CROSS-EXAMINATION.
"Nurse, where is Miss Millicent? I haven't seen her for days. Fetch her
in here this afternoon, and you go and get a little fresh air; I am well
enough to be left alone now."
Sir Edward's tone was impatient. He was getting to the convalescent
stage, and nurse found him a most trying patient. Nothing would please
him, and he wearied both himself and her with his perpetual complaints.
"I thought she would only worry you, sir. She has been asking me every
day to come in and see you. I will fetch her at once."
Milly shortly appeared in a clean pinafore, her little face radiant with
smiles. As she climbed up into the chair by the bedside and gently
stroked the hand that was given her, she said with sparkling eyes,--
"Nurse says I may stay here all alone with you, uncle; won't that be
lovely? May I give you your medicines, and be your nurse?"
"I can't promise that, but you may sit there and talk to me."
"What shall I talk about?"
"Anything you like. You never seem to be at a loss for conversation."
Milly considered for a moment.
"I've had so few people to talk to lately, you see; I generally talk
most to Fritz. He understands, I'm sure, but he doesn't talk back. When
will you be quite well again, uncle?"
"Not this side of Christmas, I'm afraid."
"Oh dear, what a long time! But I'm very glad God has made you better.
Nurse said it was a mercy you hadn't broken your neck. Do you know,
uncle, I saw such a sad sight yesterday morning. I was down in the fir
plantation with Fritz, and we came upon a dear little rabbit caught in a
steel trap. Maxwell said a poacher had put it there, and he was very
angry. The rabbit was quite dead, and his two hind legs were broken.
Wasn't it dreadful? What is a poacher, uncle?"
"A thief--a man that steals game that isn't his."
"Maxwell says there are lots of poachers about. I'm so afraid he will
think Tommy is one when he comes back. I do hope he will be careful,
because if it's dark he might make a mistake. Wouldn't it be dreadful if
he hurt his own prodigal son! And I expect Tommy will look very like a
poacher. He is sure to have ragged, dirty clothes. If I was----" Here
Milly paused, and gazed dreamily in front of her for some minutes in
silence.
"Well?" inquired Sir Edward, looking at his little niece with interest
as she sat in her big chair, her elbows supported by her knees, and her
chin resting in her hands, "are you going into a brown study?"
"I was just thinking if I was a prodigal son--I mean a real one, not
just playing at it, as I do--I would rather be one of God's prodigal
sons, than belonging to any one else."
"Why?"
"Because I would know for certain He would meet me and take me back.
Nurse told me she had a cousin who ran away and made himself a soldier,
and when he was sorry and wanted to come home, his father shut the door
in his face, and wouldn't let him in. And then there's Tommy, I can't
help s'posing that his father mightn't know him. But God can't make
mistakes. It must be lovely just to run right into God's arms, and hear
Him saying, _'Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him.'_ I should
love to have Him say that to me."
Milly's little face glowed with pleasure at the thought, and she turned
her expressive eyes toward her uncle, who lay with knitted brows
listening to her.
"And supposing if God would not receive you; supposing you had stayed
away so long, and had refused to listen to His voice when He called, and
then when you did want to come back, you felt it would be too late, what
would you do then?"
Milly smiled.
"Why, uncle, it would be never too late for God, would it? Maxwell said
he would be glad to see Tommy if he came back in the middle of the
night, and God would never turn one of his prodigal sons away. He loves
them so that he sent Jesus to die for them. He would never say He
couldn't have them back again."
Sir Edward said no more, and after another pause the child went on.
"I was asking Mrs. Maxwell the other day if she had some best clothes
for Tommy when he came home, and she took me upstairs into his little
room, and opened a long drawer, and told me to look inside. And there
were his best Sunday coat and waistcoat and trousers, and a silk
handkerchief with lavender in it, and a necktie with yellow and red
stripes, and she told me they had been there for nine years, and she
shakes them out and brushes them every Saturday. He didn't run away in
his best clothes, you know; he left them behind. So they're quite ready
for him. The only thing Mrs. Maxwell hasn't got is the ring."
