Louis and Alice Ansted call on Claire. [p. 206]

INTERRUPTED

BY
PANSY
Author of "An Endless Chain," "Mrs. Solomon Smith Looking
On," "Christie's Christmas," "A Hedge Fence," "Ester
Ried Yet Speaking," "The Hall in the Grove,"
"Chautauqua Girls," "Ruth Erskine's
Crosses," "The Man of the House,"
etc., etc.

BOSTON
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY

Copyright, 1885,
by
D. Lothrop and Company.
————
All rights reserved.
PANSY
Trade-Mark Registered June 4, 1895.

CONTENTS.

INTERRUPTED.

CHAPTER I.
REACHING INTO TO-MORROW.

FROM the back parlor there came the sound of fresh young voices brimming with energy. Several voices at once, indeed, after the fashion of eager young ladies well acquainted with one another, and having important schemes to further. Occasionally there were bursts of laughter, indicating that freedom of speech and good fellowship reigned among the workers.

The committee, or the society, or the association, whatever it was, was breaking up, for the door was ajar, one young lady standing near it, her hand out as if to open it wider, preparatory to departure, while she waited to say another of the many last things. Others were drawing wraps about them, or donning furs and overshoes, and talking as they worked. Their voices, clear and brisk, sounded distinctly down the long hall.

"And about the Committee on Award; you will attend to that, Claire, will you not?"

"Oh, and what are we to do about Mrs. Stuart?"

"Why, Claire promised to see her. She is just the one to do it. Mrs. Stuart will do anything for her."

"And, Claire, you must be sure to see the Snyders before the judge starts on his Southern trip! If we don't get his positive promise, we may have trouble."

"Claire Benedict, you promised to help me with my Turkish costume, you know. I haven't the least idea how to get it up."

Then a younger voice:

"Miss Claire, you will drill me on my recitation, won't you? Mamma says you are just the one to show me how."

"And, oh! Claire, don't forget to see that ponderous Doctor Wheelock and get his subscription. It frightens me to think of going to him."

In the sitting-room opposite stood Claire's younger sister, Dora Benedict. She had just come in from the outer world, and with part of her wraps still gathered about her, stood watching the falling snow, and listening to the voices in the back parlor. At this point she spoke:

"Mamma, just hear the girls! They are heaping up the work on Claire, giving her the planning and the collecting and the drilling, and the greater portion of the programme to attend to, and she calmly agrees to do it all."

"Your sister has a great amount of executive ability, my dear, and is always to be depended on. Such people are sure to have plenty of burdens to carry."

Mrs. Benedict said this in a gently modulated, satisfied voice, and leaned back in her easy chair and smiled as she spoke. She delayed a stitch in her crimson tidy, while she listened a moment to the sound of Claire's voice, calmly and assuringly shouldering the burdens of work; promising here, offering there, until the listeners in the sitting-room were prepared to sympathize with the words spoken in the parlor in a relieved tone of voice:

"I declare, Claire Benedict, you are a host in yourself! What we should do without you is more than I can imagine."

"I should think as much!" This from the girl in the brown-plumed hat, who listened in the next room. "You couldn't do without her! that is just all there would be about it! Two thirds of your nice plans, for which you get so much credit, would fall through. Mamma, do you think Claire ought to attempt so much?"

"Well, I don't know," responded the gentle-faced woman thus appealed to, pausing again in her fancy work to consider the question. "Claire has remarkable talent, you know, in all these directions. She is a born organizer and leader, and the girls are willing to follow her lead. I don't know but she works too hard. It is difficult to avoid that, with so many people depending on her I don't myself see how they would manage without her. You know Doctor Ellis feels much the same. He was telling your father, only last night, that there was not another young lady in the church on whom he could depend as he did on her. Your father was amused at his earnestness. He said he should almost feel like giving up his pastorate here, if he should lose her. Claire is certainly a power in the church, and the society generally. I should feel sorry for them if they were to lose her."

The mother spoke this sentence quietly, with the unruffled look of peace and satisfaction on her face. No foreboding of loss came to her. She thought, it is true, of the barely possible time when her eldest daughter might go out from this home into some other, and have other cares and responsibilities, but the day seemed very remote. Claire was young, and was absorbed in her church and home work.

Apparently, even the suggestion of another home had not come to her. It might never come. She might live always in the dear home nest, sheltered, and sheltering, in her turn, others less favored. Or in the event of a change, some time in the future, it might be, possibly, just from one street in the same city to another, and much of the old life go on still; and in any event the mother could say "their loss," not mine; for the sense of possible separation had not come near enough to shadow the mother's heart as yet; she lived in the dreamland of belief that a married daughter would be as near to the mother and the home as an unmarried one. Therefore her face was placid, and she sewed her crimson threads and talked placidly of what might have been, but was not; the future looked secure and smiling.

"You see," she continued to the young and but half-satisfied daughter, "it is an unusual combination of things that makes your sister so important to this society. There are not many girls in it who have wealth and leisure, and the peculiar talents required for leadership. Run over the list in your mind, and you will notice that those who have plenty of time would not know what to do with it unless Claire were here to tell them, and those who have plenty of money would fritter it all away, without her to guide, and set a grand example for them."

"I am not questioning her ability, mamma," the daughter said, with a little laugh, "that is, her mental ability; but it seems to me they ought to remember that she has a body, as well as the others. Still, she will always work at something, I suppose; she is made in that mold. Mamma, what do you suppose Claire would do if she were poor?"

"I haven't the least idea, daughter. I hope she would do the best she could; but I think I feel grateful that there seems little probability of our discovering by experience."

"Still, one can never tell what may happen."

"Oh, no, that is true; I was speaking of probabilities."

Still the mother's face was placid. She called them probabilities, but when she thought of her husband's wealth and position in the mercantile world, they really seemed to her very much like certainties.

And now the little coterie in the back parlor broke up in earnest, and, exclaiming over the lateness of the hour, made haste into the snowy world outside.

Claire followed the last one to the door; a young and pretty girl, afraid of her own decided capabilities, unless kissed and petted by this stronger spirit into using them.

"You will be sure to do well, Alice dear, and remember I depend on you."

This was the last drop of dew for the frightened young flower, and it brightened visibly under it, and murmured:

"I will do my best; I don't want to disappoint you."

Then Claire came into the sitting-room, and dropped with an air of satisfied weariness into one of the luxurious chairs, and folded her hands to rest.

"Dora thinks you are carrying too much on your shoulders, dear." This from the fancy worker.

"Oh, no, mamma, my shoulders are strong. Everything is in fine train. I think our girls are really getting interested in missions now, as well as in having a good time, that is what I am after, you know, but some of them don't suspect it. Why didn't you come to the committee meeting, Dora?"

"I have but just come in from Strausser's, on that commission, you know, and I thought if I appeared, there would be so many questions to answer, and so much to explain, that the girls would not get away to-night."

"Oh, did you see Mr. Strausser? Well, what did he say?" And Claire sat erect, her weariness gone, and gave herself to work again.

The door bell rang, and she was presently summoned to the hall.

"One of your poor persons," was the servant's message.

There seemed to be a long story to tell, and Claire listened, and questioned, and commented, and rang the bell to give directions for a certain package from a certain closet to be brought, and sent Dora to her room for her pocket-book, and finally the "poor person" went away, her voice sounding cheered and grateful as she said inquiringly:

"Then you will be sure to come over to-morrow?"

Dora laughed, as Claire returned to the easy chair.

"How many things you are going to do to-morrow, Claire? I heard you promise the girls a dozen or so. And that reminds me that Doctor Ellis wants to know if you will look in to-morrow, and go with Mrs. Ellis to call on a new family, of whom he said he told you."

"I know," said Claire, "I was thinking about them this morning. I must try and go to-morrow. They are people who ought not to be neglected. Did he say at what hour? Oh, mamma, have you that broth ready for aunt Kate? I might go around there with it now: I shall not have time to-morrow, and I promised her I would come myself before the week closed."

Then the fast falling snow was discussed, and demurred over a little by mother and younger sister, and laughingly accepted by Claire as a pleasant accessory to a winter walk; and it ended, as things were apt to end in that family, in Claire having her own way, and sallying forth equipped for the storm, with her basket of comforts on her arm.

She looked back to Dora to say that mamma must not worry if she were detained, for she had promised to look in at Mr. Anstead's and make some arrangements for to-morrow's committee meeting; and to add that the papers in the library were to be left as they were, ready for to-morrow.

