"BLESSED ARE THE MEEK."
"HERE is a letter—a letter from India, I do believe!" exclaimed Milly
one morning, as she came into the breakfast room, and took up the thin
light letter, with its strange foreign postmarks.
She was all impatience for the doctor to make his appearance now. And
when she heard him descending the stairs, she ran to meet him with it
in her hand.
"A letter!—A letter!" she shouted, dancing through the hall. "A letter
from India, I'm sure."
The doctor took it from her hand, and looked at it with eagerness.
"It is from Edgar," he exclaimed, as he reached the breakfast room; "he
lives, then!" And overpowered with emotion, he sunk into a chair and
covered his face with his hands.
After a short time, he recovered himself sufficiently to read his
letter, but that part of it in which was communicated the loss of their
little girl when on her way to England with her nurse, affected him
even more deeply than the knowledge that his cousin was still living
had done.
He started as he read the name "Milly," and glanced across the table to
the little girl now sitting before him. Could it be possible that she
was his cousin's child? He had learned to look upon her and love her as
his own, and now to think of another claiming her as a parent, claiming
the first place in her affections, caused him a sharp thrill of pain.
"Is it a nice letter?" asked Milly, pausing in her work of eating bread
and butter to look across at the doctor.
"Come here, Milly," said the gentleman.
The little girl came around to his side, lifting her eyes wonderingly
to his face. Something in them, and the light clustering curls, brought
another face to his memory,—a young, boyish face—and instead of kissing
the upturned face, the doctor moved aside. Yes, it must be; this was
Edgar's child, his long-lost Milly. And then the doctor recalled the
strange impression he had felt, when she was first brought to him, of
having seen the child before.
Milly looked and felt hurt at the half-repulse she had received, and
her eyes were full of tears when she went back to her seat, but the
doctor was too disturbed to notice this just now.
He did remark, however, that instead of running into the garden as
usual after breakfast, she went up stairs to her own room, and the
incident somewhat puzzled him, more especially as it was some time
before she came down again.
When at length she came into the room again, she was looking somewhat
pale and saddened, and with the traces of tears still on her face.
"What is the matter?" asked Dr. Mansfield, looking up from the book he
was trying to read.
Milly colored, and her lips trembled a little as she said, "I was
afraid—" and there she stopped.
"What were you afraid of, Milly?" asked the doctor, drawing her to him.
"I thought perhaps you were going to love your cousin in India better
than me," said Milly slowly, and coloring as she spoke.
The doctor stooped and kissed the little troubled face. "Suppose I
should do so?" he said, a smile parting his lips.
"I don't think I should mind much—at least, not very much now," she
added.
"Why not?" asked the doctor. "Are you going to leave off loving me?"
And a sharp pain shot through his heart as he uttered the light words.
For answer, she threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him. "O no,
no!" she exclaimed. "I shall always love you."
"God bless you, my darling," murmured the doctor fervently. "You have
been a blessing to me, Milly, and the thought of parting with you makes
me very sad. But now tell me why you would not mind it so very much?"
he added, when he had soothed her.
"I've been asking Jesus to help me learn my text better, 'Blessed are
the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,'" said Milly.
"But you learned that long ago, Milly," said the doctor; "learned to
practise it, too, in subduing your temper."
"Yes, but 'meek' means so much," said Milly. "We used to talk about it
when Bob and Jack were out fishing."
"The widow, do you mean?" said the doctor.
Milly nodded. "Mother told me that 'meek' meant something like
this—that we must not mind when other people are liked better than we
are; that we ought to esteem others better than ourselves, and not feel
grieved when they did the same."
The doctor sighed. "That is not very easy to do, Milly," he said.
"It's very hard, I think," said Milly, "especially when you love
somebody very much—" (and she laid her head on the doctor's shoulder),
"and are afraid they'll love somebody else better than they do you,"
and the little girl heaved a deep sigh as she spoke.
"Suppose I should love this cousin in India better than you, Milly,
what should you do?"
The little girl lifted her eyes at the question. "I think Jesus would
help me not to mind about it, because he is your cousin, and you ought
to love him," she said.
"Do you think you could be glad too, Milly," asked the doctor, "when I
seemed pleased to meet my cousin?"
"It wouldn't be easy, but I think Jesus would help me to feel glad by
and by, if I asked Him, and then you would always love me a little,
wouldn't you?" she added.
"Yes, my darling, I shall always love you—love you as dearly as though
you were my own little girl. But now, Milly, suppose you could prevent
my loving this cousin—suppose you could make him stay In India and not
come to England at all, should you not do it if you were afraid I would
love him better than you?"
