A RATIONALIST OF THE OLD SCHOOL.
"I knew you would come," said Mrs. Dlimm, taking both of Lottie's
hands with utter absence of formality. "Husband said I needn't look
for you any more, but I felt it in my bones--no, my heart--that you
would come. When I feel a thing is going to take place it always
does. So you are here. I am very glad to see your--Mr. Hemstead--too.
This is splendid." And Mrs. Dlimm exultantly ushered Lottie into
the room that, when last seen, was crowded with such a motley
assembly. Hemstead meanwhile drove the horse to an adjacent shed.
"But he isn't my Mr. Hemstead," said Lottie, laughing.
"Well, it seems as if he were related, or belonged to you in some
way. When I think of one, I can't help thinking of the other."
"O dear!" exclaimed Lottie, still laughing, blushing, and affecting
comic alarm; "being joined together by a minister's wife is almost
as bad as by the minister himself."
"Almost as good, you mean. You would have my congratulation rather
than sympathy if you secured such a prince among men."
"How little you know about him, Mrs. Dlimm! He is going to be a
poor, forlorn home missionary; and your husband's increased salary
will be royal compared with his."
"He will never be forlorn; and how long will he be poor?"
--"All his life possibly."
"That's not very long. What will come after? What kind of a master
is he serving?"
"Do you know," said Lottie, lowering her tone, and giving her
chair a little confidential hitch toward the simple-hearted lady
with whom formality and circumlocution were impossible, "that I am
beginning to think about these things a great deal?"
"I don't wonder, my dear," said Mrs. Dlimm, with a little sigh of
satisfaction. "No one could help thinking about him who saw his
manly courtesy and tact the evening you were here."
"O, no," said Lottie, blushing still more deeply; "I did not mean
that. Please understand me. Mr. Hemstead is only a chance acquaintance
that I have met while visiting my aunt, Mrs. Marchmont. I mean that
when I was here last I was a very naughty girl, but I have since
been thinking how I could be a better one. Indeed, I should like
to be a Christian, as you are."
In a moment the little lady was all tender solicitude. She was one
who believed in conversion; and, to her, being converted was the
greatest event of life.
But just then Hemstead entered, and she had enough natural, womanly
interest--not curiosity--to note the unconscious welcome of Lottie's
eyes, and the quick color come and go in her face, as if a fire
were burning in her heart and throwing its flickering light upon
her fair features.
"Chance acquaintance, indeed!" she thought. "Why, here is this
city-bred girl blushing as I once did about Mr. Dlimm. Whether
she knows it or not, her blushes must tell the same story as mine."
But though Mrs. Dlimm was so unconventional, she had tact, and
turned the conversation to the subject of the donation party.
"See here," she exclaimed exultantly, tugging a bulky commentary;
"this is one of the results of your coming the other evening. Mr.
Dlimm has been wanting this book a long time, and now he pores over
it so much that I am getting jealous."
"The opinions expressed in such a ponderous volume ought to have
great weight, surely," said Hemstead, smiling.
"And do you know," she continued, in an aside to Lottie, "that each
of the children has had a new warm winter suit? and, wonderful to
tell, I have bought myself a dress right from the store, instead
of making over something sent me by brother Abel's wife from New
York."
Lottie's eyes moistened, and she said in half soliloquy, "I didn't
know it was so nice and easy to make others happy."
"Ah! depend upon it, you are learning lots of things," said Mrs.
Dlimm, significantly. "When God begins to teach, then we do learn,
and something worth knowing, too."
"I thought that God's lessons were very hard and painful," said
Lottie to Hemstead, with a spice of mischief in her manner.
"Mrs. Dlimm is a better authority than I was," he replied. "Do you
know," he continued, addressing their hostess, "that Miss Marsden
has done more to teach me how to preach than all my years at the
seminary?"
"Surely," exclaimed Mrs. Dlimm, "that's a rather strong statement.
I can understand how Miss Marsden can do a great deal for one. We
have had very nice experience in that direction; but just how she
should teach you more than all the grave professors and learned
text-books is not clear at once."
"Well, she has," he maintained stoutly. "I doubt whether your husband
gets as much light upon the Bible from that huge commentary there
as Miss Marsden gave me in one afternoon."
Mrs. Dlimm turned her eyes inquiringly toward Lottie, who said,
laughingly, "It would seem, last week, that I was a heathen and
Mr. Hemstead a heretic."
"And what are you now?"
"O, he's all right now."
"And not you?"
"I fear I shall always be a little crooked; but I hope I am not
exactly a heathen any longer."
"Miss Marsden was a heathen, as Nathanael was a shrewd and dishonest
Jew," said Hemstead.
"What kind of a Jew was Nathanael?" asked Lottie, innocently.