"It is the eventful day," she said, laughingly, "our work is to culminate then. We are to discover what the fruit of all this getting ready is; we are to have things just as they are to be, without a break or a pause."

"Perhaps," said Dora.

"Why do you say 'perhaps,' you naughty croaker? Do you dare to think that anything will be less than perfect after the weeks of labor we have given it?"

"How can I tell? Nothing is ever perfect. Did you never notice, Claire, that it is impossible to get through a single day just as one plans it?"

"I have noticed it," Claire answered, smiling, "but I did not know that your young head had taken it in."

"Ah, but I have. I plan occasionally, myself, but I am like Paul in one thing, any way, 'how to perform I find not.' It is worse on Saturday than any other day. I almost never do as I intended."

"I wouldn't quote Bible verses with a twisted meaning, if I were you, little girl. It is a dangerous habit; I know by experience. They so perfectly fit into life, that one is sorely tempted. But I am not often troubled in the way you mention; my plans generally come out all right. Possibly because I have studied them from several sides, and foreseen and provided for hindrances. There is a great deal in that. You see, to-morrow, if I don't get through with all the engagements laid out for it. I have studied them all, and there really can't anything happen to throw me very far off my programme."

There was an air of complacency about the speaker, and a satisfied smile on her face as she tripped briskly away. She was a skilful and successful general. Was there any harm in her realizing it?

Dora went back to the gentle mother.

"The house will be alive all day to-morrow, mamma. Claire has half a dozen committee meetings here at different hours, and a great rehearsal of all their exercises for the literary entertainment. There will be no place for quiet, well-behaved people like you and me. What do you suppose is the matter with me? I feel like a croaker. If Claire had not just scolded me for quoting the Bible to suit my moods, I should have said to her, 'Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.'"

Mrs. Benedict looked up searchingly into the face of her young daughter, who was so unlike her sister, who took life doubtfully, and bristled with interrogation points, and dreamed while the other worked, and leaned on Claire everywhere and always, even as she knew she did herself.

"Claire isn't boastful, dear, I think," she said gently. "It is right for her to rest in the brightness of the present and to trust to-morrow."

"Oh, she has planned to-morrow, mamma; there is nothing to trust about."

Then after a moment:

"Mamma, she is good and splendid, just as she always is, and I am cross."

Whereupon she sprang to meet her father, and before he had divested himself of his snowy great-coat, she had covered his bearded face with kisses and dropped some tears on his hands.

It was after family worship that evening, when the father stood with a daughter on either side of him, with an arm around each, that he rallied Dora on her tearful greeting.

"Dora is mercurial," her mother said. "Her birthday comes in April, and there is very apt to be a shower right in the midst of sunshine."

"She has studied too hard to-day," the father said, kissing her fondly. "After a good night's rest, the sunshine will get the better of the showers."

"They both need developing in exactly different ways," he said to the mother when they were left to themselves.

He looked after his two beautiful girls fondly as he spoke, but the last words they had heard from him were:

"Good-night, daughters! Get ready for a bright to-morrow. The storm is about over."

"The storm did not trouble me," said Claire. "Real work often gets on better in a storm; and I think we shall have a chance to try it. I think papa is mistaken; the sky says to me that we shall have a stormy day."

When "to-morrow" came, the sun shone brilliantly in a cloudless sky; but every shutter in the Benedict mansion was closed, and crape streamed from the doorknobs; and during all that memorable day neither daughter did one thing that had been planned for the day before.

CHAPTER II.
WHY?

JUST at midnight—that is, just at the dawning of the "to-morrow" for which so much had been planned—Claire was awakened by a quick, decisive knock at her door, followed by a voice which expressed haste and terror:

"Miss Claire, your mother wants you to come right away, and bring Miss Dora. Your father is sick."

And Claire was alert in an instant, wakening, soothing and helping the frightened Dora. She herself was not greatly alarmed. It is true, her father was not subject to sudden illnesses; but then, men were often sick, and very sick, too, while the attack lasted. She called to mind the story Nettie Stuart had told her that afternoon, how "papa was so ill the night before that they really thought he would die, and everybody in the house was up waiting on him." Yet "papa" had been at the bank that next day, looking nearly as well as usual. Had it been her frail mother who was ill, Claire felt that her pulses would have quickened more than they did now. Mamma did not seem strong enough to bear much pain, but papa was a man of iron frame, everybody said.

She told over some of these encouraging thoughts to Dora, while she helped her to dress:

"Don't tremble so, darling; there is nothing to be frightened about. Papa has one of his dreadful headaches, I presume, and mamma needs us to help care for him. You know she is not feeling so well as usual. She promised to call me the next time papa needed nursing. Men are so unused to suffering, that a pain is something terrible to them while it lasts."

They sped down the stairs together, Claire having slackened none of her speed because she believed there was no cause for alarm. Her hand was on her mother's doorknob, when the door swung open, and the mother's white face made her start back in affright.

"Where are they?" she said, in a strange, agonized voice, groping about with her hand as though she did not see distinctly, though the hall was brightly lighted. "O, children, children, you are too late! Oh, why"—and she fell senseless at their feet; and Claire was bending over her, lifting her in trembling arms, trying to speak soothing words, all the time wondering in a terror-stricken way what all this could mean! Too late for what?

They had to settle down to inevitable facts, as so many poor souls before, and since, have had to do. Of course, the first wildness of grief passed, and they realized but too well that the father who had kissed them and bade them look out for a bright to-morrow, had gone away, and taken all the brightness of the to-morrow with him. At first they could not believe it possible. Father dead! Why, his robust frame and splendid physique had been the remark of guests ever since they could remember! He had been fond of boasting that a physician had not been called for him in twenty years.

Well, the physician arrived too late on this particular night, when he had been called; another call had been louder, and the father went to answer to it. Well for him that he had long before made ready for this journey, and that there was nothing in the summons that would have alarmed him, had he been given time to have realized it.

The poor widow went over, again and again, the details of that awful hour:

"We had a little talk together, just as usual. Much of it was about you; that was natural, too; he talked a great deal about you, children; and on that evening, he said, after you left the room, that you both needed developing in different ways, and sometimes it troubled him to know how it was to be done. I did not understand him, and I asked what he meant. He said some things that I will try to tell you when my head is clearer. He was very earnest about it, and asked me to kneel down with him, and he prayed again for you, dear girls, and for me, a wonderful prayer. It wasn't like any that I ever heard before. Oh, I might have known then that it was to prepare me; but I didn't think of such a thing. I asked him if he felt well, and he said, oh, yes, only more tired than usual; it had been a hard day, and there were business matters that were not so smooth as he could wish. But he told me there was nothing to worry about; only affairs that would require careful handling, such as he meant to give them. Then he dropped to sleep, and I lay awake a little, thinking over what he had said about you two, and wondering if he was right in his conclusions. At last I slept, too, and I knew nothing more until his heavy breathing awakened me.

"I made all possible haste for lights, and sent for the doctor and for you just as soon as I could get an answer to the bell; and Thomas was quick, too, but it seemed an age. The moment I had a glimpse of your father's face, I knew something dreadful was the matter; but I did not think, even then, that he was going to leave me."

At this point the desolate wife would break into a storm of tears, and the daughters would give themselves to soothing words and tender kisses, and put aside as best they could the consuming desire to know what that dear father's last thoughts had been for them.

Well, the days passed. Isn't it curious how time moves along steadily, after the object for which we think time was made has slipped away?

This sudden death, however, had made an unusual break in the usual order of things. Mr. Benedict's name was too closely identified with all the business interests of the city, as well as with its moral and religious interests, not to have his departure from their midst make great differences, and be widely felt.

The few days following his death were days of general and spontaneous public demonstration. On the afternoon of the funeral, great warehouses were closed, because his name was identified with them; stores were closed, because crape waved from the doors of his, the largest in the line. The First National Bank was closed, for he was one of the Directors. The public schools were closed, because he had been prominent among their Board of Directors; and it was so that on every street some token of the power of the great man gone was shown.

As for the church, and the Sabbath-school, and the prayer-room, they were draped in mourning; but that feebly expressed the sense of loss.

"We cannot close our doors to show our sorrow," said Doctor Ellis, his lips tremulous; "we have need to throw them more widely open, and rally with renewed effort, for one of the mighty is fallen."

