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MISS PRUDENCE

A STORY OF TWO GIRLS' LIVES

By JENNIE M. DRINKWATER

1883

"We are not to lead events but to follow them."—Epictetus.

CONTENTS

CHAP

I. AFTER SCHOOL

II. EVANGELIST

III. WHAT "DESULTORY" MEANS

IV. A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE

V. TWO PROMISES

VI. MARJORIE ASLEEP AND AWAKE

VII. UNDER THE APPLE-TREE

VIII. BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS

IX. JOHN HOLMES

X. LINNET

XI. GRANDMOTHER

XII. A BUDGET OF LETTERS

XIII. A WEDDING DAY

XIV. A TALK AND ANOTHER TALK

XV. JEROMA

XVI. MAPLE STREET

XVII. MORRIS

XVIII. ONE DAY

XIX. A STORY THAT WAS NOT VERY SAD

XX. "HEIRS TOGETHER"

XXI. MORRIS AGAIN

XXII. TIDINGS

XXIII. GOD'S LOVE

XXIV. JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE

XXV. THE WILL OF GOD

XXVI. MARJORIE'S MOTHER

XXVII. ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALE

XXVIII. THE LINNET

XXIX. ONE NIGHT

XXX. THE COSEY CORNER

XXXI. AND WHAT ELSE?

MISS PRUDENCE.

I.

AFTER SCHOOL.

"Our content is our best having."—Shakespeare.

Nobody had ever told Marjorie that she was, as somebody says we all are, three people,—the Marjorie she knew herself, the Marjorie other people knew, and the Marjorie God knew. It was a "bother" sometimes to be the Marjorie she knew herself, and she had never guessed there was another Marjorie for other people to know, and the Marjorie God knew and understood she did not learn much about for years and years. At eleven years old it was hard enough to know about herself—her naughty, absent-minded, story-book-loving self. Her mother said that she loved story-books entirely too much, that they made her absent-minded and forgetful, and her mother's words were proving themselves true this very afternoon. She was a real trouble to herself and there was no one near to "confess" to; she never could talk about herself unless enveloped in the friendly darkness, and then the confessor must draw her out, step by step, with perfect frankness and sympathy; even then, a sigh, or sob, or quickly drawn breath and half inarticulate expression revealed more than her spoken words.

She was one of the children that are left to themselves. Only Linnet knew the things she cared most about; even when Linnet laughed at her, she could feel the sympathetic twinkle in her eye and the sympathetic undertone smothered in her laugh.

It was sunset, and she was watching it from the schoolroom window, the clouds over the hill were brightening and brightening and a red glare shone over the fields of snow. It was sunset and the schoolroom clock pointed to a quarter of five. The schoolroom was chilly, for the fire had died out half an hour since. Hollis Rheid had shoved big sticks into the stove until it would hold no more and had opened the draft, whispering to her as he passed her seat that he would keep her warm at any rate. But now she was shivering, although she had wrapped herself in her coarse green and red shawl, and tapped her feet on the bare floor to keep them warm; she was hungry, too; the noon lunch had left her unsatisfied, for she had given her cake to Rie Blauvelt in return for a splendid Northern Spy, and had munched the apple and eaten her two sandwiches wishing all the time for more. Leaving the work on her slate unfinished, she had dived into the depths of her home-made satchel and discovered two crumbs of molasses cake. That was an hour ago. School had closed at three o'clock to-day because it was Friday and she had been nearly two hours writing nervously on her slate or standing at the blackboard making hurried figures. For the first time in her life Marjorie West had been "kept in." And that "Lucy" book hidden in her desk was the cause of it; she had taken it out for just one delicious moment, and the moment had extended itself into an hour and a half, and the spelling lesson was unlearned and the three hard examples in complex fractions unworked. She had not been ignorant of what the penalty would be. Mr. Holmes had announced it at the opening of school: "Each word in spelling that is missed, must be written one hundred times, and every example not brought in on the slate must be put on the blackboard after school."

She had smiled in self-confidence. Who ever knew Marjorie West to miss in spelling? And had not her father looked over her examples last night and pronounced them correct? But on her way to school the paper on which the examples were solved had dropped out of her Geography, and she had been wholly absorbed in the "Lucy" book during the time that she had expected to study the test words in spelling. And the overwhelming result was doing three examples on the board, after school, and writing seven hundred words. Oh, how her back ached and how her wrist hurt her and how her strained eyes smarted! Would she ever again forget amateur, abyss, accelerate, bagatelle, bronchitis, boudoir and isosceles?

Rie Blauvelt had written three words one hundred times, laughed at her, and gone home; Josie Grey had written isosceles one hundred times, and then taken up a slate to help Marjorie; before Marjorie was aware Josie had written abyss seventy-five times, then suspecting something by the demureness of Josie's eyes she had snatched her slate and erased the pretty writing.

"You're real mean," pouted Josie; "he said he would take our word for it, and you could have answered some way and got out of it."

Marjorie's reply was two flashing eyes.

