Medoline Selwyn's Work Part 41

"No, dear, he was not angry, for I was watching him; but you did what I have not seen any one do to him for a good many years. You touched his heart; 'and a little child shall lead them,'" she murmured so softly, I scarce could catch the words.

"I am not a little child, Mrs. Flaxman," I remonstrated.

"Your are in some ways, darling. Your mother's prayers for her children have been answered. Those G.o.d has already taken are safe; and you are one of His little ones whose angel one day shall behold His face in joy."

"I am glad my mother prayed for us; G.o.d is so sure to answer a mother's prayers. I suppose it is because they are really in earnest. But did she ask anything special?"

"That you might be kept pure from the world's pollution, and get what was really for your good. Her letters to Mrs. Winthrop were full of this: They are all preserved among Mr. Winthrop's papers, and some day he will give them to you."

"She was a Christian, I think, like Mr. Bowen,--one who really had a hold on G.o.d."

"I never knew one so unspotted from the world. I too shall call her mother if I meet her in the Heavenly places; for it was she brought me to Jesus."

"Mrs. Flaxman, is it easy to come to Him,--to be His disciple?"

"So easy, the way-faring man, though a fool, need not find it too difficult."

"I believe Christ has said to me as He did to the Magdalene: 'Daughter, thy sins, which are many are all forgiven thee.' Is it not grand to be His child? There is nothing in the world I want so much as to do His will."

"You stepped out of your way, Medoline, to help others, and they have done more in return than you gave," she said, the tears filling her eyes.

"I might not have found Christ for years, but for Mr. Bowen--perhaps never," I added with a shudder.

The dinner bell ended our little fellowship meeting by the firelight. Mr.

Winthrop came and we took our places at the table, the dinner going on in the same precise fashion as if there were no such thing as glad, or breaking hearts. There was very little conversation; and dinner ended, Mrs. Flaxman and I were left alone directly. I longed to ask what it was Mr. Winthrop decided I must not know; and the mere fact of his so wishing deterred me from asking. But I felt convinced it was in some way connected with Hermione Le Grande. Neither could I confess to Mrs.

Flaxman that I had only an hour or two before heard from her own lips the terrible wrong she had done him, or her plainly expressed determination to win him back once more.

Usually an excellent sleeper, I lay that night finding sleep impossible, and counting the quarter hours as the great hall clock rang them out in the still s.p.a.ce. I made the discovery, too, in the solemn hush of the night, when thought grows most active and intense, that notwithstanding his coldness and positive cynicism, I cherished for my guardian in the short time I had been with him an affection stronger than I had ever felt for any one since I had lost my two intensely-beloved parents--a loss that had embittered the otherwise happy period of girlhood. I had never realized until that night how much he was to me. Pity, perhaps, for the bitter pain that had so changed his whole nature, may have awakened me to the fact; but still there was an inexplicable charm about him that even merry-hearted, trifling Hubert felt, and forced his unwilling regard. I shrank with sudden pain from the mere thought of seeing him married to Hermione Le Grande; but instinctively feeling that his was one of those still, changeless natures which never outgrows a master pa.s.sion, and recalling her beauty and grace, I could only commit him to the sure care of the G.o.d whom he affected to believe does not take cognizance of human joys or griefs. With this there came such a sense of peace and security, that my mind grew calm; and sleep, that soothes every heartache, brought its benison. The next day I felt certain both from Mrs. Flaxman's manner and Mr. Winthrop's, that some disturbing element was in the air; and finding Mrs. Flaxman more inclined to solitude than society, after my forenoon's work was ended--for what with the reading Mr. Winthrop appointed, and the time appointed by myself for painting, the entire morning until luncheon I found quite short enough. I started for Mrs.

Blake's. I found her in a very happy mood.

The revival was still progressing in the Beech Street church, and Esmerelda, from day to day, had been telling me how happy Mr. Bowen was, and how some folks liked to hear him speak and pray better than any preacher in town. Now Mrs. Blake gave me particulars that the dress-loving Esmerelda had failed to note. "Dan'el and me have been oneasy about the way we've lived ever since Margaret died," she said, after we had been chatting a while about the meetings, and Mr. Lathrop, the pastor of Beech Street church, and its late ongoings. "Dan'el especially felt as if there wa'n't any chance for him; but since Mr.

Bowen has got out to the meetings, he's been a powerful help. It seemed as if he jest knew how the Lord looked on us. Night afore last I went to meeting with my mind made up to stay there until I found if there was any mercy for me. I mind how I felt as I walked along the road. The snow was deep, and the night cold, and everything seemed that desolate--my! I wished I'd never been born. I don't know what made me, but I looked right up into the sky all at onct; the stars were shining bright, and I thought if G.o.d could keep all them hanging there on nothing, year after year, he could keep me in the place He wanted for me, if I'd only agree to let Him; and right there I stood stock still in the snow and said, 'Lord, I'm a poor unlarnt creatur', but I want you to keep me where you want me, the same as you do the stars. I'll take the poorest place in earth or Heaven, if you'll only adopt me as your own.' I meant what I said, and the Lord just then and there sealed the bargain; and my! but I went on to the meeting that happy I didn't know if I was on earth or up among the holy ones, who are forever praising G.o.d. Dan'el had got much the same blessing some time ago, and when we came home he took down the Bible and prayed.

The preacher tells the heads of families if they want to keep their religion they must build an altar as the patriarchs did. Religion is the same now as then."

Mrs. Blake stopped only for want of breath.

"And are you as happy now as you were that night?"

"Everybit; and so is Dan'el. It's something that stays with one; and the longer you have it, and the more you have, the better content you are.

