"And I come down no more to chilling praise,
To sneers, to wearing out of empty days,
But rest, rejoicing in the power I've won,
To go on learning, though my crying's done."
_Isabella Fyvie Mayo_.
As the two girls turned into the little garden of Number Three, the
latch of the door was lifted, and Mrs Jane came out.
"Good evening!" said she. "Come to see my sister, are you? I and my
Deb are doing for her to-day, for her Nell has got a holiday--gone to
see her mother--lazy slut!"
"Which is the lazy slut, Mrs Jane?" asked Rhoda, laughing.
"Heyday! they're all a parcel together," answered Mrs Jane. "Nell and
her mother, and her grandmother before them. And Marcella, too, she's
no better. Go in, if you want a string of complaints. You can come out
when you've had plenty."
"How many complaints are plenty, Mrs Jane?"
"One," said Mrs Jane, marching off. "Plenty for me."
Rhoda lifted the latch, and walked in, Phoebe following her. She tapped
at the inner door.
"Oh, come in, whoever it is," said a querulous, plaintive voice. "Well,
Mrs Rhoda, I thought you would have been to see me before. A poor
lonely creature, that nobody cares for, and never has any comfort nor
pleasure! And who have you with you? I'm sure she's in a deep
consumption from the looks of her. Coltsfoot, my dear, and horehound,
with plenty of sugar, boiled together; and a little mallow won't hurt.
But they'll not do you much good, I should say; you're too far gone:
still, 'tis a duty to do all one can, and some strange things do happen:
like Betty Collins--the doctors all gave her up, and there she is,
walking about, as well as anybody. And so may you, my dear, though you
don't look like it. Still, you are young--there's no telling: and
coltsfoot is a very good thing, and makes wonderful cures. Oh, that
careless Jane, to leave me all alone, just when I wanted my pillows
shaking! And so inconsiderate of Nell to go home just to-day, of all
days, when she knew I was sure to be worse; I always am after a
fast-day. Fast-days don't suit me at all; they are very bad for sick
people. They make one's spirits so low, and are sure to give me the
vapours. Oh dear, that Jane!"
"What's the matter with that Jane?" demanded the bearer of the name,
stalking in, as Phoebe was trying to brace up her courage to the point
of offering to shake the pillows. "Want another dose of castor oil?
I've got it."
A faint shriek of deprecation was the answer.
"Oh dear! And you know how I hate it! Jane, do shake up my pillows.
They feel as if there were stones instead of flocks in them, or--"
"Nutmegs, no doubt," suggested Mrs Jane. "Shake them up? Oh yes, and
you too--do you both good."
"Oh, don't, Jane! Have you an orange for me?"
"Sit down, my dears," said Mrs Jane, parenthetically. "Can't afford
them, Marcella. Plenty of black currant tea. Better for you."
"I don't like it!" said Mrs Marcella, plaintively.
"Oranges are eightpence a-piece, and currants may be had for the
gathering," observed Mrs Jane, sententiously.
"They give me a pain in my side!" moaned the invalid.
"Well, the oranges would give you a pain in your purse. I'd rather have
one in my side, if I were you."
"You don't know what it is to be ill!" said Mrs Marcella, closing her
eyes.
"Don't I? I've had both small-pox and spotted fever."
"So long ago!"
"Bless you, child! I'm not Methuselah!" said Mrs Jane.
"Well, I think you might be, Jane, for really, the way in which you can
sit up all night, and look as fresh as a daisy in the morning, when you
have not had a wink of sleep, and I am perfectly worn-out with
suffering--just skin and bone, and no more--"
"There's a little tongue left, I reckon!" said Mrs Jane.
"The way she will get up and go to market, my dears, after such a night
as that," pursued Mrs Marcella, who always ran on her own line of
rails, and never shunted to avoid collision; "you never saw anything
like her--the amount she can bear! She's as tough as a rhinoceros, and
as strong as an elephant, and as wanting in feeling as--as--"
"A sensitive plant," popped in Mrs Jane. "Now, Marcella, open your
mouth and shut your eyes, and take this."
"Is it castor oil?" faintly screamed the invalid, endeavouring to
protect herself.
