How often had she walked alone all night unsheltered, while Error, her sister, reposed on beds of down! The sharp contrast of their lives was the great mystery yet unrevealed. It cost her many hours of deep and earnest thought.
It was so rare that any one gave her welcome that her grat.i.tude took the form of silence. For an instant the kind woman thought her lacking; but when her grateful look upturned to hers, as she bade her sit at the table and partake of the bounties, all doubt of her grat.i.tude departed.
Truth slept soundly all night, and arose much refreshed by her slumbers.
The storm of the day would not have detained her from continuing her journey; but the warm and truthful appeal of the woman, who felt the need of such a soul as Truth possessed with whom to exchange thoughts, induced her to remain that day, and many others, which slipped away so happily, and revealed to her that _rest_ as well as action is needful and right for every worker.
Truth became a great favorite among the poorer cla.s.ses of the neighborhood, as she always was whenever they would receive and listen to her words; and it was not long before people of thought, rank, and culture began to notice her and court her acquaintance.
Mrs. Highbred, hearing of her popularity, concluded to give a party and invite her.
Error had never spoken of the relationship between them until the day the invitations were sent. Then, knowing she could no longer conceal the past, she availed herself of the first opportunity to communicate the same to her hostess. Great was the surprise of Mrs. Highbred and her household to learn that the quiet stranger at the cottage was the sister of Error.
"My sister is very peculiar, and wholly unlike myself," remarked Error to her hostess; "and I fear you will find her quite undemonstrative.
Although it is my parent"s wish that I should be with her, you cannot imagine what a relief it has been to a nature like mine to mingle with those more congenial to my tastes, even for a brief period."
"It must be," answered Mrs. Highbred sympathizingly, and Error congratulated herself on having become installed in the good graces of so wealthy a person.
"Now," she said to herself, "I need not go plodding about the world any longer. Truth can if she likes to; and, as she feels that she has such a mission to perform to the earth, she of course will not remain in any locality long. But, thanks to the G.o.ds, who, I think, favor me always, I shall not be obliged to roam any longer. Truth never did appreciate wealth or the value of fine surroundings. She"s cast in a rougher mold than I--"
"Ma sends you this set of garnets, and begs you will do her the favor to wear them on the night of the party," said the bearer of a case of jewels, as she laid them on the table, and bounded out of the room before Error could reply. Indeed, her surprise was too great for words had the child remained. "I wonder what Truth will say when she sees them,"
thought Error, as she glanced again and again at the sparkling gems.
Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between Truth and her sister, both in costume and manner, as they stood apart from the company a moment to exchange a few words.
Error was decked in a costly robe of satin of a lavender hue, to contrast with her gems; while Truth was arrayed in white, with a wreath of ivy on her brow, and the golden girdle around her waist which her father gave her at parting. She wore no gems save an arrow of pearl which Astrea gave her when they parted at the gate of clouds, kept by the G.o.ddesses named the Seasons, which opened to permit the pa.s.sage of the celestials to earth and to receive them on their return.
The simple dress and manners of Truth won the admiration of a few, while the majority paid tribute to Error, who kept her admirers listening to her wonderful adventures amid the region of the stars. Truth spoke but seldom; but what she uttered was food for thought, instead of a constellation of merely dazzling words.
A careful observer might have seen that the elder members lingered, attracted by her simple charms, near Truth, as did also the youngest portion of the company, while youth and middle age could not divine her sphere of pure and earnest thought. The few who sought her would gladly have continued the acquaintance, and they invited her to their dwellings; but on the morrow she would set forth on her journey, feeling that she had implanted in the minds of a few the love of something beyond externals and mere materialisms.
Her earthly mission was to traverse hill and plain throughout the land, and sow seeds of righteousness which would spring up in blossoms of pearl long after her weary feet had traversed other lands and sown again in the rough places the finer seeds.
At early dawn Truth went forth from the cottage and the kind woman who had sheltered her. They had enjoyed much together in their mutual relation. Trust met trust, hope clasped hope, and each was stronger for the soul exchange.
