DUTY.
The days of December went by. Lois was herself again, in health; and
nothing was in the way of Madge's full enjoyment of New York and its
pleasures, so she enjoyed them to the full. She went wherever Mrs.
Wishart would take her. That did not involve any very outrageous
dissipation, for Mrs. Wishart, though fond of society, liked it best in
moderation. Moderate companies and moderate hours suited her. However,
Madge had enough to content her new thirst for excitement and variety,
especially as Mr. Dillwyn continually came in to fill up gaps in her
engagements. He took her to drive, or to see various sights, which for
the country-bred girl were full of enchantment; and he came to the
house constantly on the empty evenings.
Lois queried again and again what brought him there? Madge it must be;
it could hardly be the society of his old friend Mrs. Wishart. It was
not her society that he sought. He was general in his attentions, to be
sure; but he played chess with Madge, he accompanied Madge's singing,
he helped Madge in her French reading and Italian pronunciation, and
took Madge out. He did none of these things with Lois. Truly Lois had
been asked, and would not go out either alone or with her sister in Mr.
Dillwyn's carriage or in Mr. Dillwyn's convoy. And she had been
challenged, and invariably declined, to sing with them; and she did not
want to learn the game of chess, and took no help from anybody in her
studies. Indeed, Lois kept herself persistently in the background, and
refused to accompany her friends to any sort of parties; and at home,
though she must sit down-stairs in the evening, she withdrew from the
conversation as much as she could.
"My dear," said Mrs. Wishart, much vexed at last, "you do not think it
is _wicked_ to go into society, I hope?"
"Not for you. I do not think it would be right for me."
"Why not, pray? Is this Puritanism?"
"Not at all," said Lois, smiling.
"She is a regular Puritan, though," said Madge.
"It isn't that," Lois repeated. "I like going out among people as well
as Madge does. I am afraid I might like it too well."
"What do you mean by 'too well'?" demanded her protectress, a little
angrily.
"More than would be good for me. Just think--in a little while I must
go back to Esterbrooke and teaching; don't you see, I had better not
get myself entangled with what would unfit me for my work?"
"Nonsense! That is not your work."
"You are _never_ going back to that horrid place!" exclaimed Madge.
But they both knew, from the manner of Lois's quiet silence, that their
positions would not be maintained.
"There's the more reason, if you are going back there by and by, why
you should take all the advantage you can of the present," Mrs. Wishart
added. Lois gave her a sweet, grateful look, acknowledging her
tenderness, but not granting her conclusions. She got away from the
subject as soon as she could. The question of the sisters' return home
had already been broached by Lois; received, however, by Mrs. Wishart
with such contempt, and by Madge with such utter disfavour, that Lois
found the point could not be carried; at least not at that time; and
then winter began to set in, and she could find no valid reason for
making the move before it should be gone again, Mrs. Wishart's
intention being unmistakeable to keep them until spring. But how was
she going to hold out until spring? Lois felt herself very
uncomfortable. She could not possibly avoid seeing Mr. Dillwyn
constantly; she could not always help talking to him, for sometimes he
would make her talk; and she was very much afraid that she liked to
talk to him. All the while she was obliged to see how much attention he
was paying to Madge, and it was no secret how well Madge liked it; and
Lois was afraid to look at her own reasons for disliking it. Was it
merely because Mr. Dillwyn was a man of the world, and she did not want
her sister to get entangled with him? her sister, who had made no
promise to her grandmother, and who was only bound, and perhaps would
not be bound, by Bible commands? Lois had never opened her Bible to
study the point, since that evening when Mr. Dillwyn had interrupted
her. She was ashamed to do it. The question ought to have no interest
for her.
So days went by, and weeks, and the year was near at an end, when the
first snow came. It had held off wonderfully, people said; and now when
it came it came in earnest. It snowed all night and all day; and slowly
then the clouds thinned and parted and cleared away, and the westering
sun broke out upon a brilliant world.
Lois sat at her window, looking out at it, and chiding herself that it
made her feel sober. Or else, by contrast, it let her know how sober
she was. The spectacle was wholly joy-inspiring, and so she had been
wont to find it. Snow lying unbroken on all the ground, in one white,
fair glitter; snow lying piled up on the branches and twigs of trees,
doubling them with white coral; snow in ridges and banks on the
opposite shore of the river; and between, the rolling waters. Madge
burst in.
"Isn't it glorious?" said Lois. "Come here and see how black the river
is rolling between its white banks."
"Black? I didn't know anything was black," said Madge. "Here is Mr.