"The what?" inquired Sir Edward, amused.
"The ring," Milly repeated earnestly. "Maxwell will have to say, '_Put a
ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet_.' Mrs. Maxwell has got a pair
of carpet slippers. I couldn't bear her not having any shoes ready for
him, so we looked about and found a pair that are just too small for
Maxwell, and I put them in the drawer my own self. Mrs. Maxwell says he
won't want a ring, and that she thinks the Bible people dressed
differently, and she said Tommy was a poor man's son: it wasn't as if he
was rich. But I don't know; I don't like to think we have no ring for
him. I suppose you haven't one, uncle, that you would like to give him?"
Sir Edward put his head back on his cushions and laughed aloud. Then,
noting Milly's troubled face, he said:
"Wait till Tommy comes back, little woman, and then it will be time
enough to see about his ring, though I quite agree with his mother that
it would be most unfitting."
"You have had the picture I gave you taken away, uncle," said Milly
presently, her quick eyes roving round the room. "Ah! you've had it hung
up on the wall. That's nice there. You can see it from your bed. Don't
you like looking at it? Doesn't it make you feel happy?"
"I can't say it does," replied Sir Edward, glancing at the picture in
question. "Why ought it to make me feel happy?"
"Oh, it's so nice to think he is just getting home after being away so
long. I wonder if he was a great time walking back. How long do you
think it takes one of God's prodigal sons to get back to Him, uncle?"
"I should say a very long time, indeed," said Sir Edward, slowly.
"But how long? Two days, or six hours, or a week?"
"It would depend perhaps on how long they had been away from Him."
"It's rather hard to understand," said Milly, wrinkling her little brow
perplexedly, "because God is everywhere, isn't He? and I should have
thought He would have been close by them all the time. I was asking
nurse about it, and she said that God was near them, only they wouldn't
have anything to say to Him, and did bad things and shut the Lord Jesus
out of their heart, and let Satan in, and then God had to leave them
till they said they said they were sorry. I suppose directly they say:
'_Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in Thy sight, and am no more
worthy to be called Thy son,_' then God just folds them in His arms and
forgives them and takes them back again; isn't that it?"
"Look here, I think we have had enough of this subject. Talk about
something else."
Sir Edward's tone was irritable. Milly's ready tongue obeyed.
"Nurse says it's so cold to-day that she thinks it will snow. Do you
think it will? It is quite smoky by the river; nurse says it is a fog. I
wondered where it all came from. Do you think it might be God's breath,
uncle?"
As she was chatting on, suddenly there came a sharp knock at the door,
and a visitor appeared.
"Thought I'd look you up, for I heard you were on the sick list. Good
gracious! you have been pretty bad, haven't you? Will you put me up for
a night or two? I expect you want a little cheerful company."
Talking volubly, Major Lovell--for it was he--came forward and looked
with real concern on Sir Edward's altered face.
"I'm very glad to see you," said the latter, heartily, holding out his
hand. "Come and stay for as long as you like. I'm sick to death of my
own society."
"And is this the small party that arrived so unexpectedly when I was
here before?" inquired Major Lovell, looking down at Milly, who still
sat in the big chair, regarding the new-comer with her large brown eyes.
"Yes," said Sir Edward, a faint smile hovering about his lips as he
remembered his horror of her advent; "she is taking charge of me this
afternoon."
Milly held out her little hand with all the grace of a duchess.
"I remember you," she said; "you were one of the gentlemen that laughed
at me."
"I don't think I could have been guilty of such rudeness, surely."
"Now, I think you may run away," Sir Edward said, "and tell nurse I will
ring when I want her."
Milly obeyed, and confided to nurse that she hoped the "new gentleman"
would not keep her away from her uncle. "For do you know, nurse, I like
Uncle Edward so much better when he is in bed. He looks so sad, and
speaks so softly. I wish I could sit with him every day."
