FOOTNOTE:
[B] A. L. O. E. remembers attending, many years ago, exactly such an exhibition at the house of a friend, of a model of the Tabernacle made by a lady and her children for some charitable purpose.
XIX.
Disappointment.
The birthday of the twins had arrived; but the sun rises late on the twenty-fourth of December, and Dora was up, dressing by candlelight, long before his first beams shone on the sheet of pure white snow which had fallen during the night. It might be supposed that Dora’s thoughts would be on the words of advice which she had heard on the previous night; but though these words had made some impression at the time, it was by no means upon them that the girl’s mind was running when she awoke in the morning. Dora was thinking of her embroidery work—that work of which she had been so proud, that work which had cost her so dear. Nothing that Miss Clare had said dwelt so much on the memory of her niece as the simple observation, “It wants a little more scarlet, I think.”
For on the mantelpiece of the room now occupied by Dora, there chanced to stand a glass bottle, corked and labelled; and by the light of her candle Dora had noticed that “SCARLET INK” was printed upon the label. The sight of that little bottle had roused in the mind of the girl new hopes, and again turned her energies into the channel of work.
“My supply of scarlet silk ran short, and I was not able to get another skein at the shop,” thought Dora. “Aunt is quite right, there is not enough of scarlet mixed with the purple and blue; it is that which spoils the effect of my curtains. I wonder that no one noticed that before! But I have a skein of white silk with me, and why should I not dye it myself with that beautiful scarlet ink? This is a capital idea! The school children do not come till the afternoon; I should have time to dye my silk before breakfast, and after breakfast to work enough scarlet into my pattern to give a brilliant effect to all that part which is most easily seen. How pleased Aunt Theodora will be to find that I have taken her hint, and that I grudge no extra trouble to make my work complete! How very lucky it is that she put that ink into my room!”
Dora actually forgot both her prayers and her Scripture reading on that birthday morning, in her impatience to get down-stairs and quietly remove her inner veil and curtains from the model, before any other member of the family should enter the room where it was kept. With rough hair, and dress only half-buttoned, Dora noiselessly opened her door, and then crept down the staircase, and into the sitting-room in which the Tabernacle stood, covered from the dust by large sheets of silver paper. There was no one in the room except the housemaid, who was employed in opening the shutters to let in the light of morning.
The model, as we know, was made to be taken to pieces at will; but as Dora’s set of curtains was the innermost of all, it cost her some time and trouble to remove them. She pursued her occupation, while the housemaid went on with that of lighting the fire and dusting the room, and was at last able to disengage the whole of the embroidered portion of the drapery of the little Tabernacle. With this Dora returned to her own apartment, and she laid her work on the pretty little table which her aunt had placed for her convenience.
“I must be quick about the dyeing,” said Dora to herself, “for I can hear Lucius whistling up-stairs in the passage, and little Elsie running about in the room just over my head. The family is now all astir, and in a quarter of an hour the prayer-bell will ring. If I don’t dye my silk scarlet at once I shall be sadly delayed in my work, for I cannot, of course, use it for sewing until it is perfectly dry.”
So Dora took the bottle of ink down from its place on the mantelpiece, and in a great hurry set about removing the sealing-wax which covered the cork, for the bottle had not yet been opened. It was a tolerably easy matter to break off the edges of the red wax, but Dora did not find it easy at all to pull out the cork, which was low in the narrow neck of the bottle, and happened to be a very tight fit.
“Dear! dear! how troublesome this is!” exclaimed Dora, hunting about for her stout pair of nail scissors to help her in forcing out the obstinate cork.
“Good morning, Dora dear, many happy returns of the day to you!” cried the merry voice of Elsie, as she tapped at the door of her sister.
“Thank you, darling, don’t come in now; I’ll soon be down-stairs—I’m not quite ready!” called out Dora, who had just succeeded in finding the scissors. She heard the little feet patter down the stairs.