"Stuff! 'Tis good Tent wine. Take it and be thankful."
"Where did you get it, Jane?"
"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies," said Mrs Jane. "It
was honestly come by."
"Well, I think we must be going, Mrs Marcella," said Rhoda, rising.
"Oh, my dear! Must you, really? And so seldom as you come to see a
poor thing like me, who hasn't a living creature to care for her--except
Jane, of course, and she doesn't, not one bit! Dear! And to think that
I was once a pretty young maid, with a little fortune of my own; and
there was many a young gentleman, my dear, that would have given his
right hand for no more than a smile from me--"
"Heyday! how this world is given to lying!" interpolated Mrs Jane.
"And we were a large family then--eight of us, my dear; and now they are
all dead, and I am left quite alone, except Jane, you know. Oh dear,
dear, but to think of it! But there is no thankfulness in the world,
nor kindness neither. The people I have been good to! and now that I
have _come down_ a little, to see how they treat me! Jane doesn't mind
it; she has no tender feelings at all; she can stand all things, and
never say a word, I am sure I don't know how she does it. I am all
feeling! These things touch me so keenly. But Jane's just like a
stone. Well, good evening, my dear, if you must go. I think you might
have come a little sooner, and you might come oftener, if you would.
But that is always my lot, to be neglected and despised--a poor, lonely,
ugly old maid, that nobody cares for. And it wasn't my fault, I am
sure; I never chose such a fate. I cannot think why such afflictions
have been sent me. I am sure I am no worse than other people. Clarissa
is a great deal vainer than I am; and Jane is ever so much harder; and
as to Dorothy, why, 'tis misery to see her--she is so cheerful and full
of mirth, and she has not a thing to be content with--it quite hurts me
to see anyone like that. But people are so wanting in feeling! I am
sure--"
"Go, if you want," said Mrs Jane, shortly, holding the door open.
"Oh, yes, go! Of course you want to go!" lamented Mrs Marcella. "What
pleasure can there be to a bright young maid like you, to sit with a
poor, sick, miserable creature like me? Dear, dear! And only to
think--"
Rhoda escaped. Phoebe followed, more slowly. Mrs Jane came out after
them, and shut the door behind them.
"She's in pain, this evening," said the last-named person in her usual
blunt style. "Some folks can bear pain, and some can't. And those that
can must beat with those that can't. She'll be better of letting it out
a bit. Good evening."
"Oh, isn't it dreadful!" said Rhoda, when they were out of the gate. "I
just hate going to see Mrs Marcella, especially when she takes one of
her complaining fits. If I were Mrs Jane, I should let her have it out
by herself. But she is hard, rather--she doesn't care as I should."
But Phoebe thought that a mistake. She had noticed the drawn brow of
the silent sister, while the sufferer was detailing her string of
troubles, and the sudden quiver of the under lip, when allusion was made
to the eight of whom the family had once consisted: and Phoebe's
deduction was, not that Jane Talbot bore no burden, but that she kept it
out of sight. Perhaps that very characteristic bluntness of her manner
denoted a tight curb kept upon her spirit.
Rhoda had noticed nothing of all this. Herself a surface character, she
could not see below the surface in another.
The Wednesday evening came, and with it Sir Richard Delawarr's coach,
conveying his two younger daughters. They were extremely unlike in
person. Gatty was tall, calm, and deliberate; Molly was rather
diminutive for her years, and exceedingly lively. While Gatty came
forward in a stately, courteous manner, courtesying to Madam, and kindly
answering her inquiries after Betty, Molly linked her arm in Rhoda's,
with--
"How goes it, old jade?"
And when Mr Onslow, who happened to be crossing the hall, stopped and
inquired in a rather timid manner if Mrs Betty's health were improving,
Molly at once favoured him with a slap on the back, and the counter
query,--
"What's that to you, you old thief?" Phoebe was horrified. If these
were aristocratic manners, she preferred those of inferior quality. But
noticing that Gatty's manners were quiet and correct, Phoebe concluded
that Molly must be an exceptional eccentricity. She contemplated the
prospect of a month in that young lady's company with unmitigated
repugnance.