"You needn't take my head off," laughed Josie; "now I'll go home and leave you, and you may stay all night for all I care."

"I will, before I will deceive anybody," resented Marjorie stoutly.

Without another word Josie donned sack and hood and went out, leaving the door ajar and the cold air to play about Marjorie's feet.

But five o'clock came and the work was done!

More than one or two tears fell slowly on the neat writing on Marjorie's slate; the schoolroom was cold and she was shivering and hungry. It would have been such a treat to read the last chapter in the "Lucy" book; she might have curled her feet underneath her and drawn her shawl closer; but it was so late, and what would they think at home? She was ashamed to go home. Her father would look at her from under his eyebrows, and her mother would exclaim, "Why, Marjorie!" She would rather that her father would look at her from under his eyebrows, than that her mother would say, "Why, Marjorie!" Her mother never scolded, and sometimes she almost wished she would. It would be a relief if somebody would scold her tonight; she would stick a pin into herself if it would do any good.

Her photograph would not be in the group next time. She looked across at the framed photograph on the wall; six girls in the group and herself the youngest—the reward for perfect recitations and perfect deportment for one year. Her father was so proud of it that he had ordered a copied picture for himself, and, with a black walnut frame, it was hanging in the sitting-room at home. The resentment against herself was tugging away at her heart and drawing miserable lines on her brow and lips—on her sweet brow and happy lips.

It was a bare, ugly country schoolroom, anyway, with the stained floor, the windows with two broken panes, and the unpainted desks with innumerable scars made by the boys' jack-knives, and Mr. Holmes was unreasonable, anyway, to give her such a hard punishment, and she didn't care if she had been kept in, anyway!

In that "anyway" she found vent for all her crossness. Sometimes she said, "I don't care," but when she said, "I don't care, anyway!" then everybody knew that Marjorie West was dreadful.

"I'm through," she thought triumphantly, "and I didn't cheat, and I wasn't mean, and nobody has helped me."

Yes, somebody had helped her. She was sorry that she forgot to think that God had helped her. Perhaps people always did get through! If they didn't help themselves along by doing wrong and—God helped them. The sunshine rippled over her face again and she counted the words on her slate for the second time to assure herself that there could be no possible mistake. Slowly she counted seven hundred, then with a sudden impulse seized her pencil and wrote each of the seven words five times more to be "sure they were all right."

Josie Grey called her "horridly conscientious," and even Rie Blauvelt wished that she would not think it wicked to "tell" in the class, and to whisper about something else when they had permission to whisper about the lessons.

By this time you have learned that my little Marjorie was strong and sweet. I wish you might have seen her that afternoon as she crouched over the wooden desk, snuggled down in the coarse, plaid shawl, her elbows resting on the hard desk, her chin dropped in her two plump hands, with her eyes fixed on the long, closely written columns of her large slate. She was not sitting in her own seat, her seat was the back seat on the girls' side, of course, but she was sitting midway on the boys' side, and her slate was placed on the side of the double desk wherein H.R. was cut in deep, ugly letters. She had fled to this seat as to a refuge, when she found herself alone, with something of the same feeling, that once two or three years ago when she was away from home and homesick she used to kneel to say her prayers in the corner of the chamber where her valise was; there was home about the valise and there was protection and safety and a sort of helpfulness about this desk where her friend Hollis Rheid had sat ever since she had come to school. This was her first winter at school, her mother had taught her at home, but in family council this winter it had been decided that Marjorie was "big" enough to go to school.

The half mile home seemed a long way to walk alone, and the huge Newfoundland at the farmhouse down the hill was not always chained; he had sprung out at them this morning and the girls had huddled together while Hollis and Frank Grey had driven him inside his own yard. Hollis had thrown her an intelligent glance as he filed out with the boys, and had telegraphed something back to her as he paused for one instant at the door. Not quite understanding the telegraphic signal, she was waiting for him, or for something. His lips had looked like: "Wait till I come." If the people at home were not anxious about her she would have been willing to wait until midnight; it would never occur to her that Hollis might forget her.

Her cheeks flushed as she waited, and her eyes filled with tears; it was a soft, warm, round face, with coaxing, kissable lips, a smooth, low brow and the gentlest of hazel eyes: not a pretty face, excepting in its lovely childishness and its hints of womanly graces; some of the girls said she was homely. Marjorie thought herself that she was very homely; but she had comforted herself with, "God made my face, and he likes it this way." Some one says that God made the other features, but permits us to make the mouth. Marjorie's sweetness certainly made her mouth. But then she was born sweet. Josie Grey declared that she would rather see a girl "get mad" than cry, as Marjorie did when the boys washed her face in the snow.

Mr. Holmes had written to a friend that Marjorie West, his favorite among the girls, was "almost too sweet." He said to himself that he feared she "lacked character." Marjorie's quiet, observant father would have smiled at that and said nothing. The teacher said that she did not know how to take her own part. Marjorie had been eleven years in this grasping world and had not learned that she had any "part" to take.

