Lois pondered this, wishing to believe it. Yet there stood the command. And she remembered there are two sides to influence; could not a good man, and a pleasant man, only not Christian, use his power to induce a Christian woman to go the wrong way? How little she would like to displease him! how willingly she would gratify him!—And then there stands the command. And, turning from it to a parallel passage in 1 Cor. vii. 39, she read again the directions for the marriage of a Christian widow; she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, "only in the Lord." There could be no question of what is the will of God in this matter. And in Deut. vii. 3, 4, she studied anew the reasons there given. "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods."
Lois studied these passages with I cannot say how much aching of heart. Why did her heart ache? It was nothing to her, surely; she neither loved nor was going to love any man to whom the prohibition could apply. Why should she concern herself with the matter? Madge?— Well, Madge must be the keeper of her own conscience; she would probably marry Mr. Dillwyn; and poor Lois saw sufficiently into the workings of her own heart to know that she thought her sister very happy in the prospect. But then, if the question of conscience could be so got over, why was she troubled? She would not evade the inquiry; she forced herself to make it; and she writhed under the pressure and the pain it caused her. At last, thoroughly humbled and grieved and ashamed, she fled to a woman's refuge in tears, and a Christian's refuge in prayer; and from the bottom of her heart, though with some very hard struggles, gave up every lingering thought and wish that ran counter to the Bible command. Let Madge do what Madge thought right; she had warned her of the truth. Now her business was with herself and her own action; and Lois made clean work of it. I cannot say she was exactly a happy woman as she went down-stairs; but she felt strong and at peace. Doing the Lord's will, she could not be miserable; with the Lord's presence she could not be utterly alone; anyhow, she would trust him and do her duty, and leave all the rest.
She went down-stairs at last, for she had spent the afternoon in her own room, and felt that she owed it to Mrs. Wishart to go down and keep her company. O, if Spring were but come! she thought as she descended the staircase,—and she could get away, and take hold of her work, and bring things into the old train! Spring was many weeks off yet, and she must do different and harder work first, she saw. She went down to the back drawing-room and laid herself upon the sofa.
"Are you not well, Lois?" was the immediate question from Mrs. Wishart.
"Yes, ma'am; only not just vigorous. How long they are gone! It is growing late."
"The sleighing is tempting. It is not often we have such a chance. I suppose everybody is out. You don't go into the air enough, Lois."
"I took a walk this morning."
"In the snow!—and came back tired. I saw it in your face. Such dreadful walking was enough to tire you. I don't think you half know how to take care of yourself."
Lois let the charge pass undisputed, and lay still. The afternoon had waned and the sun gone down; the snow, however, made it still light outside. But that light faded too; and it was really evening, when sounds at the front door announced the return of the sleighing party. Presently Madge burst in, rosy and gay as snow and sleigh-bells could make anybody.
"It's glorious!" she said. "O, we have been to the Park and all over. It's splendid! Everybody in the world is out, and we saw everybody, and some people we saw two or three times; and it's like nothing in all the world I ever saw before. The whole air is full of sleigh-bells; and the roads are so thick with sleighs that it is positively dangerous."