To the widow and her girls, there was, as the hours passed, a sort of sad pleasure in noting this universal mourning; in listening to the tearful words expressing a sense of personal loss, which came right from the hearts of so many men and women and children. They began to see that they had not half realized his power in the community, as young men in plain, sometimes rough dress, men whose names they had never heard, and whose faces they had never seen, came and stood over the coffin, and dropped great tears as they told in the brief and subdued language of the heart, of some lift, or word, or touch of kindness, that this man had given them, just when they needed it most.

Born of these tender and grateful tributes from all classes, was a drop of bitterness that seemed to spread as Claire turned it over in her troubled heart. It could all be suggested to those familiar with the intricacies of the human heart, by that one little word, Why? It sometimes becomes an awful word, with power to torture the torn heart almost to madness. "Why was father, a man so good, so true, so grand, so sadly needed in this wicked world, snatched from it just in the prime of his power?" She brooded over this in silence and in secret—not wishing to burden her mother's heart by the query, not liking to add a suggestion of bitterness to Dora's sorrowful cup. Only once, when a fresh exhibition of his care for others, and the fruit it bore, was unexpectedly made to them, she was betrayed into exclaiming:

"I cannot understand why it was!"

Whether the mother understood her or not, she did not know. She hoped not; she was sorry she had spoken. But presently the mother roused herself to say gently:

"You girls were on your father's heart in a strange way. That last talk about you I must try to tell you of, when I can. The substance of it I have told you. He thought you both needed developing. Dora dear, he said you needed more self-reliance; that you had too many props, and depended on them. He might have said the same of me; I depended on him more than I knew. He said you needed to be thrust out a little, and learn to stand alone, and brave winds and storms. And Claire, I don't think I fully understood what he wanted for you, only he said that you needed to trust less to your own self, and lean on Christ."

After this word from her father, Claire sat in startled silence for a few minutes, then took it to her room.

Did you ever notice that the storms of life seem almost never to come in detached waves, but follow each other in rapid succession?

When the Benedict family parted for the night, less than a week after the father had been laid in the grave, Dora said listlessly to her sister:

"There is one little alleviation, I think, to a heavy blow—for a while, at least, nothing else seems heavy. Things that troubled me last week seem so utterly foolish to-day. I don't this evening seem to care for anything that could happen to us now; to us three, I mean."

Before noon of the next day she thought of that sentence again with a sort of dull surprise at her own folly.

How do such things occur? I can not tell. Yet how many times in your life have you personally known of them—families who are millionnaires to-day, and beggars to-morrow? It was just that sort of blow which came to the Benedicts. Came, indeed, because of the other one, and followed hard after it. Business men tried to explain matters to the widow. A peculiar complication of circumstances existed, which called for her husband's clear brain and wise handling. Had he lived, all would have been well; there was scarcely a doubt of it. Had he been able to give one week more to business, he would have shaped everything to his mind; but the call came just at the moment when he could least be spared, and financial ruin had followed.

Mrs. Benedict, in her widow's cap, with her plaintive white face, her delicate, trembling hands working nervously in her lap, from which the crimson fancy work was gone, tried to understand the bewilderments which, one after another, were presented to her, and grew less and less able to take in the meaning of the great words, and at last raised herself from her easy chair, looked round pitifully for Claire, and sank back among the cushions—her face, if possible, whiter than before.

The elder daughter came swiftly forward from her obscurity in the back parlor, and stood beside her mother.

"I beg pardon, gentlemen, but mamma does not understand business terms; my father never burdened her with them. Will you let me ask you a few plain questions? Is my father's money all gone?"

The gentlemen looked from one to another, and hesitated. At last the lawyer among them said he feared—that is, it was believed—it seemed to be almost certain that when all the business was settled, there would be a mere pittance left.

The next question caused two red spots to glow on Claire's cheeks, but she held her head erect, and her voice was steady:

"And do they—does anybody think that my father did wrong in any way?"

"Mamma," with a tender, apologetic glance at her, "people say such things sometimes, you know, when they do not understand."

But the gentlemen could be voluble now:

"Oh, no! no, indeed! not a breath of suspicion attached to his name. His intentions were as clear as the sunlight, and the fact was, he had periled his own fortune in a dangerous time, to help others who were in straits, and he had been called to leave it at a dangerous time, and disaster has followed."

One question more:

"Will others be sufferers through this disaster?"

The answer was not so ready. The gentlemen seemed to find it necessary to look again at one another. They, however, finally admitted, to each other, that there was property enough to cover everybody's loss, if that were the wish of the family; this, without any doubt, but there would be almost nothing left.

"Very well," Claire said, "then we can bear it. We thank you, gentlemen, and you may be sure of this one thing—that no person shall lose a penny through our father's loss, if we can help it. Now, may I ask you to leave further particulars until another time? Mamma has borne as much as she can to-day."

And the gentlemen, as they went down the steps of the great brownstone front, said to each other that Benedict had left a splendid girl, with self-reliance enough to manage for herself and take care of the family.

Yet I suppose there had never been a time when Claire Benedict felt more as though all the powers which had hitherto sustained her, were about to desert, and leave her helpless, than she did when she controlled her own dismay, and helped her mother to bed, and sat beside her, and bathed her head, and steadily refused to talk, or to hear her mother talk, about this new calamity, but literally hushed her into quiet and to sleep.

Then, indeed, she took time to cry, as few girls cry; as Claire Benedict had never cried before in her life.

Her self-reliance seemed gone. As the passion of her voiceless grief swayed and fairly frightened her, there stole suddenly into her heart the memory of the last message: "Claire needs to trust less to herself, and lean on Christ."

CHAPTER III.
OUT IN THE WORLD.

I AM not sure that I would, even if I could, give you a detailed account of the days which followed.

What is the use of trying to live pain over again on paper? Yet some people need practice of this sort to enable them to have any idea of the sorrows of other hearts.

I wonder if you ever went through a large, elegantly furnished house, from room to room, and dismantled it? Packing away this thing as far as possible from curious eyes, soiling the velvet, or the satin, or the gilding of it, perhaps, with bitter tears while you worked; marking that thing with a ticket containing two words which had become hateful to you, "For sale;" hiding away some special treasure in haste, lest the unexpected sight of it might break a heart that was just now bearing all it could. Has such experience ever been yours? Then you know all about it, and can in imagination follow Claire Benedict from attic to basement of her father's house; and no words of mine can make the picture plainer. If it is something you have never experienced, or even remotely touched, you may think you are sympathetic, and you may gravely try to be, but nothing that printed words can say will be apt to help you much in realizing the bitterness of such hours.

Isn't it a blessed thing that it is so? Suppose we actually bore on our hearts the individual griefs of the world? How long would our poor bodies be in breaking under the strain? "He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." It took the Infinite to do this.

Through all the miseries of the two weeks during which the process of dismantling went on, Claire Benedict sustained her character for self-reliance and systematic energy. She stood between her mother and the world. She interviewed carmen, and porters, and auctioneers, and talked calmly about the prices of things, the thought of selling which made her flesh fairly quiver.

She superintended the moving of heavy furniture, and the packing of delicate glasses and vases, after they had been chosen from the home treasures at private sale.

She discussed with possible purchasers the value of this or that carpet, and calculated back to see how long it had been in use, when the very bringing of it into the home had marked an anniversary which made her cheek pale and her breath come hard as she tried to speak the date.

There were some who tried to shield her from some of these bitter experiences. There were kind offers of assistance; made, it is true, in the main, by those who were willing, but incompetent; but Claire was in the mood to decline all the help she could. Do her best, there was still so much help actually required, that it made her blush to think of it.

"There are a hundred things they want to know," she would explain to those who begged her not to tear her heart and wear her strength by walking through the rooms with those who had come to purchase, possibly, certainly to see, and to ask. "There are a hundred things they want to know that only mamma or I can tell them. It shall never be mamma, and I would rather face them and wait on them alone, than to creep out at call, like an ashamed creature, to answer their demands. There is nothing wicked about it, and I ought to be able to bear what others have had to."

