"Poor, poor Clara!" said Mildred brokenly, "my heart aches for you as I think of all you've suffered."
The girl sprang up, seized the candle, and held it to Mildred's face. "My God," she whispered, "you are crying over my troubles." Then she looked steadfastly into the tearful blue eyes and beautiful face of her new friend for a moment, and said, "Millie, I'll believe any faith YOU'LL teach me, for I BELIEVE IN YOU."
CHAPTER XIX
BELLE JARS THE "SYSTEM"
Some orthodox divines would have given Clara a version of the story of life quite different from that which she received from Mildred. Many divines, not orthodox, would have made the divergence much wider. The poor girl, so bruised in spirit and broken in heart, was not ready for a system of theology or for the doctrine of evolution; and if any one had begun to teach the inherent nobleness and self-correcting power of humanity, she would have shown him the door, feeble as she was. But when Mildred assured her that if Christ were in the city, as He had been in Capernaum, He would climb the steep, dark stairs to her attic room and say to her, "Daughter, be of good comfort"—when she was told that Holy Writ declared that He was the "same yesterday, to-day, and forever"—her heart became tender and contrite, and therefore ready for a Presence that is still "seeking that which was lost."
Men may create philosophies, they may turn the Gospel itself into a cold abstraction, but the practical truth remains that the Christ who saves, comforts, and lifts the intolerable burden of sorrow or of sin, comes now as of old—comes as a living, loving, personal presence, human in sympathy, divine in power. As Mildred had said, our need and our consciousness of it form our strongest claim upon Him and the best preparation for Him.
Clara was proving the truth of her words. Life could never be to her again merely a bitter, sullen struggle for bread. A great hope was dawning, and though but a few rays yet quivered through the darkness, they were the earnest of a fuller light.
Before midnight Mr. Jocelyn joined the watchers, and seated himself unobtrusively in a dusky corner of the room. Clara crouched on the floor beside her mother, her head resting on the bed, and her hand clasping the thin fingers of the dying woman. She insisted on doing everything the poor creature required, which was but little, for it seemed that life would waver out almost imperceptibly. Mildred sat at the foot of the bed, where her father could see her pure profile in the gloom. To his opium-kindled imagination it seemed to have a radiance of its own, and to grow more and more luminous until, in its beauty and light, it became like the countenance of an accusing angel; then it began to recede until it appeared infinitely far away. "Millie," he called, in deep apprehension.
"What is it, papa?" she asked, springing to his side and putting her hand on his shoulder.
"Oh!" he said, shudderingly. "I had such a bad dream! You seemed fading away from me, till I could no longer see your face. It was so horribly real!"