"Well, Mrs Molly, my dear,--as smart as ever!" remarked Madam, turning
to Molly with a smile. "All right, old witch!" said Molly. And to
Phoebe's astonishment, Madam smiled on, and did not resent the
impertinence.
"Well!--how do you like Gatty and Molly?" said Rhoda to Phoebe, when
they were safe in their own room.
"Pretty well, Mrs Gatty," replied Phoebe, leaving the question of Molly
undecided.
"Don't you like Molly?" demanded Rhoda, laughing. "Ah! I see. She's
rather too clever to please you."
"I ask your pardon, but I don't see any cleverness in downright
rudeness," timidly suggested Phoebe.
"Oh, nobody cares what Molly says," answered Rhoda. "They put up with
all that,--she's so smart. You see, she's very, very ingenious, and
everybody thinks so, and she knows people think so. She's a rep., you
see, and she has to keep it up."
"I ask your pardon," said Phoebe again; "a _what_, if you please?"
"A rep., child," answered Rhoda, in her patronising style. "A
reputation,--a character for smartness, you know. Don't you see?"
"Well, I would rather have a character for something better," said
Phoebe.
"You may make yourself easy; you'll never get a character for
smartness," responded her cousin with an unpleasant laugh. "Well, I
say, Phoebe, while they are here I shall have Molly in my room, and you
must sleep with Gatty. You can come in and dress me of a morning, you
know, and help me into bed at night; but we can't do with three in one
room."
Phoebe was inwardly thankful for it. What little she had seen of Gatty
was rather negative than positive; but at least it had not, as in the
case of Molly revealed anything actively disagreeable. Rhoda was
heartily welcome to Molly's society so far as Phoebe was concerned. But
it surprised and rather perplexed Phoebe to find that Rhoda actually
liked this very objectionable maiden.
"Panem?" asked Molly, the next morning at breakfast. Her Latin, such as
it was, was entirely unburdened with cases and declensions. "Thank you,
I will take kakos."
"Fiddle-de-dee! what's that?" said Molly. Rhoda had completely
forgotten what the word meant.
"Oh, 'tis the Greek for biscuit," said she, daringly.
Phoebe contrived to hide a portion of her face in her teacup, but Gatty
saw her eyes, and read their meaning.
"The Greek!" cried Molly. "Who has taught you Greek, Ne'er-do-well?"
"A very learned person," said Rhoda, to whom it was delight to mystify
Molly.
"Old Onslow?" demanded irreverent Molly, quite undeterred by the
consideration that the chaplain sat at the table with her.
"You can ask him," said Rhoda.
"Did you, old cassock?" inquired Molly, who appeared to apply that
adjective in a most impartial manner.
"Indeed, Mrs Molly, I did not--I never knew--" stammered the startled
chaplain, quite shaken out of his propriety.
"Never knew any Greek? I thought so," responded audacious Molly,
thereby evoking laughter all round the table, in which even Madam
joined.
Phoebe, who had recovered herself, sat lost in wonder where the
cleverness of all this was to be found. It simply disgusted her. Rhoda
was not always pleasant to put up with, but Rhoda was sweetness and
grace, compared with Molly. Gatty sat quietly, neither rebuking her
sister's sallies, nor apparently amused by them. And Rhoda _liked_ this
girl! It was a mystery to Phoebe.
When night came Phoebe found her belongings transferred to Gatty's room.
She assisted Rhoda to undress, herself silent, but a perpetual chatter
being kept up between Rhoda and Molly on subjects not by any means
interesting to Phoebe.
The latter was at length dismissed, and, with a sense of relief, she
went slowly along the passage to the room in which she and Gatty were to
sleep.
Though it was getting very late, the clock being on the stroke of ten,
yet Gatty was not in bed. She seemed to have half undressed herself,
and then to have thrown a scarf over her shoulders and sat down by the
window. It was a beautiful night, and a flood of silvery moonlight
threw the trees into deep shadow and lit up the open spaces almost like
day. Phoebe came and stood at the window beside Gatty. Perhaps each
was a little shy of the other; for some seconds passed in silence, and
Phoebe was the first to speak.
"You like it," she said timidly.
"Oh, yes. 'Tis so quiet," was Gatty's answer.