“Happy birthday to you, Dora! Mind you’re not late, Miss Twelve-years-old!” This time it was the voice of Lucius at the door.
“No, no, I’ll not be late; I’ll be down in ten minutes!” cried Dora, digging her scissors vigorously into the cork. The clatter of Lucius’s boots showed that he had followed little Elsie.
“Oh, this cork, this tiresome cork!” exclaimed Dora; “there, it’s out at last;” and setting the opened bottle on the table, she turned round in a great flurry to get from her box the skein of silk which was to be changed from white to scarlet.
“More haste, less speed.” Dora was not the first who has proved the truth of that proverb. She whisked round so rapidly that her dress struck the top of the bottle which she had carelessly set down in a place that was not very safe. The bottle was knocked over, but it fell upon something soft which lay on the table, so that it was neither broken, nor did it make enough noise in falling to attract the attention of Dora. It was not till she had found the skein (which she had some trouble in doing), that on turning back to the table she perceived the mischief caused by her hasty movement.
What a start and exclamation of distress were given by poor Dora when she saw on the table her embroidery lying actually under the overturned bottle, and soaked through and through with the scarlet ink which had flowed in abundance from it!
Dora stood for a moment as if rooted to the spot, scarcely able to believe her own eyes. She then darted forward, caught up the half-emptied bottle in one hand, and the stained, dripping linen in the other. The first glance at the embroidery showed the poor girl that the mischief done was utterly beyond repairing; in one minute the fruit of all her long toil had been completely destroyed!
“Oh, it is all my own fault—all my own fault—it could not have prospered!” cried out Dora, in a loud tone of anguish, as she put down first the bottle, then the embroidery, and then, hiding her face with her scarlet-stained fingers, she burst into a passion of weeping.
That cry, that weeping, reached the ears of her aunt, who had just approached her door, carrying with her the destined gifts for the twins—the Indian scarf, and the brooch with the miniature set in pearls.
“My darling girl, what is the matter?” exclaimed Miss Clare, opening the door in alarm. There was no need to repeat the unanswered question; the bottle, the little heap of embroidered linen dripping with scarlet ink, told their own story plainly enough. Miss Clare saw the nature of the accident which had happened, and, with kind sympathy for her niece’s great disappointment, folded her affectionately in her arms.
XX.
Confession.
“IT is vexatious, my Dora, very vexatious,” said Miss Clare, in a tone of condolence; “it is trying to you, after all the pains which you have bestowed on your work, to see that work suddenly spoiled. But still take comfort, dear child, in the thought that no labor undertaken for our Master can really be lost.”
Dora sobbed more bitterly than before, for she knew that hers had not been labor undertaken for the Master, and she felt that her time and toil had been worse than lost.
Miss Clare did all that she could to comfort her favorite niece. She showed Dora the beautiful brooch which she herself valued so greatly; she told her that she had brought it as a birthday remembrance; but, much to the lady’s surprise, Dora only shook her head sadly, and sobbed forth, “Not for me—not for me! Oh, that model, I wish that I never had touched it—I wish that I had never set a stitch in one of those curtains!”
“I see that you are distressed, very naturally distressed, by the mishap which has befallen your curtains, fearing that thereby the whole model may be spoilt,” observed Theodora. “You are thinking of the disappointment of your brother and sisters, of the Ragged-school children who are coming to-day, of my friends who are invited to see the model. You think that there is no time to repair the effects of the spilling the scarlet ink; but I think that I see a way to remedy the mischief;” and Miss Clare, as she spoke, placed before the weeping girl her beautiful embroidered scarf. “I had intended to give this to Agnes when I gave you the miniature brooch, but I will now alter my plan. I will try to find out, or purchase, some other remembrance for Agnes; and, with a little alteration, do you not think, my sweet girl, that this work will do nicely for the inner curtains and veil?”
“A thousand times better than mine could have done!” exclaimed Dora, darting a glance of almost fierce dislike at the embroidery, now stained and marred, which she had once surveyed with such proud admiration.
