WASTED MINUTES.
"Every hour that fleets so slowly
Has its task to do or bear;
Luminous the crown and holy,
If thou set each gem with care."
ADELAIDE A. PROCTER.
ONE afternoon Mrs. Eden had been unusually silent, as they sat watching
the flickering of the flames.
It had been a dull day. The darkness had closed in so early that it
seemed to Lilla as if they had sat there for an hour or more, and she
was getting terribly impatient. She had special reasons for wishing
to be at work. Having received an invitation to spend the following
evening with Clara and Nellie St. Ives, she was anxious to get double
work done beforehand.
It was hard to be forced to doze away the hours to no purpose, and it
is hardly to be wondered at if a spirit of rebellion was rising in her
heart.
"Grandmother knows I want to study," she said to herself, "and she
might be more considerate than to make me waste my time in this way."
Several times she was on the point of suggesting that she should light
the lamp. But each time she looked up, the old lady's eyes were closed,
and affection checked the words on her lips.
"She is old, and needs rest," it said.
So Lilla waited on, inwardly wondering how long.
At last Mrs. Eden's eyes opened, and she glanced at Lilla with a
half-suppressed sigh.
Lilla looked up brightly, hoping that this was the signal to move.
"You have had a nice sleep, grandmother," she said, cheerfully.
"I have not been asleep," Mrs. Eden replied, "only resting. I am
getting old now, and I did not sleep well last night."
"How was that?" inquired Lilla, anxiously. "Perhaps you overtired
yourself yesterday, turning over those drawers."
"I did not hurry particularly," replied the old lady; "for I kept
coming across so many relics of the past, and I could not help
lingering over them. They will be yours soon, Lilla."
"I shall always treasure them, grandmother," replied the young girl,
affectionately.
"Perhaps it was thinking about them that made me dream so much,"
continued the old lady, after a pause. "I thought I was back again
among the hills where I lived when your grandfather and I were first
married. There was the farmhouse, just as it stood on the side of the
clough, and the spring at the bottom of the valley, and the stones
where we so often sat together when your mother was a baby, watching
the shadows creeping up. All just as it used to be when I was young."
"And you saw it all so plainly—"
"Ay! So plainly that it made me long to go back once more. But I
shall never do that—nor see such hills again, until I stand upon the
everlasting hills 'from whence cometh my help.'"
Lilla was silent. Her grandmother's words had awakened a new train of
thought in her mind, and she forgot all about her lessons, until Margie
came to know if she should bring tea.
She told Miss St. Ives about it next day, when they were alone
together. They had had tea early, so as to make the evening as long as
possible, and the twilight had scarcely yet taken the place of clear
day.
"This is the time I usually waste," she said.
"How is that?" Miss St. Ives asked.
"Grandmother likes to sit still in the twilight," Lilla explained, "and
I am compelled to wait, with my hands in my lap, whilst the sand runs
out of my hour-glass."
"That gives you a little rest," said Miss St. Ives. "You must not go
all on, all on."
"Oh! But indeed, I would rather be going on," pleaded Lilla. "I nearly
get cross over it sometimes; you cannot think what a trouble it is to
me."
"Cannot I?" said Miss St. Ives, stroking her hair fondly. "Do you know,
I heard of somebody once, who used to 'waste' an hour every afternoon
in a similar way, and sit up in the cold after every one was in bed to
make amends."
(She did not say that it was herself of whom she was speaking; for
"love vaunteth not itself.")
"But you must not think of doing that," she added. "'She' was fitting
herself to earn her living. 'You' are only trying to make the most of
your time."
"But half-an-hour a day is three hours a week," said Lilla. "Twelve
hours a month. Twelve whole working days in the year. Too much to
waste!"
"Are you quite sure it is 'waste'? What are you trying to learn?"
Lilla looked surprised. "French and German, and drawing and music," she
answered.
"Is that all?"
"English, of course," said Lilla, "and everything that a lady ought to
know. That is why I am so anxious not to lose time. I want to begin
Italian by-and-by, if you will teach me. I want to be great."
"What is being great?" asked her friend.
Lilla did not reply directly; then she answered slowly: "I don't
exactly know."
Miss St. Ives was silent for several minutes, too, before she
spoke. Then she said: "Two things about it I can tell you. Mere
'book-learning' can never produce true greatness, and 'there is no
royal road to it.'"
Lilla looked puzzled, and a thoughtful expression came over her face.
"These 'wasted hours,'" continued her friend, "have been teaching
you more than all your books—except 'one'—could teach you. You have
been learning how to be patient and give up your own way in order to
minister to another. Do you see that tree at the bottom of the garden?"
Miss St. Ives pointed to a tall wych-elm in the hedge that bounded
their little garden. The autumnal blast had not left a single leaf upon
its graceful boughs, but a strong plant of ivy had twined its arms
around the trunk, casting a thick mantle of green around its desolate
old age.
"I often think that we young people are like the ivy," she said. "There
is so little enjoyment in the lives of the aged and infirm, unless we
cling to them and spread our young green leaves around them. But we
have to learn to do it. And it is often far more difficult than French
or German because it involves self-forgetfulness and patience. But it
comes far nearer leading us to true greatness."
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