Mrs. Grey knew perfectly well, that the task of training Gabrielle
would be a most self-denying one. Those who never felt the sweet pain
of putting self down in order to help a human soul to rise, have only
touched life on the surface; have never been down into its depths;
_she had_. So it was cheerily she entered upon this new labor of
love, throwing her heart into it without a thought as to how her own
interests were to be affected by this invasion of her home.
Gabrielle was fourteen years old, and as her mother had never done
much thinking for her, had acquired a habit of thinking for herself.
During the first few weeks of her stay at Greylock, her grandmother
let her drift pretty much as she pleased, studying her, meanwhile, and
seeking wisdom from above. The child fancied this state of things was
going to last, and was well content. As the spring opened early, and
was a very warm one, she adopted a hammock that swung on the piazza
as her pet luxury, and there she lay during a large part of the day,
reading novels. In the pang of parting with her, Frank thoughtlessly
gave her more money than any child should be entrusted with, and she,
consequently, laid in a stock of unwholesome dainties, which she fed
upon while reading. Very soon this effeminate life began to tell. She
woke with a headache, was peevish and irritable about nothings, and at
times had a "dumb devil," when it was next to impossible to get a word
out of her. It was evidently time to take her in hand, which Mrs. Grey
did, on this wise.
"My child," she said, kindly, "have I done anything unkind to you since
you came here?"
"I don't know's you have."
"Well, you speak to me as if I had. So I think you can't be well. How
much exercise did you take yesterday?"
"Not any; I was tired."
"And how much the day before?"
"Not any; I wanted to read."
"But you know I wish you to walk every day."
Gabrielle was silent, and looked sullen.
"There is another thing; I saw a piece of candy on the piano just after
you left; was it yours?"
"I suppose so."
"Have you been in the habit of buying candy at your pleasure?"
"I have a right to spend the money papa gives me."
"Yes; but while you are under my charge, it must be spent according to
my judgment, not yours. Now I am not trying to plague you; I am trying
to find out why you are irritable about everything; and if you have
eaten much candy, that, with want of exercise, may be the trouble."
Gabrielle looked down morosely, and made no answer.
"Won't you tell me all about it, dear?"
No answer, only portentous frowns.
"Very well; I see you are not in the mood to listen to me. I will pray
that you may be more docile another time. And, mark this: I forbid you
eating any more candy without leave."
With a toss of the head that said: "We shall see!" Gabrielle retreated
to the hammock. Mrs. Grey, greatly pained, looked after her till she
was out of sight, when Laura, who had been concealed by a curtain, came
forward.
"It isn't right for you to be treated in this way, at your age, mamma,"
she said. "If Frank and Lily spoil their children, they ought to reap
the fruits, not you. I have been meaning to tell you that old Mary says
Gabrielle is nibbling at sweet things all day long, and continually
coaxing the cook for more. No wonder she is cross."
Mrs. Grey said nothing; at least nothing heard by human ears; but
presently rose and went to Gabrielle's room, and examined her
bureau-drawers, which she found in confusion, and whence she abstracted
a quantity of pernicious articles. Later in the day Gabrielle detected
the fact, and came to her defiantly with--
"I am going to write to papa to let me go home."
"Very well, my dear."
The child, expecting a conflict such as she had often had with her
mother, was startled by this cool rejoinder, and at last began to cry.
"I am very sorry for you," said Mrs. Grey.
"No you ain't sorry either. And my head aches awfully, and I feel sick.
I wish I was at home."
For answer, Mrs. Grey took her by the hand, led her up to her room,
applied remedies with tenderness, and sympathy, and skill, and at last
helped her to undress and go to bed. She slept better than she had
done for weeks; had some beef-tea for her breakfast, and the devil of
indigestion was exorcised, for the time.
Laura was going home now; she and the children were now quite well, and
Harry could stand his loneliness no longer.
"Mag and I had delightful times together while you were gone," she
said, as she took leave, "and if she gets out of the tangle of all
those lessons, I shall want her to make me a good long visit. You
will have your hands so full with Gabrielle that you won't miss her.
Mamma--"
"Well, dear."
"I wish I hadn't been such a bad child."
"You weren't bad. You had fits of ill-humor that I did not understand,
and therefore mismanaged; I know now that indigestion often lies at
the bottom of what looks like moral delinquency in children. Keep them
well, and they'll keep themselves good-humored."
"Oh, I'm careful enough about Pug and Trot, as need be!"
"It's enough to make them ill to call them by such hideous names."
"Well, what could I do? Could I call my husband 'the old Harry' to
distinguish him from the young Harry?"