Since her pencil had ceased scribbling the room was so still that a tiny mouse had been nibbling at the toe of her shoe. Just then as she raised her head and pinned her shawl more securely the door opened and something happened. The something happened in Marjorie's face. Hollis Rheid thought the sunset had burst across it. She did not exclaim, "Oh, I am so glad!" but the gladness was all in her eyes. If Marjorie had been more given to exclamations her eyes would not have been so expressive. The closed lips were a gain to the eyes and her friends missed nothing. The boy had learned her eyes by heart. How stoutly he would have resisted if some one had told him that years hence Marjorie's face would be a sealed volume to him.

But she was making her eyes and mouth to-day and years hence she made them, too. Perhaps he had something to do with it then as he certainly had something to do with it now.

"I came back with my sled to take you home. I gave Sam my last ten cents to do the night work for me. It was my turn, but he was willing enough. Where's your hood, Mousie? Any books to take?"

"Yes, my Geography and Arithmetic," she answered, taking her fleecy white hood from the seat behind her.

"Now you look like a sunbeam in a cloud," he said poetically as she tied it over her brown head. "Oh, ho!" turning to the blackboard, "you do make handsome figures. Got them all right, did you?"

"I knew how to do them, it was only that—I forgot."

"I don't think you'll forget again in a hurry. And that's a nice looking slate, too," he added, stepping nearer. "Mother said it was too much of a strain on your nervous system to write all that."

"I guess I haven't much of a nervous system," returned Marjorie, seriously; "the girls wrote the words they missed fifty times last Friday and he warned us about the one hundred to-day. I suppose it will be one hundred and fifty next Friday. I don't believe I'll ever miss again," she said, her lips trembling at the mention of it.

"I think I'll have a word or two to say to the master if you do. I wonder how Linnet would have taken it."

"She wouldn't have missed."

"I'll ask Mr. Holmes to put you over on the boys side if you miss next week," he cried mischievously, "and make you sit with us all the afternoon."

"I'd rather write each word five hundred times," she cried vehemently.

"I believe you would," he said good humoredly. "Never mind, Mousie, I know you won't miss again."

"I'll do my examples to-night and father will help me if I can't do them.
He used to teach in this very schoolhouse; he knows as much as Mr.
Holmes."

"Then he must be a Solomon," laughed the boy.

The stamp of Hollis' boots and the sound of his laughter had frightened the mouse back into its hiding-place in the chimney; Marjorie would not have frightened the mouse all day long.

The books were pushed into her satchel, her desk arranged in perfect order, her rubbers and red mittens drawn on, and she stood ready, satchel in hand, for her ride on the sled down the slippery hill where the boys and girls had coasted at noon and then she would ride on over the snowy road half a mile to the old, brown farmhouse. Her eyes were subdued a little, but the sunshine lingered all over her face. She knew Hollis would come.

He smiled down at her with his superior fifteen-year-old smile, she was such a wee mousie and always needed taking care of. If he could have a sister, he would want her to be like Marjorie. He was very much like Marjorie himself, just as shy, just as sensitive, hardly more fitted to take his own part, and I think Marjorie was the braver of the two. He was slow-tempered and unforgiving; if a friend failed him once, he never took him into confidence again. He was proud where Marjorie was humble. He gave his services; she gave herself. He seldom quarrelled, but never was the first to yield. They were both mixtures of reserve and frankness; both speaking as often out of a shut heart as an open heart. But when Marjorie could open her heart, oh, how she opened it! As for Hollis, I think he had never opened his; demonstrative sympathy was equally the key to the hearts of both.

But here I am analyzing them before they had learned they had any self to analyze. But they existed, all the same.

Marjorie was a plain little body while Hollis was noticeably handsome with eloquent brown eyes and hair with its golden, boyish beauty just shading into brown; his sensitive, mobile lips were prettier than any girl's, and there was no voice in school like his in tone or culture. Mr. Holmes was an elocutionist and had taken great pains with Hollis Rheid's voice. There was a courteous gentleness in his manner all his own; if knighthood meant purity, goodness, truth and manliness, then Hollis Rheid was a knightly school-boy. The youngest of five rough boys, with a stern, narrow-minded father and a mother who loved her boys with all her heart and yet for herself had no aims beyond kitchen and dairy, he had not learned his refinement at home; I think he had not learned it anywhere. Marjorie's mother insisted that Hollis Rheid must have had a praying grandmother away back somewhere. The master had written to his friend, Miss Prudence Pomeroy, that Hollis Rheid was a born gentleman, and had added with more justice and penetration than he had shown in reading Marjorie, "he has too little application and is too mischievous to become a real student. But I am not looking for geniuses in a country school. Marjorie and Hollis are bright enough for every purpose in life excepting to become leaders."

"Are you going to church, to-night?" Hollis inquired as she seated herself carefully on the sled.

"In the church?" she asked, bracing her feet and tucking the ends of her shawl around them.

"Yes; an evangelist is going to preach."

