AS WHEAT IS SIFTED.
At two o'clock Helen rang the bell of Mrs. Everleigh's palatial home on
Riverside Drive. A man in livery admitted her, swept herself and her
card with a comprehensive glance as she laid the bit of pasteboard upon
his tray, obsequiously bowed her into an elegantly appointed reception
room, and disappeared.
Five minutes later Mrs. Everleigh came to her. Helen had thought her a
rarely beautiful woman when she had seen her in church, more than four
months previous; but she seemed a hundredfold more lovely now, dressed
all in simple white, her abundant snowy hair coiled becomingly about
her head, her only ornament an exquisite chain of turquoise set in
silver and almost the color of her peaceful eyes, and her lips wreathed
in sunny, welcoming smiles.
"Mrs. Ford, I am more than glad to see you," she said, as she cordially
clasped Helen's hand. "And now, if you will allow me to waive the
formalities of a first call, I am going to ask you to come up to my
private sitting room, where we can be wholly by ourselves."
Helen thanked her, and followed her up the grand stairway, noting the
costly furnishings of the great hall, the rare paintings, statuary,
bric-a-brac, et cetera, on every hand; and almost gave vent to an
exclamation of childish delight as she was ushered into an exquisite
boudoir on the second floor, and which was furnished throughout in blue
and white; the great chandelier in the center of the ceiling, and other
appliances for lighting, together with many beautiful vases, being all
of crystal or expensive cut glass.
"What an ideal setting for an ideal woman!" she said to herself, as she
entered the room.
"Come and sit here, Mrs. Ford," said Mrs. Everleigh, as she preceded
her to a great bow window, where there were two inviting rockers, with
hassocks to match, a pretty onyx table on which rested a small easel
supporting the photograph of a beautiful young girl, and, standing
beside it, a costly cut-glass vase filled with fresh forget-me-nots.
"What a lovely nook!" was Helen's involuntary tribute, as she sank into
the luxurious chair offered her. "And, oh, that view!" she added, with
a quick indrawn breath, as her glance fell upon the scene without,
where, between splendid great trees, all glorious in their brilliant
fall attire of red, yellow, and green, glimpses of the river, flashing
in the sunlight, with the darker hills beyond, made a picture that one
could never forget.
"Yes, it is a scene of which I never tire," returned her hostess, as
she took the other rocker, and thoughtfully pushed a hassock nearer her
guest.
"I hope, Mrs. Everleigh, I have not seemed intrusive in asking to come
to you?" Helen observed, after a moment or two, during which she sat
silently drinking in the beauty before her. "But your kindness to me
that day in church emboldened me to beg the favor."
"My dear, I am happy to have you come--I am glad to be helpful to any
one, as opportunity offers," the elder lady graciously replied.
Helen lifted a glance of surprise to her. She had not hinted that she
was unhappy, or needed help of any kind.
Mrs. Everleigh met her look with her winning smile.
"Your voice told me over the phone, dear, that you were in trouble,"
she said. "Now, open your heart to me. What can I do for you?"
Her tone was so kind, her smile and manner so loving, Helen's forced
composure melted like wax in the sun, and a sudden flood of tears
rendered her utterly helpless to respond for the moment.
The strain and excitement of the last forty-eight hours had been very
great, and the loss of two nights' sleep, together with the relentless
mental vivisection to which she had since subjected herself, had robbed
her of both strength and self-control.
"Dear heart," gently entreated her companion, "let the bitterness all
out; then there will be room to pour in the balm and oil."
She leaned back in her chair, and sat silent, with bowed head and
averted eyes, until Helen's weeping ceased, and she began to regain
something of her customary self-possession.
"Dear Mrs. Everleigh," she at length said, as she lifted her
tear-stained face to her, "you have not attempted to question or
comfort me, and yet it seems to me you have been pouring peace into my
heart every moment since I came into this room; my trouble is the old
puzzle regarding love and hate."
"How is it a puzzle?"
"All my life," Helen explained, "I have believed myself to be a good
woman, a devoted wife and mother, faithful to my duties, charitable,
conscientious, God-fearing, self-sacrificing to a fault, and absolutely
loyal to my friends. I believed all this to be love. When trouble
came, I bore it patiently, taking up my burdens with courage, and
setting my face steadfastly toward the work of regaining for myself and
my child that of which we had been cruelly robbed--home, position, and
an honorable name. I thought I had won, that the goal had been
attained, that I had so firmly established myself no taint of the past
could touch me; and I believed I was happy in what I had achieved,
until I suddenly awoke to the fact that all the fair fabric I had
constructed and believed unassailable was only an outward show, built
upon pride and self-righteousness; until I began to realize that I had
all the time been possessed of a subconscious hate, the hate that
wishes people dead and powerless to cross your path again! Does the
picture appall you?"