Dillwyn, come to take me sleigh-riding. Just think, Lois!--a sleigh
ride in the Park!--O, I'm so glad I have got my hood done!"
Lois slowly turned her head round. "Sleigh-riding?" she said. "Are you
going sleigh-riding, and with Mr. Dillwyn?"
"Yes indeed, why not?" said Madge, bustling about with great activity.
"I'd rather go with him than with anybody else, I can tell you. He has
got his sister's horses--Mrs. Burrage don't like sleighing--and Mr.
Burrage begged he would take the horses out. They're gay, but he knows
how to drive. O, won't it be magnificent?"
Lois looked at her sister in silence, unwilling, yet not knowing what
to object; while Madge wrapped herself in a warm cloak, and donned a
silk hood lined with cherry colour, in which she was certainly
something to look at. No plainer attire nor brighter beauty would be
seen among the gay snow-revellers that afternoon. She flung a sparkling
glance at her sister as she turned to go.
"Don't be very long!" Lois said.
"Just as long as he likes to make it!" Madge returned. "Do you think
_I_ am going to ask him to turn about, before he is ready? Not I, I
promise you. Good-bye, hermit!"
Away she ran, and Lois turned again to her window, where all the white
seemed suddenly to have become black. She will marry him!--she was
saying to herself. And why should she not? she has made no promise. _I_
am bound--doubly; what is it to me, what they do? Yet if not right for
me it is not right for Madge. _Is_ the Bible absolute about it?
She thought it would perhaps serve to settle and stay her mind if she
went to the Bible with the question and studied it fairly out. She drew
up the table with the book, and prayed earnestly to be taught the
truth, and to be kept contented with the right. Then she opened at the
well-known words in 2 Corinthians, chap. vi.
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers"--
"Yoked together." That is, bound in a bond which obliges two to go one
way and pull in one draught. Then of course they _must_ go one way; and
which way, will depend upon which is strongest. But cannot a good woman
use her influence to induce a man who is also good, only not Christian,
to go the right way?
Lois pondered this, wishing to believe it. Yet there stood the command.
And she remembered there are two sides to influence; could not a good
man, and a pleasant man, only not Christian, use his power to induce a
Christian woman to go the wrong way? How little she would like to
displease him! how willingly she would gratify him!--And then there
stands the command. And, turning from it to a parallel passage in 1
Cor. vii. 39, she read again the directions for the marriage of a
Christian widow; she is at liberty to be married to whom she will,
"_only in the Lord_." There could be no question of what is the will of
God in this matter. And in Deut. vii. 3, 4, she studied anew the
reasons there given. "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy
daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou
take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me,
that they may serve other gods."
Lois studied these passages with I cannot say how much aching of heart.
Why did her heart ache? It was nothing to her, surely; she neither
loved nor was going to love any man to whom the prohibition could
apply. Why should she concern herself with the matter? Madge?-- Well,
Madge must be the keeper of her own conscience; she would probably
marry Mr. Dillwyn; and poor Lois saw sufficiently into the workings of
her own heart to know that she thought her sister very happy in the
prospect. But then, if the question of conscience could be so got over,
_why_ was she troubled? She would not evade the inquiry; she forced
herself to make it; and she writhed under the pressure and the pain it
caused her. At last, thoroughly humbled and grieved and ashamed, she
fled to a woman's refuge in tears, and a Christian's refuge in prayer;
and from the bottom of her heart, though with some very hard struggles,
gave up every lingering thought and wish that ran counter to the Bible
command. Let Madge do what Madge thought right; she had warned her of
the truth. Now her business was with herself and her own action; and
Lois made clean work of it. I cannot say she was exactly a happy woman
as she went down-stairs; but she felt strong and at peace. Doing the
Lord's will, she could not be miserable; with the Lord's presence she
could not be utterly alone; anyhow, she would trust him and do her
duty, and leave all the rest.
She went down-stairs at last, for she had spent the afternoon in her
own room, and felt that she owed it to Mrs. Wishart to go down and keep
her company. O, if Spring were but come! she thought as she descended
the staircase,--and she could get away, and take hold of her work, and
bring things into the old train! Spring was many weeks off yet, and she
must do different and harder work first, she saw. She went down to the
back drawing-room and laid herself upon the sofa.
"Are you not well, Lois?" was the immediate question from Mrs. Wishart.
"Yes, ma'am; only not just vigorous. How long they are gone! It is
growing late."
"The sleighing is tempting. It is not often we have such a chance. I
suppose everybody is out. _You_ don't go into the air enough, Lois."
"I took a walk this morning."
"In the snow!--and came back tired. I saw it in your face. Such
dreadful walking was enough to tire you. I don't think you half know
how to take care of yourself."