Phoebe was thinking what she should say next, when Gatty rose, took off
her scarf, which she folded neatly and put away in the wardrobe,
finished her undressing, and got into bed, without another word beyond
"Good-night."
For three weeks of the month which the visit was to last this proved to
be the usual state of matters. Gatty and Phoebe regularly exchanged
greetings, night and morning; but beyond this their conversation was
limited to remarks upon the weather, and an occasional request that
Phoebe would inspect the neat and proper condition of some part of
Gatty's dress which she could not conveniently see. And Phoebe began to
come to the conclusion that Rhoda had judged rightly,--Gatty had nothing
in her.
But one evening, when Molly had been surpassingly "clever," keeping
Rhoda in peals of laughter, and Phoebe in a state of annoyed disgust,--
on reaching their bedroom, Phoebe found Gatty, still dressed, and
sitting by the bed, with her face bowed upon her hands.
"I ask your pardon, but are you not well?" said Phoebe, in a
sympathising tone.
"Oh, yes. Quite well," was Gatty's reply, in a constrained voice; but
as she rose and moved her hands from her face, Phoebe saw that she had
been crying.
"You are in trouble," said Phoebe, gently. "Don't tell me anything,
unless you like; but I know what trouble is; and if I could help you--"
"You can't," said Gatty, shortly.
Phoebe was silent. Her sympathy had been repulsed--it was not wanted.
The undressing was, as usual, without a word.
But when the girls had lain down in bed, Phoebe was a little surprised
to hear Gatty say suddenly,--
"Phoebe Latrobe!--does anybody love you?"
"God loves me," said Phoebe, simply. "I am not sure that any one else
does."
"I like you," said Gatty. "You let me be. That's what nobody ever
does."
"I am not sure that I understand you," responded Phoebe.
"I'll tell you," replied Gatty, "for I think you can hold your tongue,
and not be always chatter, chatter, chatter, like--like some people.
You think there's only one Gatty Delawarr; and I'll be bound you think
her a very dull, stupid creature. Well, you're about right there. But
there are two: there's me, and there's the thing people want to make me.
Now, you haven't seen me,--you've only seen the woman into whom I am
being pinched and pulled. This is me that talks to you to-night, and
perhaps you'll never see me again,--only that other girl,--so you had
better make the most of me now that you have me. I'm sure, if you
dislike her as much as I do--! You see, Phoebe, there are three of us--
Betty, and me, and Molly: and Mother's set her heart on our all making a
noise in the world. Well, perhaps we could have managed better if we
might have made our own noise; but we have to make it to order, and we
don't do it well at all. Betty's the best off, because Mother hit on
something that went with her nature,--she's the notable housewife. So
she plays her play well. But when she set up Molly for a wit, and me
for a beauty, she made a great blunder. Molly hasn't a bit of wit, so
she falls back on rude speeches, and they go through me just as if she
ran a knife into me. You did not think so, did you?"
"No," said Phoebe, wonderingly; "I thought you did not seem to care."
"That's the other Gatty. She does not care. She's been told,--oh, a
hundred times over!--to compose herself and keep her features calm, and
not let her voice be ruffled; and move slowly, so that her elbows are
not square, and all on in that way; and she has about learned it by this
time. I know how to sit still and look unconcerned, if my heart be
breaking. And it is breaking, Phoebe."
"Dear Mrs Gatty, what can I do for you?"
"You can't do anything but listen to me. Let me pour it out this once,
and don't scold me. I don't mean anything wrong, Phoebe. I don't wish
to complain of Mother, or Molly, or any one. I only want to tell
somebody what I have to bear, and then I'll compose myself again to my
part in the world's big theatre, and go away and bear it, like other
girls do. And you are the only person I have acquaintance with, that I
feel as if I could tell."
"Pray go on, Mrs Gatty; I can feel sorry, if I can do nothing else."
