But "mother" hastily arose and met her visitor as calmly as if she had not spent the last three hours in a tempest.
Aunt Deborah Hathaway was a dear old saint. Her name should have been "Peace," for that word was written all over her, from the unruffled brow and calm eyes, to the soft folds of her dove-coloured cashmere.
"Tell me all about your life, my dear," she said to Mrs. Murray, when they were seated alone the next morning--all the rest of the family in church.
"My life has turned out to be a failure," said Mrs. Murray, sadly.
"And what is strange, I have only just now found it out."
Then drawn on by the loving sympathy expressed, she unburdened her heart to Aunt Deborah, keeping back nothing. "But then, what am I telling all this to you for? n.o.body can help me. I have at times realised that I was growing very irritable, and was ashamed of it.
Then I would resolve that I would not do so any more, but my resolves are like ropes of sand. I get started and can"t stop. I think if human beings were like sewing-machines, and when they get out of order, could have some skilful hand just put a drop of oil here and there, and loosen the tension or something, it would be so good. But things do annoy me so, sometimes it seems as if Satan himself planned things out to vex me.
"I make no doubt," said Aunt Deborah, "but that Satan is busy enough, but sometimes I think he gets more set down to his account than rightfully belongs. He couldn"t accomplish half he does with us if we didn"t help him. We put ourselves in such a condition that it is easy for him to carry us captive. But you said "n.o.body could help you." Now I believe I can help you. I came very near being shipwrecked once myself on these very rocks you have struck. It will never do to give up, and go to groaning when we get into trouble.
What you want is to get out of it. To help you in the best way, you must give me an old woman"s privilege, and let me speak my mind freely. I think I know the secret of the trouble. Your nerves are sick--people used to think that meant hysterics, but they know better now. You are overworking these sick nerves. The first thing to be done is for you to get relief from everything that tries you, as far as you can. Treat yourself like an invalid, as you are. Then change your way of life entirely: go out a good deal in the air, read, and talk, and sing, and play on the piano--you used to be a good player, I remember. Let the housework and the sewing be done by somebody else, except what you can do without a strain upon yourself. Then I should be a little careful about my dress, to have it becoming and all that, and I would invite in a little company once in a while, and go out in a sociable way a little, and try to make my home just the brightest, cheeriest place in all the world. Economy is good in its place, but I believe Satan is even at the bottom of that sometimes, when we drive our boys and girls out from home by saving coal and gas, and shutting the sun out of our houses--they like brightness as well as the birds do. You see you can"t tell me anything new on this.
I made all these mistakes myself once."
"But Aunt Deborah," said Mrs. Murray, "I am surprised. I thought you used to be such a strict Christian."
"Used to be such a strict Pharisee, you mean," Aunt Deborah answered; "used to imagine religion consisted in wearing the ugliest garment I could put on, combing my hair straight back in a hard knot, being "a keeper at home," and making things generally uncomfortable for everybody. Now I think a Christian is one who loves and obeys his Lord. I know I love Him and I am trying to obey Him, but I believe if there is one place on the earth He loves next to the gates of Zion, it is a happy home, and that He smiles upon us in all our innocent efforts to make it so.
"You were surprised that I did not say right off, "Pray over your troubles," weren"t you? No, no! I believe we have got to take everything out of our way that hinders us before we come and ask him to do some great thing for us. You must lay aside the "weight," and the temptations to the "sin that doth so easily beset us," then He will do his part. It isn"t his way to do for us what we can do. Now if you load yourself down with burdens that He did not ask you to carry, I don"t believe you will have the same grace given you to overcome that a poverty-stricken mother of a large family has given to her; grace is bestowed according to our need."
"Yes," said Mrs. Murray, "it is all true. But suppose I do all these things that you suggest. I can"t expect to be entirely free from all provocations to anger while I live in this world. What is there in all this that will help me to control my temper? I declare to you, Aunt Deborah, I cannot do it. I have no hope that I can ever be different. I know myself so well."
"Praise the Lord that you know that," said the old lady. "He says, "In me is thy help found." Not a soul of us comes to him for help till we have made this discovery, "I cannot do it." When your watch is out of order you do not expect it to right itself; you take it to the watchmaker. Now lay your heart down before Jesus, and say, Lord won"t you fix it for me? As you trust the watchmaker, trust Him."
"I want to be made over new," said Mrs. Murray sadly, "but oh, have I faith enough for such a great work? I am too unworthy, too far away from Him to expect it."