"Evangelist!" repeated Marjorie in a voice with a thrill in it.

"Don't you know what that is?" asked Hollis, harnessing himself into the sled.

"Oh, yes, indeed," said she. "I know about him and Christian."

Hollis looked perplexed; this must be one of Marjorie's queer ways of expressing something, and the strange preacher certainly had something to do with Christians.

"If it were not for the fractions I suppose I might go. I wish I wasn't stupid about Arithmetic."

"It's no matter if girls are stupid," he said consolingly. "Are you sure you are on tight? I'm going to run pretty soon. You won't have to earn your living by making figures."

"Shall you?" she inquired with some anxiety.

"Of course, I shall. Haven't I been three times through the Arithmetic and once through the Algebra that I may support myself and somebody else, sometime?"

This seemed very grand to child Marjorie who found fractions a very
Slough of Despond.

"I'm going to the city as soon as Uncle Jack finds a place for me. I expect a letter from him every night."

"Perhaps it will come to-night," said Marjorie, not very hopefully.

"I hope it will. And so this may be your last ride on Flyaway. Enjoy it all you can, Mousie."

Marjorie enjoyed everything all she could.

"Now, hurrah!" he shouted, starting on a quick run down the hill. "I'm going to turn you over into the brook."

Marjorie laughed her joyous little laugh. "I'm not afraid," she said in absolute content.

"You'd better be!" he retorted in his most savage tone.

The whole west was now in a glow and the glorious light stretched across fields of snow.

"Oh, how splendid," Marjorie exclaimed breathlessly as the rapid motion of the sled and the rush of cold air carried her breath away.

"Hold on tight," he cried mockingly, "we're coming to the brook."

Laughing aloud she held on "tight." Hollis was her true knight; she would not have been afraid to cross the Alps on that sled if he had asked her to!

She was in a talkative mood to-night, but her horse pranced on and would not listen. She wanted to tell him about vibgyor. The half mile was quickly travelled and he whirled the sled through the large gateway and around the house to the kitchen door. The long L at the back of the house seemed full of doors.

"There, Mousie, here you are!" he exclaimed. "And don't you miss your lesson to-morrow."

"To-morrow is Saturday! oh, I had forgotten. And I can go to see
Evangelist to-night."

"You haven't said 'thank you' for your last ride on Flyaway."

"I will when I'm sure that it is," she returned with her eyes laughing.

He turned her over into a snowdrift and ran off whistling; springing up she brushed the snow off face and hands and with a very serious face entered the kitchen. The kitchen was long and low, bright with the sunset shining in at two windows and cheery with its carpeting of red, yellow and green mingled confusingly in the handsome oilcloth.

Unlike Hollis, Marjorie was the outgrowth of home influences; the kitchen oilcloth had something to do with her views of life, and her mother's broad face and good-humored eyes had a great deal more. Good-humor in the mother had developed sweet humor in the child.

Now I wonder if you understand Marjorie well enough to understand all she does and all she leaves undone during the coming fifteen or twenty years?

II.

EVANGELIST.

"The value of a thought cannot be told."—Bailey.

Her mother's broad, gingham back and the twist of iron gray hair low in her neck greeted her as she opened the door, then the odor of hot biscuits intruded itself, and then there came a shout from somebody kneeling on the oilcloth near the stove and pushing sticks of dry wood through its blazing open door.

"Oh, Marjie, what happened to you?"

"Something didn't happen. I didn't have my spelling or my examples. I read the "Lucy" book in school instead," she confessed dolefully.

"Why, Marjie!" was her mother's exclamation, but it brought the color to Marjorie's face and suffused her eyes.

"We are to have company for tea," announced the figure kneeling on the oilcloth as she banged the stove door. "A stranger; the evangelist Mr. Horton told us about Sunday."

"I know," said Marjorie. "I've read about him in Pilgrim's Progress; he showed Christian the way to the Wicket Gate."

Linnet jumped to her feet and shook a chip from her apron. "O, Goosie!
Don't you know any better?"

Fourteen-year-old Linnet always knew better.

"Where is he?" questioned Marjorie.

"In the parlor. Go and entertain him. Mother and I must get him a good supper: cold chicken, canned raspberries, currant jelly, ham, hot biscuit, plain cake and fruit cake and—butter and—tea."

"I don't know how," hesitated Marjorie.

"Answer his questions, that's all," explained Linnet promptly. "I've told him all I know and now it's your turn."

"I don't like to answer questions," said Marjorie, still doubtfully.

"Oh, only your age and what you study and—if—you are a Christian."

"And he tells you how if you don't know how," said Marjorie, eagerly; "that's what he's for."

"Yes," replied her mother, approvingly, "run in and let him talk to you."

Very shyly glad of the opportunity, and yet dreading it inexpressibly, Marjorie hung her school clothing away and laid her satchel on the shelf in the hall closet, and then stood wavering in the closet, wondering if she dared go in to see Evangelist. He had spoken very kindly to Christian. She longed, oh, how she longed! to find the Wicket Gate, but would she dare ask any questions? Last Sabbath in church she had seen a sweet, beautiful face that she persuaded herself must be Mercy, and now to have Evangelist come to her very door!