"Well,--at home somebody is at me from morning to night. There's a
posture-master comes once a week; and Mother's maid looks to my carriage
at all times, 'tis an endless round of--`Gatty, hold your head
up,'--`Gatty, put that plate down, and take it up with your arm
rounded,'--`Gatty, you must not laugh,'--`Gatty, you must not
sneeze,'--`Gatty, walk slower,'--come, that's enough. Then there's
Molly on the top of it. And there's Betty on the top of Molly,--who
can't conceive why anybody should ruffle her mind about anything. And
there's Mother above all, for ever telling me she looks to have me cut a
dash, and make a good match; and if I had played my cards rightly I
ought to have caught a husband ere I was seventeen,--'tis disgraceful
that I should thus throw away my advantages. And, Phoebe, _I_ want
nothing but to creep into some little, far-away corner, and _be me_, and
throw away my patches and love-locks, and powder and pomatum, and never
see that other Gatty any more. That's how it was up to last month."
Gatty paused a moment, and drew a long sigh.
"And then, there came another on the scene, and I suppose the play grew
more entertaining to Mother, and Betty, and Molly, in the boxes. People
don't think, you know, when they look down at the prima donna, painted,
and smiling, and decked with flowers,--they don't think if she has a
husband who ill-uses her, or a child dying at home. She has come there
to make them sport. Well, there came an old lord,--a man of sixty or
seventy,--who has led a wild rakish life all these years, and now he
thinks 'tis time to settle down, and he wants me to help him to make
people think he's become respectable. And they say I shall marry him.
Phoebe, they say I must,--there is to be no help for it. And I can't
bear him to look at me. If he touches my glove, I want to fling it into
the fire when it comes off. And this one month, here, at White-Ladies,
is my last quiet time. When I go home--if Betty be recovered of her
distemper--I am to be married to this old man in a week's time. I am
tied hand and foot, like a captive or a slave; and I have not even the
poor relief of tears. They make my eyes red, and I must not make, my
eyes red, if it would save my life. But nothing will save me. The
lambs that used to be led to the altar are not more helpless than I.
The rope is round my neck; and I must trot on beside the executioner,
and find what comfort I can in the garland of roses on my head."
There was a silence of a few seconds after Gatty finished her miserable
tale. And then Phoebe's voice asked softly,--
"Dear Mrs Gatty, have you asked God to save you?"
"What's the use?" answered Gatty, in a hopeless tone.
"Because He would do it," said Phoebe. "I don't know how. It might be
by changing my Lady Delawarr's mind, or the old lord's, or yours; or
many another way; I don't know how. But I do know that He has promised
to bring no temptation on those that fear Him, beyond what they shall be
able to bear."
"Oh, I don't know!" said Gatty, in that tone which makes the word sound
like a cry of pain.
"Have you tried entreating my Lady Delawarr?"
"Tried! I should think so. And what do you think I get by it? `Gatty,
my dear, 'tis so unmodish to be thus warm over anything! Compose
yourself, and control your feelings. Love!--no, of course you do not
love my Lord Polesworth, while you are yet a maid; 'twould be highly
indecorous for you to do any such thing. But when you are his wife,
you'll be perfectly content; and that is all you can expect. My dear,
do compose yourself, or your face will be quite wrinkled; and let me
hear no more of this nonsense, I beg of you. Maids cannot look to
choose for themselves, 'tis not reasonable.' That is what I get,
Phoebe."
"And your father, Mrs Gatty?"
"My father? Oh! `Really, Gatty, I can't interfere,--'tis your mother's
affair; you must make up your mind to it. We can't have always what we
like,'--and then he whistles to his hounds, and goes out a-hunting."
"Well, Mrs Gatty, suppose you try God?"
"Suppose I have done, Phoebe, and got no answer at all?"
"Forgive me, I cannot suppose it."
"Is He so good to _you_, Phoebe?"
The question was asked in a very, very mournful tone.
"Mrs Gatty," said Phoebe, softly, "He has given me Himself. I do not
think He has given me anything else of what my heart longs for. But
that is enough. In Him I have all things."
"What do you mean?" came in accents of perplexity from the bed in the
opposite corner.
"I am afraid," said Phoebe, "I cannot tell you. I mean, I could not
make you understand it."
"`Given you Himself!'" repeated Gatty. "I can fancy how He could reward
you or make you happy; but, `give you Himself!'"
