"Feel Him, my dear,—feel Him!" said Cicely, with a light in her eyes. "I reckon you don't want telling whether you are happy or not, do you?"
"No, indeed," replied Celia, smiling.
"No more you'll want to be told whether you have Him," resumed old Cicely, triumphantly.
"But how did you get Him given?" pursued Celia.
"Why, my dear, I wanted Him, and I asked for Him, and I got Him. 'Tis just so simple as that. I never knew aught about it till I read the Book. I'm only a very simple, ignorant, old woman, my dear. Maybe the reason why I don't know no more is just that I am such a dunce. He can't learn me no more, because I haven't no wits to be learned. You've got plenty of wit, Mrs. Celia—you try! Why, just think the lots of things you know more than me! You can write, and make figures, and play pretty music, and such like, and I know nought but sewing, and dressing meat and drink, and reading the Book. Mayhap the Lord gives me fine things to think about, just because I know so little of other things—a sort of making up like, you see. But you try it, Mrs. Celia, my dear!"
"I fear I scarce have your glasses, Cicely," answered Celia, with a sigh.
"I've done the ruffles now," said Cicely, rising. "You come to me into my little room when you've time, Mrs. Celia, and I'll show you some of them fine bits—any time you like. And as to the glasses, you ask for 'em. Good-night, Mrs. Celia."
Ashcliffe Hall was up at six on week-days, but when the Sunday came round, it was not its custom to rise before eight. Costumes were resplendent on that day, and took some time in assuming. On Sundays and special gala-days only, the young ladies wore hoop-petticoats and patched their faces.[[6]] Their attire to-day comprised quilted petticoats of light-blue satin, silk brocaded gowns, extremely long in the waist, cornettes of lace, lace-trimmed muslin aprons, white silk stockings, and shoes with silver buckles. Their gowns, too, had trains, which for comfort were fastened up behind, looking like a huge burden on the back of the wearer. They looked very stiff as they rustled down the stairs,—all except Lucy, whom no costume on earth could stiffen, though even she wore a graver and more demure air than usual, which perhaps was partly due to the coming sermons. The girls drank their tea, Lucy joining them in the meal, but using milk instead of the fashionable beverage. By the time they had done, Madam Passmore and the Squire were down-stairs; they always breakfasted in their own room on Sunday mornings. Then John, the old coachman, slowly drove up to the front door the great family-coach, drawn by two large, dappled, long-maned and heavy-looking horses. The coach held eight inside, so that it conveniently accommodated all the family, Cicely included, with the exception of Charley, who generally perched himself on the great box, which was quite large enough to admit him between John and the footman. The church was barely half a mile from the Hall, but none of the Ashcliffe family ever thought of walking there; such a proceeding would have involved a loss of dignity. It was a fine old Gothic edifice, one of those large stately churches which here and there seem dropped by accident into a country village, whose population has dwindled far below its ancient standard. The pews were about five feet high, the church having been recently and fashionably repewed. There was a great pulpit, with a carved oak sounding-board, an equally large reading-desk, and a clerk's desk, the last occupied by a little old man who looked coeval with the church. The Squire bestowed great attention upon the responses, which he uttered in a loud, sonorous tone; but when the psalm was over—one of Sternhold and Hopkins' version, for Ashcliffe Church was much too old and respectable to descend to the new version of Tate and Brady—and when the clergyman had announced his text, which the Squire noted down, that in the evening he might be able to question Charley and Lucy concerning it—no further notice did anything obtain from the owner of Ashcliffe Hall. Settling himself into a comfortable attitude, he laid his head back, and in a few minutes was snoring audibly. Madam Passmore generally made efforts, more or less violent, to remain awake, for about a quarter of an hour; and then, succumbing to the inevitable, followed her husband's example. Henrietta kept awake and immovable; so did Harry; but Isabella generally slept for above half the sermon, and Lucy would have followed her example had she dared, the fear of her eldest sister just opposite her keeping her decorous. The discourse was certainly not calculated to arouse a somnolent ear. Dr. Braithwaite generally began his sermon in some such style as this:—"That most learned doctor of the schools, styled by them of his age the Angelical Doctor,[[7]] whose words were as honey, yea, were full of sweetness and delight unto the ears of such as followed him, did in that greatest and most mellifluent of the writings wherewith he regaled his study, did, I say, observe, for the edification of the whole Church, and the great profit of them that should come after"—and then came a shower-bath of Latin dashing down upon the unlearned ears of his congregation. Greek he rarely quoted, since there was no one in the parish who understood it but himself; so that it was but seldom that he impressed the farmers with a due sense of the heights and depths of his learning by uttering a few words of that classic tongue; and whether his quotation were from Pindar or St. Paul, made no difference to them.
Until her conversation with Lucy and old Cicely on the previous evening, Celia had been in the habit of considering the sermon as something with which she had nothing to do, except to sit it out with patience and decorum. She was beginning to think differently now, and she tried hard to follow Dr. Braithwaite this morning through his discourse of an hour and three-quarters. But the sentences were long, the style involved, and the worthy Doctor had got hold of a very unpromising subject. He was preaching upon the ceremony of baptism in the primitive Church, and its relation to the heresy of the Manichæans; and after half an hour, during which she felt confused amid a throng of exorcisms, white robes, catechumens, deacons, immersions, fire-worshippers, Arians, Pelagians, and Gnostics, Celia gave up her hopeless task. Old Cicely sat quite still, her eyes fixed on the closed prayer-book on her knee, a soft, pleased smile every now and then flitting across her countenance; and Celia longed to know of what she was thinking, which appeared to be so much more interesting than Dr. Braithwaite's Manichæans.
In a cheery, sunny little room, on the afternoon of the same Sunday, sat old Cicely, with her Bible on her lap. There were several unoccupied rooms in Ashcliffe Hall, and Cicely had chosen this as hers, where the evening sun came lovingly in, and dwelt for a season with lingering beams on walls and furniture. The same pleased smile rested on the old woman's lips, as she slowly traced the words with her finger along the page, for Cicely read with little fluency; and she said half aloud, though she was alone,—"'He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.'[[8]] Ben't that good, now?"