Lillie had never spent such miserable days as those two when the
warfare with her conscience was waging continually. Everything went
wrong, nothing gave her any pleasure, she was thoroughly miserable, and
so irritable that she had to be sent two or three times each day to her
room for cross answers and ill conduct.
She knew quite well that she could have no peace till she confessed her
fault, she saw that she could not do right till that spot on her usual
truth and sincerity had been washed out. But timidity held her back;
she kept putting off the evil day, and rose each morning with a sense
of heaviness and depression about her, resolving to get rid of the
weight before another night came.
She could not pray, for while she said the words she knew the act was
mockery, because she was continuing in wilful sin. So, this safeguard
being removed, the child fancied herself falling into sins innumerable,
and darkening all the hours of the day with the shadow of one fault.
Two or three times she had gone to Miss Lane, intending to confess;
but when there, the words died on her lips, and remained unsaid—such
a trembling and terror seized her. She tried to persuade herself that
opportunity was wanting, as her teacher was so much engaged with the
dying Phœbe that she was only seen at meals and in school hours; but
that was poor comfort.
The very next afternoon Lillie determined to meet her teacher in the
hall, and tell her the whole truth; but when she heard Miss Lane going
quickly down the steps, her feet almost refused to move, and when she
opened the hall door, Frank was there, kneeling on the rug, and fitting
on the small over-shoe for his idol.
She could not speak before Frank; he would consider her so mean, her
cheek crimsoned at the thought, and a glimpse at Miss Lane’s pale, sad
face frightened her still more; it looked so fixed and settled, so far
off from things of earth, that she could not bear the idea of those
eyes falling on her in shocked surprise and reproach.
She drew back, the soft “good-bye” was uttered, the slight figure
flitted through the door, and in a second was skimming down the lawn
with quick, graceful motions. It was too late!
About half-an-hour later, as she and Jennie were drawing in the
school-room, the latter, looking out of the window, exclaimed—
“There’s Mary Noel! What brings her here, I wonder?”
Lillie was putting her drawing materials away hurriedly, a look of
eagerness taking the place of the weary expression that had before
rested upon her face, when Jennie continued—
“You must not go down, you know, Miss Lane told us not to have
anything to do with her.”
“I don’t care!” exclaimed Lillie.
“For shame, Lillie! I’ll tell papa. What would _he_ say if he heard you
speak so?”
“I’m not going to sit still, shut up in the house all day. Besides,
what is the harm? Mary Noel don’t hurt anybody.”
“It is wrong to do what your teacher tells you not to do. You know Mary
Noel is not a good girl.”
“She’s as good as anybody. You don’t like her, nor care to play with
her at all, or you would not be so obedient all at once.”
Just then the door opened, and Mary appeared.
“Don’t you want to go and slide? It is fine on the ice, Lillie,” she
exclaimed.
“Miss Lane and papa don’t like Lillie to go on the ice alone,” answered
Jennie, quickly.
“That was when the ice was thinner,” interposed Lillie, angry at her
interference.
“What a baby you are, to care for everything Miss Lane says. I don’t
see what right she has to rule you.”
“She don’t rule us,” cried Jennie, indignantly; but Lillie, whose
wrong-doing had not been without its effect upon her sense of justice
and natural nobleness, began to consider herself an ill-used person,
and flushed crimson at the thought of being “ruled.”
“She does,” continued Mary; “why, the other afternoon, Lillie was
afraid——”
A quick, imploring gesture from Lillie stopped her words, and Jennie,
facing round, eyed both girls suspiciously.
“What was she afraid of? What have you been doing?”
“Oh, nothing. Come, Lillie, are you going?”
“No, she isn’t,” uttered Jennie, imperatively.
“You can’t hinder me.”
“I’ll tell papa.”
“Well, tell him.”
“I’ll go now, and Mrs. Hill will lock you up, if I speak to her.”
“Oh, dear, there’s another mistress, is there? Why, it’s a wonder you
get liberty to eat or sleep,” exclaimed Mary, mockingly.
“I did not care about going on the ice,” said Lillie, standing up and
looking wrathfully at Jennie, “but since you have made yourself so
disagreeable about it, I _will_ go. So there’s nobody to blame but
yourself. Papa has told you never to speak to me in that manner, many a
time.”
The two strode down stairs and out of the house with much dignity,
leaving Jennie in great anger. But presently, the excitable girl’s
nerves grew more quiet, a feeling of sorrow took the place of her
wrath, and her tender conscience began to accuse her of hastiness and
sinfulness in provoking her sister. It was not long before every other
thought was forgotten in an intense feeling of self-reproach, and, like
all impulsive persons, she went quickly from one extreme to another,
and acquitted Lillie of all blame, laying it upon herself.
“Oh! if I had only not been so quick. Oh! if I had governed my
tongue—and I have been warned so many times—Lillie would not have
gone, I’m sure; she nearly always does what she is told. May-be she
will be drowned. I will run and coax her to come back. I could never
hold up my head again.”
She ran out along the bank of the lake, and called the two girls
loudly. They were sliding near the shore, and Jennie’s anger and
impatience returned at the sight of them in safety, disobeying the
commands of those to whom they owed obedience; so that another scene of
quarrelling took place, and Jennie went back sobbing with vexation, and
Lillie continued to slide, more obstinate and hardened than before.
“Let us go out further,” proposed Mary, “the ice is smoother nearer the
other side.”
“Are you sure it is sound?”
“Yes, Tom drew a load of wood over it yesterday.”
So on they slid till they reached a broad, square place, where Mr.
Graham’s men had been cutting ice, with a thin coating as smooth as
glass upon it.
“I’m not afraid to cross that. Are you, Lillie?”
Foolish child that she was, Lillie could not bear to acknowledge that
she was afraid.