"Well, I cannot explain it," said Phoebe. "Yes, it means giving
happiness; but it means a great deal more. I can feel it, but I cannot
put it in words."
"I don't understand you the least bit!"
"Will you talk awhile with Mrs Dolly Jennings, and see if she can
explain it to you? I do not think any one can, in words; but I guess
she would come nearer to it than I could."
"I like Mrs Dolly," said Gatty, thoughtfully; "she is very kind."
"Very," assented Phoebe.
"I think I should not mind talking to her," said Gatty. "We will walk
down there to-morrow, if we can get leave."
"And now, had we not better go to sleep?" suggested Phoebe.
"Well, we can try," sighed Gatty. "But, Phoebe, 'tis no good telling me
to pray, because I have done it. I said over every collect in the
Prayer-book--ten a day; and the very morning after I had finished them,
that horrid man came, and Mother made--I had to go down and sit half an
hour listening to him. Praying does no good."
"I am not sure that you have tried it," said Phoebe.
"Didn't I tell you, this minute, I said every--"
"I ask your pardon for interrupting you, but saying is not praying. Did
you really pray them?"
"Phoebe, I do not understand you! How could I pray them and not say
them?"
"Well, I did not quite mean that," said Phoebe; "but please, Mrs Gatty,
did you feel them? Did you really ask God all the collects say, or did
you only repeat the words over? You see, if I felt cold in bed, I might
ask Mrs Betty to give me leave to have another blanket; but if I only
kept saying that I was cold, to myself, over and over, and did not tell
Mrs Betty, I should be long enough before I got the blanket. Did you
say the collects to yourself, Mrs Gatty, or did you say them to the
Lord?"
There was a pause before Gatty said, in rather an awed voice, "Phoebe,
when you pray, is God there?"
"Yes," said Phoebe, readily.
"He is not, with me," replied Gatty. "He feels a long, long way off;
and I feel as if my collects might drop and be lost before they can get
up to Him. Don't you?"
"Never," answered Phoebe. "But I don't send my prayers up by
themselves; I give them to Jesus Christ to carry. He never drops one,
Mrs Gatty."
"'Tis all something I don't understand one bit," said Gatty, wearily.
"Go to sleep, Phoebe; I won't keep you awake. But we'll go and see Mrs
Dolly."
The next afternoon, when Rhoda and Molly had disappeared on their
private affairs, Gatty dropped a courtesy to Madam, and requested her
permission to visit Mrs Dolly Jennings.
"By all means, my dear," answered Madam, affably. "If Rhoda has no
occasion for her, let Phoebe wait on you."
The second request which had been on Gatty's lips being thus
forestalled, the girls set forth--without consulting Rhoda, which Gatty
was disinclined to do, and which Phoebe fancied that she had done--and
reached the Maidens' Lodge without falling in with any disturbing
element, such as either Rhoda or Molly would unquestionably have been.
Mrs Dorothy received them in her usual kindly manner, and gave them tea
before they entered on the subject of which both the young minds were
full. Then Gatty told her story, if very much the same terms as she had
given it to Phoebe.
"And I can't understand Phoebe, Mrs Dolly," she ended. "She says God
has given her Himself; and I cannot make it out. And she says she gives
her prayers to Jesus Christ to carry. I don't know what she means. It
sounds good. But I don't understand it--not one bit."
Mrs Dorothy came up to where Gatty was sitting, and took the girl's
head between her small, thin hands. It was not a beautiful face; but it
was pleasant enough to look on, and would have been more so, but for the
discipline which had crushed out of it all natural interest and youthful
anticipation, and had left that strange, strained look of care and
forced calm upon the white brow.
"Dear child," she said, gently, "you want rest, don't you?"
Gatty's grey eyes filled with tears.
"That is just what I do want, Mrs Dolly," she said, "somewhere where I
could be quiet, and be let alone, and just be myself and not somebody
else."
"Ah, my dear!" said Mrs Dorothy, shaking her head, "you never get let
alone in this world. Satan won't let you alone, if men do. But to be
yourself--that is what God wants of you. At least 'tis one half of what
He would have; the other half is that you should give yourself to Him."
"'Tis no good praying," said Gatty, as before.
