Elaine.
“No has visto un niño, que viene
A dar un doblon que tiene,
Porque le den una flor?”
Lope de Vega.
Philippa determined to return home by way of Sempringham. She could not have given any very cogent reason, except that she wished to see the place where the only peaceful days of her mother’s life had been passed. Perhaps peace might there come to her also; and she was far enough from it now. It would have been strange indeed if peace had dwelt in a heart where was neither “glory to God” nor “good-will to men.” And while her veneration for her mother’s memory was heightened by her aunt’s narrative, her feeling towards her father, originally a shrinking timidity, had changed now into active hatred. Had she at that moment been summoned to his deathbed, she would either have refused to go near him at all, or have gone with positive pleasure.
But beside all this, Philippa could not avoid the conclusion that her salvation was as far from being accomplished as it had been when she reached Shaftesbury. She felt further off it than ever; it appeared to recede from her at every approach. Very uneasily she remembered Guy’s farewell words,—“God strip you of your own goodness!” The Living Water seemed as distant as before; but the thirst grew more intense. And yet, like Hagar in the wilderness, the Well was beside her all the time; but until the Angel of the Lord should open her eyes, she could not see it.
She reached Sempringham, and took up her abode for the night in the convent, uncertain how long she would remain there. An apparently trivial incident decided that question for her.
As Philippa stood at the convent gate, in a mild winter morning, she heard a soft, sweet voice singing, and set herself to discover whence the sound proceeded. The vocalist was readily found,—a little girl of ten years old, who was sitting on a bank a few yards from the gate, with a quantity of snowdrops in her lap, which she was trying with partial success to weave into a wreath. Philippa—weary of idleness, Books of Hours, and embroidery—drew near to talk with her.
“What is thy name?” she asked, by way of opening negotiations.
“Elaine,” said the child, lifting a pair of timid blue eyes to her questioner’s face.
“And where dwellest thou?”
“Down yonder glade, Lady: my father is Wilfred the convent woodcutter.”