Ester Ried

by Pansy

CHAPTER XIII.

THE STRANGE CHRISTIAN.

"Abbie," said Ester, wriggling herself around from before an open trunk, and letting a mass of collars and cuffs slide to the floor in her earnestness, "do you know I think you're the very strangest girl I ever knew in my life?"

"I'm sure I did not," Abbie answered gaily. "If it's a nice 'strange' do tell me about it. I like to be nice—ever so much."

"Well, but I am in earnest, Abbie; you certainly are. These very collars made me think of it. Oh dear me! they are all on the floor." And she reached after the shining, sliding things.

Abbie came and sat down beside her, presently, with a mass of puffy lace in her hands, which she was putting into shape.

"Suppose we have a little talk, all about myself," she said gently and seriously. "And please tell me, Ester, plainly and simply, what you mean by the term 'strange.' Do you know I have heard it so often that sometimes I fear I really am painfully unlike other people. You are just the one to enlighten me."

Ester laughed a little as she answered: "You are taking the matter very seriously. I did not mean any thing dreadful."

"Ah! but you are not to be excused in that way, my dear Ester. I look to you for information. Mother has made the remark a great many times, but it is generally connected in some way with religious topics, and mother, you know, is not a Christian; therefore I have thought that perhaps some things seemed strange to her which would not to—you, for instance. But since you have been here you have spoken your surprise concerning me several times, and looked it oftener; and to-day I find that even my stiff and glossy, and every way proper, collars and cuffs excite it. So do please tell me, ought I to be in a lunatic asylum somewhere instead of preparing to go to Europe?"

Now although Ester laughed again, at the mixture of comic and pathetic in Abbie's tone, yet something in the words had evidently embarrassed her. There was a little struggle in her mind, and then she came boldly forth with her honest thoughts.

"Well, the strangeness is connected with religious topics in my mind also; even though I am a professing Christian I do not understand you. I am an economist in dress, you know, Abbie. I don't care for these things in the least; but if I had the money as you have, there are a great many things which I should certainly have. You see there is no earthly sense in your economy, and yet you hesitate over expenses almost as much as I do."

There was a little gleam of mischief in Abbie's eyes as she answered: "Will you tell me, Ester, why you would take the trouble to get 'these things' if you do not care for them in the least?"

"Why because—because—they would be proper and befitting my station in life."

"Do I dress in a manner unbecoming to my station in life."

"No," said Ester promptly, admiring even then the crimson finishings of her cousin's morning-robe. "But then—Well, Abbie, do you think it is wicked to like nice things?"

"No," Abbie answered very gently; "but I think it is wrong to school ourselves into believing that we do not care for any thing of the kind; when, in reality, it is a higher, better motive which deters us from having many things. Forgive me, Ester, but I think you are unjust sometimes to your better self in this very way."

Ester gave a little start, and realized for the first time in her life that, truth-loving girl though she was, she had been practicing a pretty little deception of this kind, and actually palming it off on herself. In a moment, however, she returned to the charge.

"But, Abbie, did Aunt Helen really want you to have that pearl velvet we saw at Stewart's?"

"She really did."

"And you refused it?"

"And I refused it."

"Well, is that to be set down as a matter of religion, too?" This question was asked with very much of Ester's old sharpness of tone.

Abbie answered her with a look of amazement. "I think we don't understand each other," she said at length, with the gentlest of tones. "That dress, Ester, with all its belongings could not have cost less than seven hundred dollars. Could I, a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, living in a world where so many of his poor are suffering, have been guilty of wearing such a dress as that? My dear, I don't think you sustain the charge against me thus far. I see now how these pretty little collar (and, by the way, Ester, you are crushing one of them against that green box) suggested the thought; but you surely do not consider it strange, when I have such an array of collars already, that I did not pay thirty dollars for that bit of a cobweb which we saw yesterday?"

"But Aunt Helen wanted you to."

A sad and troubled look stole over Abbie's face as she answered: "My mother, remember, dear Ester, does not realize that she is not her own, but has been bought with a price. You and I know and feel that we must give an account of our stewardship. Ester, do you see how people who ask God to help them in every little thing which they have to decide—in the least expenditure of money—can after that deliberately fritter it away?"

"Do you ask God's help in these matters?"

"Why, certainly—" with the wondering look in her eyes, which Ester had learned to know and dislike—"'Whatsoever therefore ye do'—you know."

"But, Abbie, going out shopping to buy—handkerchiefs, for instance; that seems to me a very small thing to pray about."

"Even the purchase of handkerchiefs may involve a question of conscience, my dear Ester, as you would realize if you had seen the wicked purchases that I have in that line; and some way I never can feel that any thing that has to do with me is of less importance than a tiny sparrow, and yet, you know, He looks after them."

"Abbie, do you mean to say that in every little thing that you buy you weigh the subject, and discuss the right and wrong of it?"

"I certainly do try to find out just exactly what is right, and then do it; and it seems to me there is no act in this world so small as to be neither right nor wrong."

"Then," said Ester, with an impatient twitch of her dress from under
Abbie's rocker, "I don't see the use in being rich."

"Nobody is rich, Ester, only God; but I'm so glad sometimes that he has trusted me with so much of his wealth, that I feel like praying a prayer about that one thing—a thanksgiving. What else am I strange about, Ester?"

"Everything," with growing impatience. "I think it was as queer in you as possible not to go to the concert last evening with Uncle Ralph?"

"But, Ester, it was prayer-meeting evening."

"Well, suppose it was. There is prayer-meeting every week, and there isn't this particular singer very often, and Uncle Ralph was disappointed. I thought you believed in honoring your parents."

