The breakfast bell had been rung, Miss Lane came in at its last tingle
and saw the children waiting for her.
“Good morning! Where is your papa?”
“Gone: he goes to his office at six every morning, and doesn’t come
home till evening,” answered Jennie.
“Who reads prayers?”
“No one, since mamma died.”
The lady stood silent a moment; a little tinge of red colored her
cheek, and she did not trust her voice for a few seconds, lest it
should tremble.
“I cannot,” was her first thought; “it is not my place; they may think
it presuming.”
“I will,” was her next; “God has put it in my way; it is plainly my
duty.” Then speaking aloud to Mrs. Hill, the housekeeper, she said
calmly:
“If you will call in the servants, I will read prayers: I suppose Mr.
Graham would not object.”
“Oh, no, ma’am.”
In a little time they came in and sat down, wondering at the new ways
of the teacher, but joining in the prayers quite reverently, and as
they went out again, casting curious glances at the pale quiet face of
the reader. As for the children, their appetites were quite forgotten
in this new and interesting study of the governess, and Jennie secretly
determined to imitate her in her mode of eating. It was really a
pleasure to watch the neat, graceful fingers at any work, and the
children began to find and to feel something of that subtle charm in
perfect grace and tact which mere beauty cannot supply. Though she
spoke but little, and did not seem to watch them at all, not a word,
not a motion, scarcely a glance of her new pupils escaped her. She was
silently deciding upon the character of each.
After breakfast, the whole party ran to the windows, to admire the
snow-fall; Miss Lane among the rest. It lay white and pure upon the
lawn and the trees, and the sun sparkled over it.
“He giveth snow like wool, and scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes,”
said the teacher.
“Who? God?” asked Rosie, who could not be content without caresses, and
so had crept shily to the side of the teacher.
“Yes, and do you know why it is like wool?”
“Because it is white,” answered Frank, coming up softly, while the rest
followed after a moment of hesitation, and closed round Miss Lane with
bashful but eager glances.
“Yes, and for another reason. Because it is warm; it protects the
tender wheat, keeps it alive in the ground till the spring opens. It
is like your cloaks and overcoats, only so much softer, so much more
beautiful.”
“Warm? snow warm? I thought it was cold.”
“Persons have been saved from freezing by burying themselves in snow.”
“Do you know stories?” questioned Rosie, with a flush over her brown
face.
“Yes, a great many. I will tell you one about a person who had no bed
but one of snow for many nights.”
“Did you know him? did you ever see him?” were the eager questions; and
the children crouched at her feet, forgetting their reserve.
“Yes, very, very well, all my life. This person, this gentleman, when
he was young like you, cared only for books, books all the time, and
wandering about over all the rocks, through all the woods in the
neighborhood. After a while, when he grew older, he wanted to travel.
He went to Asia, to Africa, to Europe—he saw all the great world, but
he forgot God.”
“Forgot God! oh, how dreadful!”
“Forgot God; forgot to love him and pray to him—tried to live without
him. But God remembered him. He never forgets any one, you know—not
even the smallest bird or worm. He counts the tiniest blade of grass.”
“By and by a very sad thing happened to him. A beautiful lady whom he
had loved a long, long time, and who was to have been his wife, died
suddenly. She was deaf, quite deaf, but so very patient and sweet,
living such a holy life, so near to God, that all her goodness shone
in her face, making it so lovely, so radiant, that no one could look
at her without loving her, and wondering if angels were not like her.
She was lost at sea. She had been in England with her father, and was
returning to America, when the ship was lost. They both went down
together, and when this gentleman heard it, he seemed as if he could
never be happy again.
“He looked quite broken-hearted; but the taking of her who was to have
been his wife to the rest of the blessed did not seem to draw him any
nearer to God, and after a while he wandered off again, and was not
heard of for years. He lived for months near the shore of the Gulf of
California, alone, excepting the company of two pet seals, which he
learned to love dearly. He used to go out on the sand and watch the
seals there. Sometimes the young ones, when left by their parents on
the beach, would make the most pitiful moaning and crying, like a
little child in pain. It used to melt his heart to hear them; he said
it made him think of the voice of the lost, crying out of the sea;
and so his melancholy grew deeper and darker than ever. He would have
stayed there perhaps till he died; but his seals were lost, and then,
in his loneliness, he roamed away again.
“He settled at last in New Mexico, and though he lived so much alone,
his gentleness and kindliness won him many friends, and he began to
think he had found a home. But at length he longed to return, and when
he set out he sped towards the mountains. He dared not travel through
the valleys, for fear of the Indians, but had to keep out of their
sight, if he wished to preserve his life. The mountains were covered
with snow. The cold was bitter, and he knew that many days must pass
before he could reach a safe shelter; but his heart did not fail him,
for he began in those fearful, solitary nights to beg for God’s aid,
to think of him as he had not done in years before.
“Every night he lay down in the snow, hungry and tired, for it was
dangerous to shoot game. If the Indians had heard the report of his
rifle, they would have been upon him quickly; and he suffered severely
for want of food. His shoes gave out too, but not his courage and trust
in God, which had all come back to him as he lay under the stars,
in his snowy bed, so awfully alone, shut out from humanity. On the
thirteenth day, he limped into a fort, almost barefooted, hollow-eyed
and gaunt, very weak, but joyful over his deliverance, and, with a new
heart, praising God.”
“Where is he now?” asked Rosie, when Miss Lane paused.
“Gone to rest,” she answered solemnly.
By this time the hour for school had arrived, and all were eager to
begin the work of learning, so they gladly followed the teacher as she
led the way up stairs to the school-room.