Major Lovell was a distant cousin of Sir Edward, and there existed a
warm friendship between them. The very brightness of his tone seemed to
do the invalid good, and Milly was quite delighted to find that her
uncle's visitor not only listened with interest to the account of her
favorite games and pastimes, but insisted upon joining her in them, and
the walls of the quiet old house rang again with merry mirth and
laughter such as they had not known for years.
Upstairs in the sick room Major Lovell proved a wonderfully patient and
skillful nurse; but there were times when all his bright cheeriness
could not smooth the furrows in the invalid's brow, or take away the
fretfulness of tone.
One morning Major Lovell came down from an interview with him with a
puzzled expression of face. Catching sight of Milly in the hall,
equipped in hat and jacket, he asked,--
"Are you going out with nurse?"
"No, nurse is busy--just by my own self, in the avenue with Fritz. Do
come with me."
The major consented, but with a graver face than usual, and then
suddenly, very full of his own thoughts, said to the child,--
"I believe your uncle has something on his mind. It strikes me from
different things he has let drop that he is turning pious."
"What is pious?" inquired Milly, instantly.
"What is it? A pious person thinks every one wicked but themselves, and
condemns everybody and everything all round them. They are most
objectionable people, little woman, so mind you never take up that line,
and the worst of it is that they're so satisfied with their own
goodness, that you can't crush them, try as much as you may."
"And is Uncle Edward going to be like them?" asked the child, with a
perplexed face.
"I devoutly hope not. I shall do all in my power to prevent it."
"What do pious people do?" questioned Milly.
"Do! They give tracts away and sing hymns, and pull long faces over very
well-bound Bibles."
"I like singing hymns," asserted Milly, very emphatically; "everybody
sings hymns to God, don't they? I listen to the birds, sometimes, and
wish I could sing like them; and the trees sing, and the bees and flies.
Everything seems to sing out of doors in the summer time, but they've
nearly all dropped asleep now till next year. What hymns do you sing,
Major Lovell?"
"Bless the child! what do you take me for?" and the major laughed
heartily as he spoke; then, with a twinkle in his eye, he went on
gravely,--
"I shall begin to think that you are pious if you don't take care. What
else do you do besides sing hymns?"
"I have a Bible," said Milly, solemnly, "and I just love it."
"And what makes you love such a dry book as the Bible? You can't
understand a word of it."
"Oh, I can, Major Lovell, it's beautiful. I love nurse to read and read
it to me. It tells about Jesus, you know, and I love Jesus, and He loves
me. And it has such nice stories in it."
Major Lovell gave a long, low whistle.
"Ah!" he said, shaking his head comically at the little figure walking
by his side, "I'm very much afraid you may be at the bottom of it all.
Do you read the Bible to your uncle? Do you tell him that he has been
wasting his life and not fulfilling the end for which he was created, in
fact, that he is a wicked sinner? For that has been the substance of
his talk with me this morning!"
"Uncle Edward is a very good man," Milly replied, warmly. "I don't know
what you mean, Major Lovell; don't you read the Bible?"
"What will you think of me if I tell you I don't?"
"Perhaps you know it all by heart? I expect that is why."
"I rather think I don't. You must not begin to catechise me too
severely. Who has brought you up in this pious fashion?"
"I'm not pious. You said they were horrid people. But I thought all the
grown-up people read the Bible, except people like Jack."
"Who is Jack?"
"He was a prodigal son, one of God's prodigal sons."
"And what are they, may I ask?"
Milly did not answer for a minute, then she stopped short, and said very
solemnly, raising her large dark eyes to the major's face,--
"I wonder if you're a prodigal son. Uncle Edward said there were some
rich ones. Have you run away from God, Major Lovell?"
"Oh, come now," said the major, pinching her cheek good-naturedly; "I
didn't bargain for this when I came out with you. You must keep your
sermons for some one else. Come along to the stables with me, and I will
give you a ride."
In an instant Milly's gravity disappeared, and a little time afterwards
she was laughing gleefully as she was being trotted round the
stable-yard on a large bay mare; but she said to her nurse when she came
in,--
"Major Lovell is very nice, but very funny, and I can't always
understand his talk, he says such difficult things."