Emilie the Peacemaker Part 2

"Who says we are going to let them off on Mr. Crosse's premises?" said Fred, fiercely. "You are very interfering Miss Schomberg, will you go back to your our own business, and to little Edith."

"I will go to L----, master Fred," said Emilie, firmly, but kindly. "I shall be sorry to get you into trouble, and I would rather not take the walk, but I shall certainly do what I say if you persist."

The boys looked doubtfully at one another. Fred seemed a little disposed to yield, but to be conquered by his sister's governess was very humiliating. However, they knew from Edith's account that Emilie, though kind, was firm; and, therefore, after a little further altercation, they agreed not to send up the fire-works that night, but they promised her at the same time that she should not hear the last of it. They returned to the farm much out of humour, and having hidden them in the box of the pony gig, came in just in time for supper.

The ride home was a silent one; Edith saw that her brothers were put out, and began to think she did not like Emilie Schomberg to live with at all. Emilie had done right, but she had a hard battle to fight; all were against her. No one likes to be contradicted, or as Fred said, to be managed. Emilie, however, went steadily on, speaking the truth, but speaking it in love, and acting always "as seeing Him who is invisible."

CHAPTER FIFTH.

EDITH'S TRIALS.

"Now, Emilie, what do you think of my life?" said Edith, one day after she and Fred had had one of their usual squabbles. "What do you think of Fred _now_?"

"I think, Edith, dear, that I would try and win him over to love and affection, and not thwart and irritate him as you do. Have you forgotten old Joe's maxim, 'a soft answer turneth away wrath?' but your grievous words too often stir up strife. You told me the other day, dear, how much the conduct of Sarah Murray pleased you; now you may act towards John and Fred as Sarah did to little Susy."

Edith shook her head. "It is not in me, Emilie, I am afraid."

"No, dear," said Emilie, "you are right, it is not _in_ you."

"Well then what is the use of telling me to do things impossible?"

"I did not say impossible, Edith, did I?"

"No, but you say it is not in me to be gentle and all that, and I dare say it is not; but you don't get much the better thought of, gentle as you are. Miss Schomberg. John and Fred don't behave better to you than they do to me, so far as I see."

"Edith, dear, you set out wrong in your attempts to do right," said Emily, kindly. "It is not _in_ you; it is not _in_ any one by nature to be always gentle and kind. It is not in me I know. I was once a very petulant child, being an only one, and it was but by very slow process that I learned to govern myself, and I am learning it still."

At this moment Fred came in, bearing in one hand a quant.i.ty of paper, and in another a book with directions for balloon making. "Now Edith, you are a clever young lady," he began.

"Oh, yes," said Edith, wrathfully, "When it suits you, you can flatter."

"No, but Edith, don't be cross, come! I want you to do me a service. I want you to cut me out this tissue paper into the shape of this pattern. I am going to send up a balloon to-morrow, and I can't cut it out, will you do it for me?"

"Yes, yes," said Emilie, "we will do it together. Oh, come that is a nice job, Edith dear, I can help you in that," and Emilie cleared away her own work quick as thought, and asked Fred for particular directions how it was to be done, all this time trying to hide Edith's unwillingness to oblige her brother, and making it appear that Edith and she were of one mind to help him.

Fred, who since the fire-work affair had treated Emilie somewhat rudely, and had on many occasions annoyed her considerably, looked in astonishment at Miss Schomberg. She saw his surprise and understood it.

"Fred," said she frankly, "I know what you are thinking of, but let us be friends. Give me the gratification of helping you to this pleasure, since I hindered you of the other. You won't be too proud, will you, to have my help?"

Fred coloured. "Miss Schomberg," said he, "I don't deserve it of you, I beg your pardon;" and thus they were reconciled.

Oh, it is not often in great things that we are called upon to show that we love our neighbour as ourselves. It is in the daily, hourly, exercise of little domestic virtues, that they who truly love G.o.d may be distinguished from those who love him not. It was not because Emilie was naturally amiable or naturally good that she was thus able to show this loving and forgiving spirit. She loved G.o.d, and love to him actuated her; she thus adorned the doctrine of her Saviour in all things. Young reader there is no such thing as a religion of words and feelings alone, it must be a religion of _acts_; a life of warfare against the sins that most easily beset you; a mortification of selfishness and pride, and a humble acknowledgment, when you have done your _very best_, that you are only unprofitable servants. Had you heard Emilie communing with her own heart, you would have heard no self gratulation. She was far from perfect even in the sight of man; in the sight of G.o.d she knew that in many things she offended.

It is not a perfect character that I would present to you in Emilie Schomberg; but one who with all the weakness and imperfection of human nature, made the will of G.o.d her rule and delight. This is not natural, it is the habit of mind of those only who are created anew, new creatures in Christ Jesus.

This you may be sure Emilie did not fail to teach her pupil; but a great many such lessons may be received into the head without one finding an entrance to the heart, and Edith was in the not very uncommon habit of looking on her faults in the light of misfortunes, just as any one might regard a deformed limb or a painful disorder. She was, indeed, too much accustomed to talk of her faults, and was a great deal too easy about them.