"There, go, you incorrigible child!" cried Mrs. Grey, kissing her
good-bye. Laura drove off, laughing, and the children laughed in
concert, they knew not why.
Gabrielle was in a much more docile humor now, and Mrs. Grey explained
to her the laws of health that made the open air, and exercise, and
plain food essential to every one, but especially so to growing
children.
"I do not intend to treat you in an arbitrary way," she said, "because
I happen to have it in my power to do so. What I do will be for your
good, not to gratify my self-will. I took away the dainties from your
room because, in your condition, they were poison for you; when you are
quite well you shall have some of them, from time to time, as a part of
your dinner; never between meals."
Not more than a month passed, when Gabrielle had another sick
head-ache. It soon became apparent that she had gone back to her old
trick of eating, at all hours, on the sly. When she recovered, Mrs.
Grey said to her:
"When your father was a boy, there was not a key turned in the house
to hinder his helping himself to forbidden sweets. I could trust to
his honor. Now, am I to consider you so far his inferior that I must
furnish myself with bolts and bars?"
"Mamma did not lock up things, either. It wouldn't have done any good
if she had. And we ate whatever we pleased."
"And were continually having ill turns. Now, my child, you are old
enough to act like a reasonable being, and you must see that you bring
on these sick head-aches by your want of self-control. I want you to do
me one favor, of your own accord give up tea and coffee."
"Oh, I can't!"
"With God's help you can."
"No, I can't. He won't help me about anything. Old Mary says she should
think He would hate me, I plague you so much."
"Oh, I don't think old Mary said that!"
"Well, maybe she didn't. She said something like it."
"My poor child, He hates nobody on earth. And now, if in spite of all
your fractious, disobedient ways, I, only a human being at best, love
you, how do you think _He_ feels?"
"I think He can't bear me. And I don't believe you love me, either. But
papa did, and I mean to ask him to let me come home."
"So you have said a dozen times. If you think you had better go, and
that you will be happier there, and more likely to outgrow your faults,
I shall not prevent you."
"You won't ever let me have my own way, and mamma did."
"And were you becoming a model eldest daughter to her?"
"Nobody _could_ be a model in the house with Rosabelle. On the whole,
I'd rather stay here than go home. Rosabelle is just _horrid_!"
"I can't talk to you any more now. I must pray more and say less."
"I want to go to Ellinor Lathrop's party."
"I have told you, once for all, that you cannot go."
"Then I think you're real mean."
"_Gabrielle!_"
The girl was startled by the righteous indignation, mingled with
dignity, with which she was addressed. Accustomed for fourteen years
to look down upon her mother, she fancied she could brow-beat her
grandmother also.
"You may go to your room now," said Mrs. Grey. "And let me tell you
that if you wean my heart from me, you will lose one of the best
friends you ever had."
For once Gabrielle found she had gone too far. There is a limit no
child should be allowed to pass, and she found herself confronted by it
now. She flew to her room, and began letter after letter to her father,
pouring out her grievances into an ear that had always listened to her
with sympathy. But what would be the use of complaining to him about
his mother, whom he loved and revered? Suddenly she bethought herself
of Margaret; wouldn't she take her part, perhaps? There was another
rush here and there, and at last she found Margaret in her own room
studying.
"Grandma won't let me go to Ellinor Lathrop's party," was her abrupt
beginning.
"Why, I know that. You and she discussed it at breakfast."
"Yes, but I have teased her since then, over and over again, to let me
go, and she won't."
"Of course not when she had once refused."
"Mamma would let me go."
"Aunty is your mamma now. And I can't imagine what makes you such a
naughty girl when she is so kind and good to you."
"Do you call it kind and good to thwart me about everything?"
"Gabrielle, I want to tell you something. You've got a guilty
conscience. That's what ails you. You are all the time doing something
wrong when you know better, and that keeps you unhappy."
"I am not unhappy."
"Yes, you are; and you grow more and more so every day."
"Grandma is awfully mad with me."
"Now I know that isn't true. And you ought not to talk so. The idea of
saying aunty is 'mad!'"
"Gabrielle, why are you here?" asked Mrs. Grey, in a tone of surprise.
"Did I not send you to your room?"
Gabrielle made no answer, but moved sullenly away.
"Oh, aunty," said Margaret, "it doesn't seem right for you to be
fretted in this way!"
"I am not fretted, dear. I foresaw all these troubles before I came
home. The child is trying a series of experiments with me, to see
if she can't tame me down. When she once finds that the attempt is
useless, we shall get on better."