What was there to know any better about? She did not care if Linnet had laughed. Linnet never cared to read Pilgrim's Progress.

It is on record that the first book a child reads intensely is the book that will influence all the life.

At ten Marjorie had read Pilgrim's Progress intensely. Timidly, with shining eyes, she stood one moment upon the red mat outside the parlor door, and then, with sudden courage, turned the knob and entered. At a glance she felt that there was no need of courage; Evangelist was seated comfortably in the horse-hair rocker with his feet to the fire resting on the camp stool; he did not look like Evangelist at all, she thought, disappointedly; he reminded her altogether more of a picture of Santa Claus: massive head and shoulders, white beard and moustache, ruddy cheeks, and, as the head turned quickly at her entrance, she beheld, beneath the shaggy, white brows, twinkling blue eyes.

"Ah," he exclaimed, in an abrupt voice, "you are the little girl they were expecting home from school."

"Yes, sir."

He extended a plump, white hand and, not at all shyly, Marjorie laid her hand in it.

"Isn't it late to come from school? Did you play on the way home?"

"No sir; I'm too big for that"

"Doesn't school dismiss earlier?"

"Yes, sir," flushing and dropping her eyes, "but I was kept in."

"Kept in," he repeated, smoothing the little hand. "I'm sure it was not for bad behavior and you look bright enough to learn your lessons."

"I didn't know my lessons," she faltered.

"Then you should have done as Stephen Grellet did," he returned, releasing her hand.

"How did he do?" she asked.

Nobody loved stories better than Marjorie.

Pushing her mother's spring rocker nearer the fire, she sat down, arranged the skirt of her dress, and, prepared herself, not to "entertain" him, but to listen.

"Did you never read about him?"

"I never even heard of him."

"Then I'll tell you something about him. His father was an intimate friend and counsellor of Louis XVI. Stephen was a French boy. Do you know who Louis XVI was?"

"No, sir."

"Do you know the French for Stephen?"

"No, sir."

"Then you don't study French. I'd study everything if I were you. My wife has read the Hebrew Bible through. She is a scholar as well as a good housewife. It needn't hinder, you see."

"No, sir," repeated Marjorie.

"When little Etienne—that's French for Stephen—was five or six years old he had a long Latin exercise to learn, and he was quite disheartened."

Marjorie's eyes opened wide in wonder. Six years old and a long Latin exercise. Even Hollis had not studied Latin.

"Sitting alone, all by himself, to study, he looked out of the window abroad upon nature in all her glorious beauty, and remembered that God made the gardens, the fields and the sky, and the thought came to him: 'Cannot the same God give me memory, also?' Then he knelt at the foot of his bed and poured out his soul in prayer. The prayer was wonderfully answered; on beginning to study again, he found himself master of his hard lesson, and, after that, he acquired learning with great readiness."

It was wonderful, Marjorie thought, and beautiful, but she could not say that; she asked instead: "Did he write about it himself?"

"Yes, he has written all about himself."

"When I was six I didn't know my small letters. Was he so bright because he was French?"

The gentleman laughed and remarked that the French were a pretty bright nation.

"Is that all you know about him?"

"Oh, no, indeed; there's a large book of his memoirs in my library. He visited many of the crowned heads of Europe."

There was another question forming on Marjorie's lips, but at that instant her mother opened the door. Now she would hear no more about Stephen Grellet and she could not ask about the Wicket Gate or Mercy or the children.

Rising in her pretty, respectful manner she gave her mother the spring rocker and pushed an ottoman behind the stove and seated herself where she might watch Evangelist's face as he talked.

How the talk drifted in this direction Marjorie did not understand; she knew it was something about finding the will of the Lord, but a story was coming and she listened with her listening eyes on his face.

"I had been thinking that God would certainly reveal his will if we inquired of him, feeling sure of that, for some time, and then I had this experience."

Marjorie's mother enjoyed "experiences" as well as Marjorie enjoyed stories. And she liked nothing better than to relate her own; after hearing an experience she usually began, "Now I will tell you mine."

Marjorie thought she knew every one of her mother's experiences. But it was Evangelist who was speaking.

The little girl in the brown and blue plaid dress with red stockings and buttoned boots, bent forward as she sat half concealed behind the stove and drank in every word with intent, wondering, unquestioning eyes.

Her mother listened, also, with eyes as intent and believing, and years afterward, recalled this true experience, when she was tempted to take Marjorie's happiness into her own hands, her own unwise, haste-making hands.