"My dear," Emilie would say after her confessions, "I do not believe you see how sinful these things are, or surely you would not so very, very, often commit them." This was the real state of the case; and it may be said of all those who are in the habit of mere confessions, that they do not believe things to be so very bad, because they do not understand how very good and holy is the G.o.d against whom they sin. Edith had this to learn; books could not teach her this. She who taught her all else so well, could not teach her this; it was to be learned from a higher source still.

Well, you are thinking, some of you, that this is a prosy chapter, but you must not skip it. It is just what Emily Schomberg would have said to you, if you had been pupils of hers. The end of reading is not, or ought not to be, mere amus.e.m.e.nt; so read a grave page now and then with attention and thoughtfulness.

CHAPTER SIXTH.

EMILIE'S TRIALS.

The truth must be told of Emilie; she was not clever with her hands, and she was, nevertheless, a little too confident in her power of execution, so willing and anxious was she to serve you. The directions Fred gave her were far from clear; and after the paper was all cut and was to be pasted together, sorrowful to say, it would not do at all. Fred, in spite of his late apology was very angry, and seizing the scissors said he should know better another time than to ask Miss Schomberg to do what she did not understand. "You have wasted my paper, too," said the boy, "and my time in waiting for what I could better have done myself."

Emilie was very sorry, and she said so; but a balloon could not exactly be made out of her sorrow, and nothing short of a balloon would pacify Fred, that was plain. "Must it be ready for to-morrow?" she asked.

"Yes, it _must_," he said. Three other boys were going to send up balloons. It was the Queen's coronation day, and he had promised to take a fourth balloon to the party; and the rehearsal of all this stirred up Fred's ire afresh, and he looked any thing but kind at Miss Schomberg.

What was to be done? Edith suggested driving to the next market town to buy one; but her papa wanted the pony gig, so they could only sally forth to Mrs. c.o.x's for some more tissue paper, and begin the work again. This was very provoking to Edith.

"To have spent all the morning and now to be going to spend all the afternoon over a trumpery balloon, which you can't make after all, Miss Schomberg, is very tiresome, and I wanted to go to old Joe Murray's to-day and see if the children have picked me up any corallines."

"I am very sorry, dear, my carelessness should punish you; but don't disturb me by grumbling and I will try and get done before tea, and then we will go together." This time Emilie was more successful; she took pains to understand what was to be done, and the gores of her balloon fitted beautifully.

"Now Edith, dear, ring for some paste," said Emilie, just as the clock struck four; Margaret answered the bell. Margaret was the housemaid, and so far from endeavouring in her capacity to overcome evil with good, she was perpetually making mischief and increasing any evil there might be, either in kitchen or parlour, by her mode of delivering a message. She would be sure to add her mite to any blame that she might hear, in her report to the kitchen, and thus, without being herself a bad or violent temper, was continually fomenting strife, and adding fuel to the fire of the cook, who was of a very choleric turn. The request for paste was civilly made and received, but Emilie unfortunately called Margaret back to say, "Oh, ask cook, please, to make it stiffer than she did the last that we had for the kite; that did not prove quite strong."

Margaret took the message down and informed cook that "Miss Schomberg did not think she knew how to make paste." "Then let her come and make it herself," said cook. "She wants to be cook I think; she had better come. I sha'nt make it. What is it for?"

"Oh," said Margaret, "she is after some foreign filagree work of hers, that's all."

"Well, I'm busy now and I am not going to put myself out about it, she must wait."

Emilie did wait the due time, but as the paste did not come she went down for it. "Is the paste ready, cook?" she asked.

"No, Miss Schomberg," was the short reply, and cook went on a.s.siduously washing up her plates.

"Will you be so kind as to make it, cook, for I want it particularly that it may have as much time as possible to dry."

"Perhaps you will make it yourself then," was the gracious rejoinder.

Emilie was not above making a little paste, and as she saw that something had put cook out, she willingly consented; but she did not know where to get either flour or saucepan, and cook and Margaret kept making signs and laughing, so that it was not very pleasant. She grew quite hot, as she had to ask first for a spoon, then for a saucepan, then for the flour and water; at last she modestly turned round and said, "Cook, I really do not quite know how to make a little paste. I am ashamed to say it, but I have lived so long in lodgings that I see nothing of what is done in the kitchen. Will you tell or show me? I am very ignorant."

Her kind civil tone quite changed cook's, and she said, "Oh, Miss, I'll make it, only you see, you shouldn't have said I didn't know how."

Emilie explained, and the cook was pacified, and gave Miss Schomberg a good deal of gratuitous information during the process. How she did not like her place, and should not stay, and how she disliked her mistress, and plenty more--to which Emilie listened politely, but did not make much reply. She plainly perceived that cook wanted a very forbearing mistress, but she could not exactly tell her so. She merely said in her quaint quiet way, that every one had something to bear, and the paste being made, she left the kitchen.

"Well, I must say, Miss Schomberg has a nice way of speaking, which gets over you some how," said cook, "I wish I had her temper."

More than one in the kitchen mentally echoed that wish of cook's.

The balloon went on beautifully, and was completed by seven o'clock.