Nevertheless, it was cruel work. She knew when the two weeks of private sale were over, and she stood battered and bruised in soul, over the forlorn wrecks of the ruined home, that she had not understood before what a strain it was to be. She had almost borne it alone. It was true, as she had said, that it must be either mamma or herself. Those who in all loving tenderness had tried to help, realized this after the first day. "I don't know, really; I will ask Miss Benedict," was the most frequent answer to the endless questions. Dora's pitiful attempts to help bear the burden seemed to give her sister more pain than anything else. And one day, when to the persistent questioning of a woman in a cotton velvet sack, about the first value of a Persian rug of peculiar pattern and coloring, Dora dropped down on a hassock in a burst of tears, and sobbed: "Oh, I don't know how much it cost; but I know papa brought it when he came from Europe the day I was fourteen. Oh, papa, papa, what shall I do!" Claire came from the next room, calm, pale, cold as a statue, just a swift touch of tenderness for Dora as she stooped over her, saying—

"Run away, darling, I will attend to this," then she was ready to discuss the merits, possible and probable, of the Persian rug, or of anything else in the room. When the woman in the sham velvet bunglingly attempted to explain that she did not mean to hurt poor Dora's feelings, she was answered quietly, even gently, that no harm had been done, that Dora was but a child. When the woman was gone, without the Persian rug—the price having been too great for her purse—Claire went swiftly to the sobbing Dora, and extracted a promise from her that she would never, no, never, attempt to enter one of the public rooms again during those hateful two weeks, and she kept her promise.

The next thing, now that the private sale had closed, and Claire could be off guard, was house-hunting. Not in the style of some of her acquaintances, with whom she had explored certain handsome rows of houses "for rent," feeling secretly very sorry for them that they had to submit to the humiliation of living in rented houses and be occasionally subject to the miseries of moving. Claire Benedict had never moved but once, which was when her father changed from his handsome house on one avenue to his far handsomer one on a grander avenue, which experience was full of delight to the energetic young girl. Very different was this moving to be. She was not looking for a house; she was not even looking for a handsome half of a double house, which wore the air of belonging to one family; nor could she even honestly say she was looking for a "flat," because they must, if possible, get along with even less room than this. To so low an estate had they fallen in an hour!

You do not want me to linger over the story, nor try to give you any of the shuddering details. The rooms were found and rented, Claire adding another drop to her bitter cup by seeking out Judge Symonds as her security. They were moved into; not until they had been carefully cleaned and brightened to the best of the determined young girl's ability. Two carpets had been saved from the wreck for mother's room and the general sitting-room; and a pitiful, not to say painful, effort had been made to throw something like an air of elegance around "mamma's room." She recognized it the moment she looked on it, with lips that quivered, but with a face that bravely smiled as she said: "Daughter, you have done wonders." She wanted, instead, to cry out: "Woe is me! What shall I do?"

This little mother, used to sheltering hands, had been a constant and tender lesson to Claire all through the days.

She had not broken down, and lain down and died, as at first Claire had feared she would; neither had she wept and moaned as one who would not be comforted. She had leaned on Claire, it is true, but not in a way that seemed like an added burden; it was rather a balm to the sore heart to have "mamma" gently turn to her for a decisive word, and depend on her advice somewhat as she had depended on the father.

It had not been difficult to get a promise from her to have nothing to do with the dreadful sales. "No, dear," she had said quietly, when Claire made her plea, "I will not try to help in that direction; I know that I should hinder rather than help. You can do it all, much better than I. You are like your father, my child; he always took the hard things, so that I did not learn how."

The very work with which the mother quietly occupied herself was pathetic. It had been their pleasure to see her fair hands busy with the bright wools, and silks and velvets of fancy work, such as the restless young schoolgirl was too nervous to care for, and the energetic elder daughter was too busy to find time for. It had been their pride to point to many delicate pieces of cunning workmanship, and say they were "mamma's."

"So different from most other mothers," Dora would say, fondly and proudly.

But on the morning that the sale commenced, the mother had gone over all the wools, and silks, and canvas, and packed them away with that unfinished piece of crimson; and thereafter, her needle, though busy, took the stitches that the discharged seamstress had been wont to take. Claire found her one day patiently darning a rent in a fast breaking tablecloth, which had been consigned by the housekeeper to the drawer for old linen. Scarcely anything in the history of the long, weary day touched Claire so much as this.

Such power have the little things to sting us! Some way we make ourselves proof against the larger ones.

There had been very little about the experiences of these trying weeks that had to be brought before the family for discussion. They were spared the pain of argument. There had not been two minds about the matter for a moment. Everything must go; the creditors must be satisfied to the uttermost farthing, if possible. That, as a matter of course. Never mind what the law allowed them. They knew nothing about the law, cared nothing for it; they would even have given up their keepsakes and their very dresses, had there been need, and they could have found purchasers.

But there had been no need. Disastrous as the failure had been, it was found that there was unincumbered property enough to pay every creditor and have more furniture left than they knew what to do with, besides a sum of money; so small, indeed, that at first poor Claire, unused to calculating on such a small scale, had curled her lip in very scorn, and thought that it might as well have gone with the rest.

There came a day when they were settled in those ridiculously small rooms, with every corner and cranny in immaculate order, and had reached the disastrous moment when they might fold their hands and do nothing. Alas for Claire! If there was one thing that she had always hated, it was to do nothing. She was almost glad that it was not possible for her to do this. The absurd little sum set to their credit in the First National Bank, of which her father had for so many years been a part, would barely suffice to pay the ridiculously small rent of these wretched rooms and provide her mother with food and clothing. She must support herself. She must do more than that: Dora must be kept in school. But how was all this to be done?

The old question! She had puzzled over it a hundred times for some poor woman on her list. She thought of them now only with shivers. Executive ability? Dear! yes, she had always been admired for having it.

But it is one thing to execute, when you have but to put your hand in your pocket for the money that is needed for carrying out your designs; or, if there chance not to be enough therein, trip lightly up the great, granite steps of the all-powerful bank, ask to see "papa" a minute, and come out replenished. It was quite another thing when neither pocket nor bank had aught for her, and the first snows of winter were falling on the father's grave.

She had one talent, marked and cultivated to an unusual degree. She had thought of it several times with a little feeling of assurance. Everybody knew that her musical education had been thorough in the extreme, and that her voice was wonderful.

She had been told by her teachers many a time that a fortune lay locked up in it. Now was the time for the fortune to come forth. She must teach music; she must secure a position in which to sing on a salary. Claire Benedict of two months ago had been given to curling her lip just a little over the thought that Christian young men and women had to be paid for contributing with their voices to the worship of God on the Sabbath day. The Claire Benedict of to-day, with that great gulf of experience between her and her yesterday, said, with a sob, that she would never sneer again at any honest thing which women did to earn their living. She herself would become a salaried singer.

Yes, but how bring it to pass? Did you ever notice how strangely the avenues for employment which have been just at your side seem to close when there is need? More than once had representatives of fashionable churches said wistfully to Claire: "If we could only have your voice in our choir!" Now, a little exertion on her part served to discover to her the surprising fact that there were no vacancies among the churches where salaried singers were in demand.

Yes, there was one, and they sought her out. The offered salary would have been a small fortune to her in her present need; but she could not worship in that church; she would not sing the praises of God merely for money.

There was earnest urging, but she was firm. There was a specious hint that true worship could be offered anywhere, but Claire replied:

"But your hymns ignore the doctrine on which I rest my hope for this life and for the future."

It was a comfort to her to remember that when she mentioned the offer to her mother and sister, and said that she could not accept it, her mother had replied, promptly: "Of course not, daughter." And even Dora, who was at the questioning age, inclined to toss her head a little bit at isms and creeds, and hint at the need for liberal views and a broader platform, said: "What an idea! I should have supposed that they would have known better."

But it was the only church that offered. Neither did Claire blame them. It was honest truth; there was no opening. A year ago—six months ago—why, even two months ago, golden opportunities would have awaited her; but just now every vacancy was satisfactorily filled. Why should those giving satisfaction, and needing the money, be discharged, to make room for her who needed it no less? Claire was no weak, unreasoning girl who desired any such thing.

As for two months ago, at that time the thought of the possibility of ever being willing to fill such a place had not occurred to her.

CHAPTER IV.
AN OPEN DOOR.

WELL, surely there was a chance to teach music to private pupils? No, if you will credit it, there was not even such a chance! There was less reasonable explanation for this closed door than the other. Surely, in the great city, full of would-be musicians, she might have found a corner! Doubtless she would have done so in time, but it amazed her as the days went by, and one by one the pupils on whom she had counted with almost certainty were found to have excellent reasons why they ought to remain with their present teacher, or why they ought not to take up music for the present.

