The making of a woman

by Amy Le Feuvre

"Ask Mrs. Fergusson to take you to see Mrs. Gordon, and try to see Sunnie, if you can. Mrs. Gordon is not fond of taking visitors up to the nursery, but say you have a message to give her, from me. Oh, how I wish I was coming with you! I loved Scotland so! The very smell in the air of the heather and pines seems so utterly different to anything we have in England. What it must be in summer, I fail to imagine! I only saw it in the late autumn and winter. And if Miss Meta Worth is staying there still, remember me to her. She is a nice girl, and she is very fond of Mrs. Fergusson. You may see her. I wonder if you will see Mr. George Fergusson and Dr. Fergusson. Do you know her sons at all?"

"I didn't know there were any," said Chris, staring at Jean with puzzled eyes. "You have never mentioned them. What are they like?"

"I only saw Mr. George once. He lives in Edinburgh. Dr. Fergusson attends Sunnie; he is a great deal at Mrs. Gordon's. She is a cousin of theirs. I think I told you. Write and tell me everything, Chris, won't you? I shall be so interested to hear about every one that you meet."

"I think it is a pity that it isn't you going, instead of me," said Chris, looking at Jean's flushed cheeks and eager eyes with amusement. "I expect I shall be dreadfully homesick, and perhaps arrive home again before a week is over. Do you know that I have never left home in my life? Does that seem incredible to you?"

She made a very early start the next morning, and left the house with her brother at seven o'clock. Barbara looked after her tearfully, but there was no time to waste in regretting her departure. Jean and she set to work with a will, and for the first time in her life, Jean found that it took a good deal of strength and energy to do the commonest things in a house. She said to Barbara at the close of the day—

"I am glad you have let me look after my own rooms. I am ashamed to think how Chris must have tidied and swept and dusted for me, and I taking it all as a matter of course! I shall manage better to-morrow."

Alone in her room that night, her thoughts followed Chris through every stage of her journey.

"I would give all the world to be with her," she said to herself, almost passionately. "I can picture them all sitting down to dinner, Dr. Fergusson coming in late and rather tired. How does he spend his evenings at home, I wonder! Perhaps he will lie back in an easy chair with his newspaper and a cup of coffee, and listen to Chris and his mother talking together. I wonder if Mrs. Fergusson remembers me at all! Perhaps Dr. Fergusson will go to the piano and play, but he will never play such delicious impromptus as he did to me and Sunnie in the old nursery. Oh, if only such times could last for ever! Shall I never have them over again! It seems hard. It all meant so much to me, and I feel as if now I was nothing to any of them—only a young struggling portrait painter who came and went, and whom little Sunnie rather liked; but then she would like any one! If I could only go back, now that I see things differently! I used to speak so scornfully of religion. I would be so different!"

And then Jean did what many a young over-full heart has done before—she threw herself upon her knees, and told the One she was getting to know as her personal Friend the inmost secrets and longings of her heart. If some tears fell, the comfort of knowing that she had given herself and her life into the hands of One who loved her, sent her to rest, happy and content.

And five o'clock the next morning found her stirring. She was determined to fill Chris's place to the utmost of her ability, but after the novelty of the first few days wore off, she began to feel the irksomeness and weariness of the daily household tasks. She had never known before what it was to be obliged to work when she felt disinclined—headache, backache, heat or cold, must be entirely disregarded, if the routine of Chris's work was to be accomplished. Her dogged perseverance held her in good stead, and the assurance of Chris's enjoyment did much to solace her, for her want of leisure.