“It will be a real pleasure to see them again,” observed Holdich. He was a man rather of deeds than words, so the simple sentence expressed a great deal more than it would have done from the lips of another.
“But Mr. Arthur may never arrive, he may sink by the way,” faltered Rebekah, who was of a disposition naturally tender, and not very hopeful.
“Wife, he is in God’s hands,” said Holdich; “sick or well, on sea or on land—he will be given what is best for him.”
“Ah,” thought Rebekah, “my husband is always one to see behind the fading blossoms the germ of the fruit. His is a faith that can bear wind and storm; he can trust not only himself, but (what I find so much harder to do) those whom he loves, to his God.”
Mrs. Bolder, as usual, carried back to her suffering husband an account of the cottage-lecture.
“There’s a word of comfort for me,” observed Bolder; “maybe I’m like one of these nine thousand seven hundred Israelites sent back to their tents. They were not to be trusted to gain the victory, lest they should boast that their own strength had won it. God kept them in the background to keep them humble; but they were not rejected—no! Nor is many a poor sinner like me, though shut up from active work—we shall yet be allowed to join in the shout, Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Lottie Stone had returned to the Lodge that evening with a very heavy heart. Her mind was far less occupied with the lecture than with the tidings which she had heard of the dangerous illness of one of her earliest benefactors. Already perplexed and distressed as she was on account of her father, this new trouble had come on the little maid as a shock. The words in which Mrs. Bolder had communicated the news to her, “Have you heard that Mr. Arthur Madden is dying at Jerusalem?” had struck like a knell on her heart. Already that young tender heart was bleeding from home anxieties and troubles of which Lottie could not speak even to the kind mistress for whose counsel and sympathy she yearned, and now this second blow seemed almost crushing. Her father in difficulties, out of which she could not help him, returning after the absence of years to his country, but sick, tied down by debt, unable to reach those who loved him; and now the generous friend of the family dying in a far-distant land—thoughts of all this were a most oppressive burden of sorrow to Lottie. Her mind was so full of its troubles that she was more than usually awkward and inattentive in service. She was unpunctual in bringing in tea, the milk-jug was empty, the plates forgotten, the water had never been boiling. Isa was a little displeased, Mr. Gritton was angry, and his peevish chiding increased the confusion of poor Lottie Stone. In her nervous haste in removing the tea-tray she knocked over a letter-weigher which had lain upon Gaspar’s table. It fell with a clatter which made the invalid start, and the various weights were scattered hither and thither, some on the boards, some on the piece of brown drugget which covered the centre of the apartment.
“The girl must have been drinking!” exclaimed Gaspar angrily, while poor Lottie went down on her knees to gather up the weights. Isa, pitying her confusion, said, in order to draw away the attention of Gaspar, “I have not yet told you of Edith’s kindness; she has promised to send my poor consumptive girl to Bournemouth.”