In some cases the dilemma was real and the excuse good. In others it was born simply of fear. Oh, yes, they knew that Miss Benedict was a brilliant player, there was not her equal in the city; and as for her voice, it was simply superb; but then it did not follow that a fine musician was a fine teacher. She had not been educated for a teacher; that had been the farthest removed from her intention until necessity forced it upon her. It stood to reason that a girl who had been brought up in luxury, and had cultivated her musical talent as a passion, merely for her own pleasure, should know nothing about the principles of teaching, and have little patience with the drudgery of it. They had always been warned against broken-down ladies as teachers of anything.

There was a great deal of this feeling; and Claire, as she began to realize it more, was kept from bitterness because of the honesty of her nature. She could see that there was truth in these conclusions; and while she knew that she could give their children such teaching as the parents might have been glad to get, at any price, she admitted that they could not know this as she did, and were not to blame for caution.

She was kept from bitterness by one other experience.

There came to see her one evening, a woman who had done plain sewing for her in the days gone by; whom she had paid liberally and for whom she had interested herself to secure better paid labor than she had found her doing. This woman, with a certain confused air, as of one asking a favor, had come to say that she would take it as a great thing, if her Fanny could get into Miss Benedict's music class.

Miss Benedict explained kindly that she had no music class, but if she should form one in the city, it would give her pleasure to count Fanny as one of her pupils, and the mother could pay for it, if she wished, in doing a little sewing for them some time, when they should have sewing again to do. The sentence ended with a sigh. But the caller's embarrassment increased. She even forgot to thank the lady for her gracious intention, and looked down at her somewhat faded shawl, and twisted the fringe of it, and blushed, and tried to stammer out something. Claire began to suspect that this was but a small part of her errand, and to be roused to sympathy. Was there anything else she could do for her in any way, she questioned.

No! oh, no! there was nothing, only would she—would it not be possible to start a class with her Fanny, and let her pay, not in sewing, but in money, and the full value of the lessons, too; and here the woman stopped twisting the fringe of her shawl, and looked up with womanly dignity. She was doing better, she said; a great deal better than when Miss Benedict first sought her out. Thanks to her, she had plenty of sewing, as much as she could do, and of a good, paying kind; and she had thought—and here the shawl fringe was twisted again—that is, she had supposed or imagined—well, the long and short of it was, sometimes all that things wanted was a beginning, and she thought maybe if Miss Benedict could be so kind as to begin with Fanny, others would come in, and a good class get started before she knew it.

There was a suspicious quiver of Claire's chin as she listened to this, but her voice was clear and very gentle as she spoke:

"Tell me frankly, Mrs. Jones, do you think Fanny has a decided talent for music, which ought to be cultivated? I don't know the child, I think. Is she a singer?"

Then Mrs. Jones, all unused to subterfuge, and at home in the realm of frankness, was betrayed at once into admitting that she had never thought of such a thing as Fanny taking music lessons. No, she didn't sing: at least, not but very little, and she never said much about music; what she wanted was to learn to draw, but she, Mrs. Jones, had thought, as she said—and maybe it was presumption in her to think so—that what most things needed was to get started. No sooner did she get started in another kind of sewing, and among another kind of customers, than work poured in on her faster than she could do, and she thought Fanny would do maybe to start on. Long before the conclusion of this sentence the shawl fringe was suffering again.

Claire rose from her seat, and went over and stood before Mrs. Jones, her voice still clear and controlled:

"I thank you, Mrs. Jones, for your kind thought. So far from being presumptuous, it was worthy of your warm heart and unselfish nature. I shall not forget it, and it has done me good. But if I were you, I would not have Fanny take music lessons, and I would, if I could, give her drawing lessons. I remember, now, your telling me that she was always marking up her books with little bits of pictures. She probably has a good deal of talent in this direction, and not for music; I would cultivate her talents in the line in which they lie. Miss Parkhurst has a drawing-class just commencing. She is not very far from your corner, on Clark street. I hope Fanny can go to her, and if it would be any convenience to you to pay the bills in sewing, I am quite certain that Miss Parkhurst would be glad to do it. She was speaking about some work of the kind only yesterday, and I recommended you to her as one whom she could trust."

So they dropped once more into their natural characters, Claire the suggester and helper, and Mrs. Jones the grateful recipient. She went away thanked and comforted, and convinced that Fanny ought to have a chance at drawing, since Miss Benedict thought she had a talent.

As for Claire, she went back to her mother with two bright spots glowing on her cheeks, and knelt down beside her chair, and said:

"Mamma, I have just had the most delicate little bit of thoughtfulness shown me that I ever received from the world outside, and I'll tell you one thing it has settled; I mean to accept the first opening, from whatever source, that will take me away from the city. I am almost sure there is no work for me in this city."

Yet you are not to suppose that the great world of friends who had been glad of their recognition forgot them or ignored them. Much less are you to suppose that the great church—of which Mr. Benedict was such a prominent part that the projected entertainment for which the young people had been so nearly ready, missionary though it was, was indefinitely postponed when he died—forgot them or grew cold. Whatever the world may do, or whatever solitary individuals in the church may do under financial ruins, the great heart of the true church beats away for its own. And bravely they rallied around the widow, and heartily they tried to be helpful, and were helpful, indeed, so far as warm words and earnest efforts were concerned.

But they could not make vacancies for Claire in the line in which her talents fitted her to work. They could not make a strong woman of the mother, able to shoulder burdens such as are always waiting for strong shoulders. They could and would have supported them. For a time, at least, this would have been done joyfully; they longed to do it. They offered help in all possible delicate ways. The trouble was, this family would have none of it. Grateful?—oh, yes, but persistent in gently declining that which was not an absolute necessity.

In the very nature of things, as the days passed, they would be in a sense forgotten. Claire saw this, and the mother saw it. The rooms they had taken were very far removed from the old church and the old home and the old circle of friends. It consumed hours of the day to make the journey back and forth. Of course, it could not be made often, nor by many. Of course, the gaps which their changes had made would be filled in time; it was not reasonable to expect otherwise. Nobody expected it, but it was very bitter.

And the very first open door that Claire saw was an opportunity to teach music in a little unpretentious academy, in a little unpretentious town, away back among the hills, two hundred miles from the city that had always been her home.

It took talking—much of it—to reconcile the mother and sister to the thought of a separation. Through all their changes this one had not been suggested to their minds. They had expected, as a matter of course, to keep together. But necessity is a wonderful logician. The bank account was alarmingly small, and growing daily smaller. Even the unpractical mother and sister could see this. Something must be done, and here was the open door. Why not enter it at once, instead of waiting in idleness and suspense through the winter for something better? Thus argued Claire: "It will not be very easy to leave you, mamma, as you may well imagine," and here the sensitive chin would quiver, "but I should feel safe in doing so, for these ugly rooms are really very conveniently arranged, and Dora would learn to look after everything that Molly could not do by giving two days of work in a week. I have made positive arrangements with her for two days, and she depends upon it; you must not disappoint her. And, mamma, I have thought of what papa said about us," here the low voice took on a tone of peculiar tenderness, "perhaps Dora will learn self-reliance if she is left to shield and care for you; it will be a powerful motive. You know she leans on me now, naturally."

This was Claire's strongest argument, and, together with the argument of necessity, prevailed.

Barely four weeks from the "to-morrow" which had contained her last bright plans, she was installed as music teacher in the plain little academy building situated in South Plains.

And now I know that I need not even attempt to describe the sinking of heart with which she moved down the shabby narrow aisle, and seated herself in the uncushioned pew of the shabby little church on that first Sabbath morning.

Uncushioned! that was by no means the worst of the pew's failings. The back was at least four inches lower than it ought to have been, even for so slight a form as Claire's, and was finished with a moulding that projected enough to form a decided ridge. Of course, for purpose of support, the thing was a failure, and, as to appearance, nothing more awkward in the line of sittings could be imagined.