“You are afraid!” exclaimed Mary, with a loud laugh, seeing her
hesitate. “I dare you to cross it. It is not thin.”
“You’re afraid yourself.”
“I knew you were. See, you’re only trying to get out of it.”
With a crimson face and her heart beating loudly, the little girl
advanced upon the treacherous ice. She had just gone beyond the edge
of the thick part, when a crack and a shriek rang upon the air, and
she felt herself going down. It was all the work of an instant, like
a flash, though neither remembered exactly how it happened. Mary
caught the clothes of the sinking child, and drew her out, dripping,
shivering, and pale with fright, upon the thick ice. There they looked
at each other an instant, and then began to sob with nervous excitement.
Lillie was so touched and awed by the emotion of her usually
insensible companion, that she had not the heart to cry out against her
for tempting her to her death, as had been her first impulse. So, in
that deplorable plight, with the dripping water freezing about her, she
hastened home.
She was too much subdued to heed Jennie’s “I told you so,” and “You
might have known,” but submitted to Mrs. Hill’s rather rough usage in
meekness, obeying her sentence of going to bed and taking a hot drink,
in silence.
And there she lay in solitude, weeping over her sin, resolving to do
better in the future, starting up with a great thrill of terror when
the thought that she might even then have been in God’s presence with
the unrepented sin on her soul, came into her mind.
“I will tell Miss Lane just as soon as she comes home,” she said to
herself again and again, and as the night came on, she sat listening
eagerly for the light steps of the teacher. Jennie came creeping in
with a penitent face, after a while, to show her completed drawing,
and to tell her, shyly but earnestly, how sorry she was for her share
in the afternoon’s disaster.
“Papa will punish me, I suppose,” remarked Lillie, at last, when there
was a pause. “But I think I am cured of going with Mary Noel any more.
I wonder if he will be very angry!” And the old dread of reproaches
came upon her with such force, that she was about to utter an entreaty
to Jennie for silence concerning the events of the afternoon, when her
better soul came to her again, and she resolved to bear whatever might
be given her in patience.
Presently, as she lay there alone, listening for sounds in the large,
still house, she heard the joyful outcry that welcomed her papa, and a
few seconds after, the light, tripping step of Miss Lane sounded near
the door. Pretty soon, she was heard descending, and then the buzzing
of voices, as the parlor door was opened, came confusedly to her ear.
A moment more and the sound was shut out from her, and Sallie came
up with a tray, and her nice tea arranged upon it—she saw at a
glance—by Miss Lane’s own hands.
But Lillie was almost too sad and depressed to eat. Her heart was very
full of tears by this time, as she thought that her own fault had shut
her out from the light and warmth and pleasure down stairs. She heard
the piano soon, and voices of happy laughter reached her faintly, borne
through the long empty halls and quiet rooms up stairs. But these
sounds of mirth, instead of enlivening her, only made her sadder.
The great tears ran down her cheeks as she thought how little she was
missed, and wondered if her papa would come to say “good night” to her.
The moonlight began to shine in at her window. She got up and looked
out at her mamma’s grave, and wept again in her loneliness and gloom.
The door opened softly, and turning round quickly, she saw her papa
standing grave and sorrowful before her.
“I’m sorry to hear what my little Lillie has been doing,” he said,
sadly.
The child covered her face with both hands.
“Indeed, indeed, papa, I am so sorry,” she sobbed.
“But that will not undo it, my child, it cannot give me back my _trust_
in your honor and truth.”
It was very bitter. What would she have given to blot out all those
last days? Her guilty pleasure seemed so very worthless now, and she
had given in exchange her papa’s esteem, Miss Lane’s confidence, her
peace of mind. She sat with her head bent down in humiliation, while
her papa stood over her with the face which he had worn when her mamma
died. Lillie could not bear it.
“Oh! papa, please forgive me, please trust me again; I cannot bear it.”
And Lillie felt his arms around her, and his kiss on her cheek, while
she sobbed as if her heart would break.
“I will take any punishment, papa, so you’ll let me be your little
Lillie again. It has been so miserable.”
“My dear, I forgive you—you must not forget that there is some one
else whose pardon you must ask. You have displeased God no less than
me—and you are His baptized child, you know.”
Lillie hung her head, and her papa, kissing her again, left her to seek
that pardon, which she did seek humbly and with tears. Before she slept
she opened her heart to her teacher also, and received an assurance of
forgiveness.
“Never try to conceal anything, Lillie,” said Miss Lane; “your
punishment is sure to come sooner or later. Your sin will find you
out in some way. God allows not the slightest wrong-doing to pass
unpunished—and a hidden fault is like poison in the soul, blackening
and corrupting it. Little children can hide but little from those who
are older. I guessed much from your manner, and Sallie told me you and
Mary had been in my room, when I asked her if she knew anything of the
accident.”
“Then what _could_ you have thought of me, Miss Lane!”
“I was very much disappointed in you, my dear, I will tell you frankly.
I thought you incapable of concealment or deceit.”
“Oh, Miss Lane, I have been so unhappy. I wanted to tell you, but I was
afraid, and I really thought it very mean to go into your room without
permission.”
“But you listened to the tempter _twice_, my dear, and you see what
the consequences have been. If you had resisted the first time, it
would not have been so easy to fall the second. Every time we yield, we
lose one portion of strength, and by familiarity with sin, our horror
of it passes quickly away. There might come a time, my dear, when a
deceitful, disobedient action would not trouble your conscience at all.”
“Oh, Miss Lane! But, indeed, there are so many things to make me
naughty, and Jennie was so cross and overbearing that I _would_ go.”
“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried
he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to
them that love Him,” was the answer, as Miss Lane, kissing the little
penitent, went out and left her with God.