“No, indeed,” said Miss Clare, very kindly; “for though the Indian scarf may be—certainly is in itself more beautiful than your curtains, we cannot see in it the same token of patient perseverance in making what was intended to be a humble offering of love to the Lord.”
“Oh, Aunt Theodora, I can stand this no longer!” exclaimed Dora, almost choking with the violence of her emotion; “you must know all, I can hide it no more; you must hear what a naughty, naughty girl I have been!”
Then, as well as she could through her tears and her sobs, Dora relieved herself of the burden of concealment which had become at last intolerable. She told everything to her aunt—the first fault, the breaking of the fourth commandment; then the falsehood, the deceit which had followed, for when did an unrepented sin ever stand alone! Dora concluded by passionately exclaiming, “You cannot, you must not, give me the brooch—Agnes has deserved it much better; she has been conquering her temper and doing all that she can to please mamma, while I have been only a hypocrite! Please give the brooch to Agnes, and the scarf for the model; I could not bear now to take either—I who have only deserved to be punished!”
Miss Clare was surprised, pained, disappointed by what she now heard; yet there was comfort to her in seeing that now at least her poor niece was heartily repenting.
“I cannot tell you, my child, how thankful I am that this accident has happened to your work, and that you have been led to speak out bravely at last,” said her aunt, putting her arm round Dora, and drawing her tenderly towards her, so that the poor girl could weep on her bosom.
“Then you don’t despise me—you won’t give me up?” murmured Dora, crying still, but much more softly.
“Give you up—never!” cried the aunt, and she pressed a kiss upon Dora’s brow. “It may be a question, indeed, whether I had not better reserve the brooch till next birthday.”
“Oh, I never could take it, never!” cried Dora, excitedly; “let it be given to Agnes.”
“Do you think, Dora, that by giving up the brooch you are winning a claim to forgiveness—that by this sacrifice you are atoning for what you have done wrong?” asked Miss Clare. “If so, I am bound to tell you that you are mistaken.”
“No, aunt,” replied Dora, for the first time raising her eyes, heavy with weeping, and looking her godmother full in the face; “I know that nothing that I can do can atone for my sin—that there is but one Atonement; but I feel as if I could not take the brooch which you meant to give to a good girl, and which I have so little”— Dora could not finish the sentence, tears came again, and she hid her face on the bosom of her aunt.
Miss Clare hesitated no longer. She felt that it would deeply impress on the mind of Dora the painful lesson which she was learning, if she saw the brooch in the possession of her elder twin. What Theodora had heard from Mrs. Temple of the marked improvement in the character of Agnes, convinced her that she was the sister who best deserved to receive the miniature of her mother. Miss Clare made a sacrifice of her own inclination in thus deciding to follow her judgment, but she was in the habit of doing what she thought right, instead of what she thought pleasant.
“I will confess all to mamma, now, just as I have done to you—I won’t be a hypocrite any longer,” murmured Dora, as soon as she had recovered power to speak.
“And there is Another to whom my child must also confess,” said Miss Clare, still with her arm round her niece, still with Dora’s head on her breast; “there is One who is ready freely to forgive every penitent who approaches the Mercy-seat pleading the merits of Christ. We have no power to remove one spot from our souls;” the eyes of Miss Clare chanced to rest, as she spoke, on the embroidery, stained and destroyed; “but there is the Lord’s promise to comfort the broken and contrite heart, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow—though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.’”
Dora and her aunt knelt down together and together prayed, but in silence. When Dora rose from her knees, though she was still very sad and subdued, there was a peace in her heart, a sense of sin forgiven, which she had not experienced for months.
XXI.
Conclusion.
“DORA is late—shockingly late—on her birthday too! I am surprised!” exclaimed Elsie, who was in a fidget of impatience to present her sister with a marker which she had made.
“And Aunt has kept us twenty—more than twenty minutes waiting for prayers!” cried Amy; “I am surprised, for she always is so punctual.”