"Did the Lord tell you that, my dear?"
"No!" said Gatty, looking up in surprise.
"Well, I would not say it till He does, child. But what did you pray
for?"
"I said all the collects over."
"Very good things, my dear; but were they what you wanted? I thought
you had a special trouble at this time."
"But what could I do?" asked Gatty, apparently rather bewildered.
"Dear child, thou couldst sure ask thy Father to help thee, without more
ado. But `bide a wee,' as my old friend, Scots Davie, was wont to say.
There is a great deal about prayer in the Word of God. Let us look at a
little of it." Little Mrs Dorothy trotted to her small work-table,
which generally stood at her side, and came back with a well-worn brown
Bible. Gatty watched her with a rather frightened look, as if she
thought that something was going to be done to her, and was not sure
whether it might hurt her.
"Now hearken: `Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto
God.' Again: `Whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name, that will I do.'
These are grand words, my dear."
"But they can't mean that Mrs Dorothy! Why, only think--if I were to
ask for a fortune, should I get it?"
"I must have two questions answered, my dear, ere I can tell that. Who
are the _you_ in these verses?"
"I thought it meant everybody."
"Not so. Listen again: `If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you,
ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.' 'Tis not
everybody doth that."
"But I don't know what that means, Mrs Dorothy."
"Then, my dear, you have answered my second question--Are you one of
these? For if you know not even what the thing is, 'tis but reasonable
to conclude you have never known it in your own person."
"I suppose not," said Gatty, sorrowfully.
"You see, my dear, 'tis to certain persons these words are said. If you
are not one of these persons, then they are not said to you."
"I am not." And Gatty shook her head sadly. "But, Mrs Dorothy, what
does it mean?"
"Dear," said the old lady, "when we do truly abide in Christ, we desire
first of all that His will be done. We wish for this or that; but we
wish more than all that He choose all things for us--that He have His
own way. Our wills are become His will. It follows as a certainty,
that they shall be done. We must have what we wish, when it is what He
wishes who rules all things. `Ye shall ask what ye will.' He guides us
what to ask, if we beg Him to do so."
"Is any one thus much perfect?" inquired Gatty, doubtfully.
"Many are trying for it," said Mrs Dolly. "There may be but few that
have fully reached it."
"But that makes us like machines, Mrs Dolly, moved about at another's
will."
"What, my dear! Love makes us machines? Never! The very last thing
that could be, child."
"I don't know much about love," said Gatty, drearily.
"About love, or about being loved?" responded Mrs Dolly.
"Both," answered the girl, in the same tone.
"Will you try it, my dear? 'Tis the sweetener of all human life."
Gatty looked up with a surprised expression.
"_I_ can't make people love me," she said.
"Nor can you make yourself love others," added Mrs Dorothy. "But you
can ask the Lord for that fairest of all His gifts, saving Jesus
Christ."
"Ask God for a beau! O Mrs Dorothy!" exclaimed Gatty in a shocked
tone.
"My dear, I never so much as named one," responded Mrs Dorothy, with a
little laugh. "Sure, you are not one of those foolish maids that think
they must be loveless and forlorn without they have a husband?"
Gatty had always been taught to think so; and she looked bewildered and
mystified. A more eligible husband than old Lord Polesworth was the
only idea that associated itself in her mind with the word love.
"But what else did you mean?" she asked.
"Ay me!" said Mrs Dorothy, as if to herself. "How do men misunderstand
God! Child, wert thou never taught the first and great commandment?
`Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy
mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength?'"
"Oh, of course," said Gatty, as if she were listening to some scientific
formula about a matter wherein she was not at all concerned.
"Have you done that, my dear?"
"Done what?" demanded Gatty in a startled tone.
"Have you loved God with all your heart?"
Gatty looked as if she had been suddenly roused from sleep, and was
unable to take in the circumstances.
"I don't know! I--I suppose, so."
"You suppose so! Dear child, how can you love any, and not know it?"
"But that is quite another sort of love!" cried Gatty.
"There is no sort but one, my dear. Love is love."
"Oh, but we can't _love_ God!" said Gatty, as if the idea quite shocked
her. "That means--it means reverence, you know, and duty, and so on.