"My wife had been dead about two years," began Evangelist again, speaking in a retrospective tone. "I had two little children, the elder not eight years old, and my sister was my housekeeper. She did not like housekeeping nor taking care of children. Some women don't. She came to me one day with a very serious face. 'Brother,' said she, 'you need a wife, you must have a wife. I do not know how to take care of your children and you are almost never at home.' She left me before I could reply, almost before I could think what to reply. I was just home from helping a pastor in Wisconsin, it was thirty-six degrees below zero the day I left, and I had another engagement in Maine for the next week. I was very little at home, and my children did need a mother. I had not thought whether I needed a wife or not; I was too much taken up with the Lord's work to think about it. But that day I asked the Lord to find me a wife. After praying about it three days it came to me that a certain young lady was the one the Lord had chosen. Like Peter, I drew back and said, 'Not so, Lord.' My first wife was a continual spiritual help to me; she was the Lord's own messenger every day; but this lady, although a church member, was not particularly spiritually minded. Several years before she had been my pupil in Hebrew and Greek. I admired her intellectual gifts, but if a brother in the ministry had asked me if she would be a helpful wife to him, I should have hesitated about replying in the affirmative. And, yet here it was, the Lord had chosen her for me. I said, 'Not so, Lord,' until he assured me that her heart was in his hand and he could fit her to become my wife and a mother to my children. After waiting until I knew I was obeying the mind of my Master, I asked her to marry me. She accepted, as far as her own heart and will were concerned, but refused, because her father, a rich and worldly-minded man, was not willing for her to marry an itinerant preacher.

"I had not had a charge for three years then. I was so continually called to help other pastors that I had no time for a charge of my own. So it kept on for months and months; her father was not willing, and she would not marry me without his consent. My sister often said to me, 'I don't see how you can want to marry a woman that isn't willing to have you,' but I kept my own counsel. I knew the matter was in safe hands. I was not at all troubled; I kept about my Master's business and he kept about mine. Therefore, when she wrote to say that suddenly and unexpectedly her father had withdrawn all opposition, I was not in the least surprised. My sister declared I was plucky to hold on, but the Lord held on for me; I felt as if I had nothing to do with it. And a better wife and mother God never blessed one of his servants with. She could do something beside read the Bible in Hebrew; she could practice it in English. For forty years [missing text] my companion and counsellor and dearest friend. So you see"—he added in his bright, convincing voice, "we may know the will of the Lord about such things and everything else."

"I believe it," responded Marjorie's mother, emphatically.

"Now tell me about all the young people in your village. How many have you that are unconverted?"

Was Hollis one of them? Marjorie wondered with a beating heart. Would Evangelist talk to him? Would he kiss him, and give him a smile, and bid him God speed?

But—she began to doubt—perhaps there was another Evangelist and this was not the very one in Pilgrim's Progress; somehow, he did not seem just like that one. Might she dare ask him? How would she say it? Before she was aware her thought had become a spoken thought; in the interval of quiet while her mother was counting the young people in the village she was very much astonished to hear her own timid, bold, little voice inquire:

"Is there more than one Evangelist?"

"Why, yes, child," her mother answered absently and Evangelist began to tell her about some of the evangelists he was acquainted with.

"Wonderful men! Wonderful men!" he repeated.

Before another question could form itself on her eager lips her father entered and gave the stranger a cordial welcome.

"We have to thank scarlet fever at the Parsonage for the pleasure of your visit with us, I believe," he said.

"Yes, that seems to be the bright side of the trouble."

"Well, I hope you have brought a blessing with you."

"I hope I have! I prayed the Lord not to bring me here unless he came with me."

"I think the hush of the Spirit's presence has been in our church all winter," said Mrs. West. "I've had no rest day or night pleading for our young people."

The words filled Marjorie with a great awe; she slipped out to unburden herself to Linnet, but Linnet was setting the tea-table in a frolicsome mood and Marjorie's heart could not vent itself upon a frolicsome listener.

From the china closet in the hall Linnet had brought out the china, one of her mother's wedding presents and therefore seldom used, and the glass water pitcher and the small glass fruit saucers.

"Can't I help?" suggested Marjorie looking on with great interest.

"No," refused Linnet, decidedly, "you might break something as you did the night Mrs. Rheid and Hollis were here."

"My fingers were too cold, then."

"Perhaps they are too warm, now," laughed Linnet.

"Then I can tell you about the primary colors; I suppose I won't break them," returned Marjorie with her usual sweet-humor.

Linnet moved the spoon holder nearer the sugar bowl with the air of a house wife, Marjorie stood at the table leaning both elbows upon it.

"If you remember vibgyor, you'll remember the seven primary colors!" she said mysteriously.

"Is it like cutting your nails on Saturday without thinking of a fox's tail and so never have the toothache?" questioned Linnet.

"No; this is earnest. It isn't a joke; it's a lesson," returned Marjorie, severely. "Mr. Holmes said a professor told it to him when he was in college."

"You see it's a joke! I remember vibgyor, but now I don't know the seven primary colors. You are always getting taken in, Goosie! I hope you didn't ask Mr. Woodfern if he is the man in Pilgrim's Progress."

"I know he isn't," said Marjorie, seriously, "there are a good many of them, he said so. I guess Pilgrim's Progress happened a long time ago. I shan't look for Great-heart, any more," she added, with a sigh.