"Christ said, when he first saw him," replied Mrs. Dlimm, smiling,
"'Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.'"
Then both were puzzled at Lottie's sudden and painful flush, but
they ascribed it to her modesty; and Hemstead, to give her time
to recover herself, gave a brief sketch of his sermon, and how, in
the afternoon, while reading, at Lottie's suggestion, the complete
story of Lazarus, they both had seen the unspeakable sympathy of
Christ for those He sought to save.
"O dear!" thought Lottie, "when shall I escape the consequences of
my foolish jest? 'Without guile,' indeed!"
Mr. Dlimm now appeared, and he and Hemstead were soon discussing
the rendering of an obscure passage, upon which the big commentary
gave the conflicting opinions of a dozen learned doctors. Mrs.
Dlimm carried Lottie off to her sanctum, the nursery,--the fruitful
source of questions and mysteries the learned doctors would find
still more difficult to solve.
"And you are contented with this narrow round of life?" asked Lottie,
curiously, as Mrs. Dlimm finished the narration of what seemed to
her very tame experience.
"Narrow!" said Mrs. Dlimm, reproachfully; "my life and work are
not narrow. I have six little immortals to train. A million years
hence they will either bless or reproach me. What consideration in
fashionable life is equal to that? Besides, my husband is engaged
in the same kind of work that brought the Son of God from heaven to
earth. It is my privilege to help him. Scrub Oaks is as much of a
place as many of the villages in which He preached, and I am grateful
that I can take part in so royal a calling."
"Mrs. Dlimm," said Lottie, with sudden animation, "I shouldn't
wonder if you and your husband were very great people in heaven."
"Oh!" cried the little lady, laughing. "We never think of that.
Why should we? But I know there will be a nook there for us, and
the thought makes me very happy."
"And you really and truly have been happy in all your toil and
privations?"
"Yes," said Mrs Dlimm, with a strange, far-away look coming into
her large blue eyes; "when everything on earth has been darkest
I have been most happy, and this has confirmed my faith. Little
children are sources of great joy, but they also cause much pain
and anxiety. Yet when I have been suffering most,--when the wardrobe
has been scanty and the larder almost bare,--God has taken me to
His heart as I clasp this child here, and comforted by assuring
me, 'Never fear, my child, I will take care of you and yours.' See
how He keeps His word. He sent you here, with your bright, sunny
face. He sent Mr. Hemstead here; and between you both we shall make
a long stage of our homeward journey most pleasantly."
"I never heard any one talk like you before," said Lottie, musingly.
"You seem to believe all the Bible says, as if it were actually
right before you."
"Believe! Why not? The idea of God not keeping His word!"
"And is faith just the certainty that God will keep His word?"
"That is just faith; and though this great world--for little bits
of which people lose their souls--shall pass away, God's word shall
stand until His least promise is fulfilled."
"That is not our creed on Fifth Avenue," said Lottie sadly. "The
world first, God last. But you sometimes, surely, wish that Mr.
Dlimm was rich, and that you could have for him and the children
and yourself all that heart could wish?"
"I used to feel so occasionally, but I have got past that now. God
loves my husband and children better than I do, and He will provide
what is best for us all. I simply try to rest in His arms as this
child does in mine."
"How strange it all is!" said Lottie, thoughtfully.
"Why strange? Your earthly father provides for you the best he can;
and if our Heavenly Father provides for us in the same way, surely
will not His be the better provision? What an absurd, unnatural
thing it is to suppose there is anything better than what God will
give His own dear children. Are not both earth and heaven His?
and He has promised the best of both to us."
"I can scarcely realize it all yet," said Lottie, with tears in
her eyes. "I suppose it is because you are so natural and true that
you seem so odd to me, who have been brought up among those that
I fear look at things in false lights."
"I think I understand you, my dear," said Mrs. Dlimm, hopefully.
"A child's penny toy will hide a great mountain if held too near
the eyes. It is thus the eyes of the worldly are blinded by trifles
till I fear some will never see God or heaven. But He is teaching
you better. As long as you follow His gentle leadings, and the pure
impulses of your own heart, all will be well. But as soon as you
begin to take counsel of the world and its self-seeking spirit, you
will find yourself in trouble. If we wish to prosper and be happy
in God's world, we must do His will. This is good, sound common
sense, which the experience of every age has borne out. It often
seems hard at first, my dear, as you will find out. The scourging
was very hard to bear; but Paul and Silas, singing in prison, with
their feet made fast in the stocks, were better off than their
jailer, who was about to kill himself, and the magistrates, who,
no doubt, were in mortal fear because of the earthquake. We, too,
can sing, whatever happens, as long as God and conscience are upon
our side."
It will thus be seen that Mrs. Dlimm was a rationalist as well as
a believer, though not of the new school.