Fairly seated in this comfortless spot, the homesick girl looked about her to take in her dreary surroundings. Bare floors, not over clean, the most offensive looking faded red curtains flapping disconsolately against the old-fashioned, small-paned soiled windows; a platform, whose attempts at carpeting represented a large-patterned, soiled ingrain rag, whose colors, once much too bright for the place, had faded into disreputable ghosts of their former selves. The whole effect seemed to Claire by far more dreary than the bare floor of the aisles. A plain, square, four-legged table, that had not even been dusted lately, did duty as a pulpit desk, and a plain, wooden-backed, wooden-seated chair stood behind it. These were the sole attempts at furnishing. The walls of this desolate sanctuary seemed begrimed with the smoke of ages; they were festooned with cobwebs, these furnishing the only attempts at hiding the unsightly cracks. The few dreary-looking kerosene lamps disposed about the room gave the same evidence of neglect in their sadly smoked chimneys and general air of discouragement. However, had Claire but known it, she had cause for gratitude over the fact that they were not lighted, for they could prove their unfitness for the place they occupied in a much more offensive way.

Such, then, in brief, was the scene that greeted her sad eyes that morning. How utterly homesick and disheartened she was! It was all so different from the surroundings to which she had all her life been accustomed! She closed her eyes to hide the rush of tears, and to think, foolish girl that she was, of that other church miles and miles away. She could seem to see familiar forms gliding at this moment down the aisles, whose rich carpets gave back no sound of footfall. How soft and clear the colors of that carpet were! A suggestion of the delicately carpeted woods, and the shimmer of sunlight on a summer day toward the sun setting. She had helped to select that carpet herself, and she knew that she had an artist's eye for colors and for harmony. It was not an extravagantly elegant church—as city churches rank—that one to which her heart went back, but just one of those exquisitely finished buildings where every bit of color and carving and design which meet the cultured eye, rests and satisfies. Where the law of harmony touches the delicately frescoed ceiling, reaches down to the luxuriously upholstered pews, finds its home in the trailing vines of the carpet, and breathes out in the roll of the deep-toned organ.

It was in such a church, down such a broad and friendly aisle, that Claire Benedict had been wont to follow her father and mother on Sabbath mornings, keeping step to the melody which seemed to steal of itself from the organ, and fill the lofty room. Can you imagine something of the contrast?

CHAPTER V.
TRYING TO ENDURE.

OF course there were other contrasts than those suggested by the two churches which persisted in presenting themselves to this lonely girl.

How could she help remembering that in the old home she had been Sidney Benedict's daughter? A fact which of itself gave her place and power in all the doings of the sanctuary. Alas for the changes that a few brief months can make!

Sidney Benedict lying in his grave, and his daughter an obscure music-teacher in an obscure boarding and day school; an object to be stared at, and pointed out by the villagers as the new teacher.

But for another contrast, which from some divine source stole over her just then, the hot tears which burned her eyes would surely have fallen. Sidney Benedict was not sleeping in the grave; that was only the house of clay in which he had lived. She knew, and suddenly remembered it with a thrill, that his freed soul was in Heaven. What did that mean? she wondered. In vain her imagination tried to paint the contrast. There had been times since his going when she had longed with all the passion of her intense nature to know by actual experience just what Heaven is. But these were cowardly moments. Generally, she had been able to feel thankful that she was here to help mamma and Dora. She remembered this now, along with the memory of her father's joy, and it helped her to choke back the tears, and struggle bravely with her homesickness.

Meantime, it was hard for her to forget that she was the observed of all observers. But she did not half understand why this was so. She could not know what a rare bit of beauty she looked in the dingy church; almost like a ray of brightness astray from another world.

From her standpoint, her dress was simplicity itself; and she had not lived long enough in this outer circle of society to understand that there are different degrees of simplicity, as well as different opinions concerning the meaning of the word.

Her black silk dress was very plainly made, and her seal sacque had been so long worn, that Claire, the millionnaire's daughter, had remarked only last winter that it had served its time and must be supplanted by a new one; the present Claire, of course, did not think of such a thing, but meekly accepted it as part of her cross!

Her plain black velvet hat had no other trimming than the long plume which swept all around it, and had been worn the winter before. How could she be expected to have any conception of the effect of her toilet on the country people by whom she was surrounded. Her world had been so far removed from theirs, that had one told her that to them she seemed dressed like a princess, she would have been bewildered and incredulous.

Her dress was very far from suiting herself. Her mood had been to envelop herself in heaviest black, and shroud her face from curious gaze behind folds of crape. The only reason she had not done so, had been because the strict sense of honor which governed the fallen family would not allow them to add thus heavily to their expenses. Indeed, to have dressed in such mourning as would have alone appeared suitable to them, would have been impossible. The mother had not seemed to feel this much. "It doesn't matter, children," she had said gently; "they know we miss papa; we have no need of crape to help us tell that story, and for ourselves it would not make our sorrow any less heavy." But the girls had shrunk painfully from curious eyes and conjectured curious remarks, and had shed tears in secret over even this phase of the trouble.

The bell whose sharp clang was a continued trial to her cultured ears, ceased its twanging at last, and then it was the wheezy little cabinet organ's turn; and, indeed, those who do not know the capabilities for torture that some of those instruments have, are fortunate. Claire Benedict set her teeth firmly. This was an hundred degrees more painful than the bell, for the name of this was music. How could any person be so depraved in taste as to believe it other than a misnomer!

While the choir of seven voices roared through the hymn, Claire shut her eyes, grasped her hymn-book tightly with both hands, set her lips, and endured. What a tremendous bass it was! How fearfully the leading soprano "sang through her nose," in common parlance, though almost everybody understands that we mean precisely opposite! How horribly the tenor flatted, and how entirely did the alto lose the key more than once during the infliction of those six verses!

The hymn was an old one, a favorite with Claire, as it had been with her father; but as that choir shrieked out the familiar words—

I love her gates, I love the road,
The church adorned with grace,
Stands like a palace built for God,
To show his milder face,

it seemed hardly possible for one reared as she had been, to turn from her surroundings and lose herself in the deep spiritual meaning intended. Nay, when the line,

Stands like a palace built for God,

was triumphantly hurled at her through those discordant voices, she could hardly keep her sad lips from curling into a sarcastic smile, as she thought of the cracked and smoky walls, the dreadful curtains, the dust and disorder.

"A palace built for God!" her heart said in disdain, almost in disgust. "It isn't a decent stopping-place for a respectable man."

Then her momentary inclination to smile yielded to genuine indignation. What possible excuse could be offered for such a state of things? Why did respectable people permit such a disgrace? She had seen at least the outside of several of the homes in South Plains, and nothing like the disorder and desolation which reigned here, was permitted about those homes. How could Christian people think they were honoring God by meeting for his worship in a place that would have made the worst housekeeper among them blush for shame had it been her own home.

Indignation helped her through the hymn, and with bowed head and throbbing heart, she tried, during the prayer, to come into accord with the spirit of worship.

But the whole service was one to be remembered as connected with a weary and nearly fruitless struggle with wayward thoughts. What was the burden of the sermon? She tried in vain afterwards to recall it.

A series of well-meant and poorly expressed platitudes. "Nothing wrong about it," thought poor Claire, "except the sin of calling it the gospel, and reading it off to these sleepy people as though he really thought it might do them some good!"

Indeed, the minister was almost sleepy himself, or else utterly discouraged. Claire tried to rouse herself to a little interest in him, to wonder whether he were a down-hearted, disappointed man. His coat was seedy, his collar limp and his cuffs frayed at the edges.

Yes, these were actually some of the things she thought while he said his sermon over to them!

She brought her thoughts with sharp reprimand back to the work of the hour, but they roved again almost as quickly as recalled. At last she gave over the struggle, and set herself to the dangerous work of wondering what Doctor Ellis was saying this morning in the dear old pulpit; whether mamma and Dora missed him as much as she did; whether he looked over occasionally to their vacant seat and missed all the absent ones, papa most of all. But the seat was not vacant, probably; already somebody sat at the head of the pew in papa's place, and somebody's daughters, or sisters, or friends, had her place, and mamma's and Dora's. The niches were filled, doubtless, and the work of the church was going on just the same, and it was only they who were left out in the cold, their hearts bleeding over a gap that would never be filled. Dangerous thoughts, these!

One little strain in another key came in again to help her: Papa was not left out; he had gone up higher. What was the old church to him now that he had entered into the church triumphant? He might love it still, but there must be a little pity mingled with the love, and a wistful looking forward to the time when they would all reach to his height, and at that time, mamma and Dora and she would not be left out.

If this mood had but lasted, it would have been well; but her undisciplined heart was too much for her, and constantly she wandered back to the thoughts which made the sense of desolation roll over her.

