RUTH'S DECISION.
For the first few moments Ruth felt quite determined not to leave home;
but as she thought over the advantages and disadvantages of the plan her
resolution wavered. How often she had wished, though vainly, to go to a
good boarding-school! and now there was an opportunity for her to have a
twelvemonth's education, without the great drawback of living at school
among strangers and losing the comforts and freedom of home. It was true
that she had only seen her aunt for a short time several years before,
and her cousins were quite unknown, except for the short notes she
usually received at Christmas, with a present from Julia. Still they
were relatives, and would not regard her as a stranger.
There were so many arguments for accepting her aunt's invitation: the
pleasure of the sea-side trip, the change, the novelty of living in a
town, of having Julia for a companion and many school-fellows of her own
age; of exchanging Miss Green's school, with its catechisms and
needlework, for a young ladies' college, with its modern plans of study,
its classes and professors. And all these inducements had the charm of
being new and untried, so that only their agreeable side appeared to
view, the other being unknown.
Yet if there were fewer reasons against the plan, they were very
weighty, for how would mother contrive to do without her? And how could
she bear to live a year without a glimpse of the dear home faces?
"But I only help in the mornings and evenings," she mused, "for I am at
school all day, and perhaps I could come home for a few days at
Christmas. I'm sure I don't know what to do. I wish father and mother
had settled it. It is so difficult to know how to decide."
She did not forget the advice which had been given her--to pray over the
matter. Indeed, I doubt if she would in any case have come to a decision
without taking counsel of her Heavenly Father, for Ruth had for years
been in the habit of carrying her childish troubles and perplexities to
the one unfailing Guide.
And yet she was hardly sure that she was a Christian; and although she
longed to set her mother's mind at rest upon that point, she could not
venture to do so just yet. Like many another child of pious parents, she
had been trained to love good and hate evil; she had been taught to pray
and to desire to live a Christian life; she had long since begun the
never-ending conflict against evil and tried to rule her life and
actions by God's Word; and yet she could not tell whether the promptings
and impulses towards the Saviour which often came to her heart, were
merely the result of the loving sanctified home-influence which had
surrounded her from her birth, or if she had indeed become a disciple,
though but a feeble one, of the meek and lowly Jesus.
In the quiet calm of a summer day, when the wind scarcely ruffles the
waters of the bay, it is difficult to say whether the fair ship riding
at anchor will prove herself seaworthy. It is when the storm rises in
its fury and the billows dash over her that the testing time comes, and
she proves the strength of her bows and the soundness of her timbers, or
she sinks a hopeless wreck.
And it remained for Ruth's visit to Busyborough, to test her and prove
how strong was her desire to follow Christ. If it were but a weak
earth-born feeling, it would soon be upset by the winds of temptation;
but if it were indeed of God, although it might be roughly handled and
somewhat shaken for a time, it would come forth triumphant at last.
"Well, Ruth, what do you intend to do?" asked her father, as they sat at
breakfast the next morning. "Do you intend to go to Busyborough, and
find out how ignorant you are, and then set to work to study with all
your might, or do you mean to be the pattern eldest scholar at Miss
Green's? Do you mean to rub shoulders with others, or are you going to
stay at home and fancy yourself a prodigy of wisdom and learning?"
"I think, that if you and mother can spare me, I will go to Busyborough,
and rub shoulders with the others," said Ruth, steadily.
"That's right; I am glad to hear it; for although we shall miss you very
much, I am sure the change will benefit you. Go and learn all the good
you can, and tell us all about it when you come back. Ah! your mother
looks grave: I know she rather fears your picking up some fantastical
notions and growing to look down on your own people. But I don't fear
it. I look forward to seeing my little Ruth again next summer, grown
somewhat taller, perhaps, and wiser too, but still always my own Ruth."
"Yes, father," she answered, with something like a sob.
But Will, the eldest brother, who found that his father's speech and
Ruth's face were getting too much for his feelings, jumped up and seized
his hat, saying in his queer way that he must be off to the hay-field if
there was a prospect of showers, and he hoped Ruth would not run away
before he came back.
The other members of the family soon dispersed; and although Ruth's
departure was for days the all-absorbing topic of conversation, it was
generally referred to in a cheery way, and not in what Will called "the
sentimental strain."