A NEW HOME
AND SOME VARIATIONS OF TEMPER IN IT.
IN less than a month, Myra and her family were the pleased occupants of
their new home,—a pretty white house, simply and tastefully furnished,
and surrounded by a small garden containing several handsome trees,
which screened it somewhat from the high-road. It was situated at
the outskirt of one of those clean, respectable county towns, where
an excellent and well-conducted public school attracts the residence
of many persons out of business, retired officers, widow ladies with
large families and small incomes; and from which honourably earned
scholarships and exhibitions have transferred ornaments to British
universities.
Harry and Leonard were entered according to their respective ages, and
soon found their level. The former had for several years been a boarder
at an expensive school, and was quite prepared for all a schoolboy's
troubles and adventures, but Leonard, though proud of his new position,
was too selfish and contentious to become a favourite, and his
mortification were ill endured.
His sisters did their best to patch up sundry wounds, mend battered
books, and sympathise with black eyes, incurred by pride and wilfulness
in the playground, and which, of course, the masters could not prevent.
And Harry, perhaps, was not so quick to the rescue as he might have
been, for he often thought that Leonard deserved the treatment bestowed
on him. However it might be, Margaret was the chief "confidante" of
his feelings, and instead of soothing, she too often irritated him. In
fact, they sometimes made themselves out to be the two most unfortunate
children in the world, from the strong magnifying power through which
they viewed their grievances.
One day Harry burst in at home, after school, exclaiming,—
"Oh, Myra, who do you think I've seen? Actually nurse Dinah! She
stopped us in the road; and when I wouldn't wait any longer, she kept
Leonard talking on. She says she has come to live near us, and we must
often go and see her."
"Dear Harry, I wish you had waited for Leonard," said Myra. "None of
you are to have any communication with Dinah, and I am sorry to hear
that she has come here."
"I shall speak to her, and go and see her, too," said Margaret. "How
can you, Myra, be so ill-natured to her, when poor mamma liked her so
much?"
"Mamma did not know her, Margaret, or she would not have allowed her
to be with you so long. But I am serious in what I say. You are not to
visit Dinah, and she is not to come to see you."
"It's shameful!" cried Margaret passionately. "Do you call that
religion?"
"It is part of it, dear sister, as my duty to you. Dinah did her best
to make you disobedient to me, and dissatisfied with God's dealings
with you; and I ought to guard against the same evil for the future."
While Margaret was uttering some rude reply, Leonard made his
appearance, with his mouth and hands full of sweets, mumbling out the
news of Dinah's arrival in the neighbourhood, and the nice things
she had got in her new shop. Myra gently repeated her decision, that
Leonard might fully understand, and then turned the attention of them
all from the subject.
On the following day, the sisters were walking into the town on some
errand, when suddenly Margaret darted into a small shop, where fancy
confectionery and small wares appeared for sale; and the others
immediately following, found her in nurse Dinah's arms, receiving her
caresses and welcomes.
Myra permitted her to kiss Elsie also, and Florence shook hands coldly.
"Bless you all, my darlings!" cried Dinah. "Come as often as ever
you can; I shall always be delighted to see my charge that my dear
mistress, poor lady, left to me. There, I see your governess doesn't
like to be kept waiting, but I'll soon see you again."
"I am sorry to disappoint you, nurse."
"Mrs. Jonson, if you please, miss. I'm married, and I came to settle
here for the sake of the children, that they may have one old friend
near them, at least."
"It is a great pity you took such an important step on their account,
Mrs. Jonson, for I must beg you to understand that they do not go
anywhere without me, and that I hope you will not press for any further
acquaintance with them. Come, Margaret."
"Run down whenever you can, my dear, and take this," whispered Mrs.
Jonson, as Margaret yet lingered behind, and thrusting a paper of
toffee into her hand; "I daresay you don't get much of treats now. I
wonder how she has managed to win over your little sister?"
"Oh, she is very kind to her," said Margaret, running off at last.
"My dear Margaret, you must promise me not to do this again," said Myra
gravely.
"You are jealous of her, I suppose?" said Margaret.
"I am jealous for you, dear sister. I wish you to have friends who will
do you no harm at least. Will you promise?"
"What if I don't promise?" asked Margaret pertly.
"I shall have the sorrow of finding that I have a rebel in my little
household, and must consult with your uncle upon the proper means to
put down mutiny. But you will not drive me to do that, I trust. I will
leave it for the present with your sense of honour and propriety. You
know very well the worth of Dinah's professions of attachment to you,
and should not permit her to come between us who are sisters."
"You are not my sister; I don't like to be ordered about by you. I
ought to do as I please."
"Well, dear, let me at least help you to be fit to do as you please,
and to guide you until you are. I only ask your obedience, and the good
example of it until that time, for Leonard's sake as well as your own.