The night I got converted, when we come home from meeting, Dan'el sot talking more'n he usually does; for he's a powerful still man, and, at last, he says: 'If Marget had only lived till now, she might have got the blessing too;' and then he burst right out crying. But he's never mentioned her sence, only last night, in meeting, he said, if we had friends in the other world that we weren't sure were in glory, we mustn't let that keep us sorrowful, but jest work all the harder for them that was still in the world. I didn't think Dan'el could be so changed. I heard him try to sing this morning; but, dear, his singing is something ter'ble. He has no more ear than a cow. Maybe the Lord turns it into good singing--he looks at the heart, and perhaps it sounds better up among the angels than them great singers does that gets a forten for one night's singing."

"I am sure it does," I said, emphatically. "He will make splendid music by-and-by, when he stands with the Heavenly choir."

"I reckon he'll most stop then to hear his own voice, for he does dote so on singing, and feels so bad that he can't do better."

"Singing and making melody in your hearts. You can do that now, Mrs.

Blake, and with G.o.d's help, I hope to be able to do the same."

"What! have you been thinking of these things too, Miss Selwyn?"

"Yes. For a good while I have been struggling with a burden of sin that sometimes nearly crushed me; but it is gone now. Last night the joy of pardon came just like a flash of light into my heart."

"Thank the Lord for that. There's been some praying very earnest for you.

They'll be glad their prayers are answered."

"I can never repay what some of you people out here have done for me."

"Well, dear, you've done for us. The minister said, 'under G.o.d we were indebted to Mr. Bowen for this revival, and there's already nigh unto fifty converted.' He couldn't have come to the meetings if you hadn't clothed him; and now, you've done still more, and got him his eyesight, he's twice as useful. 'Twould have done you good to see him in meeting the first Sunday after he come back. He'd look up at the pulpit, and then he'd look at the people; and it seemed as if he could hardly sense where he was--he was that glad and happy. The preacher said, in the evening, we'd have a praise meeting after the sermon; and sure enough we had; for when Mr. Bowen got talking about what the Lord had done for him, and what he had been to him in sorrow and blindness, before I knew it, I was crying like a baby--me that had my eyesight, and health--and never thanked the Lord for them. When I got my eyes wiped I took a look around, and there sot Dan'el a blowing his nose, and mopping his face, as if it was a sweltering day in August; and then when I looked further, there was nothing much to be seen but pocket-handkerchiefs. That was the beginning of the revival; and if you hadn't got Mr. Bowen out to meeting, there mightn't have been any. So, after the Lord, I lay it all to you."

"No, Mrs. Blake. I was scarcely equal in this matter to those poor souls who helped Noah build the Ark and were drowning for want of its shelter.

They labored harder than I; for what I gave was more from impulse, and it was a pleasure."

"I guess G.o.d don't make mistakes paying folks for what they do, and maybe it's jest as well not to have a great consait of yourself; but you're the first one I've heard comparing themselves to Noah's Ark builders."

I turned the conversation somewhat abruptly.

"What is Mr. Bowen doing now?"

"He's taken on in Belcher's Mill, working at the books."

"I suppose they are getting along nicely at Mrs. Lark.u.m's now."

"Yes, indeed. She was complaining after meeting last night, she'd only seed you onct since her father got back, to have a good talk with you."

"Shall we go there now, for a little while?"

"I'd be glad to, and she'll be pleased to see us coming, I know."

Mrs. Blake was very soon in readiness, we started out into the dull, cold air, scarce noticing that the wind was blowing raw and chill from the east, and the soughing wind betokening a storm. While I sat in Mrs.

Lark.u.m's tidy room, listening to her voice, I kept contrasting her with the elegantly dressed, beautiful woman whose face and gestures I was studying the previous day. The one nurtured in the shady places of life, and inured to poverty and hardship; the other privileged with the best opportunities for culture, and high intellectual and social development; and yet with vision grown suddenly clear, I could detect a refinement of the soul, and true womanly honor in Mrs. Lark.u.m that the other lacked. I was glad to notice that Mrs. Lark.u.m's tears had ceased to flow so profusely. There was an occasional moistening of the eye from sheer joy; for she too had got her experience brightened of late. She was finding it easier to trust in the Lord, and be glad in Him now that she had got a stronger arm than her own to lighten her burdens. As we talked I found they were blessed with an honest independence of spirit that proved them a better cla.s.s than many who receive help.

"Father has begun to lay by money to pay you," she announced, with evident pleasure.

"He has already paid me a thousand-fold. I never want any other recompense."

"I do not think he will be satisfied to let that debt go unpaid. He was always so particular to owe no man anything. In our worst poverty he would never let me go in debt."

"Then I can never repay him," I said, sorrowfully, "for I try, like him, to be independent; but I suppose there are blessings no money can ever repay."

"Why, every time he opens his eyes in the morning, he says his first thought is to thank the Lord, and his next is a prayer that you may get your reward."

"His prayer has been answered," I murmured, with tear-filled eyes.

"Poor father was always a great man for prayer ever since I can recollect. Sometimes I used to doubt if there was anything in religion when I saw how poorly his prayers were answered; but I have since learned that the Lord does hear prayer, and that He answers in the best possible way, though when we are suffering it seems hard to wait patiently His good time."

"But if it is hard for a little spell on earth, there's a long while to have our wants satisfied when we get where He is in Heaven," Mrs. Blake said, in her calm, strong way.

"Dear Miss Selwyn, Heaven seemed very close to us in our meeting last night. I thought of you, and wished so much you were with us."