"Then I won't talk to you any more," said Sheila crossly, "I hate pessimistic people. I consider it very wrong of you not to try and encourage me in this good work. You are just like Miss Gregson. She throws cold water on the whole thing. You had better go and groan over it together. You are much more suited to her company than to mine."
[CHAPTER X]
GOLDEN CHAINS
MEG soon grew to like the luxury of living in a comfortable house and among people who really cared for her.
At first she had felt stifled by the soft carpets, rich curtains, and closed doors; and there were times when she had had to run out into the garden and breathe the pure air of heaven to satisfy the cravings of her nature.
Sheila began to understand these sudden movements on the part of her protégé. As the Autumn drew to a close and winter set in, bringing with it warm fires and closed windows and doors, she noticed that the girl grew restless, and often when in the act of reading to her, Meg would spring up, catching her breath. "I must have air," she would say, and before there was time to answer she would have left the room and escaped into the garden. Then Sheila who had forgotten the necessity of air for her protégé would fling open all the windows in the hope of tempting her back again.
But those sudden movements on the part of Meg became less frequent, and the girl gradually got reconciled to all the comforts of the house, and to really like its luxuries. Her past life began to seem a long way off, and as every day she grew to love Sheila more, even the thought of Jem was thrown into the background, and she strove as hard as she could to do Sheila credit, and to drop all that was out of place in the behaviour and conversation of a gentlewoman.
Sheila had been right in assuring Peter that the girl was extraordinarily quick to adapt herself to her environment. Miss Gregson was touched again and again to see how Meg studied her friend's behaviour and attitudes, and copied them. She was her ideal in everything.
Miss Gregson herself was greatly loved by the girl for taking such pains with her education, for Sheila soon tired of teaching reading and writing, and passed her over to her kind old friend who was glad of this piece of work; it gave her the opportunity of teaching Meg more than mere earthly knowledge. Gradually she taught the girl to understand that there was One above Who rules our lives, and that "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
"You must remember, my dear child," she would say, "that change is our portion here, as you have indeed found, change in our lives and in our friends; but supposing everything should change and every person we know and love cease to care for us, we still have God, Who changes not."