For some reason, her philosophy was peculiarly acceptable to Lottie,
and, though scarcely conscious why, the exhortation to follow the
impulses of her own heart seemed especially natural and right; but
her fashionable mother would have been alarmed indeed, if she had
known that her beautiful daughter was becoming the disciple of Mrs.
Dlimm.
Though their call was by no means a short one, it passed all too
quickly. The memory of it would never fade from Lottie's mind;
and it became another link in the chain by which God was seeking
to bind her to a better future than her friends could dream of in
their earthly ambition.
"I am very glad I made this visit," Lottie said, as they were
hastening home lest they should be late to dinner. "It was very
kind of you to take me so far."
He turned and lifted his eyebrows comically.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"To hear you, one would think that I had been a martyr for your
sake, while, in truth, I never enjoyed myself more."
"Yes," said she; "but you welcome afflictions and trials of your
patience."
"Would that I might be ever thus afflicted!" he exclaimed impulsively.
Then, suddenly becoming conscious of the natural suggestion of his
words, he blushed deeply; but not more so than Lottie, who turned
away her face to hide her flaming cheeks. He, misinterpreting
the act, thought that she meant a hint that such remarks were not
agreeable, and was thinking how to remedy what he now regarded
as a very foolish speech, when she, with woman's tact, led the
conversation to unembarrassing topics, and before they were aware
the horse stopped at Mrs. Marchmont's door.
Lottie disarmed both suspicion and censure to a considerable extent
by saying, "I had promised Mrs. Dlimm to come and see her again,
and wished to keep my word. I knew no one would care to go there
save Mr. Hemstead, so I took him to see the parson while I visited
the parson's wife. I enjoyed my call very much, too; and as Mr.
Hemstead and Mr. Dlimm had a great argument over a knotty theological
point, I suppose he feels somewhat repaid also."
This put matters in quite another light. That one should go to see
a parson's wife, and the other to discuss theology with the parson,
was very different from stealing off for an indefinite ride with
the purpose of being alone together. De Forrest was quite comforted,
and was even inclined to regard Lottie as rather considerate in not
asking him to accompany her when visiting such undesirable people
as the Dlimms. Though why she should wish to visit them herself
was a mystery. But then, he thought, "Lottie is odd and full of
queer moods and whims. Let her indulge them now, because, as my wife,
they will scarcely be the thing." He was still more comforted by
noting that she did not have a great deal to say to Hemstead--indeed,
that she rather avoided him.
"She has had enough, and too much, of his heavy stupid company,"
he thought, "and finds that even the carrying out of the practical
joke is too hard work. If I can only get another good opportunity,
I won't wait till she goes to sleep before bringing the question
to an issue."
But Lottie gave him no opportunity, and, while kind and gentle
toward him, adroitly managed that they should never be alone.
And Hemstead also, who had found their private tete-a-tetes so
delightful and productive of good results, was equally unable to
be alone with her. Not that Lottie was averse, but because she saw
that lynx-eyed Bel was watching her; and again for the hundredth
time she wished her cynical friend back in the city.
Lottie's manner and apparent reserve were so marked at one time
that Hemstead began to grow troubled, though why he scarcely knew.
There was no cause, save the peculiar sensitiveness of one whose
sunshine is beginning to come, not from the skies, but from the
changing features of a fellow-mortal.
Lottie quickly saw his shadowed face, and surmised the cause. Soon
after, when his eyes were questioningly seeking hers, she gave him
such a sunny, genial smile as to assure him that, whatever might
be the cause of her somewhat distant manner, it did not result from
any estrangement from him.
Heretofore, when Lottie had liked a gentleman, she had been frank
in showing that preference within the limits of lady-like bearing.
But, for some reason, she began to grow excessively shy in manifesting
any interest in Hemstead that the others could note. The reason
with which she satisfied herself explained her feeling but partially.
"They will think I am still trying to carry out my wicked, foolish
joke."
But she did long for another unrestrained talk with him, and watched
keenly to secure it without exciting remark. De Forrest did all
he could to prevent this, however, and Bel unconsciously became
his ally. With woman's quick perception, she saw that Lottie was
indulging in something more than a "mood," and felt that it was a
duty she owed to her friend to prevent mischief.
Thus Monday and Tuesday passed away, Lottie being too circumspect
to give Bel sufficient cause for speaking plainly.
Dan and Mr. Dimmerly were the only ones of the household who
regarded the change in Lottie with unmixed satisfaction. Not giving
a thought to the cause, they were pleased with the gentleness and
attention which resulted.
"Lottie," said her brother Dan, as she kissed him good-night,
after telling a marvellously good story, "what has come over you?
You make me think of Auntie Jane."
"I must be growing good indeed, if I remind any one of Auntie Jane,"
thought Lottie, exultantly.