Dinah is ignorant, and perhaps thinks she means to do you a kindness,
but you know better what is suitable and right."
"It's very hard," grumbled Margaret.
"I will make it as easy as I can," said Myra kindly, "but it is right,
or indeed I would not insist. I love to please you, Margaret, but no
true friend would prefer to please for the moment, by the infliction of
a lasting injury."
Nothing more was said on the disagreeable subject for several days.
But Mrs. Jonson being resolved to test her power to win the children
and oppose Myra, walked to the house, astonishing Peggy by her
unexpected appearance in the kitchen, and desiring her to announce her
arrival to the young ladies.
"Please, here's Dinah," said Peggy, in a cross voice; "she wants to see
the children."
"Tell her they are all engaged," said Myra calmly.
"I told her they was at lessons, ma'am, but she says she will wait till
they've done. You had best come and speak to her yourself, please,
ma'am, for I feel all boiling up. And if she don't go, I'm afraid I
shall be doing something I had better not, maybe. I can't abide her
mischief, not I."
Myra immediately went to the kitchen, told Mrs. Jonson, in a few words,
her reason for refusing what, under different circumstances, she would
willingly have encouraged, and, requesting her to desist from all
future attentions to the children, she bade her good-morning.
Mrs. Jonson was not to be silenced, if she could not be welcomed, and
broke into abusive speeches against tyranny, cruelty, and injustice,
until Peggy, unable to control herself any longer, seized her mop and a
pail of water, and began such a slushing deluge in all directions over
the floor, that the enemy beat a retreat rather speedily at last.
[Illustration: THE ENEMY BEAT A RETREAT RATHER SPEEDILY.]
"I am glad you've taken to hold your tongue, Peggy," she remarked
sneeringly; "it is a great improvement."
"She would improve anybody that would let her," cried Peggy, pointing
her thumb after Myra, "but you had best keep away till you want to be
good." And she shut the door with a disrespectful bang and the sound of
a bolt.
Peggy didn't pretend to be good yet, she said to herself; "and when
story-tellers and mischief-makers would put themselves in her way, she
wasn't against using her mop instead of her tongue; it made a deal less
noise, and did the work quickest when the kitchen wanted cleaning and
getting shut of rubbidge."
But, unhappily, Peggy did not easily recover from the ill effects of
this disagreeable visit. One of her crooked tempers had been roused and
indulged, and now mastered her good resolutions. She became reckless,
and dashed about until she broke and damaged several useful things. A
word from her fellow-servant provoked her further, and Peggy was soon
past management.
She rose late, breakfast was not ready, boots were not cleaned, the
kitchen looked like a sale-room. At dinner, the gravy was black with
cinders, and the potatoes, usually done to a nicety, were either hard
or burned. In fact, poor Peggy's evil temper intruded into everything,
and her young mistress's gentle remonstrances produced no impression.
At last, provoked by some fresh proof of carelessness, Myra, without
waiting to consider any further, went hastily into the kitchen, and
spoke with such angry decision that Peggy stared with astonishment,
threw down a box full of coals, and finally launched upon her mistress
a torrent of insolence such as poor Myra had never heard before, ending
with an announcement that she would leave the house that very day.
"You will not do that. You shall wait until I fill your place,
impertinent, ungrateful girl!" said Myra, repeating some of the
vexations that Peggy had lately perpetrated, amidst violent disclaimers
on the part of the culprit, until, feeling that her position was
getting extremely undignified, she turned away, but not before Peggy,
with a scornful tone, and as though speaking to herself, exclaimed,—
"There, it's all come out now. If that's her religion, it ain't worth
nothing, and I'm not going to bother my head any more about it. She
teach other people, indeed! She'd better begin again herself!"
The taunt stung deep. Instantly the apostle's words rushed into Myra's
mind:
"The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men,
apt to teach, patient (or forbearing), in meekness instructing those
that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance
to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves
(or awake) out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him
at his will."
Myra went to her own room, and, with a beating heart and burning cheek,
knelt down and burst into tears. There was a storm now within. Ashamed,
humbled, disgusted with herself, she forgot Peggy's insolence, in
humiliation and self-reproach; and the loss of influence for Peggy's
moral and spiritual welfare was no small portion of her sorrow.
"Oh, how I have forgotten the charity that is not easily provoked! I am
well taught, and know the mind of Christ, while she is an ignorant girl
whom no one has ever instructed at all, and is only just beginning to
be willing to learn from me! What a wrong I have done to the religion
of Jesus! What injury to the poor girl herself!"
But Myra knew where to find pardon and peace, and the value of the
blood that "cleanseth from all sin," and by degrees she grew calm and
able to seek earnestly for wisdom and grace to try and undo in Peggy's
mind the mischief she had done.
