!'

'Surely not, dear child! It is not for me to do the work of the Holy Spirit. I knew you would hear His voice speaking to you from out the shadows by-and-by.'

Pauline sighed.

'I have so longed for culture, my lady, and now I must put it by.'

'I am going to quote again. "Blessed be drudgery, the secret of all culture." Some one has said: "Latin and Greek, and music and art, and travel, are the decorations of life, but industry and perseverance, courage before difficulties, and cheer under straining burdens, self-control and self-denial are the indispensables. It is our daily task that mainly educates us, and the humblest woman may live splendidly." And remember, dear child, a life like Christ's is the grandest thing in the world. Angels may well envy us the opportunity of living it, for G.o.d Himself has lived it in Christ and rejoices to live it again in each of us. We should glory in the thought that our King allows us to be the mirror in which the world may see Jesus. May the Lord keep you as one of His "hidden ones," my darling, and make you to realise that He who "holdeth the height of the hills," spreads the hush of His presence over the valleys.'

Then she drew her close in a long, last farewell.