All this and much more, uttered in a dolefully pathetic minor key hardly expressive of thankfulness, I heard with less of inward than of outward patience. My stock of patience is not, I fear, very large. And the idea of my "acting a mother's part" to these girls struck me as a little too ludicrous. Why, I am but a girl myself, not four years older than Maggie! But perhaps on first arrival I had my thirty-years-old look, which I must certainly endeavour to cultivate.
At length I was taken to my room, and Thyrza offered to help me in the unpacking of my trunks. Maggie lingered about, coming in and going out, with a certain embarrassed persistency, as if unable to decide on her proper line of action. Then she took me downstairs to afternoon tea in the drawing-room; and different members of the family appeared and disappeared, all seeming more or less constrained because of me. I am afraid I have not the gift of putting people at their ease.
The rest of the afternoon and evening passed slowly. We all dined together at seven, even Miss Millington and the little ones, which seems to be regarded as an unusual occurrence. In the drawing-room, later, I was treated as a visitor. The girls played or sang, as they could, and Mr. Romilly kept the talk going laboriously.
I do not yet know what will be the ordinary course of household events. Information is not readily tendered, and I have a dislike to asking many questions. Maggie, being so young a manager, seems to expect things to take a straight course, without effort on her part.
All the evening I had a feeling of perplexity as to my own real position here. It seems to me an anomalous one,—half guest, half governess. Can that work well?
I thought it over late at night, feeling harassed and lonely. No distinct light on the actual perplexity came, but only one short sentence, running through and through my head, as I lay awake:—
"Be of good cheer: IT IS I!"
No more than this; and what more could I need? Whatever comes or may come in my life—still, IT IS JESUS! Harassing perplexities, loneliness, difficulties, uncertainties, what are they all but the pressure of His Hand, drawing me nearer to Himself?
The restlessness and the craving for human comfort died away into a wonderful peace,—such a sense of my Master's loving sympathy, such a readiness to have all exactly as God my Father should will, such a feeling of being upheld and guarded by the Divine Spirit, as I have never in my life known before. And I fell asleep, quite satisfied.