Concerning Isabel Carnaby

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

"Naturally, my dear, he did. No sooner did father start on his journey, out of reach of mother's eye, than he sat down on them seats and went fast asleep, and he didn't wake up again till he'd gone five stations past Folwich."

"Oh dear!"

"It was 'oh dear!' and no mistake; for he had to wait at Brayford four hours for the next train back, and then had to come straight home again without seeing his sister at all, besides having to pay the extra fare, which came to five and threepence. Mother said he was a type of them that have their portion in this life, and are so busy making the best of the wilderness that they pass by the promised land without even seeing the name of the station."

So Joanna and her old nurse—like the true Methodists that they were—talked familiarly together about holy things; and this familiarity arose not from any lightness or irreverence, but from the fact that to them such things were so near and so real that they became as household words.

The Methodists of the past generation lived always with their lamps lit and their loins girded, as those that wait for their Lord; and they sought so diligently for the True that they had no leisure to look for the Beautiful, for it had not yet been revealed to them that the True and the Beautiful are one. They were so fearful of confounding the substance with the shadow that they did not altogether realize that the shadow is after all but the reflection of the substance, and therefore a revelation of the same; and they gazed so steadfastly into heaven that they were in danger of forgetting how God made the earth as well as the heavens and saw that it was good. To their ears there was no message in the wind or the earthquake or the fire; but they heard clearly the still small Voice, and they did whatsoever it commanded them.

And we need not pity them overmuch that some of the beauty and poetry of life was hid from their eyes. They that seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness know no abiding lack; for all these things shall be added unto them.

Now it happened that Martha was not the only person who had noticed Alice's delicate appearance. Alice's mother had likewise perceived it, and it had struck a cold chill to the maternal heart; for human nature is stronger than worldly ambition or religious prejudice—is stronger in fact than most things—and human nature has much that is good in it, as well as much that is not quite so good. Therefore Mrs. Martin's comfortable view of life—with an equally comfortable view of heaven in the background—lost all its beauty and symmetry when her careful eye perceived a tiny hollow appearing in Alice's cheek. Nevertheless the hollow remained, as "Paul Seaton his mark," and Mrs. Martin was powerless to remove it.

As for Paul himself, he was too much occupied with books and boating and such important matters to notice whether a girl's cheek were thin or the reverse; and he would have been extremely surprised and annoyed to learn that he possessed the right to excavate in so delicate a field; for in his second year at Oxford he became captain of his college boat, having proved his prowess on the river; and he was happier then than he ever had been, or probably ever would be again.

To Paul Seaton rowing was no mere pastime; at that time it was to him a sign and type of all that was best in life and human nature; and though in after years the type changed, the thing which rowing then represented was ever the greatest thing in the world to Paul.

"I cannot understand how you can care so much about an amusement," said Joanna one day, as she and Paul and Alice were sitting in the garden at The Cedars.