From Jest to Earnest Part 8

"I cannot say that I have. I have read and thought about it far more than I have seen. On account of my limited means and student life, my excursions have been few and far between. I have already proved to you what an awkward stranger I am to society. But in thought and fancy I have been a great rambler, and like to picture to myself all kinds of scenes, past and present, and to a.n.a.lyze all kinds of character."

"I hope you won't a.n.a.lyze mine," she said, looking at him rather distrustfully. "I should not like to be dissected before I was dead."

"I wish all were as able to endure a.n.a.lysis as yourself, Miss Marsden. In any case, you have no reason to fear a severe critic in me."

"Why not?"

"Because you have been so lenient towards me. I have received more kindness from you, a stranger, than from my own kindred."

"You are very grateful."

"Shakespeare declares ingrat.i.tude a 'marble-hearted fiend.'"

"You evidently are not 'marble-hearted.'"

"Though possibly a fiend. Thank you."

"I wish there were no worse to fear."

"You need not have occasion to fear any."

"Well, I can't say that I do very much. Perhaps it would be better for me if I did."

"Why so?"

"Then I should be more afraid to do wrong. Miss Parton cannot do wrong with any comfort at all."

"Well, that would be a queer religion which consisted only in being afraid of the devil and his imps."

"What is religion? I am foolish in asking such a question however, for I suppose it would take you a year to answer it, and they will all be down to breakfast in a few moments."

"O, no, I can answer it in a sentence. True religion is worshipping G.o.d in love and faith, and obeying Him."

"Is that all?" exclaimed Lottie, in unfeigned astonishment.

"That is a great deal."

"Perhaps it is. You theologians have a way of preaching awfully long and difficult sermons from simple texts. But I never got as simple an idea of religion as that from our minister."

"I fear you think I have been preaching for the last half-hour.

Perhaps I can best apologize for my long homilies this morning by explaining. When an artist is in his best mood, he wishes to be at his easel. The same is true of every one who does something con amore. When I saw the transfigured world this morning, it was like a glimpse into heaven, and--"

"And a naughty little sinner came in just at that moment, and got the benefit of your mood," interrupted Lottie. "Well, I have listened to your sermon and understand it, and that is more than I can say of many I have heard. It certainly was pointed, and seemed pointed at me, and I have heard it said that it is proof of a good sermon for each one to go away feeling that he has been distinctly preached at. But permit me as a friend, Mr. Hemstead, to suggest that this will not answer in our day. I fear, from my little foretaste, that people will not be able to sit comfortably under your homilies, and unless you intend to preach out in the back-woods, you must modify your style."

"That is where I do intend to preach. At least upon the frontiers of our great West."

"O, how dismal!" she exclaimed. "And can you, a young, and I suppose an ambitious man, look forward to being buried alive, as it were, in those remote regions?"

"I a.s.sure you I do not propose to be buried alive at the West, or spiritually smothered, as you hinted, in a fashionable church at the East. I think the extreme West, where states and society are forming with such marvellous rapidity, is just the place for a young, and certainly for an ambitious man. Is it nothing to have a part in founding and shaping an empire?"

"You admit that you are ambitious, then."

"Yes."

"Is that right?"

"I think so."

"Our minister inveighs against ambition, as if it were one of the deadly sins."

"He means the ambition that is all for self. That is as wrong and contemptible as the beauty that is miserable without a looking-gla.s.s.

An ardent desire to obtain my Divine Master's approval, and to be worthy of it--to be successful in serving a n.o.ble cause--cannot be wrong."

She looked at his earnest face and eyes, that seemed to glow with hidden fire, almost wistfully; and said with a tinge of sadness, "You will feel very differently I fear, twenty years hence. Enthusiasm is a rare thing in the city, and I imagine it is soon quenched everywhere."

"So it is; it needs constant rekindling."

Just then Mrs. Marchmont and Mr. Dimmerly appeared, and soon after they all sat down to a late breakfast.

CHAPTER VI.

A SLEIGH-RIDE AND SOMETHING MORE.

Lottie a.s.sumed an unusual degree of gayety during the early part of the meal, but her flow of spirits seemed unequal, and to flag towards the last. She had sudden fits of abstraction, during which her jetty eyebrows contracted into unwonted frowns.

Her practical joke did not promise so well as on the evening before. That unexpected half-hour's talk had shown some actions in a new light. She did not mind doing wicked things that had a spice of hardihood and venturesomeness in them. But to do what had been made to appear mean and dishonorable was another thing, and she was provoked enough at Hemstead for having unconsciously given that aspect to her action and character, and still more annoyed and perplexed that her conscience should so positively side with him.

Thus it will be seen that her conscience was unawakened, rather than seared and deadened.

As she came to know Hemstead better, she found that he was different from what she had expected. The conventional idea of a theological student had dwelt in her mind; and she had expected to find a rather narrow and spiritually conceited man, full of the clerical mannerisms which she had often heard laughed at. But she saw that Hemstead's awkwardness would wear away, through familiarity with society, and that, when at ease, he was simple and manly in manner.

She also perceived that this seclusion from the world, which was the cause of his diffidence, had been employed in training and richly storing his mind. Moreover, to one so accustomed to the insincerity of society, his perfect frankness of speech and manner was a novelty, interesting, if not always pleasing. She read his thoughts as she would an open page, and saw that he esteemed her as a true, sincere girl, kind and womanly, and that he had for her the strongest respect. She feared that when he discovered her true self he would scorn her to loathing. Not that she cared, except that her pride would be hurt. But as she was more proud than vain, she feared this honest man's verdict.

But soon her old reckless self triumphed. "Of course what I am doing will seem awful to him," she thought. "I knew that before I commenced. He shall not preach me out of my fun in one half-hour.

If I could make him love me in spite of what I am, it would be the greater triumph. After all, I am only acting as all the girls in my set do when they get a chance. It's not as bad as he makes out."

Still that was an eventful half-hour, when they looked out upon a transfigured world together; and while she saw nature in her rarest and purest beauty, she had also been given a glimpse into the more beautiful world of truth, where G.o.d dwells.

But, as the morning advanced, good impulses and better feelings and thoughts vanished, even as the snow-wreaths were dropping from branch and spray, leaving them as bare as before. By the time the sleigh drove up to the door she was as bent as ever upon victimizing the "Western giant," as the conspirators had named him. She was her old, decided, resolute self; all the more resolute because facing, to her, a new hindrance,--her own conscience, which Hemstead had unwittingly awakened; and it said to its uncomfortable possessor some rather severe things that day.

If Lottie were Bel Parton, she would have been in a miserably undecided state. But it was her nature to carry out what she had begun, if for no other reason than that she had begun it, and she was not one to give up a frolic at anyone's scolding,--even her own.