Linnet laughed and scrutinized the white handled knives to see if there were any blemishes on the blades; her mother kept them laid away in old flannel.

"Now, Linnet, you see it isn't a joke," began Marjorie, protestingly; "the word is made of all the first letters of the seven colors,—just see!" counting on her fingers, "violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red! Did you see how it comes right?"

"I didn't see, but I will as soon as I get time. You were not taken in that time, I do believe. Did Mr. Woodfern ask you questions?"

"Not that kind! And I'm glad he didn't. Linnet, I haven't any 'experience' to talk about."

"You are not old enough," said Linnet, wisely.

"Are you?"

"Yes, I have a little bit."

"Shall you tell him about it?" asked Marjorie curiously.

"I don't know."

"I wish I had some; how do you get it?"

"It comes."

"From where?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Then you can't tell me how to get it," pleaded Marjorie.

"No," said Linnet, shaking her sunshiny curls, "perhaps mother can."

"When did you have yours?" Marjorie persisted.

"One day when I was reading about the little girl in the Sandwich Islands. Her father was a missionary there, and she wrote in her journal how she felt and I felt so, too,"

"Did you put it in your journal?"

"Some of it."

"Did you show it to mother?"

"Yes."

"Was she glad?"

"Yes, she kissed me and said her prayers were answered."

Marjorie looked very grave. She wished she could be as old as Linnet and have "experience" to write in her journal and have her mother kiss her and say her prayers were answered.

"Do you have it all the time?" she questioned anxiously as Linnet hurried in from the kitchen with a small platter of sliced ham in her hand.

"Not every day; I do some days."

"I want it every day."

"You call them to tea when I tell you. And you may help me bring things in."

When Marjorie opened the parlor door to call them to tea she heard Mr.
Woodfern inquire:

"Do all your children belong to the Lord?"

"The two in heaven certainly do, and I think Linnet is a Christian," her mother was saying.

"And Marjorie," he asked.

"You know there are such things; I think Marjorie's heart was changed in her cradle."

With the door half opened Marjorie stood and heard this lovely story about herself.

"It was before she was three years old; one evening I undressed her and laid her in the cradle, it was summer and she was not ready to go to sleep; she had been in a frolic with Linnet and was all in a gale of mischief. She arose up and said she wanted to get out; I said 'no,' very firmly, 'mamma wants you to stay.' But she persisted with all her might, and I had to punish her twice before she would consent to lie still; I was turning to leave her when I thought her sobs sounded more rebellious than subdued, I knelt down and took her in my arms to kiss her, but she drew back and would not kiss me. I saw there was no submission in her obedience and made up my mind not to leave her until she had given up her will to mine. If you can believe it, it was two full hours before she would kiss me, and then she couldn't kiss me enough. I think when she yielded to my will she gave up so wholly that she gave up her whole being to the strongest and most loving will she knew. And as soon as she knew God, she knew—or I knew—that she had submitted to him."

"Come to tea," called Marjorie, joyfully, a moment later.

This lovely story about herself was only one of the happenings that caused Marjorie to remember this day and evening: this day of small events stood out clearly against the background of her childhood.

That evening in the church she had been moved to do the hardest, happiest thing she had ever done in her hard and happy eleven years. At the close of his stirring appeal to all who felt themselves sinners in God's sight, Evangelist (he would always be Evangelist to Marjorie) requested any to rise who had this evening newly resolved to seek Christ until they found him. A little figure in a pew against the wall, arose quickly, after an undecided, prayerful moment, a little figure in a gray cloak and broad, gray velvet hat, but it was such a little figure, and the radiant face was hidden by such a broad hat, and the little figure dropped back into its seat so hurriedly, that, in looking over the church, neither the pastor nor the evangelist noticed it. Her heart gave one great jump when the pastor arose and remarked in a grieved and surprised tone: "I am sorry that there is not one among us, young or old, ready to seek our Saviour to-night."

The head under the gray hat drooped lower, the radiant face became for one instant sorrowful. As they were moving down the aisle an old lady, who had been seated next to Marjorie, whispered to her, "I'm sorry they didn't see you, dear."

"Never mind," said the bright voice, "God saw me."

Hollis saw her, also, and his heart smote him. This timid little girl had been braver than he. From the group of boys in the gallery he had looked down at her and wondered. But she was a girl, and girls did not mind doing such things as boys did; being good was a part of Marjorie's life, she wouldn't be Marjorie without it. There was a letter in his pocket from his uncle bidding him to come to the city without delay; he pushed through the crowd to find Marjorie, "it would be fun to see how sorry she would look," but her father had hurried her out and lifted her into the sleigh, and he saw the gray hat in the moonlight close to her father's shoulder.

As he was driving to the train the next afternoon, he jumped out and ran up to the door to say good-bye to her.

Marjorie opened the door, arrayed in a blue checked apron with fingers stained with peeling apples.

