"let's have some more o' that brew to wet my whistle. Well, you will be
pleased to hear that I have changed my mind about the carriage and four,
and the mansion in Belgravia, and the castle at Folkestone, and the
steam-yacht--given 'em all up, and decided to come here an' live quietly
beside you, sister."
"Are you in earnest brother?" asked Miss Millet, with sparkling eyes.
"Never more in earnest in my life; but get out your plans an' papers,
secretary, an' explain 'em."
Jeff rose, left the room, and returned with a business-like bundle of
papers, which he untied and arranged on the table before him. Taking up
one, he said--
"This is a list of the poor people in Cranby, in whom Miss Millet has
been accustomed to take special interest. The first on the list is old
Susan Jenkins."
"My dear old woman, who has been bedridden so long, and in such terrible
poverty?" asked Miss Millet.
"The same," answered Jeff. "Captain Millet has succeeded in getting her
admission into the hospital for incurables. We have only just received
intimation of the appointment; and as the old woman does not know of it
yet, we thought it best to let you be the bearer of the news."
"Oh, brother!" exclaimed Miss Millet, clasping her hands in delight.
She knew now that the captain was in earnest, for he would sooner have
cut off his own hand than trifle with her feelings.
"Go on, secretary," cried the captain, taking a considerable swig of
tea, "an' don't you interrupt, Molly, else we'll never get through."
"The next name is Martha Brand."
"What, ragged little Martha?" exclaimed Miss Millet.
"The same. A new rig-out has been ordered for Martha, and she is to be
sent to school. Joe Puncheon, better known as Vagabond Joe, has been
apprenticed to a carpenter--by his own special desire--and goes to work
on Monday next in a suit of suitable clothes."
"Come, sir, none o' that in business hours," cried the captain, "and
heave that list overboard. It would take us half the night to get
through with it. Come to the plans, sir; open the plans."
Putting aside the list, the obedient secretary took up a large document,
and, unfolding it, spread it on the table.
"This," said Jeff, with business-like gravity, "is a plan of the Cranby
Swimming Bath. The coast near the town being rocky, and in many ways
inconvenient for bathing, sea-water is to be pumped into this bath daily
by a steam-engine. A professor of swimming is appointed to give
gratuitous instruction in his art. The bath is to be in two parts--one
for ladies, one for gentlemen--and will have dressing-boxes all round,
besides diving-boards and every sort of convenience. At certain hours
of the morning and evening it will be open free of charge to all comers;
so that there will be no excuse for any man, woman, or child in Cranby
being dirty or unable to swim."
"What a blessing it would be," exclaimed the enthusiastic Miss Millet,
"if such baths existed all over the kingdom!"
"It is a disgrace to the kingdom," said Jeff, "that a bath such as this
does _not_ exist in every town of the kingdom. A mere tithe of the
money wasted on drink and tobacco," ("and tea," muttered the captain,
pushing in his cup for more), "would suffice to do it."
"Come, Jeff, clap a stopper on your long-winded lectures, and go ahead
wi' the next plan," said the captain, "and don't moralise if you can
help it."
"But, brother, can you afford all this?" asked Miss Millet.
"Afford it? Of course I can. It's wonderful, Molly, what men can
afford when they're willing to spend. Why, I've known a man myself who
was so uncommon willin' to spend that he ruined his baker an' butcher
an' greengrocer before he had done spendin'. If that's so with them as
hasn't got money to spend, surely it's for a man like me to do so who's
rollin' in four thousand a year, more or less. Besides, I'm goin' to
invest some o' the capital in a way that'll pay back three or four
hundred per cent interest! I'm not goin' to leave it all to my Rosebud.
A reasonable provision she shall have--not more. You see, Molly, I'm
of opinion that whatever a man has--whether he makes it by the use of
his talents, or inherits it from his father, or has it sent to him
unexpected, like mine--he holds it all in trust, to be used for the
glory of God and the good of men. Now, cut along, secretary."
"This," said Jeff, "is the plan of the People's Free Library. The
purchase of the site was effected last week, and the building is to be
commenced next month."
"Ay, and the Prince of Wales is coming to lay the foundation stone,"
cried the captain; "leastwise I've asked him to do it, and no doubt
he'll come if he's got time. But look here, Molly," he added, becoming
impatient and opening out all the plans at once--"here you've got the
lecture-hall an' the gymnasium, an' the church, an' the ragged school--
all ship-shape--an' what d'ye think this is? Explain it, secretary."