"Aunty--"
"I know what you wanted to say. You wonder I do not go to the root of
the matter, and try to lead her to Christ. I am praying that she may be
drawn to Him, but until she learns to submit to me, it is useless to
expect her to submit to Him. Her father thinks the same; and I have his
full sympathy in every effort I make to do her good."
It must not be supposed that Gabrielle was always unruly and always
in disgrace, and that she had no pleasant traits of character. Almost
everybody has agreeable little ways that cannot be transferred to a
book; and this girl, at times so rude and self-willed, had her gentle,
even winning moods, and won love and good-fellowship. Nor was it
strange that at an age when young people are apt to be unlovely if they
have not been handled aright, she resented the sudden bit and curb
of her new surroundings, and fancied herself ill-used. Mrs. Grey did
not, in the least, lose heart. She knew she was not working in her own
strength, and knew, by long experience, that though for a time the Lord
answers never a word, He invariably does answer in His own time, and
that that is always the best time. About a number of Gabrielle's faults
she said nothing to her; too much fault-finding is almost worse than
none; but she deplored them before God, and then tried to meet them
with contrary example.
There was no good school in the neighborhood, and as soon as under
her care and rule the child's health warranted it, she had a daily
governess come from the city to give her lessons; and finding she
was fond of music, Maud's long-silent piano was opened, and the air
was filled, now by the accomplished hand of the master, now by the
unmelodious bang of the pupil. Things went better now; Gabrielle had
no time for idling; every hour brought its own occupation, and regular
exercise, wholesome diet, and agreeable occupation broke up the habit
of picking and pecking at dainties, which had been so pernicious.
She caught, too, some of Margaret's tastes, and instead of thinking
about dress as a matter of great import, would content herself to put
on a woodland rig, quaint, yet not ugly, and go off with her in quest
of the gems Nature is always flinging lavishly about. They came home
from their expeditions with baskets running over with ferns, mosses,
lichens, grasses, and nobody knows what not, till their rooms looked
verdant with beauty. Margaret got up a mossy bank with red berries
nestling in it here and there; Gabrielle must have one, like yet not
like it, for no two hands work on one and the same line; and Margaret
had a rustic basket hanging from every possible point, and Gabrielle
hasted to do the same. Mrs. Grey looked on with delight at all this. No
utterly spoiled character riots in such simple pursuits, and she who
begins to love Nature, begins to grow cold to all that is artificial.
While in that house personal neatness was made a law, dress was
never talked about as much more than a necessary evil to be attended
to twice a year, and then forgotten. And now that she had taken to
ornamenting her room, Gabrielle found she must keep it in order, and
learned, too, that she had not a little executive power in the matter
of arrangement of furniture and clothing. She began to observe, too,
that though grandmamma would not scold, she could and did punish, and
that invariably, when infringement of a rule required it. Later on she
perceived a regular system of rewards going silently on. After a week
of exceptional docility, an invisible good fairy would leave tokens of
her presence in her room; now it was a vase for flowers; now a little
photograph; now a paper-weight; it was not always possible to tell who
this good fairy was; but whoever it was, knew just what she wanted.
So the summer bloomed and budded and bore fruit, and faded into
autumn, and autumn froze into winter. There was rarely a conflict now;
Gabrielle was too busy to find time for them, and too fond of the deeds
of the good fairy to run the risk of one when she could help it. Mrs.
Grey was not in the least surprised when, one day, the girl came shyly
behind her, put her arms around her neck, and whispered, "Grandmamma, I
wish I was a Christian!"
"So do I, my dear child," was the reply. "And why not become one, this
minute?"
"I don't know; I've tried ever so many times."
"Tried how?"
"To be good."
"Is it said anywhere in the Bible that being 'good' and being a
Christian are synonymous terms?"
"I thought it was."
"We have our Lord's own declaration that there is only one good Being
in the universe, 'that is God.' Salvation is not offered to good
people, but to bad ones."
"Well--I am _so_ bad that I don't believe it is meant for me."
"The Bible says, '_there is no difference_.' Everybody has got to come
to Christ on one level."
"Some are worse than others."
"True; but when it comes to our relation to Christ, we all stand
shoulder to shoulder. I have spent a large part of my life in believing
on and working for Him, but that does not entitle me to one atom of
His favor. I must go to Him, every day, just as you must go now,
denouncing, renouncing myself, and receive Him, by faith, as my only
ground of hope."
Gabrielle looked puzzled, and was about to raise another objection, but
they were interrupted, and the conversation was not renewed till the
next day.