The little girl sat thoughtfully looking out of the window for a minute
or two before she answered. But at length, she said slowly, "That
wouldn't be right; he is your cousin, and you ought to love him, and I
ought to be satisfied with a little bit of love, if you could not give
me any more. Perhaps Jesus does not think it will be good for me to
have the most any longer. Mother said that was another thing that being
meek meant."
Milly generally spoke of the widow as her "mother," and this had
sometimes caused some few jealous thoughts, for she had never given him
any other title than that of "doctor."
"I think that poor widow was almost as good as a mother to you, was she
not, Milly?" said the doctor, after a minute's silence.
"Yes, almost as good as you," said Milly, throwing her arms about his
neck.
The doctor stroked the clustering curls from her forehead, and
whispered, "Suppose, Milly, you were to hear that you had a real
mother, like other little girls, such as you were talking about the
other day?"
Her bright blue eyes opened with a sudden look of intelligence, or
returning memory. "I had a mamma once, think," she said.
"Do you remember anything about her?" asked Dr. Mansfield.
The little girl shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I can
remember a soldier carrying me to a big ship, and then going away."
"That must have been your papa, I think," said the doctor.
"My papa! How do you know that?" asked Milly.
"Because I have just heard something about it. Milly, would you be very
glad to see your papa and mamma again?" asked the doctor slowly, almost
sadly.
The little girl clapped her hands with delight. "O yes, yes!" she
exclaimed. "I think my papa was a soldier, and my mamma a beautiful
lady, that was always ill. But there were black people where we lived,"
she suddenly said.
The doctor had little doubt before but that this little waif the sea
had cast up at his door was his cousin's long-lost daughter, and
these sudden flashes of light on the all-but-forgotten past that came
to Milly's mind did but confirm it. And he felt sure now that he
should have to yield his place—the first place in the little girl's
affection—to another.
It may seem strange to some that this should cause the doctor so much
pain as it did, seeing Milly was but a child, and Dr. Mansfield a
clever learned man. But it must be remembered that she was the only
one in all the world that he loved, or that really loved him. She had
come to him in his misery and depression, and instead of shrinking from
him as all others did, she had soothed and comforted him, almost as
an angel. And by her simple childish example, more than by her words,
had led him to look to God for strength to do battle with his sin and
sorrowful remorse.
This was the real secret of Milly's power with the doctor. She had
herself learned the power of meekness from the example and teaching
of Jesus, and, following in His footsteps, she had become His
representative—His little messenger of mercy and love to her good
friend the doctor.
She would not, could not, have been all this, had she not learned by
experience, "blessed are meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
She had not learned this quickly or easily. Many a hard battle had been
fought in the lowly fisherman's cottage before her proud passionate
temper had been subdued; but it was conquered, and then she could and
did, in her own simple childlike manner, teach the doctor what she
herself had learned of the blessedness of the meek.
But she could not have taught him this lesson had she not learned it
herself first—learned it by practice. For remember dear reader, we only
learn and know a truth in such measure as we use and practise it in
our daily life. Milly had so learned this, her favorite text. She had
learned to be meek, and God had given her the promised inheritance.
But for this, her stay at Dr. Mansfield's would probably have been a
very short one, and she would have lost all the advantages such a home
afforded her, and—what was to her far more precious than all the luxury
and wealth of her adopted home—the fond and tender love of the doctor
himself.
And now, God was going to add to all these blessings the restored one
of parents' love. She might have been discovered if she had been sent
to the workhouse at the widow's death; but the probabilities are, she
would never have been heard of again.
The doctor tried to draw from Milly all that she remembered of her
parents and her early home. But it was not much she could recall beyond
the fact of being taken on board a large vessel, with a black woman,
who nursed her, and cried over her when the soldier had left them. But
this was enough to convince him of her identity. And the following day
he sat down and wrote another letter to India, describing how a little
girl had been saved, and what she remembered of her early years.
The thought that had suggested itself to his mind was, that he should
take Milly and remove to a distant part of the country before his
cousin could reach England and claim her. He tried to persuade himself
that there would be no harm in this, as he was not sure it was his
cousin's child, and he could not, therefore, be said to steal her, or
unlawfully detain her from her parents. But Milly's simple talk of what
she had been trying to do, when she feared another would claim the
first place the doctor's affection, led him to abandon this plan, and,
following her example, to try and be content with a lower place than he
had hitherto held—content that others should share in that love that
had hitherto been his own.
It was, perhaps, the hardest lesson of unselfishness he had had to
learn. The others had brought with them the promised blessing—the
promised inheritance in increase of happiness. But this could bring
nothing but sorrow, he thought—sorrow and loneliness and desolation—for
if Milly were taken from him, all that made life bright to him would be
gone, so that the doctor may be excused for feeling sad and sorrowful
about what gave his adopted little daughter so much joy as the
anticipation of once more seeing her parents naturally did.