Lois let the charge pass undisputed, and lay still. The afternoon had
waned and the sun gone down; the snow, however, made it still light
outside. But that light faded too; and it was really evening, when
sounds at the front door announced the return of the sleighing party.
Presently Madge burst in, rosy and gay as snow and sleigh-bells could
make anybody.
"It's glorious!" she said. "O, we have been to the Park and all over.
It's splendid! Everybody in the world is out, and we saw everybody, and
some people we saw two or three times; and it's like nothing in all the
world I ever saw before. The whole air is full of sleigh-bells; and the
roads are so thick with sleighs that it is positively dangerous."
"That must make it very pleasant!" said Lois languidly.
"O, it does! There's the excitement, you know, and the skill of
steering clear of people that you think are going to run over you. It's
the greatest fun I ever saw in my life. And Mr. Dillwyn drives
beautifully."
"I dare say."
"And the next piece of driving he does, is to drive you out."
"I hardly think he will manage that."
"Well, you'll see. Here he is. She says she hardly thinks you will, Mr.
Dillwyn. Now for a trial of power!"
Madge stood in the centre of the room, her hood off, her little plain
cloak still round her; eyes sparkling, cheeks rosy with pleasure and
frosty air, a very handsome and striking figure. Lois's eyes dwelt upon
her, glad and sorry at once; but Lois had herself in hand now, and was
as calm as the other was excited. Then presently came Mr. DilIwyn, and
sat down beside her couch.
"How do you do, this evening?"
His manner, she noticed, was not at all like Madge's; it was quiet,
sober, collected, gentle; sleighing seemed to have wrought no
particular exhilaration on him. Therefore it disarmed Lois. She gave
her answer in a similar tone.
"Have you been out to-day?"
"Yes--quite a long walk this morning."
"Now I want you to let me give you a short drive."
"O no, I think not."
"Come!" said he. "I may not have another opportunity to show you what
you will see to-day; and I want you to see it."
He did not seem to use much urgency, and yet there was a certain
insistance in his tone which Lois felt, and which had its effect upon
her, as such tones are apt to do, even when one does not willingly
submit to them. She objected that it was late.
"O, the moon is up," cried Madge; "it won't be any darker than it is
now."
"It will be brighter," said Philip.
"But your horses must have had enough."
"Just enough," said Philip, laughing, "to make them go quietly. Miss
Madge will bear witness they were beyond that at first. I want you to
go with me. Come, Miss Lois! We must be home before Mrs. Wishart's tea.
Miss Madge, give her your hood and cloak; that will save time."
Why should she not say no? She found it difficult, against that
something in his tone. He was more intent upon the affirmative than she
upon the negative. And after all, why _should_ she say no? She had
fought her fight and conquered; Mr. Dillwyn was nothing to her, more
than another man; unless, indeed, he were to be Madge's husband, and
then she would have to be on good terms with, him. And she had a secret
fancy to have, for once, the pleasure of this drive with him. Why not,
just to see how it tasted? I think it went with Lois at this moment as
in the German story, where a little boy vaunted himself to his sister
that he had resisted the temptation to buy some ripe cherries, and so
had saved his pennies. His sister praised his prudence and firmness.
"But now, dear Hercules," she went on, "now that you have done right
and saved your pennies, now, my dear brother, you may reward yourself
and buy your cherries!"
Perhaps it was with some such unconscious recoil from judgment that
Lois acted now. At any rate, she slowly rose from her sofa, and Madge,
rejoicing, threw off her cloak and put it round her, and fastened its
ties. Then Mr. Dillwyn himself took the hood and put it on her head,
and tied the strings under her chin. The start this gave her almost
made Lois repent of her decision; he was looking into her face, and his
fingers were touching her cheek, and the pain of it was more than Lois
had bargained for. No, she thought, she had better not gone; but it was
too late now to alter things. She stood still, feeling that thrill of
pain and pleasure where the one so makes the other keen, keeping quiet
and not meeting his eyes; and then he put her hand upon his arm and led
her down the wide, old-fashioned staircase. Something in the air of it
all brought to Lois's remembrance that Sunday afternoon at Shampuashuh
and the walk home in the rain; and it gave her a stricture of heart.
She put the manner now to Madge's account, and thought within herself
that if Madge's hood and cloak were beside him it probably did not
matter who was in them; his fancy could do the rest. Somehow she did
not want to go to drive as Madge's proxy. However, there was no helping
that now. She was put into the sleigh, enveloped in the fur robes; Mr.
Dillwyn took his place beside her, and they were off.