Re-creations

by Grace Livingston Hill

But now as she neared the place, and the meeting again was close at hand, her heart began to misgive her. What if she had made a mistake? What if this girl was not all those things that she had thought at that first sight? What if Arthur, too, had been deceived, and the girl would turn out to be frivolous, superficial, unlovely in her daily life, unfine in soul and thought? For was she, the mother, not responsible in a large way for this union of the two? Had she not fairly thrown her son into the way of knowing the girl, and furthered their first acquaintance in her letters in little subtle ways that she hardly realized at the time, but that had come from the longing of her soul to have a daughter just like what she fancied this girl must be?

All the long miles she tortured her soul with these thoughts; and then would come the memory of the sweet, sad, girlish face she had watched a year ago, the strength, the character in the lovely profile of firm little chin and well-set head, the idealism in the clear eyes; and her heart would grow more sure. Then she would pray that all might be well, and again take out her son’s last letter, and read it over, especially the last few paragraphs.

“You will love her, mother of mine, for she is just your ideal. I used to wonder how you were ever going to stand it when I did fall in love, to find out the girl was not what you had dreamed I should marry. For I honestly thought there were no such girls as you had brought me up to look for. When I went to college and found what modern girls were, I used to pity you sometimes when you found out, too. But Cornelia is all and more than you would want. She goes the whole limit of your desire, I believe, for she is notably a Christian. I speak it very reverently, mother, because I have found few that are, at least, that are recognizable as such; and generally those have managed to make the fact unpleasant by the belligerent way in which they flaunt it, and because of their utter crudeness in every other way. Perhaps that isn’t fair, either. I have met a few who seemed genuine and good, but they were mortally shy, and never seemed to dare open their mouths. But this girl of mine is rare and fine. She can talk, and she can work, and she can live. She can be bright and gay, and she can suffer and strive; but she is a regular girl, and yet she is a Christian. You should hear her lead a Christian Endeavor meeting, striking right home to where everybody lives, and acts, and makes mistakes, and is sorry or forgetful as the case may be. You should hear her pray, leading everybody to the feet of Christ to be forgiven and learn.

“Yes, mother, dear, she has led me there, too; and you have your great wish. I have given myself to your Christ and her’s. I feel that He is my Christ now, and I am going to try to live and work for His cause all the rest of my life. For, to tell the truth, mother, the Christ you lived and the Christ she lived was better than the best thing on earth, and I had to give in. I was a fool that I didn’t do it long ago, for I knew in my heart it was all true as you taught me, even though I did get a lot of rot against it when I was in college; but, when I saw a young girl with all of life before her giving herself to Christian living this way, it finished me.

“So I guess you won’t feel badly about the way things turned out. And anyway you must remember you introduced us, and sort of wished her on me with those ferns; so you mustn’t complain. But I hope you’ll love her as much as you do me, and we are just waiting for you to get back for the ceremony, mother, dear; so don’t let anything hinder you by the way, and haste the day! It cannot come too soon.”

She had telegraphed in answer to that letter that she would start at once. The day had been set for the wedding, and all arrangements made. Then a slight illness of her sister that looked more serious than it really was had delayed her again; and here she was travelling post-haste Philadelphiaward on the very day of the wedding, keeping everybody on the qui vive lest she would not get there in time and the ceremony would have to be delayed. All these twelve months had passed, and yet she had not seen the reconstructed little house on the hill.

As she drew nearer the city, and the sun went down in the western sky, her heart began to quiver with excitement, mature, calm mother even though she was. But she had been a long time away against her will from her only son, and her afternoon with Cornelia had been very brief. Somehow she could not make it seem real that she was really going to Arthur’s wedding that night, and not going to have an opportunity to meet again the girl he was to marry until she was his wife, and never to have met her people until it was over, a final, a finished fact. She sighed a little wearily, and looked toward the evening bars of sunset red and gold, with a wish, as mothers do when hard pressed, that it were all over and she going home at last to rest, and a feeling that her time was out.

Then right in the midst of it the brakeman touched her on the shoulder and handed her a telegram, with that unerring instinct for identity that such officials seem to have inborn.

With trembling fingers and a vague presentment she tore it open, and read:

“Cornelia and I will meet you at West Philadelphia with a car and take you to her home. Have arranged to have your trunk brought up immediately from Broad Street, so you will have plenty of time to dress. Take it easy, little mother; we love you. Arthur.”