She was glad when at last the dreary service was concluded, and she could rush away from the dreary church to the privacy of her small, plain room in the academy, and throw herself on the bed, and indulge to the utmost the passionate burst of sorrow.

The tears spent their first force soon, but they left their victim almost sullen. She allowed herself to go over, in imagination, the Sundays which were to come, and pictured all their unutterable dreariness.

Did I tell you about the rusty stoves, whose rusty and cobwebby pipes seemed to wander at their own erratic will about that church? It was curious how poor Claire's excited brain fastened upon those stovepipes as the drop too much in her accumulation of horrors. It seemed to her that she could not endure to sit under them, no, not for another Sabbath; and here was a long winter and spring stretching out before her! She was not even to go home for the spring vacation; her poor, ruined purse would not admit of any such extravagance. It would be almost midsummer before she could hope to see mamma and Dora again. And in the meantime, how many Sundays there were! She vexed herself trying to make out the exact number and their exact dates.

This mood, miserable as it was, possessed her all the afternoon. It seemed not possible to get away from it. She crept forlornly from her bed presently, because of the necessity of seeing to her expiring fire. She was shivering with the cold; but as she struggled with the damp wood, trying to blow the perverse smoke into a flame, she went on with her indignant, not to say defiant thoughts. She went back again to that dreadful church, and the fires in those neglected stoves.

She determined resolutely that her hours spent in that building should be as few as possible. Of course, she must attend the morning service; but nothing could induce her to spend her evenings there.

"I might much better sit in my room and read my Bible, and write good Sunday letters to mamma and Dora," she told herself, grimly, as the spiteful smoke suddenly changed its course and puffed in her face. "At least, I shall not go to church. I don't belong to that church, I am thankful to remember, and never shall; I have no special duties toward it; I shall just keep away from it and from contact with the people here, as much as possible. It is enough for me if I do my duty toward those giggling girls who think they are to become musicians under my tuition. I will do my best for them, and I shall certainly earn all the salary I am offered here; then my work in this place will be accomplished. I have nothing to do with the horrors of that church. If the people choose to insult God by worshiping him in such an abomination of desolations as that, it is nothing to me. I must just endure so much of it as I am obliged to, until I can get away from here. I am not to spend my life in South Plains, I should hope."

She shuddered over the possibility of this. She did not understand her present state of mind. She seemed to herself not Claire Benedict at all, but a miserable caricature of her. What had become of the strong, bright, willing spirit with which she had been wont to take hold of life? Energetic she had always been called; "self-reliant," she had heard that word applied to herself almost from childhood. "A girl who had a great deal of executive talent." Yes, she used to have; but she seemed now to have no talent of any sort. She felt crushed; as though the motive power had been removed from her.

She had borne up bravely while with her mother and younger sister. She had felt the necessity for doing so; her mother's last earthly prop must not fail her, and therefore Claire had done her best. But now there was no more need for endurance. Her tears could not pain mamma or Dora; she had a right to give her grief full sway. She felt responsible to nobody. Her work in the world was done. Not by any intention of hers, she told herself drearily; she had been willing and glad to work; she had rejoiced in it, and had planned for a vigorous and aggressive future, having to do with the best interests of the church. Only think how full of work her hours had been, that day when the clouds shut down on her and set her aside! There was nothing more for her to do. Her plans were shattered, her opportunities swept away, everything had been cruelly interrupted; she could not help it, and she knew no reason for it; certainly she had tried to do her best. But, at least, with her opportunities closed, her responsibility was gone; nothing more could be expected of her; henceforth she must just endure.

This is just the way life looked to the poor girl on this sad Sabbath. She was still trying to rely on herself; and because herself was found to be such a miserable source of reliance, she gloomily blamed her hard fate, and said that at least her responsibility was over. She did not say in words—"God has taken away all my chances, and he must just be willing to bear the consequences of my enforced idleness;" she would have been shocked had she supposed that such thoughts were being nursed in her heart; but when you look the matter over, what else was she saying? A great many of our half-formed thoughts on which we brood, will not bear the clear gaze of a quiet hour when we mean honest work.

CHAPTER VI.
LIFTED UP.

IT was a very quiet, cold-faced girl who presently obeyed the summons to dinner. Had it not been for those suspiciously red eyes, and a certain pitiful droop of the eyelids, Mrs. Foster would hardly have ventured to break the casing of haughty reserve in which her young music teacher had decided to wrap herself.

A rare woman was Mrs. Foster. I wish you knew her well; my pen pauses over an attempt to describe her. I believe descriptions of people never read as the writer intended they should; and there never was a woman harder to put on paper than this same Mrs. Foster.

Ostensibly she was the principal of this little academy, which was at present engaged in reaping the results of years of mismanagement and third-rate work. People shook their heads when she took the position, and said that she was foolish. She would never earn her living there in the world; the academy at South Plains was too much run down ever to revive, and there never had been a decent school there anyway, and they didn't believe there ever would be. And, of course, people of this mind did what they could, with their tongues and their apathy, so far as money and pupils were concerned, to prove the truth of their prophecies.

But Mrs. Foster, wise, sweet, patient woman that she was, quietly bided her time, and worked her way through seemingly endless discouragements. She was after much more than bread and butter. In reality there was never a more persistent and patient and wise and wary fisher for souls found among quiet and little known human kind than was Mrs. Foster. Had they but known it, there were communities which could have afforded to support her for the sake of the power she would have been in their midst. Nay, there were fathers who could have afforded to make her independent for life, so far as the needs of this world were concerned, for the sake of the influence she would have exerted over their young and tempted sons and daughters. But they did not know it, and she, being as humble as she was earnest, did not half know it herself, and expected nothing of anybody but a fair chance to earn her living, and do all the good she could.

In point of fact, she had some difficulty in getting hold of the little, badly-used academy at South Plains. The people who thought she was utterly foolish for attempting anything so hopeless, were supplemented by the people who thought she could not be much, or she would never be willing to come to South Plains Academy. So between them they made it as hard for her as they could.

Claire Benedict did not know it until long afterwards, but the fact was, that during her father's funeral services she had been selected as the girl whom Mrs. Foster wanted with her at South Plains. It happened, so we are fond of saying, that Mrs. Foster was spending a few days on business in the city that had always been Claire's home, and she saw how wonderfully large portions of that city were stirred by one death, when Sydney Benedict went to heaven. She speculated much over the sort of life he must have led to have gotten the hold he had on the people. She began to inquire about his family, about his children. Then she heard much of Claire, and grew interested in her, in a manner which seemed strange even to herself. And when at the funeral she first caught a glimpse of the pale face and earnest eyes of the girl who looked only, and with a certain watchful air at her mother, as if she would shield her from every touch that she could, Mrs. Foster had murmured under her breath, "I think this is the girl I want with me." She prayed about it a good deal during the next few days, and grew sure of it, and waited only to make the way plain, so that she could venture her modest little offer, and felt sure that if the Master intended it thus, the offer would be accepted. And it was, but in blindness, so far as Claire Benedict was concerned. I have sometimes questioned whether, if a bright angel had come down out of heaven and stood beside Claire, and said: "The King wants you to go with all speed to South Plains; he has special and important work for you there; he has opened the way for you," the child would not have been more content, and had much less of the feeling that her work was interrupted. But I do not know, she might rather have said:

"Why in the world must I go to South Plains? I had work enough to do at home, and I was doing it; and now it will all come to nought because there is no leader! It stands to reason that I, in my poverty and obscurity, down in that out-of-the-way village, can not do as much as I, with my full purse, and leisure days, and happy surroundings, and large acquaintances could do here."

We love to be governed by reason, and hate to walk in the dark. I have always wondered what Philip said when called to leave his great meeting, where it seemed hardly possible to do without him, and go toward the south on a desert road. That he went, and promptly, is, I think, a wonderful thing for Philip.

Well, the red eyes of the young music-teacher by no means escaped the watchful ones of Mrs. Foster. Neither had her short, almost sharp, negative in reply to a somewhat timidly put question of a pupil, as to whether she was going out to church that evening. There were reasons why Mrs. Foster believed that it would be much better for her sad-hearted music-teacher to go to church than to remain glooming at home. There were, indeed, very special reasons on that particular evening. The Ansted girls' uncle was going to preach, she had heard, but should she go to this young Christian, of whom she as yet knew but little, and offer as a reason for church-going that a stranger was to preach instead of the pastor! However she managed it, Mrs. Foster was sure she would not do that. Yet it will give you a hint of the little woman's ways when I tell you that she was almost equally sure she should manage it in some way.

