"I don't think I understand, Mrs. Franklyn," said Amethyst, in a puzzled tone, while Elsa crept nearer to her mother, and kissed her thin, white hand, a little comprehensive smile flickering about her mouth. Olive looked on, a trifle superciliously; if it had not been for Mrs. Drury's presence, she would have said: "For goodness' sake, don't preach, mamma!"
"I mean the lessons in God's school, dearie, the difficult things we are so slow to learn. It is only when 'He teaches us of His ways' that we can 'walk in His paths.' I was thinking perhaps God had allowed this accident to happen to Monica, so that she might have time to think of these things."
"Monica is good enough as she is," cried Olive tempestuously; "we don't all want to be goody-goodies like some people I know. There would never be a bit of fun left then." And she stood up defiantly.
With a significant glance at Mrs. Franklyn, whose pale face wore a grieved, sad expression, Mrs. Drury took the matter into her own hands.
"I am sorry, Olive, that you should feel like that," she said calmly, while she looked searchingly into the defiant face of the young girl, who was picking a tea-rose to pieces with thoughtless fingers. "But it is a good thing, sometimes, to say what one feels. You must have been unfortunate in your acquaintance with Christians if you find them dull and gloomy. They are not all so, I can assure you. Indeed there is no one so light-hearted, no life so sunshiny, as that of a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is just because we are so happy with Him as our Friend, as well as Teacher, that we want all those whom we know, and love, to become learners in His school. For we remember that the Examination Day is coming, and unless we have Him as our helper, we shall certainly 'fail,' instead of 'pass.' You know yourself from school experience that there are only the two positions to be in; and it rests with each one of us to decide, now, which state shall be ours hereafter."
As Mrs. Drury ended her sentence, she lowered her voice, until it was scarcely more than a whisper, but the silence which had fallen upon the little group was so intense that every word was distinctly audible. Amethyst looked up into her mother's face, and said, with real earnestness: "I do want to pass that examination, mumsie," and Mrs. Drury bent down and kissed the upturned face with clinging tenderness, for she knew that her little daughter's real desire was to please her Saviour, although she very often failed to do so.
But just at that moment her heart went out with a great longing towards that other mother's girl, who seemed so unwilling to put first things first. Her eyes sought Olive's, so that she might, if possible, read in them something of her thoughts, but Olive kept her head persistently turned away, and so she could not gauge what was passing in her mind.
So, with a prayer in her heart (oft repeated as time passed) that God would show Olive her need of a Saviour, she bade the invalid a tender farewell, with a whispered word of hope, and after good-byes had been exchanged, Mrs. Drury and Amethyst took their departure.
The little girl chattered volubly of all the incidents of the afternoon, as they walked home in the pleasant coolness which had succeeded the heat of that June day, but Mrs. Drury was a trifle abstracted. She was thinking of the friend she had left, who appeared to her to be losing, rather than gaining strength, of the sorrow that the indecision of some of her children, with regard to spiritual things, caused the patient invalid. For a moment, a subtle temptation presented itself: why did not a gracious Father answer His children's prayers for their loved ones more speedily. But she thrust the thought from her, knowing well that God both could, and would, do all things well, in His own good time.
"Father will be astonished when we tell him, won't he?" piped Amethyst, in her childish treble, and Mrs. Drury's eyes lost their far-away look as she smiled into the animated little face, which only reached to her shoulder.