JUNE brought the roses and Estelle—herself the fairest rose among them all. There had been much planning in the Morgan household preparatory to her coming. Many things had changed in the farmhouse since Louise first came home to it—subtle changes many of them were, too slowly brought about to be recognized as changes; new ways, slipped into gradually, insensibly; little refinements, touches here and there; trifles every one of them, and perhaps the only method of proving to the family what a difference they made in the home would have been to have dropped suddenly back into the old ways for a week. That experiment no one seemed inclined to try. Louise took great pleasure in making the large old-fashioned room, with its quaint furniture, into a very bower of beauty for the sweet rose that was to bloom there, and smiled joyfully when she thought of what blissful surprises the wealth of June flowers and the smell of June clover would be to the city maiden. Many a plan she had for Estelle, many a hope having to do with this two months' sojourn in the farmhouse—hopes, however, that were not indulged without anxious little sighs being woven in among them.
She had hoped so long and waited so eagerly and in vain. She told John about it one evening, as they sat in the vine-covered porch together, waiting for Lewis and Dorothy to have done with the problem in algebra that was vexing the latter.
"John, I have such a strong hope that you will be able to help Estelle this summer; it has a great deal to do with my joy in her coming."
John bestowed anxious eyes on her for a moment, and was silent. Presently he said,—
"Once I should have thought that you were saying that for effect, but I have learned to know that you never say things simply for effect. Having said it, you must mean it; so it makes me anxious. I cannot see how it would be possible for me to influence your sister in any way, to say nothing of the folly of hoping to help her; I don't understand what you can mean."
"She isn't a Christian, you know, John."
"I know, and I understand that it is about such help that you speak. But what puzzles me is, how you could possibly expect that anything which I might do or say could influence her when she has had you all her life."
"That is easily explained," Louise said, smiling. "In the first place, you are in the mood just now to overrate my influence over people. I have some with Estelle, but that it is not great is plainly shown in the fact that, in this most important of all matters, she has chosen her way and I have chosen mine, and we have walked separately for a good many years. Don't you know, John, that sometimes the people whom we meet but once, with whom we really have very little to do, are given a word to say or an act to perform that shall influence all our future lives?"
"Yes," John said, with sudden energy and emphasis; he certainly knew that as well as any person could. And his thoughts went immediately back to the fair young girl who had held out her hand, and whose winning voice had said, "Won't you have a card?"
"Well," Louise said, "I cannot help hoping that the Holy Spirit will give you a word or look that will influence Estelle. It doesn't seem to me that I can have her wait any longer."