CHAPTER XVII.
SPREADING NETS.
THE morning found her her own quiet self. Her first waking thoughts were of Bud, and the first thing she did, after her toilet was made, was to sit down and study her Bible with a view to selecting some verses that she meant to mark for Bud.
All day she went about her many duties with a quiet heart. Even the sting of a false friendship seemed to have been taken away. In the afternoon, she refused to ride with Mr. Ansted, on the plea that she had a music-lesson to give, but when the scholar failed to appear, she, in nowise discomfited, set herself to the answering of the home letters. A long, genial letter to her mother; longer than she had taken time for of late, fuller of detail as to the work that occupied hands and heart.
Something about Bud, his lonely life, his one tender memory, her desire that he might find a Friend who would never fail him; her wish that the mother would remember him when she prayed; her longing to be in a faint sense a helper to him, as her father would surely have been, were he on the earth. "I cannot do for him what papa would," so she wrote, "but Christ can do much more; and it gives me a thrill of joy to remember that he is not only in heaven with papa, but here, watching for Bud."
A detailed account of the last evening's rehearsal, and the new recruits. A hint of her desire to lead this restless Alice into clearer light—if, indeed, the true Light had ever shined into her heart. A word even about Louis Ansted: "Would mamma pray for him, too? It was said that he was in danger from several sources, and he said that his mother was not at all anxious about him. If you were his mother," so she wrote, "you would be anxious. Be a mother to him for Christ's sake, mamma dear, and pray for him, as I am afraid his own mother does not. Still, I ought not to say that, for she is a member of the church, and it may be that her son does not know her heart."
To Dora there was but a scrap of paper:
"It is a pity, Doralinda dear, to put you off with this little torn bit of paper, but I have written all the news to mamma, which means to you, too, of course, and this bit is just large enough for the subject about which I want to speak to you alone. Don't worry, little sister, about me, nor about Pierce Douglass' treatment of me or of you; if his manliness can afford such a slight as he gave you, we certainly can afford to bear it. In a sense, it was hard; but much harder, I should think, for him than for us.
"No, little Dora; the church here has not my whole heart, though I will own that a large piece of it has gone out to the dreary little sanctuary so sadly in need of a human friend—for the Lord will not do what his people ought to do, you know; but I will tell you who is filling my heart, and keeping me at rest and happy: the Lord Jesus Christ. Not happy without papa, but happy in the sure hope of meeting him again, and never parting any more. Don't you remember, dear, there can never be another parting from papa? Some sorrowful places there may be for your feet and mine on our journey home; but so far as papa is concerned, there will be no more need for tears. Bear the thorns of the way, little sister, in patience, for they are only on the way through the woods; not a thorn in the home.
"I trust you will be so brave as to dismiss Pierce Douglass from your thoughts; unless, indeed, you take the trouble to ask him for what he will let us have some handsome chairs for the pulpit! I remember at this moment that his money is invested in furniture. But perhaps you will not like to do that, and he might not let us have them at any lower rates than we could secure elsewhere. Good-by, darling, brave, lonely sister. I both laughed and cried over your letter, though the tears were not about the things you thought would move them."
She folded and addressed this letter with a smile. No need to tell this sensitive fierce-hearted Dora that the wound rankled for a time, and did not bring tears only because it was too deep for tears.