The secret of Oaklands

by M. Harding Kelly

Her things disposed of, she drew a chair to the open window and sat down. The lilt of the birds' songs fell sweetly upon her ears; her thoughts became a reverie over the past, an expression of pain lurked in the depths of her eyes—and they were eyes full of womanly tenderness, and yet capable of expressing undeveloped strength.

Presently her fingers touched the book which lay upon the table near her. With quick impulse she drew it towards her, an unspoken petition rising in her heart: "Lord, give me a message from Thee."

She opened the book at random, and her glance fell upon these words: "I rose and did the king's business." She glanced back and read, as she had often read before, of the solemn vision granted to the prophet when he was shown something of the trouble to come in the latter days, the distress of nations before the Kingdom of the Lord should be established upon the earth. In his grief he fainted, the burden of the vision causing sickness to come upon him; then he braced himself, and she read: "I, Daniel, rose, and did the king's business." The duty just there—the work to be carried on.

The words acted like a tonic. A vision of the coming years of loneliness and difficulty had dismayed her, and yet here—surely work for the King of kings lay all around; the greater the difficulty, the more insistent the call. For a moment her head sank upon her hands, and her heart was lifted up to Him Who ever waits to pour out a sufficient supply of strength to His people, to meet every need.

Margaret Woodford believed this, and for that day at least she laid her burden straight at her Saviour's feet, and rose calm and determined to face the future bravely, and do the work nearest, to which she had been called.

Meanwhile Ellice, a storm of passion raging in her heart, rushed into the woods, pushing the tangled branches fiercely apart until she came to the fairy glade, a moss-grown path where the trees parted in a glorious avenue and the sunlight stole through in shafts of golden light, and fell tenderly upon the child. She flung herself down under a venerable oak, the trunk of which, cleft by some old-world storm, formed a hiding-place where she had often before sheltered on rainy mornings, and whispered her secrets to the woods.

Short, gasping sobs almost choked her as she lay upon the ground. The squirrels scampered in the branches overhead and, clinging to the rugged trunk of the great Forest King, crept down to the foot and peeped shyly at her, waiting wonderingly for her call, and the food she so often temptingly offered them. Her sobbing breaths of distress presently ceased, she raised a tear-stained face, and brushed away the tell-tale signs of distress. A hard, sullen expression swept all the beauty from her countenance; she looked what her brother would have said, "real ugly," as she pursed up her lips and stared aimlessly at the beauty around her.

The horrid pangs of hunger would make themselves felt, and she wished now she had not come away in such a hurry; even an egg would have been preferable to this hunger. If she could be certain of not meeting that hateful governess, she would steal back to the house. She had almost made up her mind to make the attempt, when she was startled by a footstep in the glade, and a voice calling her by name. She set her teeth hard, and drew back further into the shelter of the oak.

Miss Woodford, who was evidently bent on searching for her charge, receiving no answer to her calls, presently sat down upon the mossy ground at the foot of the very tree where Ellice was hidden. Opening a basket of sandwiches and jam-puffs, she commenced her lunch, while the child, all unknown to her, kept watch, struggling with her pride as she saw the tempting viands gradually disappearing before her eyes.

The trees tossed their branches in a light breeze which whispered among the leaves; the day grew hotter. Margaret felt tired as she rested her head against the oak bark where she leaned. This picnic with her young charge had been arranged in her own mind, with a hope of friendship and understanding, as a happy result. As presently she rose to shake the crumbs from her lap, a voice from somewhere muttered, "She is a pig to eat it all up."