“And Agnes has employed the time mending my gloves, the most surprising thing of all,” laughed Lucius.
“Why so surprising?” asked Elsie.
“Because a few months ago Agnes was much more given to picking holes than to sewing them up,” answered the boy. “I liked to plague her and she to tease me, and I thought that we should always live a kind of cat-and-dog life together. But now we’re going to be grand allies,” added the merry boy, clapping Agnes upon the shoulder; “by your example you’ll help to mend my manners as well as my gloves!”
Lucius spoke in his saucy playful way, but “there’s many a true word spoken in jest,” and he was but expressing what all the family had observed, that there was gradual but steady improvement in the outer conduct of the once peevish and selfish girl.
But the sharpest conflict of Agnes upon her twelfth birthday had been against a jealous spirit within. From a few words dropped by her aunt on the previous evening, Agnes felt sure that her mother’s likeness would be given as a birthday present to one of the twins, and she had not a doubt that the younger would be the one thus favored.
“It was just the same last birthday,” thought Agnes with bitterness: “I am given some makeshift, Dora has what is really of value. It is rather hard that she should always be preferred before her elder sister because she is called after my aunt, whilst I am named after my mother. But oh! how wicked is this feeling of jealousy, how sinful these unkind and covetous thoughts! Lord! help me to overcome this secret temptation, and to feel pleasure, real pleasure, when I see Dora wearing that which is so precious to us both!”
As the thought, or rather the prayer, passed through the mind of Agnes, the door opened and Miss Clare entered, followed by Dora. The lady held the beautiful brooch in her hand, and going up to the elder twin whom she had not met before on that morning, with a kiss and a whispered blessing, fastened the precious jewel on her breast.
That twenty-fourth day of December was a day long remembered with delight by many a poor child in Chester, for large was the number of scholars (it would be scarcely just to call them ragged) who enjoyed the feast and the varied amusements provided for them in the large red house by their benefactress, Miss Clare.
Specially was the beautiful, the wonderful model which the young gentlefolk had made, the theme of many a conversation in the low courts and lanes from which the guests had been gathered. Worn, weary mothers, at their sewing or washing, paused, needle in hand, or with arms whitened with soap-suds, to hear of the golden pillars, and silver loops, and above all of the splendid embroidery that adorned the inner part of the model, that part which, as Miss Clare had told them, was called the Holy of holies.
“And the young ladies looked just as pleased and happy as we,” a bare-footed little urchin observed at the end of a lively narration of all the wonders that he had seen; “all but one, and her eyes were red as if she’d been a-crying,—what could she have had to make her cry? But she smiled, too, when we clapped our hands and shouted for joy as we saw the beautiful tent!”
What delighted their eyes, and pleased their fancy, was what naturally made the greatest impression on the ragged scholars who had stared in wondering admiration on the model of the Tabernacle of Israel. But the concluding words of a little address made by Miss Clare to the children were what sank deepest into the memories and hearts of her twin nieces.
“I have described to you, my dear young pupils, the various parts of this model,” she said: “let me now briefly point out a few lessons which we should all carry away. In Israel’s Tabernacle we see a TYPE of every Christian, in whose body, as St. Paul tells us, God’s Holy Spirit deigns to dwell (1 Cor. iii. 16). In that living Tabernacle, the lowly heart is the Holy of holies, because it is cleansed by the blood of sprinkling, in it the Commandments of God are treasured, and the light of His love shines within. But as the Tabernacle was not intended to last forever, but to give place to a far more splendid building, so is it with these bodies of ours. As Solomon’s magnificent temple, glorious and fair, and firm on its deep foundation, far surpassed the Tabernacle made to be moved from place to place; so will the glorified bodies of saints, when they are raised from their graves, surpass these weak, mortal bodies in which they served their Lord upon earth. For what saith the Apostle St. Paul:—‘We know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’” (2 Cor. v. 1.)
SHORT STORIES
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
