"And is it enough, think you?" said he—and as he stood, while she sat, she did not care to meet those clear, keen, authoritative eyes that were bent on her. "Does your conscience tell you that you give sufficient thanks for what God in His great mercy has vouchsafed to you? Lip-service every seventh day!—a form of words gone through before you take your afternoon walk! Why, if a neighbor were kind to you, you would show him as much gratitude as that; and this is all you offer to the Lord of heaven and earth for having in His compassion listened to your mother's prayers, and bestowed on you life and health and a cheerful mind?"
"What would you have me do? I cannot profess to be a saint while at heart I am none," said she, somewhat sullenly.
It was an unlucky question. Moreover, at this moment the bells in the tower sent forth their first throbbing peals into the startled air; and these doubtless recalled him to the passing of time, and the fact that presently the people would be coming into the church-yard.
"I will speak plainly to you, Judith; I take no shame to mention such a matter on the Lord's day; perchance the very holiness of the hour and of the spot where I have chanced to meet you will the better incline your heart. You know what I have wished; what your family wish; and indeed you cannot be so blind as not to have seen. It is true, I am but a humble laborer in the Lord's vineyard; but I magnify my office; it is an honorable work; the saving of souls, the calling to repentance, the carrying of the Gospel to the poor and stricken ones of the earth—I say that is an honorable calling, and one that blesses them that partake in it, and gives a peace of mind far beyond what the worldlings dream of. And if I have wished that you might be able and willing—through God's merciful inclining of your heart—to aid me in this work, to become my helpmeet, was it only of my own domestic state I was thinking? Surely not. I have seen you from day to day—careless and content with the trifles and idle things of this vain and profitless world; but I have looked forward to what might befall in the future, and I have desired with all my heart—yea, and with prayers to God for the same—that you should be taught to seek the true haven in time of need. Do you understand me, Judith?"
He spoke with little tenderness, and certainly with no show of lover-like anxiety; but he was in earnest; and she had a terrible conviction pressing upon her that her wit might not be able to save her. The others she could easily elude when she was in the mind; this one spoke close and clear; she was afraid to look up and face his keen, acquisitive eyes.
"And if I do understand you, good Master Blaise," said she desperately; "if I do understand you—as I confess I have gathered something of this before—but—but surely—one such as I—such as you say I am—might she not become pious—and seek to have her soul saved—without also having to marry a parson?—if such be your meaning, good Master Blaise."
It was she who was in distress and in embarrassment; not he.
"You are not situated as many others are," said he. "You owe your life, as one may say, to the prayers of God's people; I but put before you one way in which you could repay the debt—by laboring in the Lord's vineyard, and giving the health and cheerfulness that have been bestowed on you to the comfort of those less fortunate——"
"I? Such a one as I? Nay, nay, you have shown me how all unfit I were for that," she exclaimed, glad of this one loophole.
"I will not commend you, Judith, to your face," said he, calmly, "nor praise such worldly gifts as others, it may be, overvalue; but in truth I may say you have a way of winning people toward you; your presence is welcome to the sick; your cheerfulness gladdens the troubled in heart; and you have youth and strength and an intelligence beyond that of many. Are all these to be thrown away?—to wither and perish as the years go by? Nay, I seek not to urge my suit to you by idle words of wooing, as they call it, or by allurements of flattery; these are the foolish devices of the ballad-mongers and the players, and are well fitted, I doubt not, for the purposes of the master of these, the father of lies himself; rather would I speak to you words of sober truth and reason; I would show you how you can make yourself useful in the garden of the Lord, and so offer some thanksgiving for the bounties bestowed on you. Pray consider it, Judith; I ask not for yea or nay at this moment; I would have your heart meditate over it in your own privacy, when you can bethink you of what has happened to you and what may happen to you in the future. Life has been glad for you so far; but trouble might come; your relatives are older than you; you might be left so that you would be thankful to have one beside you whose arm you could lean on in time of distress. Think over it, Judith, and may God incline your heart to what is right and best for you."