"Well, He is worthy. Don"t you know good old Faber says:
""Pining souls, come nearer Jesus; Come, but come not doubting thus: Come with faith that trusts more freely His great tenderness for us.""
And Mrs. Murray came. The promise, "Ask and it shall be given you,"
was verified to her. When the sun of that Sabbath set, the dove of peace sang in the tired woman"s heart. She had the secret of victory.
Her brow was almost as placid as Aunt Deborah"s.
Monday morning brought the usual work and bustle, "Mary," said Aunt Deborah, "Satan is twice as active Monday morning as other days; perhaps he thinks we get the start of him on the Sabbath. Forewarned is forearmed. Here is my rule when provoked: To shut my lips tight and lock them till a pleasant word feels like coming."
"Yes, Aunt Deborah, Christ helping me, I shall make an entire revolution in this household." And she looked bright and courageous as she had not in years.
"To begin, then: Go out of this kitchen and come when you are called," said Aunt Deborah, briskly.
There was much work accomplished that day. A valuable servant was soon secured and installed in the kitchen; then Mrs. Murray went in and out the stores. No one in all the busy throng was more enthusiastic than she, as with joyful eagerness she selected some little gift for each, adding to her purchases a little stock of evergreens and flowers to brighten up with on the morrow, for this coming Christmas was to be no common one. Aunt Deborah engaged in the business of tying and festooning evergreens with all the gusto of a girl; the two made the parlour into a bower of beauty. When the short winter day drew to its close, the whole was p.r.o.nounced complete, and Mrs. Murray went to her room to dress. She was strongly tempted to put on the same old gray dress she had worn all winter, and brush her hair straight back as usual; but self and ease should not be consulted, so she shook out her still handsome locks and arranged them in the style her husband used to admire, in loose waves about her forehead; then she donned a neatly fitting black dress, with lace cuffs and collar, fastened with a bright ribbon. When she went down to the parlour, Aunt Deborah looked over and then under her spectacles.
"Child," she said, as she surveyed her, "it does matter how you look."
Father, son, and daughters, all came in together to-night.
"Girls," said Ralph, advancing first into the dining-room and getting a peep into the back parlour, "is this our house? Everything is trimmed up, and there sits a lady by the fire."
Wreaths festooned the archway between the parlours, there were vases of flowers, and hanging-baskets of trailing vines, and a canary in a gilded cage, a bright fire in the grate lighting it up cheerily; Aunt Deborah smiling and knitting on one side, "mother" on the other.
Florence rushed up to her, showering kisses upon her, while her father looked on with shining eyes.
"Who knew our mother was such a pretty woman? Where"s her equal in this whole city?" said Ralph.
That glad Christmas was the harbinger of many happy years to the Murrays. The back parlour was that day, by the thankful mother, consecrated to the comfort of the family--thenceforth light, warmth, and beauty reigned in that room. There they gathered evenings, under the drop-light about the round table, with books and work, and talk and music. Father, too, suddenly discovered that there was a lull in business, and that cheerful chimney-corners were more attractive than ledgers. Ralph and the girls brought their young friends there. What was strangest of all, the nervous headaches almost entirely disappeared; even the high notes of a song, or the jingling of piano-keys, failed to bring them back. The crowning climax of the whole was this: there was positively no scolding in that house. The evil spirit had been exorcised, and that mother was given the victory day by day. Peace was in her heart and on her brow.
She was so changed in the eyes of her children that she seemed almost an object of adoration. Not the last drop in her cup of joy were the many little ways in which they showed their keen appreciation of the change in her.
One night, after all had retired, conscience knocked at Margaret"s door. She tried to sleep, but her visitor persisted. Margaret was face to face with all her hard, impertinent words and ways toward her mother.
"Flo," she said, "a miracle has come to mother, or she"s getting to be an angel, or something," but "Flo" was fast asleep; then she tossed and turned, again. Then came a tap on mother"s door. Mrs.
Murray came quickly.
"Mother," said Margaret, throwing her arms about her, and hiding her face in her mother"s neck, "I have been a wicked girl. Forgive me, dear precious mother."
Blessed words! Margaret was soon sleeping quietly, but her mother"s heart was so full, her joy so great, that she lay thinking of the gift that He had sent her at that Christmas time.
"Peace on earth," had been literally fulfilled to her.
WHERE HE SPENT CHRISTMAS.
"Oh, mother, I will get back before it snows much, and I shall not mind if a few flakes of snow do light on me. Please do not object to my going, a walk is just what I"m longing for;" and Edna Winters drew on her gloves and stepped from the door of her home, a low-roofed farm-house on the hill, which, in its gray old age, seemed a part of the hill itself.
