"Take the one thing that presses upon you most heavily. Remember that whilst we are encouraged to go with everything, we cannot tell the story of all our needs at once. We have to leave so many to His love and providential care, just as little children lay down their heads at night, and sleep without a care as to how the wants of the morrow are to be met. 'That is father and mother's business,' they say, if they think at all. So we, Kathleen, have to leave so much to our Heavenly Father's foreseeing love, and the many every-day wants of His children are mercifully and lovingly supplied. But our spiritual needs must be taken to God and by ourselves. I can plead for you, Kitty, aye and with you, but unless you acknowledge your fault and ask forgiveness, your weakness and ask for strength, your ignorance and long for guidance, your helplessness and pray that God will enable you to take the armour of His providing, you must be beaten in the fight. Don't get disheartened, dear. All you need is to be had for the asking, and the great army of Christ's soldiers and servants, fighting against temptation and sin, for their own souls and the souls of others, is made up of all ranks and all ages. The hoary head fights, it may be, beside the stripling, the mere child beside the parent. Young men and maidens, old men and children, look alike to Jesus, the Captain of their salvation, the only Conqueror who never knew what it was to yield when the tempter strove to vanquish Him. He will lead you on that path which He trod when in the flesh. Seek Him. Trust Him; make a new beginning in His strength."
"I will try," whispered Kathleen; and before Cameron received her summons, the girl knelt to ask the help of which she felt her need to be so pressing and so constant.
[CHAPTER X]
CONFIDENCES AND FOREBODINGS
HETTY STAPLETON had so often stayed with her brother and his wife at Oakwood, that she was regarded by Hollingsby folk almost as belonging to the family circle there. She and an unmarried brother, considerably older than herself, had a home together in town, but went their several ways in an independent fashion, and if their opinions of persons and things did not always accord, they agreed to differ.
Though only twenty-five, Hetty was the friend and chosen adviser of quite a crowd of girls, who went to her with their troubles and difficulties, for comfort and guidance. If the troubles were real, who so sympathetic as Hetty? If imaginary or self-made, no one could be more sternly straightforward in administering the needed reproof, or more forcible in pointing out unthankfulness for undeserved blessings, and the wisdom of self-examination and confession of wrong-doing.
Naturally, Hetty was not always successful in her endeavours to benefit other girls. Like her elders, she found, often enough, that her advice was only valued and followed when it fell in with the wishes of those who asked it, and that many who bemoaned their lot and made more troubles for themselves, instead of bravely meeting and conquering adverse circumstances, only wanted to be pitied and excused, when really they merited blame. But, despite such failures, there were numbers of girls who had cause to thank God that they had found a friend in Hetty Stapleton.
Aylmer Matheson was one who gauged Hetty's character correctly, and honoured her, despite certain little eccentricities of which he could not help being conscious. He and Hetty were thoroughly agreed in their estimate of Captain Torrance. She had told him certain particulars, which had come to her knowledge through her brother Gerard's intimacy with some officers who had known Captain Jack during his brief military career. She had kept back much that a pure-minded girl would not like to repeat, and which Hetty herself would have preferred not to know. Of one incident she had never spoken to any human being, and probably only Aylmer Matheson suspected the whole truth.
Eighteen months before, Captain Torrance had taken some pains to throw himself in Hetty's way. He knew that her fortune was inferior to Miss Mountford's, but it was considerable and in her own hands, whilst Kathleen was not nearly of age. He never dreamed that a girl with no pretensions to beauty would refuse him, though Hetty's manner was sufficiently distant to discourage a wooer less satisfied with himself than was handsome Captain Jack. In his own mind he decided that Miss Stapleton drew back, in order that her vanity might be satisfied by a more conspicuous wooing. When, however, he tried his fortune by sending a written proposal, he realized the mistake he had made.
Hetty's reply was courteous, but decisive, and from the moment of receiving it, Captain Torrance understood that there was one girl who had formed a true estimate of his character, and valued his professions of admiration and affection at just what they were worth.