"Good-bye, I'm off," he shouted, resisting the impulse to catch her in his arms and kiss her.

"Good-bye, I'm so glad, and so sorry," she exclaimed with a shadowed face.

"I wish I had something to give you to remember me by," he said suddenly.

"I think you have given me lots of things."

"Come, Hol, don't stand there all day," expostulated his brother from the sleigh.

"Good-bye, then," said Hollis.

"Good-bye," said Marjorie. And then he was off and the bells were jingling down the road and she had not even cautioned him "Be a good boy." She wished she had had something to give him to remember her by; she had never done one thing to help him remember her and when he came back in years and years they would both be grown up and not know each other.

"Marjie, you are taking too thick peels," remonstrated her mother. For the next half hour she conscientiously refrained from thinking of any thing but the apples.

"Oh, Marjie," exclaimed Linnet, "peel one whole, be careful and don't break it, and throw it over your right shoulder and see what letter comes."

"Why?" asked Magorie, selecting a large, fair apple to peel.

"I'll tell you when it comes," answered Linnet, seriously.

With an intent face, and slow, careful fingers, Marjorie peeled the handsome apple without breaking the coils of the skin, then poised her hand and gave the shining, green rings a toss over her shoulder to the oilcloth.

"S! S! Oh! what a handsome S!" screamed Linnet.

"Well, what does it mean?" inquired Marjorie, interestedly.

"Oh, nothing, only you will marry a man whose name begins with S," said
Linnet, seriously.

"I don't believe I will!" returned Marjorie, contentedly. "Do you believe
I will, mother?"

Mrs. West was lifting a deliciously browned pumpkin pie from the oven, she set it carefully on the table beside Marjorie's yellow dish of quartered apples and then turned to the oven for its mate.

"Now cut one for me," urged Linnet gleefully.

"But I don't believe it," persisted Marjorie, picking among the apples in the basket at her feet; "you don't believe it yourself."

"I never knew it to come true," admitted Linnet, sagely, "but S is a common letter. There are more Smiths in the world than any one else. A woman went to an auction and bought a brass door plate with Smith on it because she had six daughters and was sure one of them would marry a Smith."

"And did one?" asked Maijorie, in her innocent voice. Linnet was sure her lungs were made of leather else she would have burst them every day laughing at foolish little Marjorie.

"The story ended there," said Linnet.

"Stories always leave off at interesting places," said Marjorie, guarding
Linnet's future with slow-moving fingers. "I hope mine won't."

"It will if you die in the middle of it," returned Linnet

Linnet was washing the baking dishes at the sink.

"No, it wouldn't, it would go on and be more interesting," said Marjorie, in her decided way; "but I do want to finish it all."

"Be careful, don't break mine," continued Linnet, as Marjorie gave the apple rings a toss. "There! you have!" she cried disappointedly. "You've spoiled my fortune, Marjie."

"Linnet! Linnet!" rebuked her mother, shutting the oven door, "I thought you were only playing. I wouldn't have let you go on if I had thought you would have taken it in earnest."

"I don't really," returned Linnet, with a vexed laugh, "but I did want to see what letter it would be."

"It's O," said Marjorie, turning to look over her shoulder.

"Rather a crooked one," conceded Linnet, "but it will have to do."

"Suppose you try a dozen times and they all come different," suggested practical Marjorie.

"That proves it's all nonsense," answered her mother.

"And suppose you don't marry anybody," Marjorie continued, spoiling Linnet's romance, "some letter, or something like a letter has to come, and then what of it?"

"Oh, it's only fun," explained Linnet.

"I don't want to know about my S" confessed Marjorie. "I'd rather wait and find out. I want my life to be like a story-book and have surprises in the next chapter."

"It's sure to have that," said her mother. "We mustn't try to find out what is hidden. We mustn't meddle with our lives, either. Hurry providence, as somebody says in a book."

"And we can't ask anybody but God," said Marjorie, "because nobody else knows. He could make any letter come that he wanted to."

"He will not tell us anything that way," returned her mother.

"I don't want him to," said Marjorie.

"Mother, I was in fun and you are making serious," cried Linnet with a distressed face.

"Not making it dreadful, only serious," smiled her mother.

"I don't see why the letter has to be about your husband," argued
Marjorie, "lots of things will happen to us first"

"But that is exciting," said Linnet, "and it is the most of things in story-books."

"I don't see why," continued Marjorie, unconvinced, turning an apple around in her fingers, "isn't the other part of the story worth anything?"

"Worth anything!" repeated Linnet, puzzled.

"Doesn't God care for the other part?" questioned the child. "I've got to have a good deal of the other part."

"So have all unmarried people," said her mother, smiling at the quaint gravity of Marjorie's eyes.

"Then I don't see why—" said Marjorie.

"Perhaps you will by and by," her mother replied, laughing, for Marjorie was looking as wise as an owl; "and now, please hurry with the apples, for they must bake before tea. Mr. Woodfern says he never ate baked apple sauce anywhere else."