It was not the beauty of the afternoon that tempted Edna out, for the leaden sky almost met the gray hills; and all wore the same sober hue, sky, hills, house, and leafless trees. The wind howled fiercely through the group of pine-trees in the yard, that seemed but deep shadows on the general grayness, and occasional flakes of snow were already flying about. Father Winters looked through the front window after his daughter, and shook his head, saying:
"Mother, there"s a great storm brewing, if I"m not mistaken. The child ought not to have gone."
Then the mother came and anxiously inspected the sky, although she only said:
"Oh well, she is young, and don"t mind the weather like us old folks.
I was only twenty years old myself, once, and I remember just how tired I used to get cooped up in the house so much; besides, she wanted to go to the post-office. To-morrow is Christmas, you know, and the office will not be open but an hour or two."
Mr. Winters was growing old, and the rheumatism was keeping him a prisoner just now, so he came back to the fire and his newspaper.
The little city wherein was the post-office lay a little over two miles away, and Edna often walked in and out for the mere pleasure of it. Even on this dismal day she tripped lightly along, humming a glad measure, stopping a moment in the edge of the pine woods to gather a few squaw-berries and a bit of moss; then, casting a glance at the threatening sky, hurried on her way. Before she reached the town the snow was falling thick and fast, and was blown by the wind into little mounds almost as soon as it came down. She was fairly blown inside the door of the post-office, feathery flakes adorning her from head to foot.
Mr. Hugh Monteith had also come to the post-office. He had merely stepped across the street from his banking-house, and stood waiting for the afternoon mail to be distributed. He turned his head carelessly as the door opened to admit Edna. She took off the veil that enveloped her head, shook and brushed herself, and walked over to the stove. Then Mr. Monteith"s inner consciousness told him that there was the very face he had been in search of for years. Then he did what was not found in his code of etiquette--he stared, although he did retreat behind a pillar while doing so. He took in the whole picture. The face, of that pure, clear tint that belongs only to a certain type of brown eyes and hair, the hair gathered into a coil at the back of the head, except one or two loose curls that strayed down from it, the eyes sweet and serious. Mr. Monteith dealt many hours of the day with dollars and cents, notes and bills; still, he knew poetry when he saw it, and that golden-brown curl was to him a bit of a poem. Then her dress was peculiar; his fastidious taste p.r.o.nounced it perfect for the occasion: walking-dress of soft, dark brown, glinted by a lighter shade of the same colour; a jaunty brown jacket of substantial cloth, a little brown hat, with a brown and white wing perked on one side of it; no colour, except a soft pink that the cold air had laid on the cheeks with delicate skill. His quick eye noted too, the neat glove, the well-fitting little boot poised on the hearth of the stove. She looked like a little brown thrush about to spread its wings; but she did not fly, she walked over to the delivery and received a package of letters and papers, asking in low, clear tones, "Is the Eastern mail in?" The voice was in keeping with eyes, and hair, and dress--pure, refined, cultured.
Mr. Monteith"s resolution was quickly made; he secured his mail and followed Edna. "Who could she be? He supposed he knew all the young ladies in town, but where did this revelation of loveliness drop from?" He turned corner after corner as she did, not caring where he went, only so that he kept her in view. To his astonishment he soon found himself in the open country. It was not a day that he would have chosen for a pleasure-walk in the country: the snow eddied and whirled, and almost blinded him; but if he lost his face, his ideal realised, should he ever find it again? There was no choice, so on he strode, congratulating himself that he happened to have on an overcoat and heavy boots.
The little brown-clad figure ahead of him sped briskly on, and faster and faster came the snow. Things were beginning to look serious; the wind roared and howled through the pine woods, blowing the snow into drifts in the road. Mr. Monteith had a new motive for his journey now. He must protect this young girl in her lonely way; it was out of the question to leave her in such a desolate place and a storm raging. He quickened his steps; she might need a.s.sistance.
A feeling of despair was beginning to creep over Edna. What if she should sink down in this lonely place unable to go on. She had left the main road a few minutes before, and this one by the pine woods was not much travelled. It was probable that n.o.body would find her.
In dismay she turned and looked behind her, but no sooner did she see a man rapidly coming towards her than a mortal fear took possession of her, and she started forward with new impetus; on and on she ran as fleetly as a deer. Mr. Monteith ran too at the top of his speed, wondering, inly, if she really were of the earth, and if she had not some means of locomotion that he did not possess. He must reach her at all events.