“Thank God!” spoke Edith’s heart in its innermost depths; but her voice only said, quietly enough, “Ay so, dear heart? and what misliked thee?”
“It is all so queer! Aunt Edith, they think the world is something good. And they want me to paint my face. And they call Aunt Temperance ‘Starch.’ And they say I am only two years old. And they purse up their faces, and look as if it were something strange, if I quote the Bible. And they talk about being married as if it must happen, whether you would or not, and as if it were the only thing worth thinking about. And they seemed to think it was quite delightful to have a lot of gentlemen bowing at yon, and saying all sorts of silly things, and I thought it was horrid. And altogether, I didn’t like it a bit, and I wanted to get home.”
“Lettice, I prayed God to keep thee, and I think He has kept thee. My dear heart, mayest thou ever so look on the world which is His enemy, and His contrary!”
Edith’s voice was not quite under her control—a most unusual thing with her.
“Aunt Edith, I did think at first—when Mrs Rookwood came—that I should like it very well. I felt as if it would be such a pleasant change, you know, and—sometimes I have fancied for a minute that I should like to know how other maids did, and to taste their life, as it were, for a little while; because, you see, I knew we were so quiet, and other people seemed to have more brightness and merriment, and—well, I wanted to see what it was like.”
“Very natural, sweet heart, at thy years. I can well believe it.”
“And so, when Mrs Rookwood asked, I so hoped Grandmother would let me go. And I did enjoy the apple-gathering in the garden, and the games afterward in the hall. But when we sat down, and girls came up and talked to me, and I saw what they had inside their hearts—for if it had not been in their hearts, it would not have come on their tongues—Aunt Edith, I hope I shall never, never, never have anything more to do with the world! I’d rather peel onions and scrub tiles every day of my life than live with people, and perhaps get like them, who could call my dear old Grandmother ‘Knitting-pins’ in scorn, and tell God Himself that they only wanted to think of Him on Sundays. That world’s another world, and I don’t belong to it, and please, I’ll keep out of it!”
“Amen, and Amen!” said Aunt Edith. “My Lettice, let us abide in the world where God is King and Father, and Sun, and Water of Life. May that other world where Satan rules ever be another and a strange world to thee, wherein thou shalt feel thyself a traveller and a stranger. My child, there is very much merriment which hath nought to do with happiness, and very much happiness which hath nought to do with mirth. ’Tis one thing to shut ourselves from God’s world which He made, and quite another to keep our feet away from Satan’s world which he hath ruined. When God saith, ‘Love not the world,’ He means not, Love not flowers, and song-birds, and bright colours, and sunset skies, and the innocent laughter of little children. Those belong to His world; and ’tis only as we take them out thereof, and hand them unto Satan, and they get into the Devil’s world, that they become evil and hurtful unto us. Satan hath ruined, and will yet, so far as he may, all the good things of God; and beware of the most innocent-seeming thing so soon as thou shalt see his touch, upon it. Thank God, my darling, that He suffered thee not to shut thine eyes thereto! Was Aubrey there, Lettice?”
“He came but late, Aunt, and therefore it was, I suppose, that as it seemed, he had no list to come with me. He said he might look in, perchance, at after.”
“And Mr Tom Rookwood?”