Could he possibly mean to refer to the fact that she took out her handkerchief, and carefully rubbed her hand, last Sabbath, after Teddy Reilly had held it! But there was certainly excuse for that; poor little Teddy's hand was so exceedingly dirty that it left its stain on the fair skin, and it was unnecessary, and therefore foolish, to draw on her delicate kid gloves over the brown marks, when a few passes of her handkerchief would efface them! She had waited until little Teddy was fairly out of sight; she would not have wounded his loving heart, nor indeed have missed the caressing from his dirty hand, for a great deal. Dr. Falconer certainly could not mean that.
She decided for frankness, as Elsie Burton was very apt to do. "Dr. Falconer, I don't in the least understand you; all people are careful of their hands, not to soil them more than is necessary in getting through this dirty world." The sentence closed with a little laugh, but the great bright eyes, fixed questioningly on his face, showed that Elsie was honestly in pursuit of light.
"Do you think so?" he said, and his voice was grave. "On the contrary, I think people are almost more careless of their hands than of any other organ which they possess. And hands soil readily, and are not easy to cleanse. Let me bring you a little book I have been reading; the marked passages in it will show you what I mean, and how I came to suggest my caution to you. I must not detain you longer, or you may miss your train. I have to call at the depot this morning, and I will give you the book there. I hope you will have a happy visit, and be the means of doing an incalculable amount of good."
"Oh! I shall not have much opportunity for doing either good or evil, Dr. Falconer; I am not going to be gone long enough. You know I have but a week's vacation."
"And you think a week not long enough to accomplish much! I see I shall have to mark another passage in my little book. Be sure to read the marked portion."
And then he was gone, and Elsie Burton went hurriedly about the final preparations for her journey. "Clean hands!" she repeated with a curious smile, as, having given the final touches to her brown hair, she applied the sweet-smelling soap lavishly, making a fine white foam in which to lave them. "I wonder what Dr. Falconer is aiming at! If he had told me to guard my tongue, I should have understood him without difficulty; but if there is anything about me that gets taken care of, I'm sure it is my hands." Whereupon she gave them an extra dash of fresh water.
Fairly seated in the East-bound express, shawl-strap and hand-satchel tucked away behind their proper lattice, herself by no means tucked into the corner, but spread out as luxuriously as a young lady of eighteen or so knows how to arrange, Elsie Burton had leisure to draw a long breath of satisfaction and look about her. The last few days had been so full of the bustle of preparation, combined with the closing hours of school, that she had had little leisure for anything. Now for the long-promised holiday week at Uncle Leonard's. Elsie Burton had few fittings from the home nest to remember. Indeed I may say that she was one of those fortunate young ladies who had never, until that time, been on the cars without either mother or father. A sweet, sheltered, happy life she had led, and a sweet, bright girl was she. Occasionally a little restless flutter had shown the mother-bird that her nestling longed to try her wings alone; hence this visit, promised and planned. And Elsie, curled comfortably in her seat, with the seat before her turned to receive her lunch basket and any stray apples or papers that she might purchase, felt that she was a little school girl no longer, but in the last half-hour had blossomed into a young lady.
"Take care of yourself, daughter," had been her father's last tenderly spoken message, a little anxious look about the eyes telling her that this business of trying one's wings was not so pleasant for the old birds as for those who wire experimenting; Dr. Falconer had added, with a meaning smile, "And remember the hands." This latter message lingered with her. She meant to take care of herself, to be so wise and prudent that both father and mother would be delighted with her. And of course she meant to take care of her hands! But the hint half-vexed her; she did not understand it, and felt for the little book which she had dropped into her pocket but a few minutes before. What a tiny book it was! Paper-covered too, but daintily illuminated; looking, indeed, as though it had been gotten up for choice moments.
"I wonder," said our young lady to herself, "if this bit of a volume can be a dissertation on the care of hands?" She laughed a little as she said it, and stopped to fasten the fourth button of her dark, neat, exquisitely-fitting kid gloves; her hands certainly looked well in them. She could not endure ill-shaped gloves, and as for wearing ripped ones, she never did it; nor, truth to tell, did she like to wear mended ones. It would have been a pleasure to her, on the discovery of the first rip, to have consigned the offending gloves to the waste bag, but this was by no means the teaching of her mother; so the shapely hands were sometimes marred—in the estimation of their owner—by mended gloves, albeit the mending was very neat. Dr. Falconer could hardly have meant that. Now she began to look for the marked passages. Marked passages? Why, the little book was full of them!
Could her pastor have expected her to spend the hours of her first journey alone in reading them all? Ah, no; here was one, marked in different colored ink, and on the upper margin of the page was her own name, "Elsie." This, then, was the portion meant for her. (Not a lengthy passage; she could accomplish so much with a fair hope of remembering it.) And she read, "It may seem an odd idea, but a simple glance at one's hand, with the recollection, this hand is not mine; it has been given to Jesus, and it must be kept for Jesus,' may sometimes turn the scale in a doubtful matter, and be a safeguard from certain temptations. With that thought fresh in your mind, as you look at your hand, can you let it take up things, which, to say the least, are not 'for Jesus'? Things which evidently cannot be used, as they most certainly are not used, either for Him or by Him. Can you deliberately hold in it books of a kind which you know perfectly well, by sadly-repeated experience, lead you farther from, instead of nearer to Him? . . . Books which you would not care to read at all, if your heart were burning within you at the coming of His feet? Next time any temptation of this sort approaches you just look at your hand."