Lucy Raymond; Or, The Children's Watchword

by Agnes Maule Machar

One of Mrs. Ford's first cares was to provide her with some needed clothing from Bessie's outgrown garments, which otherwise would have been stowed thriftily away for little Jenny. Lucy added her contribution for the same object, and it was considered a good opportunity for teaching her what she so much needed to learn—plain sewing. Mrs. Ford, who was a capital seamstress as well as housewife, undertook to make Nelly a good needlewoman, if she would be diligent in trying to learn; and she was too grateful, and too anxious to please, not to try her best, though the long, tedious seams often tried her restless, active spirit. When she found herself getting so impatient that she felt as if she could not sit still any longer, or, at any rate, could not force herself to do the work with patience and care, she would remember the injunction to "tell Jesus" her troubles and difficulties, and the restless spirit would become quiet, and the strength to fulfil her good resolutions would come back. As it was too far for her to go to Lucy now for her daily lessons, Lucy resigned her to Bessie's tuition, though somewhat unwillingly, for her teaching had become a source of real pleasure to her, and she felt that in it she was doing some definite work for her Saviour. She had not yet got into the habit of looking upon everything she was called in duty to do as work done for Christ, just in proportion as it was done in a spirit of cheerful faith and dependence, "looking unto Jesus" both as the master and the friend.

But dark days were at hand for Lucy too,—days when she would need all the support her faith could give. Mr. Raymond's never robust constitution had been for some time gradually failing, though Lucy, seeing him daily, and accustomed to consider her father "not very strong," had not observed it. Late in November, a long, cold drive in sleet and rain to visit a dying parishioner brought on symptoms of fever, which rapidly increased, till the doctor, who had been summoned to attend him, looked very anxious, and pronounced his patient in a most critical condition. Lucy had been so long accustomed to his occasional illnesses, that she was slow to admit the idea of danger to her father, the possibility of losing whom had scarcely ever occurred to her mind. Therefore, though she could not help seeing her aunt's extreme anxiety, she resolutely turned her thoughts to the happier prospect of her father's recovery, when he would again occupy his wonted place, and the house would be like itself again.

Even when Mr. Raymond's extreme weakness forced the others to give up hope, Lucy still hoped and prayed, by the sick-bed and in her own chamber, as she had never prayed before. Surely, she thought, if she prayed humbly and earnestly, her prayer would not be denied by Him who has said, "Ask, and ye shall receive;" and her father would be restored to her. She did not consider that as regards earthly things the promise must be limited, or the conditions of human life would have to be altered. If our prayers that our dear ones should be spared to us were always to be granted, when would they ever attain that blessed rest in the Father's house—the haven they have been looking for through all the cares and troubles of their mortal pilgrimage?

Mr. Raymond had often longed for the time when his earthly work should be done, and he should be called to the presence of his Saviour—to reunion with his early-lost wife. And now, though in the unconsciousness of his exhausted powers he knew it not, that time had come. His "falling asleep" was as peaceful as the sinking of a child into its nightly slumber; and Lucy did not realize that it was death, till, in the dark December morning, she stood by the cold white couch on which lay the inanimate form to which, from her earliest days, she had always looked as her protector and guide. It was hard to persuade herself that that cold form was not her father, but that all that had made the living, sentient being had passed to another state of existence beyond her power to follow—beyond her power to conceive. In the strange awe that came upon her, she lost for a time the sense of the desolation of her bereavement—lost all thought for herself, in trying to pierce the darkness which hung between her and the "undiscovered lands" in which both her parents now were. With Fred it was much the same,—an awestruck solemnity at first repressing in both the natural feeling of personal loss. Harry was the only one whose bitter, childish grief broke forth uncontrolled.

But there was time in the blank, desolate days that followed to realize the full bitterness of the bereavement. Once out of the still, solemn chamber, which seemed to hush all violent emotion, there were associations at every step, in every room, of him whose place should know him no more, to call forth the uncontrollable agony of tears that had for a time been repressed. And when the still form had been carried to its last resting-place, and the heavy consciousness made itself felt that he was gone, never in any possible event to return to them, it seemed to Lucy as if it would have been too terrible to bear but for the Saviour, to whom she carried her grief, and found that, though He does not always at our asking restore our sick to this mortal life, yet that, when He takes them away, He can and will be a very present "help in time of trouble."

But there was already another grief looming darkly in the distance, which Lucy almost shrank from facing. The home that had been hers from her birth must be broken up. The external surroundings in which her life had been always set were to be torn from it; and any other phase of life seemed as if it must be a dreary blank. She could not then realize the possibility of ever forming new associations, or taking root in any other home. And indeed it is doubtful whether one ever does take root again in the same sense as in the home of childhood, which is linked with the earliest associations of opening thought, and with all the hallowed ties that cluster around a child's happy home. Other houses are but places of abode, made home by association: that seemed absolutely and in itself home.

Alick had come to Ashleigh as soon as possible after his uncle's death, and was anxious to take his mother at once to the new home he had been preparing for her. As to Lucy, there seemed to be but one course advisable. As Mr. Raymond could leave only a very slender provision for his family, he had always been anxious that Lucy should have an education sufficiently thorough to put her in a position to gain her own livelihood by teaching, and a way seemed opened for her to carry out his wishes in this respect. Mr. Brooke, urged thereto by his daughter Stella, had written to Mrs. Steele, offering to receive Lucy into his own family for the next two or three years, in order to give her the advantage of a first-class education, which was, he remarked, "the best he could do for her, as it would give her the ability to do for herself."

Lucy shrank from the prospect of so long a residence in a home so unlike the one she was leaving, as from Stella's remarks she felt sure it must be. But to go with Harry to live with Mrs. Steele and Alick, as they kindly invited her to do, in case she could not make up her mind to go to Mr. Brooke's, would, she felt, be imposing far too great a burden on Alick's kindness, though it seemed just the right home for Harry. Fred, who had been summoned from college to his father's deathbed, must return to resume his theological studies, for they all insisted that he should not think of giving up the career which had been his father's desire for him as well as his own. The more Lucy thought about the matter, the more distinctly she saw that there was no other way rightly open to her, especially as, even could she think it right to accompany Mrs. Steele and Alick, she could not, in the new village in the West, expect any educational advantages. But it was with much reluctance, and after many prayers to be strengthened to meet the new experiences before her, that she gave her decision to go to live for the present in her Cousin Stella's home.

Fred, to whom she confided her extreme shrinking from venturing into an atmosphere which her fancy pictured as so cold and uncongenial, endeavoured to reassure her, by reminding her of what she knew, indeed, but found it difficult to realize, that her Saviour could be as near her in the crowded city as in her quiet country home, since His love is

"A flower that cannot die
For lack of leafy screen;"