Helen paused, almost breathless from inward emotion and rapid speaking.
"My dear, you have uncovered all this in connection with yourself?"
gravely queried Mrs. Everleigh.
"_Something_ has uncovered it," said Helen, with a bitter sigh.
"And what is the result of such searching introspection?"
"I feel like a whited sepulcher. I am appalled, shocked beyond measure
at myself," said Helen, with a gesture of repugnance.
"Do you think it was your real self who was nursing all the evil you
have portrayed?" gently inquired her companion.
Helen lifted a look of surprise to her.
"My real self?" she repeated, in perplexity.
"The real self is the purity--the innate consciousness that shrinks
from evil, and would be clothed upon with the garment of righteousness,
of right thinking and right living," said Mrs. Everleigh.
"Then the evil-thinking is the unreal self, and every one possesses a
dual nature? I recognize that--it is the old story of Doctor Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde--but when one wakes up to find that even the good he
_thinks_ he has done is evil, because of the worm at the core, it
becomes a mocking paradox," said Helen bitterly.
"No, dear; not the good he thinks and has done," opposed her companion
gently, "for every good thought that has taken form in your
consciousness, every good deed that has been the outgrowth of that
thought, belongs to your true self, and nothing can rob you of it.
Your efforts to conquer adverse circumstances, your determination to
achieve success in your profession--I have recently heard Madam Ford
sing, and have learned something of her career," the lady smilingly
interposed--"and an honorable name and position for yourself and your
child are all justifiable and praiseworthy. We have a right to set our
standards high and do our utmost, with right motives, to attain them.
But the undercurrent of bitterness, the sense of resentment, self-pity,
self-righteousness--the thinking that is continually arguing about the
faults and sins of the wrongdoer--everything that tends to
self-justification by the condemnation of another is all wrong, and
must be put out, if we hope ever to attain to our ideals, and know real
peace of mind. It matters not how fair our outward living may seem, if
the thinking is wrong."
"I began to realize something of this, that Sunday in church," said
Helen. "It seemed as if a wonderful searchlight had been turned upon
my inner self, revealing lurking demons I never dreamed I was
harboring."
"Every one, sooner or later, must be sifted as wheat is sifted--must be
refined as gold is refined; the dross and the chaff must be cast out,"
said her companion.
"Oh, tell me how!" Helen exclaimed. "One yearns to be pure in thought
as well as in deed, but the wrong-thinking seems to go on and on of
itself. How can it be conquered?"
"By putting self out of sight and giving loving service to others."
"To those who have done us desperate wrong?" panted Helen, with an
inward shock.
"Even to those," said Mrs. Everleigh gently. "They need it most of
all."
"Oh, you cannot mean that we should take them back into our hearts and
lives, and nourish and serve them again as if no wrong had been done,
when every law of God and man had been violated, every tendril of
affection ruthlessly trampled upon!" Helen's voice was almost
inaudible as she concluded.
Mrs. Everleigh did not immediately reply; she sat gravely thinking for
several minutes.
"Dear Mrs. Ford," she at length began, "we each have different problems
in life to solve, and it is difficult and perhaps unwise for one to say
to another what he or she would do under certain circumstances which
had never come into one's own experience. Loving service is that which
best promotes the welfare of the one served. What might be loving
service and helpful for one might be just the reverse for another. The
wrongdoer must suffer for his wrongdoing, else he would never recognize
or repent his sin; it would be doing irreparable injury to remove his
punishment, restoring joys he had forfeited, privileges he had trampled
upon. That would be encouraging sin. We are commanded to 'cast not
our pearls before swine.' We must not continue to shower blessings and
favors indiscriminately upon those who have shown themselves
unappreciative and unworthy of past benefits. Having cut themselves
adrift, it is theirs to work out their own salvation, and it is not our
duty to again put ourselves in contact with the error that has
deliberately wronged and wounded us. And yet, there is loving service
that we can still render even these; we can think and speak kindly of
them, giving honor where honor is due, compassion instead of
condemnation for the errors that hold them in bondage. Such an
attitude cannot fail to crowd out and conquer the bitterness,
self-pity, self-righteousness, condemnation--everything that robs us of
our peace. When we attain to this we shall know that we have no
partnership with hate."
