"Given up all, as you say?"
"I think I have," Dolly answered slowly. "I am sure, Christina, I do not want anything but what God chooses to give me."
"And are you ready to give up all your own pleasure and amusement, and your time, and be like no one else, and have no friends in the world?" Christina spoke the words in a kind of hurry.
"You go too fast," said Dolly. "You ask too many things at once; and you forget what Mr. Shubrick said—that it is pleasure to please our Master. He said it was His meat to do His Father's will; and He is our pattern. And doing His will does not prevent either pleasure or amusement, of the right sort; not at all. O Christina! I do not think anybody is rightly happy, except those who love Christ and obey him."
"Are you happy?" was the next quick question. Dolly could not answer it as immediately.
"If I am not," she said at last, "it is because there are some things in my life just now that—trouble me."
"Dear Dolly!" said Christina affectionately. "But you looked quite happy this evening."
"I was," said Dolly. "You made me so."
Christina kissed her, and thereupon at once fell asleep. But Dolly was not sleepy. Her thoughts were wide awake, and roved over everything in the world, it seemed to her; at least over all her friend's affairs and over all her own. She was not fretting, only looking at things. Christina's ease and security and carelessness, her own burdens and responsibilities; the fulness of means here, the difficulty of getting supplies in her own household; Sandie Shubrick, finally, and Lawrence St. Leger! What a strange difference between one lot and another! It was a bright night; the moonlight streamed in at one of the windows in a yellow flood. Dolly lay staring at the pool of light on the floor. Roman moonlight! And so the same moonlight had poured down in old times upon the city of the Caesars; lighted up their palaces and triumphal arches; yes, and the pile of the Colosseum and the bones of the martyrs. The same moonlight! Old Rome lay buried; the oppressor and the oppressed were passed away; the persecutor and his victims alike long gone from the scene of their doings and sufferings; and the same moon shining on! What shadows we are in comparison! thought Dolly; and then her thoughts instantly corrected themselves. Not we, but this, is the shadow; this material, so unchanging earth. Sense misleads us. "The world passeth away and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." Then it is only to do that, thought Dolly; be it hard or easy; that is the only thing to care about. And therewith another word came to her; it seemed to be written in the moonlight:—"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" It came so soft and sweet upon Dolly's heart as I can hardly tell; her eyelids dropped from their watch, and in another minute she too was fast asleep.
The next day was wholly pleasant to her. It was merry, as Christmas ought to be; and Dolly had laid aside her own cares and took everything as light-heartedly as anybody else. More, perhaps, if the truth were known; for Dolly had laid her cares she knew where, and that they would be looked after. The pleasant people, whose festivities she shared, were all kind to her; she had not been forgotten in the gifts which were flying about; and altogether the day was a white one. It only ended too soon. At four o'clock Dolly prepared to go home. Christina protested that she was not wanted there.