In the midst of confused and perturbed reflections, rose like some lonely rock-based beacon in boiling waves her sacred promise to the trusting child, and ingenuity was racked to devise some means for its prompt fulfilment. Consanguinity began to urge its claim vehemently, and long dormant tenderness pleaded piteously for exiled idols.
“If I were only a Christian, like Dr. Grey! His faith, like strong wings, bears him high above all sloughs of despond, all morasses of moodiness. People cannot successfully or profitably serve two masters. That is eminently true; not because it is scriptural, but vice versa; because it is so obviously true it could not escape a place in the Bible. Half work pays poor wages, and it is not surprising that neither God nor Mammon will patiently submit to it. I suppose the time has come when I must bargain myself to one or the other; for, hitherto, I have declared in favor of neither. I am not altogether sanctified, nor yet desperately wicked, but I hate Satan, who ruined my father, infinitely more than I dislike the restrictions of religion. I owe him a grudge for all the shame and suffering of my childhood,—which, if God did not interfere to prevent, at least there is strong presumptive evidence that he took no pleasure in witnessing. I don’t suppose I have any faith; I scarcely know what it means; but perhaps if I try to 52 serve God instead of myself, it will come to me as it came to Paul and Thomas. I wonder whether mere abstract love of righteousness and of the Lord drives half as many persons into Christian churches as the fear of eternal perdition. I don’t deny that I am afraid of Satan, for if he contrives to smuggle so much sin and sorrow into this world what must his own kingdom be? If there be any truth in the tradition that every human being is afflicted by some besetting sin that crouches at the door of the soul, lying in ambush to destroy it, then my own ‘Dweller of the Threshold,’ is love of mine ease. Time was when I would have bartered my eternal heritage for a good-sized mess of earthly pottage, provided only it was well spiced and garnished; but to-day I have no inclination to be swindled like Esau. Idleness has well-nigh ruined me, so I shall take industry by the horns, and laying thereon all my sins of indolence, drive it before me as the Jews drove Apopompœus.”
She walked on in the direction of the town, turning her head neither to right nor left, and keeping her eyes fixed on the blue air before her, where imagination built a home, through whose spacious halls Stanley and Jessie sported at will. On the principal street stood a fashionable dress-making and millinery establishment, and thither Salome bent her steps, resolved that the sun should not set without having witnessed some effort to redeem the pledge given to Jessie.
Panoplied in Miss Jane’s patronage, she demanded and obtained admission to the inner apartment of this Temple of Fashion, where presided the Pythoness whose oracular utterances swayed le beau monde.
What passed between the two never transpired, even among the apprentices that thronged the adjoining room; but when Salome left the house she carried under her arm a large bundle which furnished work for the ensuing fortnight.
Evening shadows overtook her, while yet a mile distant from home, and as she passed a small cottage, where candle-light flared through the open window, she saw Dr. Grey standing beside the bed, on which, doubtless, lay some sufferer.
Ere many moments had elapsed, she heard his well-known 53 footstep on the rocky road, and involuntarily paused to greet him.
“What called you to old Mrs. Peterson’s?”
“Her youngest grandchild is very ill with brain fever; so ill that I shall return and sit up with him to-night.”
“I was not aware that physicians condescended to act as mere nurses,—to execute their own orders.”