Miss Prudence Part 63

"The Linnet must sail, or I'll find another master," said his father in his harshest voice.

Linnet kept the tears back bravely for Will's sake; but she clung to him sobbing at the last, and he wept with her; he had never wept on leaving her before; but this time it was so hard, so hard.

"Will, how _can_ I let you go?"

"Keep up, sweetheart. It isn't a long trip--I'll soon be home. Let us have a prayer together before I go."

It was a simple prayer, interrupted by Linnet's sobbing. He asked only that G.o.d would keep his wife safe, and bring him home safe to her, for Jesus' sake. And then his father's voice was shouting, and he was gone; and Linnet threw herself across the foot of the bed, sobbing like a little child, with quick short breaths, and hopeless tears.

"It isn't _right_" she cried vehemently; "and Will oughtn't to have gone; but he never will withstand his father."

All day she lived on the hope that something might happen to bring him back at night; but before sundown Captain Rheid drove triumphantly into his own yard, shouting out to his wife in the kitchen doorway that the _Linnet_ was well on her way.

At dusk, Linnet's lonely time, Marjorie stepped softly through the entry and stood beside her.

"O, Marjorie! I'm _so_ glad," she exclaimed, between laughing and crying.

"I've had a miserable day."

"Didn't you know I would come?"

"How bright you look!" said Linnet, looking up into the changed face; for Marjorie's trouble was all gone, there was a happy tremor about the lips, and peace was s.h.i.+ning in her eyes.

"I _am_ bright."

"What has happened to you?"

"I can tell you about it now. I have been troubled--more than troubled, almost in despair--because I could not feel that I was a Christian. I thought I was all the more wicked because I professed to be one. And to-day it is all gone--the trouble. And in such a simple way. As I was coming out of Sunday school I overheard somebody say to Mrs. Rich, 'I know I'm not a Christian.' 'Then,' said Mrs. Rich, 'I'd begin this very hour to be one, if I were you.' And it flashed over me why need I bemoan myself any longer; why not begin this very hour; _and I did._"

"I'm very glad," said Linnet, in her simple, hearty way. "I never had anything like that on my mind, and I know it must be dreadful."

"Dreadful?" repeated Marjorie. "It is being lost away from Christ."

"Mrs. Rheid told Hollis that you were going into a decline, that mother said so, and Will and I were planning what we could do for you."

"n.o.body need plan now," smiled Marjorie. "Shall we have some music? We'll sing Will's hymns."

"How your voice sounds!"

"That's why I want to sing. I want to pour it all out."

The next evening Hollis accompanied Linnet on her way to Marjorie's to spend the evening. Marjorie's pale face and mourning dress had touched him deeply. He had taught a cla.s.s of boys near her cla.s.s in Sunday school, and had been struck with the dull, mechanical tone in which she had questioned the attentive little girls who crowded around her.

It was not Marjorie; but it was the Marjorie who had lost Morris and her father. Was she so weak that she sank under grief? In his thought she was always strong. But it was another Marjorie who met him at the gate the next evening; the cheeks were still thin, but they were tinted and there was not a trace of yesterday's dullness in face or voice; it was a joyful face, and her voice was as light-hearted as a child's. Something had wrought a change since yesterday.

Such a quiet, un.o.btrusive little figure in a black and white gingham, with a knot of black ribbon at her throat and a cl.u.s.ter of white roses in her belt. Miss Prudence had done her best with the little country girl, and she was become only a sweet and girlish-looking woman; she had not marked out for herself a "career"; she had done nothing that no other girl might do. But she was the lady that some other girls had not become, he argued.

The three, Hollis, Linnet, and Marjorie, sat in the moon lighted parlor and talked over old times. Hollis had begun it by saying that his father had shown him "Flyaway" stowed away in the granary chamber.

He was sitting beside Linnet in a good position to study Marjorie's face un.o.bserved. The girl's face bore the marks of having gone through something; there was a flutter about her lips, and her soft laugh and the joy about the lips was almost contradicted by the mistiness that now and then veiled the eyes. She had planned to go up to her chamber early, and have this evening alone by herself,--alone on her knees at the open window, with the stars above her and the rustle of the leaves and the breath of the sea about her. It had been a long sorrow; all she wanted was to rest, as Mary did, at the feet of the Lord; to look up into his face, and feel his eyes upon her face; to shed sweetest tears over the peace of forgiven sin.

She had written to Aunt Prue all about it that afternoon. She was tempted to show the letter to her mother, but was restrained by her usual shyness and timidity.

"Marjorie, why don't you talk?" questioned Linnet.

Marjorie was on the music stool, and had turned from them to play the air of one of the songs they used to sing in school.

"I thought I had been talking a great deal. I am thinking of so many things and I thought I had spoken of them all."

"I wish you would," said Hollis.

"I was thinking of Morris just then. But he was not in your school days, nor in Linnet's. He belongs to mine."

"What else? Go on please," said Hollis.

"And then I was thinking that his life was a success, as father's was.

They both did the will of the Lord."

"I've been trying all day to submit to that will," said Linnet, in a thick voice.

"Is that all we have to do with it--submit to it?" asked Hollis with a grave smile. "Why do we always groan over 'Thy will be done,' as though there never was anything pleasant in it?"

"That's true," returned Linnet emphatically. "When Will came Sat.u.r.day, I didn't rejoice and say 'It is the Lord's will,' but Sunday morning I thought it was, because it was so hard! All the lovely things that happen to us _are_ his will of course."

"Suppose we study up every time where the Lord speaks of his father's will, and learn what that will is. Shall we, Marjorie?" proposed Hollis.

"Oh, yes; it will be delightful!" she a.s.sented.

"And when I come back from my fis.h.i.+ng excursion we will compare notes, and give each other our thoughts. I must give that topic in our prayer-meeting and take it in my Bible cla.s.s."

"We know the will of G.o.d is our sanctification," said Marjorie slowly. "I don't want to sigh, 'Thy will be done,' about that."

"Hollis, I mean to hold on to that--every happy thing is G.o.d's will as well as the hard ones," said Linnet.

"And here come the mothers for some music," exclaimed Marjorie. "They cannot go to sleep without it."

And Marjorie's mother did not go to sleep with it. Hollis had invited himself to remain all night, saying that he was responsible for Linnet and could not go home unless she went home.

XXVI.

MARJORIE'S MOTHER.

"Leave to Heaven the measure and the choice."--_Johnson_.