"I begin to understand something of what love means," Helen said, in a
tone of awe. "I feel as if I were just beginning to see how to live.
You surely have helped me to empty myself of much of the evil that
seemed to be surging within me when I came here this afternoon. You
have indeed 'poured in balm and oil,' and given me much food for
thought."
She arose to leave as she spoke, holding out her hand, a look of
grateful appreciation in her eyes.
"Oh, I am not going to let you go yet! I have not said half I wish,"
cried her hostess, clasping her extended hand, but forcing her gently
back into her chair; and Helen, eager to learn more from the wisdom
that fell from her lips, sank restfully down among her cushions again,
and they talked on for an hour longer.
"How glad I am you came to me, Mrs. Ford!" Mrs. Everleigh observed,
when she finally said she must go. "I hope to see you often after
this--I shall make it my way to do so, if you will allow me. I heard
you sing at the Wardsworths' shortly after we met in church, and I
intended to be introduced to you at that time, but you had left when I
asked to be presented. You have a great gift, and I am going to beg
you to use it for me some time."
"It will give me great pleasure to do so, Mrs. Everleigh. I would love
to show some appreciation of the good you have done me to-day," Helen
heartily responded, adding, as her eyes sought those of her companion:
"It is a privilege just to look into your peaceful face--one would
think that no blight or sorrow had ever touched you in----"
Mrs. Everleigh's hand closed over Helen's almost spasmodically, and her
lips whitened suddenly, as her glance sought the beautiful photograph
resting on the onyx table beside the vase of forget-me-nots.
"No blight--no sorrow!" she repeated, as she gently drew her visitor a
step nearer the likeness. "Oh, no one escapes the tragedies of this
mortal life, my dear--they pass none of us by. This is a likeness of
my daughter. Is she not beautiful? She was swept from my sight almost
before I realized she was in danger. It seemed as if a whirlwind
caught her away, and--she was all I had--the apple of my eye, the one
darling of my heart. The blow left me with this crown of snow," she
went on, touching with tremulous fingers the hair upon her forehead.
"It broke my heart, crushed me to earth for the time being, and the
battle I had to fight was much the same that you are fighting now. It
is only step by step that we conquer in such experiences, but if we are
sincere--'honest in mind and intention'--if we keep our armor on, and
wield a merciless sword upon our secret foes, we must win in the end."
Helen was very near weeping again as she listened to her. Surely, she
thought, the tragedies of earth pass no one by! Those in palace and
hovel meet on common ground in these great heart sorrows. She lifted
the hand she held, and softly laid her lips against it--she was
powerless to speak one word.
But Mrs. Everleigh quickly quelled her momentary emotion, and her
peaceful smile seemed like a benediction as she turned again to Helen.
"But she made my life very bright while she was here. I have beautiful
things to remember of her; I have very much to be grateful for," she
said bravely. "We must not forget to number our blessings, dear Mrs.
Ford," she continued gravely, "lest we drift back into the former
bitterness and darkness. You still have your lovely daughter, if you
have had other trials--I saw her also at the Wardsworths'--be thankful,
and, in the light of that and other blessings, forget the wrong and
blight of the past."
They went downstairs together, Mrs. Everleigh accompanying her visitor
to the door and exacting a promise that she would come again in the
near future, for there was more she wished to say to her when the world
seemed brighter to her.
Helen went home with a sense of peace in her heart such as she had not
known for many weeks. She felt like a different person from what she
had been during the last forty-eight hours. She reviewed every step of
her interview with Mrs. Everleigh, analyzing her arguments, making a
personal application of them, and seeking to attain to a higher
understanding of them.
"Loving service for even those who have wronged us most!" This had
impressed her more deeply than anything else she had said, and as she
conned it o'er and o'er she came to see that to purify her own
consciousness of evil-thinking against John--he who had wronged her
most, who had put the worst possible humiliation and suffering upon
her--would not only release her from the intolerable bondage of mental
discord which she had suffered for years whenever he had come into her
thought, but would also be obeying the divine command: "Do unto others
as ye would they should do unto you."
She might never see or hear from John again--she hoped she would not;
he had said he would trouble her no more; but whether he did or not,
she knew that the bitterness of hate was past, and in its place there
was dawning a peace that comes to all those who realize and practice
the greatest of all virtues--"Charity, the love that thinketh no evil."