It can't mean anything else, Mrs Dorothy."
Mrs Dorothy knitted very fast for a moment. Phoebe saw that her eyes
were filled with tears.
"Poor lost sheep!" she said, in a grieved voice. "Poor straying lamb,
whom the wolf hath taught to be frightened of the Shepherd! You did not
find that in the Bible, my dear."
"Oh, but words don't mean the same in the Bible!" urged Gatty. "Surely,
Mrs Dorothy, 'twould be quite unreverent to think so."
"Surely, my dear, it were more unreverent to think that God does not
mean what He saith. When He saith, `I will punish you seven times for
your sins,' He means it, Mrs Gatty. And when He saith, `I will be a
Father unto you,' shall we say He doth not mean it? O my dear, don't do
Him such an injury as that!"
"Do God an injury!" said Gatty in an awed whisper.
"Ay, a cruel injury!" was the answer. "Men are always injuring God.
Either they try to persuade themselves that He means not what He says
when He threatens: or else they shut their hearts up close, and then
fancy that His heart is shut up too. My dear, He did not tarry to offer
to be your Father, until you came and asked Him for it. `He _first_
loved you.' Child, what dost thou know of the Lord Jesus Christ?"
Ah, what did she know? For Gatty lived in a dreary time, when religion
was at one of its lowest ebb-tides, and had sunk almost to the level of
heathen morality. If Gatty had been required to give definitions of the
greatest words in the language, and had really done it from the bottom
of her heart, according to her own honest belief, the list would have
run much in this way:--
"God.--The Great First Cause of all things, who has nothing to do with
anything now, but will, at some remote period, punish murderers,
thieves, and very wicked people.
"Christ.--A supernaturally good man, who was crucified seventeen hundred
years ago.
"Heaven.--A delightful place, where everybody is happy, to which all
respectable people will go, when they can't help it any longer.
"Bible.--A good book read in church; intensely dry, as good books always
are no concern of mine.
"Salvation, peace, holiness, and the like.--Words in the Prayer-Book.
"Faith, hope, love, etcetera.--Duties, which of course we all perform,
and therefore don't need to trouble ourselves about them.
"Prayer.--An incantation, to be repeated morning and evening, if you
wish to avert ill luck during the day."
These were Gatty's views--if she could be said to have any. How
different from those of Mrs Dorothy Jennings! To her, God was the
Creator, from whom, and by whom, and to whom, were all things: the
Fountain of Mercy, who had so loved the world as to give His
only-begotten Son for its salvation: the Father who, having loved her
before the world was, cared for everything, however insignificant, which
concerned her welfare. Christ was the Friend who sticketh closer than a
brother--the Lamb who had been slain for her, the High Priest who was
touched with every feeling of human infirmity. Heaven was the home
which her Father had prepared for her. The Bible was the means whereby
her Father talked with her; and prayer the means whereby she talked with
Him. Salvation was her condition; holiness, her aim; faith, love,
peace, the very breath she drew. While, in Gatty's eyes, all this was
unknown and unreal, to Mrs Dorothy it was the most real thing in all
the world.
Gatty answered her friend's query by a puzzled look.
"It comes in church," she said. "He is in the Creed, and at the end of
the prayers. I don't know!"
"Child," replied Mrs Dorothy, "you don't know Him. And, Mrs Gatty, my
dear, you must know Him, if you are ever to be a happy woman. O poor
child, poor child! To think that the Man who loved you and gave His
life for you is no more to you than one of a row of figures, a name set
to the end of a prayer!"
Gatty was taken by surprise. She looked up with both unwonted emotion
and astonishment in her eyes.
"Mrs Dolly," she said, with feeling, "I cannot tell, but I think
'twould be pleasant to feel like you. It sounds all real, as if you had
a live friend."
"That is just what it is, my dear Mrs Gatty. A Friend that loves me
enough to count the very hairs of my head,--to whom nothing is a little
matter that can concern me. And He is just as ready to be your Friend
too."
"What makes you think so, Mrs Dolly?"
"My dear, He died on purpose to save you."
"The world, not me!" said Gatty.
"If there had been no world but you," was the answer, "He would have
thought it worth while."