"You forget, dear Ester, that father said he was particularly anxious that I should do as I thought right, and that he should not have purchased the tickets if he had remembered the meeting. Father likes consistency."

"Well, that is just the point. I want to know if you call it inconsistent to leave your prayer meeting for just one evening, no matter for what reason?"

Abbie laughed in answer. "Do you know, Ester, you wouldn't make a good lawyer, you don't stick to the point. It isn't a great many reasons that might be suggested that we are talking about, it is simply a concert." Then more gravely—"I try to be very careful about this matter. So many detentions are constantly occurring in the city, that unless the line were very closely-drawn I should not get to prayer-meeting at all. There are occasions, of course, when I must be detained; but under ordinary circumstances it must be more than a concert that detains me."

"I don't believe in making religion such a very solemn matter as that all amounts to; it has a tendency to drive people away from it."

The look on Abbie's face, in answer to this testily spoken sentence, was a mixture of bewilderment and pain.

"I don't understand"—she said at length—"How is that a solemn matter? If we really expect to meet our Savior at a prayer-meeting, isn't it a delightful thought? I am very happy when I can go to the place of prayer."

Ester's voice savored decidedly of the one which she was wont to use in her very worst moods in that long dining-room at home.

"Of course I should have remembered that Mr. Foster would be at the prayer-meeting, and not at the concert; that was reason enough for your enjoyment."

The rich blood surged in waves over Abbie's face during this rude address; but she said not a single word in answer. After a little silence, she spoke in a voice that trembled with feeling.

"Ester, there is one thought in connection with this subject that troubles me very much. Do you really think, as you have intimated, that I am selfish, that I consult my own tastes and desires too much, and so do injury to the cause. For instance, do you think I prejudiced my father?"

What a sweet, humble, even tearful, face it was! And what a question to ask of Ester! What had developed this disagreeable state of mind save the confused upbraidings of her hitherto quiet conscience over the contrast between Cousin Abbie's life and hers.

Here, in the very face of her theories to the contrary, in very defiance to her belief in the folly, and fashion, and worldliness that prevailed in the city, in the very heart of this great city, set down in the midst of wealth and temptation, had she found this young lady, daughter of one of the merchant princes, the almost bride of one of the brightest stars in the New York galaxy on the eve of a brilliant departure for foreign shores, with a whirl of preparation and excitement about her enough to dizzy the brain of a dozen ordinary mortals, yet moving sweetly, brightly, quietly, through it all, and manifestly finding her highest source of enjoyment in the presence of, and daily communion with, her Savior.

All Ester's speculations concerning her had come to naught. She had planned the wardrobe of the bride, over and over again, for days before she saw her; and while she had prepared proper little lectures for her, on the folly and sinfulness of fashionable attire, had yet delighted in the prospect of the beauty and elegance around her. How had her prospects been blighted! Beauty there certainly was in everything, but it was the beauty of simplicity, not at all such a display of silks and velvets and jewels as Ester had planned. It certainly could not be wealth which made Abbie's life such a happy one, for she regulated her expenses with a care and forethought such as Ester had never even dreamed of. It could not be a life of ease, a freedom from annoyance, which kept her bright and sparkling, for it had only taken a week's sojourn in her Aunt Helen's home to discover to Ester the fact that all wealthy people were not necessarily amiable and delightful. Abbie was evidently rasped and thwarted in a hundred little ways, having a hundred little trials which she had never been called upon to endure. In short, Ester had discovered that the mere fact of living in a great city was not in itself calculated to make the Christian race more easy or more pleasant. She had begun to suspect that it might not even be quite so easy as it was in a quiet country home; and so one by one all her explanations of Abbie's peculiar character had become bubbles, and had vanished as bubbles do. What, then, sustained and guided her cousin? Clearly Ester was shut up to this one conclusion—it was an ever-abiding, all-pervading Christian faith and trust. But then had not she this same faith? And yet could any contrast be greater than was Abbie's life contrasted with hers?

There was no use in denying it, no use in lulling and coaxing her conscience any longer, it had been for one whole week in a new atmosphere; it had roused itself; it was not thoroughly awake as yet, but restless and nervous and on the alert—and would not be hushed back into its lethargic state.

This it was which made Ester the uncomfortable companion which she was this morning. She was not willing to be shaken and roused; she had been saying very unkind, rude things to Abbie, and now, instead of flouncing off in an uncontrollable fit of indignation, which course Ester could but think would be the most comfortable thing which could happen next, so far as she was concerned, Abbie sat still, with that look of meek inquiry on her face, humbly awaiting her verdict. How Ester wished she had never asked that last question! How ridiculous it would make her appear, after all that had been said, to admit that her cousin's life had been one continual reproach of her own; that concerning this very matter of the concert, she had heard Uncle Ralph remark that if all the world matched what they did with what they said, as well as Abbie did, he was not sure but he might be a Christian himself. Then suppose she should add that this very pointed remark had been made to her when they were on their way to the concert in question.

Altogether, Ester was disgusted and wished she could get back to where the conversation commenced, feeling certain now that she would leave a great many things unsaid.

I do not know how the conversation would have ended, whether Ester could have brought herself to the plain truth, and been led on and on to explain the unrest and dissatisfaction of her own heart, and thus have saved herself much of the sharp future in store for her; but one of those unfortunate interruptions which seem to finite eyes to be constantly occurring, now came to them. There was an unusual bang to the front door, the sound of strange footsteps in the hall, the echo of a strange voice floated up to her, and Abbie, with a sudden flinging of thimble and scissors, and an exclamation of "Ralph has come," vanished.