When the sun rose in the heavens Truth was on her way, while Error, tossed in feverish dreams upon her bed, thought the Sun was angry with her, and was sending his fierce rays upon her head to censure or madden her. But he was only trying to waken her and urge her to go on with her sister. A sense of relief came when she opened her eyes and found it was, after all, only a dream. Yet the pleasure was brief; for a sharp pain shot through her temples, her brow was feverish, and her pulses throbbed wildly. "Oh, for the pure air and the cool, refreshing gra.s.s!"
she cried. "Oh, better the highway with its friendly blossoms than this couch of down and this stifled atmosphere which I am breathing!" How she longed for Truth then, to cool her brow with the touch of her gentle hand. "Come back, oh, come to me, Truth!" she cried, so hard that the whole household heard and came to her bedside.
"She is ill and delirious!" they cried in one voice. The family physician was summoned, who p.r.o.nounced the case fearful and her life fast ebbing.
"For whom shall we send?" said Mrs. Highbred, who was unused to scenes of distress and now longed to have her guest far from her dwelling.
"For her sister Truth," said one.
"Truth--Truth," said the physician. "Is it possible?" and he gazed from one to another for revelation.
"Truth is her sister," said one of the younger members, and added, "I think she is far better and prettier than Error,--"
"Far better, far better," continued the physician, looking only at the child, and inwardly saying, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings come words of wisdom."
"I met her on the hill,--the one you call Truth," he said, in answer to the searching look of Mrs. Highbred, who by manner and inquiry plainly manifested her desire to have an end of the unusual state of things.
"I will go for her. She will return with me," continued the doctor, "and soon we will find some spot to which we can remove Error."
A look of relief came over the face of the lady as he departed.
Truth heard not the sound of the horses, nor the rumbling of wheels as they approached, so intent were her thoughts on separation from her sister and her own strange mission to earth; and she scarce sensed whither she was going, when the kind man courteously lifted her into his carriage. But when she stood by the fevered, unconscious form of Error, a few moments later, all her clearness of thought was at her command.
"Carry her to the cottage on the hill-side," she said, as she bound a cool bandage on her sister"s brow.
They bore her there, and, as though in mercy, a dark cloud shut off the sun"s rays, and their fierce glare was obscured during transit from the home of splendor to the humble cottage.
There for many weeks Truth nursed her sister, while the kind hostess and kind neighbors aided by words and deeds through the long night watches.
Error arose from her illness somewhat wiser, and firmly fixed in her determination to follow Truth and share her fate to their journey"s end.
Thus, reader, shall we ever find them together while we dwell on earth, and perchance in the regions above. Let us trust that they are wisely related; and, while we love, reverence, and admire the purity of Truth, let us seek also courteously to endure Error as an opposing force, which, though it may seem for a time to work our discomfort and hinder us in our progress, yet gives us strength, as the rower on the stream is made stronger by the counter currents and eddies with which he has to contend.
X.
THE TREE.
A large shade-tree grew near a house, and under its branches the children played every summer day. It seemed to take great delight in their voices, and shook its green boughs over their heads, as though it would join in their sports and laughter. But, alas! one day it got a foolish idea into its head--it grew discontented, and felt that its sphere of usefulness was too limited.
At that moment dark clouds gathered, a fearful tempest arose, and a strong current of wind, soon set the giant tree swinging with such violence that it was torn from the earth and lay like a broken column on the ground.
"Now I shall be something: I"ve got my roots out of the old earth.
Bah! such a heap of old black loam, to be sure, as I have been in! I"ll soon shake it off, however, and then the world will see that _I_ can soar as well as other things."
There was a terrible quaking and noise as the old tree tried to rise from its rec.u.mbent position. The sun"s rays were fast parching its roots, causing sharp pains to shoot through its branches.
"Oh, dear!" said the tree. "I hope I shall be able to get on my feet soon, else people will be laughing at me for lying here so helpless."
The golden sun went down behind the hills. Its rays could not gild the top of its branches now, and the tree missed the benediction of its parting rays. A feeling akin to homesickness came over it, and a longing, as the dews of evening came, to be once more rooted to the earth.
A wild wind sang a dirge all through the night, and ceased not till day darted over the hills. It was not very pleasant for the old tree to hear the children"s regrets and words of grief as they came around it in the morning to play and sit as usual under its pleasant shade. It had hoped to have been far away by dawn, and thus have escaped the sound of their voices.
"I"ll wait till they are gone, and then I must be off," said the tree softly.
"Papa will cut it all up into wood, I know," said the youngest of the group, a bright, three-year-old boy.
"I am going to have a piece of one of the boughs to make a cane of,"
said another.
"And oh, dear me!" sighed little blue-eyed May. "I can"t have any more autumn leaves to make pretty wreaths of for mamma."