Once more, she bent her steps to the kitchen, with traces of tears on
her face, but the soft light of peace and Christian love in her eyes.
Peggy was violently clearing away some of her neglected work, and
started with surprise at the sight of her young mistress.
"Peggy," said Myra, advancing to her, "you were quite right. I do need
to begin again myself, and I am truly sorry for the anger and passion
with which I spoke to you. I will not prevent you from going to-day if
you wish it, but you must bear in mind that I have 'not' shown you the
religion of Jesus in this unhappy dispute; and I pray that some one may
teach it to you who may never disgrace it in your eyes—"
"There, there, do stop, please do stop. Dear heart alive! To think of
her coming to tell me this! What a fool, what a wicked girl I am!" And,
throwing down her broom, and gathering up her apron over her face,
Peggy began to sob passionately.
"We have both been wrong, Peggy; we will forgive each other, and may
God forgive us both."
"Oh don't, please don't, dear missis," sobbed Peggy; "it's me, it's
all me, with my nasty temper, that's enough to frighten the wicked one
hisself; I know it. But if you'll forgive me, indeed I'll try, that I
will, and I'll do better. I did put the blacking on the kid, and messed
them boots all over; and I did slop the milk about, more shame for me.
And all the other things you said, I did them all and more too; and it
was enough to vex an angel. But I'll never do it again as long as my
name's Peggy, you see if I do."
"Then, Peggy, we will try and be a comfort to each other. I value a
great deal in you, and have no wish to part."
"Bless you, miss!" cried Peggy, seizing Myra's hand and kissing it.
"You can do me good, and nobody else ever did, nor never will."
Peggy could not forget it; and as she went lightly and gently about her
work, she murmured to herself, "To think of her coming like that, she
that oughtn't to have a hard word from man, woman, or child! Yes, yes,
that's the sort; that's better nor pulpit, nor class, nor anything else
that's talking and not doing. She wrong indeed! When I've been enough
to vex all the saints that ever were; Job hisself at the head of 'em.
Well, see if I don't work my fingers to the bone for her, for ever and
ever, Amen."
In former days Peggy had been sent by her mother to a Sunday school,
but she had not been prepossessed in favour of her teacher, and boldly
announced that she "wouldn't be drove, not even to heaven; and if
the way wasn't nice, she didn't want to go along it." But now that
her interest was awakened, and she began to feel the need of some
restraining power to guard her from the fierceness "of tempers that
would bring her some day to the gallows," she said, she felt sorry for
opportunities neglected.
"Myra dear," said Florence one day, "do you know that Peggy is wishing
she could go to school on Sunday afternoon, somewhere that you would be
teacher, and she might be in your class?"
"I have been thinking about her," said Myra; "and perhaps we might
invite her and Janet to come in while we are reading together."
"I thought you would suggest that, sister, and I asked her if she would
like it. She made me laugh, for she answered in her blunt, odd way,
'No, for sure I'd be going to sleep, because you are all so clever,
and you know words, but I want everything told to me out and out, like
a booby that I am. Then I proposed that she should go to the Sunday
school belonging to our church, for I was sure you would give her
leave. But she said that 'nobody knows how to teach her but you, and
you are real, with a spirit in you that came from nowheres but heaven
itself.'"
Myra inwardly thanked God for this result of her confession to Peggy,
but she was perplexed how best to provide for her instruction on a
Sunday afternoon, "sermons" not being at present in Peggy's favour, for
she invariably went to sleep before the sermon began, and her disgust
at her own misbehaviour was only partially mitigated by the conviction
that she should not have understood it if she had kept awake.
"Suppose we all went to the Sunday school, Myra," suggested Florence;
"you could have a class of young women, you know, and Margaret and I
could teach some little ones."
"I should be delighted to think that you love the Lord Jesus
sufficiently to wish to 'feed His lambs,' dear Florrie; for nothing
else, I think, can keep one's interest and patience from failing, or
really do much good. It must be from heart to heart if we would really
influence. But, you know, even if we did this, Harry and Leonard would
miss us, and little Elsie is beginning to love our Sunday afternoons.
No, home is the place for our first efforts, dear Florrie; think again."
"Would you be too tired, Myra, to give Peggy that time before tea which
you have given to me when you are afraid of Harry and Leonard getting
weary, and you send them for a run in the garden, or give them one of
your illustration books to look at?"
"No, dear Florrie; it is a very precious half-hour to us both, but if
you are willing to give it up for Peggy's sake, I will go to her in the
study and do my best to help her on."
"It is self-denial to me, Myra," said Florence, smiling, and kissing
her sister, "but it will be a great help to her."
So it was arranged, and Peggy was highly gratified with what she
considered "beat all the schools in England." She knew that Miss
Florrie gave up something, and she said, "Ah, Miss Florrie is learning
the religion of Jesus."
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