"This is a plan of two cottages exactly the shape and size of this one
in which we sit, but with a few more rooms and out-houses behind. The
empty space between them represents the site of this cottage. The one
on the right is intended for Captain Millet. That on the left for--"
"For the secretary and his wife," cried the captain again, taking up the
discourse. "An' look here, what d'ye think the double lines in pencil
'tween your cottage an' mine means?"
"A wash-house, perhaps."
"A wash'us," repeated the captain, with contempt. "No; that's a passage
from one house to the other, so as you an' I can visit comfortably in
wet weather. There's a door in the middle with two locks, one on each
side; so that if either of us should chance to be in the dumps, we've
got only to turn the key on our own side. But the passage ain't in the
plan, you see. It's only a suggestion. Then, Rosebud, what d'ye think
that thing is atop of my cottage?"
"It--it _looks_ like a--a pepper-box," replied Rose, with some
hesitation.
"Pepper-box!" repeated the captain, in disgust; "why, it's a plate-glass
outlook, where I can sweep the horizon with my glass all round, an'
smoke my pipe in peace and comfort, and sometimes have you up, my girl,
to have a chat about old times. But that's not all, Molly. Here's a
letter which you can put in your pocket an' read at your leisure. It
says that the tin mine in which you have shares has become so prosperous
that you could sell at ten or twenty times the price of your original
shares; so,--you see, you are independent of me altogether as to your
livelihood. Now, old girl, what d'ye think of all that?"
The captain threw himself back in his chair, wiped his brow and looked
at his sister with an air of thorough satisfaction.
"I think," returned Miss Millet slowly, "that God has been very good to
us all."
"He has, sister, He has; and yet the beginning of it all did not seem
very promising."
The captain cast a glance at Jeff as he spoke. The youth met the glance
with a candid smile.
"I know what you think, father," he said. "You and I are agreed on that
point now. I admit that what appears to be evil may be made to work for
good."
"True, Jeff," returned the captain; "but I have lived long enough to
see, also, that the opposite holds good--that things which are
questionably good in themselves sometimes work out what appears to be
evil. For instance, I have known a poor, respectable man become
suddenly and unexpectedly rich, and the result was that he went in for
extravagant expenditure and dissipation which ended in his ruin."
"But that," said Miss Millet quickly, "was because he did not accept the
gift as from God to be used in His service, but misused it."
"True, Molly, true; and such will be my fate if I am not kept by the
Holy Spirit from misusing what has been given to _me_."
The Rosebud opened not her lips, only her ears, while this conversation
was going on; but the next day, seated on a stool at Jeff's feet, with
her fair little hands clasped on his knee and looking up in his kind,
manly face, she said--
"I wonder, Jeff, what auntie would say if, instead of working out such
pleasant consequences to us, all these things had ended only in what we
term disaster, and bad luck, and poverty, and death--as happens so often
to many people."
"I wonder, too, my Rosebud," returned Jeff. "Suppose we go and put the
question to her."
Accordingly they went, and found the quiet old lady busy, as usual,
knitting socks for the poor.
"Now, auntie," said Jeff, after stating the question, "if everything had
turned out apparently ill for us--according to what men usually call
ill--would you still hold that everything had really turned out well?"
"Certainly I would, Jeff, on the simple ground that God is good and
cannot err, though He has many and strange methods of bringing about His
ends. You can prove it by taking an extreme case. Go to one of the
early martyrs, who lost not only property, and health, and friends, and
liberty, but finally his life at the stake. The unbeliever's view would
be that everything had gone against him; his own view, that God had put
on him great honour in counting him worthy to suffer and die for Jesus;
and you could not doubt his sincerity when you heard his hymns of praise
on the way to the stake--ay, even in the _fire_."
"Then, whatever happens--good or bad--auntie," said Rose, "you would
say, `All is well.'"
"I would believe it, dear, whether I had courage to say it or not. If
strength were given, I would certainly acquiesce, and say, `Thy will be
done.'"
"Amen! Long may we live to say that, Molly," said Captain Millet,
entering the cottage at that moment. And the captain's prayer was
granted; for he and Molly--and the ex-coastguardsman with his Rosebud
lived many a year after that to see the completion of the swimming-bath,
and the people's' library, and the gymnasium, and the evening classes,
and the model houses, etcetera, and to experience the truth of that
blessed Word which tells us that "all things work together for good to
them that love God."
THE END.