“Your own mamma, little woman,” he repeats gently. “Poor little girl! of course you don’t remember her. You remind me of her, Ruby, in a great many ways, and it is my greatest wish that you grow up just such a woman as your dear mother was. Why are you asking, little girlie? I don’t think you ever asked me about your mother before.”
“I just wondered,” says Ruby. She is gazing up into the cloudless blue of the sky, which has figured so vividly in her dream of last night. “I wish I remembered her,” Ruby murmurs, with the tiniest sigh.
“Poor little lassie!” says the father, patting the small hand. “Her greatest sorrow was in leaving you, Ruby. You were just a baby when she died. Not long before she went away she spoke about you, her little girl whom she was so unwilling to leave. ‘Tell my little Ruby,’ she said, ‘that I shall be waiting for her. I have prayed to the dear Lord Jesus that she may be one of those whom He gathers that day when He comes to make up His jewels.’ She used to call you her little jewel, Ruby.”
“And my name means a jewel,” says Ruby, looking up into her father’s face with big, wondering brown eyes. The dream mother has come nearer to her little girl during those last few minutes than she has ever done before. Those words, spoken so long ago, have made Ruby feel her long-dead young mother to be a real personality, albeit separated from the little girl for whom one far day she had prayed that Christ might number her among His jewels. In that fair city, “into which no foe can enter, and from which no friend can ever pass away,” Ruby’s mother has done with all care and sorrow. God Himself has wiped away all tears from her eyes for ever.
Ruby goes about with a very sober little face that morning. She gathers fresh flowers for the sitting-room, and carries the flower-glasses across the courtyard to the kitchen to wash them out. This is one of Ruby’s customary little duties. She has a variety of such small tasks which fill up the early hours of the morning. After this Ruby usually conscientiously learns a few lessons, which her step-mother hears her recite now and then, as the humour seizes her.
But at present Ruby is enjoying holidays in honour of Christmas, holidays which the little girl has decided shall last a month or more, if she can possibly manage it.
“You’re very quiet to-day, Ruby,” observes her step-mother, as the child goes about the room, placing the vases of flowers in their accustomed places. Mrs. Thorne is reclining upon her favourite sofa, the latest new book which the station affords in her hand. “Aren’t you well, child?” she asks.
“Am I quiet?” Ruby says. “I didn’t notice, mamma. I’m all right.”
It is true, as the little girl has said, that she has not even noticed that she is more quiet than usual. Involuntarily her thoughts have gone out to the mother whom she never knew, the mother who even now is waiting in sunny Paradise for the little daughter she has left behind. Since she left her so long ago, Ruby has hardly given a thought to her mother. The snow is lying thick on her grave in the little Scottish kirkyard at home; but Ruby has been happy enough without her, living her own glad young life without fear of death, and with no thought to spare for the heaven beyond.
But now the radiant vision of last night’s dream, combined with her father’s words, have set the child thinking. Will the Lord Jesus indeed answer her mother’s prayer, and one day gather little Ruby among His jewels? Will he care very much that this little jewel of His has never tried very hard throughout her short life to work His will or do His bidding? What if, when the Lord Jesus comes, He finds Ruby all unworthy to be numbered amongst those jewels of His? And the long-lost mother, who even in heaven will be the gladder that her little daughter is with her there, how will she bear to know that the prayer she prayed so long ago is all in vain?