From Jest to Earnest

by Edward Payson Roe

Of course Hemstead flushed. But why should Lottie's color grow richer than the ruddy fire-light warranted? She knew she was blushing, and the fact puzzled her, for it was a new experience to find the blood flying into her face, and her heart in a sudden flutter.

She was also excessively annoyed at De Forrest's intrusion, for such it seemed, though he had an equal right to the parlor with herself. We usually judge unjustly, in proportion as we feel strongly.

But the habit of her old, insincere life swayed her, and she said lightly, "If, instead of dozing away the whole afternoon, you would follow Mr. Hemstead's example and read the Bible, you would be the better for it."

"I would have read to you all the afternoon, if you had given me a chance, and even from the Bible if you had asked for it," De Forrest replied, with an injured air.

"Well, you see Mr. Hemstead is a predestined missionary, and he no doubt thought, and correctly too, that he would never find a truer object of missionary effort than myself; so I have obtained a better knowledge of the Bible this afternoon than ever before."

They were now joined by others, and the conversation became general.
Soon after they went out to supper.

The depression of the sermon appeared to have passed from the rest, as well as from Lottie and Hemstead, though for different reasons. The latter had gone out of themselves toward God, and had found Him the source of light and cheer. The others had forgotten Him, and still remained in the dim, chill grottos of their unbelief, illumining their darkness by such artificial and earth-lit tapers as the occasion offered. Mrs. Marchmont's apartments were cosey and elegant, the supper was inviting, the ruddy wood-fire and easy chairs suggested luxurious comfort; and why should they not be comfortable, and quietly forget their dismal thoughts about God, and the self-denial of the Cross? The current of ordinary and worldly life, which Hemstead's sincere but mistaken words had rudely interrupted, now began to flow on as quietly and smoothly as before.

But with Lottie it was very different, and the tides of her life seemed seeking new channels.

Bel, and to a certain extent the others, noted peculiarities in her manner and that of Hemstead. Her moodiness was gone, but in its place was not her old levity. When Moses came down from the presence of God, his face shone so that he was compelled to veil its brightness; and it has ever seemed true that nearness to God and His truth gives spiritual light and attractiveness to the plainest features.

Lottie was more than beautiful that evening. She was radiant. Like a sunrise in June, two forms of pure, ennobling love were dawning in her heart; and the first, faint, unrecognized emotions illumined her face strangely at times. Her manner was unusually gentle, and while responding to the general conversation she had many moments of abstraction, and was evidently carrying on a chain of thought very different from that appearing upon the surface of their table-talk. But all remembered that Lottie abounded in moods, and she was what the commonplace call "an odd girl."