Half an hour before evening service there was a tap at Claire's door, and the principal entered, and came directly to the point: Would Miss Benedict be so kind as to accompany Fanny and Ella Ansted to church that evening? Miss Parsons was suffering with sick headache, and she herself could not leave her. There was no other available chaperone for the young girls, who were not accustomed to going out alone in the evening, but who were unusually anxious to attend church, as their uncle, who had been stopped over the Sabbath by an accident, was to preach.

Miss Benedict had her lips parted, ready to say that she was not going out, but paused in the act. What excuse could she give? No sick headache to plead, and nobody to care for; the night was not stormy, if it was sullen, and the church was not a great distance away. She had been wont to accommodate people always, but she never felt so little like it as to-night. However, there stood Mrs. Foster quietly awaiting an answer, and her face seemed to express the belief that of course, the answer would be as she wished.

"Very well," came at last from the teacher's lips, and she began at once to make ready.

"It is for this I was hired," she told herself bitterly. "I must not forget how utterly changed my life is in this respect as in all others. I am my own mistress no longer, but even in the matter of church-going must hold myself at the call of others."

As for the principal, as she closed the door with a gentle "Thank you," she told herself that it was much better for the poor child to go; and that she must see to it what she could do during the week to brighten that room a little.

The stuffy church was the same; nay, it was more so, for every vile lamp was lighted now, and sent a sickly, smoky shadow to the ceiling, and cast as little light upon the surrounding darkness as possible. But the uncle! I do not know how to describe to you the difference between him and the dreary reader of the morning! It was not simply the difference in appearance and voice, though really these were tremendous, but he had a solemn message for the people, and not only for the people whose Sabbath home was in that church, but for Claire Benedict as well.

She did not think it at first. She smiled drearily over the almost ludicrous incongruity of the text as measured by the surroundings. "If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy."

The folly of supposing that any sane person preferred such a desolate, modern Jerusalem as this above his chief joy! The very care with which the men brushed a clear spot for their hats on the dusty seats, and the manner in which the women gathered their dresses about them, to keep them from contact with the floor, showed the place which the sanctuary held in their affections.

But as the preacher developed his theme, it would almost seem that he had selected it for Claire Benedict's special benefit. It was not what had been done, or was being done, that he desired to impress, but rather what ought to be done.

The earthly Jerusalem, instead of being one particular church building, was any church of Christ where a Christian's lot was cast, even for a single Sabbath. He or she was bound by solemn covenant vows to do all for that church which lay in his or her power; as fully, as unreservedly, as though that church, and that alone, represented his or her visible connection with the great Head. What solemn words were these, breaking in on the flimsy walls of exclusiveness which this young disciple had been busy all the afternoon building up about her! The church at South Plains her place of service! actually bound to it by the terms of her covenant!

Others had their message from that plainly-worded, intensely-earnest sermon. I have no doubt there was a special crumb for each listener—it is a peculiarity belonging to any real breaking of the bread of life—but Claire Benedict busied herself with none of them. Her roused and startled heart had enough to do to digest the solid food that was given as her portion.

The truth was made very plain to her that she had no more right to build a shell and creep into it, and declare that this church, and this choir, and this Sunday-school, and this prayer-meeting, yes, and even this smoking stove and wheezing organ, were nothing to her because she was to stay in South Plains but a few months, and her home was far away in the city, than she had to say that she had nothing to do with the people or the places on this earth, no sense or responsibility concerning them, no duties connected with them, because she was to be here only for a few years and her home was in heaven.

Gradually this keen-edged truth seemed to penetrate every fibre of her being. This very church, cobweb-trimmed, musty-smelling, was for the time being her individual working ground, to be preferred above her chief joy! Nay, the very red curtain that swayed back and forth, blown by the north wind which found its way through a hole in the window, and which she hated, became a faded bit of individual property for which she was, in a sense, responsible.

She walked home almost in silence. The girls about her chattered of the sermon; pronounced it splendid, and admitted that they would just a little rather hear Uncle Eben preach than anybody else, and it was no wonder that his people almost worshiped him, and had raised his salary only last month. Claire listened, or appeared to, and answered directly put questions with some show of knowledge as to what was being discussed; but for herself, Dr. Ansted had gone out of her thoughts. She liked his voice, and his manner, and his elocution, but the force behind all these had put them all aside, and the words which repeated themselves to her soul were these: "If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy!" What then? Why, then I am false to my covenant vows, and the possibilities are that I am none of His.

Mrs. Foster was in the hall when the party from the church arrived. Wide open as to eyes and mental vision, quiet as to voice and manner, she had staid at home and ministered to the victim of sick headache. She had been tender and low-voiced, and deft-handed, and untiring; but during the lulls when there had been comparative quiet, she had bowed her head and prayed that the sad-hearted young music-teacher might meet Christ in his temple that evening, and come home up-lifted. She did not know how it was to be done.

She knew nothing about the Ansted uncle save that he was an ambassador of Christ, and she knew that the Lord could use the shabbily-dressed ambassador of the morning as well as he; she did not rely on the instruments, except as they lay in the hand of God. She did not ask for any special thought to be given to Claire Benedict; faith left that, too, in the hand of the Lord. She only asked that she should be ministered unto, and strengthened for the work, whatever it was that he desired of her. And she needed not to question, to discover that her prayer, while she had yet been speaking, was answered. The music-teacher did not bring home the same thoughts that she had taken away with her.

She went swiftly to her room. The fire had been remembered, and was burning brightly.

The first thing she did was to feed its glowing coals with the letter that had been commenced to mamma and Dora during the afternoon. Not that there had been anything in it about her heaped-up sorrows, or her miserable surroundings, or her gloomy resolves, but in the light of the present revelation she did not like the tone of it.

She went to her knees, presently, but it would have been noticeable there that she said almost nothing about resolves, or failures. Her uttered words were brief; were, indeed, only these: "Dear Christ, it is true I needed less of self and more of thee. Myself has failed me utterly; Jesus, I come to thee."

CHAPTER VII.
"OUR CHURCH."

THE dreary weather was not gone by the next morning. A keen wind was blowing, and ominous flakes of snow were fluttering their signals in the air; but the music-room was warm, and the music-teacher herself had gotten above the weather. She was at the piano, waiting for the bell to ring that should give the signal for morning prayers.

Around the stove were gathered a group of girls who had hushed their voices at her entrance. They were afraid of the pale music-teacher. Hitherto they had regarded her with mingled feelings of awe and dislike.

Her very dress, plain black though it was, with its exquisite fit and finish, seemed to mark her as belonging to another world than themselves. They expected to learn music of her, but they expected nothing else.

It was therefore with a visible start of surprise that they received her first advances in the shape of a question, as she suddenly wheeled on the piano-stool and confronted them:

"Girls, don't you think our church is just dreadful?"

Whether it was a delicate tact, or a sweet spirit born of the last evening's experience, that led Claire Benedict to introduce that potent little "our" into her sentence, I will leave you to judge.

It had a curious effect on the girls around the stove. These bright-faced, keen-brained, thoroughly-good girls, who had lived all their lives in a different atmosphere from hers. They were good scholars in algebra, they were making creditable progress in Latin, and some of them were doing fairly well in music; but they could no more set their hats on their heads with the nameless grace which hovered around Claire Benedict's plainly-trimmed plush one, than they could fly through the air. This is just one illustration of the many differences between them. This young lady had lived all her days in the environments of city culture; they had caught glimpses of city life, and it meant to them an unattainable fairy-land, full of lovely opportunities and probabilities, such as would never come to them. It struck every one of those girls as a peculiarly pleasant thing that their lovely music-teacher had said "our" instead of "your."

One of the less timid presently rallied sufficiently to make answer:

"Dreadful? It is just perfectly horrid! It fairly gives me the blues to go to church. Girls, mother has almost spoiled her new cashmere sweeping the church floor with it. She says she would be ashamed to have our wood-shed look as badly as that floor does. I don't see why the trustees allow such slovenliness."

"It is because we can not afford to pay a decent sexton," sighed one of the others. "We are so awful poor! That is the cry you always hear if there is a thing said. I don't believe we deserve a church at all."