"I was out for an hour this morning."
"An hour! and the weather is so delightful, everything out of doors looking so lovely, that the rest of us find it next to impossible to content ourselves within doors for an hour. Some of us are going to play croquet. If you will not drive, won"t you let one of the servants wheel you out there--near enough to enable you to watch the game?"
"Please don"t think me ungracious," Molly answered, coloring, "but I really should prefer to stay here and work."
"I think Aunt Enna is going with us, and you will be left quite alone, unless you will let me stay, or send a servant to sit with you," Elsie suggested.
But Molly insisted that she would rather be alone. "And you know," she added, pointing to a silver hand bell on the table before her, "I can ring if I need anything."
So Elsie went rather sadly away, more than half suspecting that Molly was grieving over her inability to move about as others did, and take part in the active sports they found so enjoyable and healthful.
And indeed she had hardly closed the door between them when the tears began to roll down Molly"s cheeks. She wiped them away and tried to go on with her work; but they came faster and faster, till throwing down her pen she hid her face in her hands, and burst into pa.s.sionate weeping, sobs shaking her whole frame.
A longing so intense had come over her to leave that chair, to walk, to run, to leap and dance, as she had delighted to do in the old days before that terrible fall. She wanted to wander over the velvety lawn beneath her windows, to pluck for herself the many-hued, sweet-scented flowers, growing here and there in the gra.s.s. Kind hands were always ready to gather and bring them to her, but it was not like walking about among them, stooping down and plucking them with her own fingers.
Oh to feel her feet under her and wander at her own sweet will about the beautiful grounds, over the hills and through the woods! Oh to feel that she was a fit mate for some one who might some day love and cherish her as Mr. Travilla had loved and cherished her whom he so fondly called his "little wife!"
She pitied her cousin for her sad bereavement; her heart had often, often bled for her because of her loss; but ah! it were "better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all."
Never to love, never to be loved, that was the hardest part of it all.
There was d.i.c.k, to be sure, the dear fellow! how she did love him! and she believed he loved her almost as well; but the time would come when another would have the first place in his heart; perhaps it had already come.
Her mother"s affection was something, but it was the love of a stronger nature than her own that she craved, a staff to lean upon, a guiding, protecting love, a support such as is the strong, stately oak to the delicate, clinging vine.
There were times when she keenly enjoyed her independence, perfect liberty to control her own actions and choose her own work; her ability to earn a livelihood for herself; but at this moment all that was as nothing.
Usually she was submissive under her affliction; now her heart rebelled fiercely against it. She called it a hard and cruel fate, to which she could not, would not be resigned.
She was frightened at herself as she felt that she was so rebellious, and that she was envying the happiness of the cousins who had for years treated her with unvarying kindness; that her lot seemed the harder by contrast with theirs.
And yet how well she knew that theirs was not perfect happiness--that the death of the husband and father had been a sore trial to them all.
Through the open window she saw the handsome, easy-rolling family carriage drive away and disappear among the trees on the farther side of the lawn; then the croquet party setting out for the scene of their proposed game, which was at some little distance from the mansion, though within the grounds.
She noticed that Isa and Mr. Keith walked first--very close together, and looking very like a pair of lovers, she thought--then Mr. Embury with Violet"s graceful, girlish figure by his side, she walking with a free, springing step that once poor Molly might have emulated, as she called to mind with a bitter groan and an almost frantic effort to rise from her chair.
Ah, what was it that so sharpened the sting brought by the thought of her own impotence, as she saw Vi"s bright, beautiful face uplifted to that of her companion? A sudden glimpse into her own heart sent a crimson tide all over the poor girl"s face.
"O Molly Percival, what a fool you are!" she exclaimed half aloud, then burst into hysterical weeping; but calming herself almost instantly.
"No, I will not, will _not_ be so weak!" she said, turning resolutely from the window. "I have been happy in my work, happy and content, and so will I be again. No foolish impossible dreams for you, Molly Percival! no dog in the manger feelings either; you shall not indulge them."
But the thread of thought was broken and lost, and she tried in vain to recover it; a distant hum of blithe voices came now and again to her ear with disturbing influence.
She could not rise and go away from it.
Again the pen was laid aside, and lying back in her chair with her head against its cushions, she closed her eyes with a weary sigh, a tear trickling slowly down her cheek.
"I cannot work," she murmured. "Ah, if I could only stop thinking these miserable, wicked thoughts!"
Mrs. Travilla, returning from a visit to the quarter, stopped a moment to watch the croquet players.
"Where is Molly?" she asked of her eldest daughter; "did she go with your grandpa and the others?"
"No, mamma, she is in her room, hard at work as usual, poor thing!"
"She is altogether too devoted to her work; she ought to be out enjoying this delicious weather. Surely you did not neglect to invite her to join you here, Elsie?"
"No, mamma, I did my best to persuade her. I can hardly bear to think she is shut up there alone, while all the rest of us are having so pleasant an afternoon."
"It is too bad," Mr. Embury remarked, "and I was strongly tempted to venture into her sanctum and try my powers of persuasion; but refrained lest I should but disturb the flow of thought and get myself into disgrace without accomplishing my end. Have you the courage to attempt the thing, Mrs. Travilla?"
"I think I must try," she answered, with a smile, as she turned away in the direction of the house.
She found Molly at work, busied over a translation for which she had laid aside the unfinished story interrupted by the younger Elsie"s visit.
She welcomed her cousin with a smile, but not a very bright or mirthful one, and traces of tears about her eyes were very evident.
"My dear child," Elsie said, in tones as tender and compa.s.sionate as she would have used to one of her own darlings, and laying her hand affectionately on the young girl"s shoulder, "I do not like to see you so hard at work while every one else is out enjoying this delightful weather. How can you resist the call of all the bloom and beauty you can see from your window there?"
"It is attractive, cousin," Molly answered; "I could not resist it if--if I could run about as others do," she added, with a tremble in her voice.
"My poor, poor child!" Elsie said with emotion, bending down to press a kiss on the girl"s forehead.
Molly threw her arms about her, and burst into tears and sobs.
"Oh it is so hard, so hard! so cruel that I must sit here a helpless cripple all my days! How can I bear it, for years and years, it may be!"
"Dear child, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Let us live one day at a time, leaving the future with our heavenly Father, trusting in His promise that as our day our strength shall be. Rutherford says, "These many days I have had no morrow at all." If it were so with all of us, how the burdens would be lightened! for a very large part of them is apprehension for the future. Is it not?"
"Yes, and I am ashamed of my weakness and cowardice."
"Dear child, I have often admired your strength and courage under a trial I fear I should not bear half so well."
Molly lifted to her cousin"s a face full of wonder, surprise and grat.i.tude; then it clouded again and tears trembled in her eyes and in her voice, as she said, "But, Cousin Elsie, you must let me work; it is my life, my happiness; the only kind I can ever hope for, ever have.
Others may busy themselves with household cares, may fill their hearts with the sweet loves of kind husbands and dear little children; but these things are not for me. O cousin, forgive me!" she cried, as she saw the pained look in Elsie"s face. "I did not mean--I did not intend--"
"To remind me of the past," Elsie whispered, struggling with her tears.
"It is full of sweet memories, that I would not be without for anything.
Oh true indeed is it that
"Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all."
"O Cousin Elsie, your faith and patience are beautiful!" cried Molly, impulsively. "You never murmur at your cross, you are satisfied with all G.o.d sends. I wish it were so with me, but--O cousin, cousin, my very worst trouble is that I am afraid I am not a Christian! that I have been deceiving myself all these years!" she ended with a burst of bitter weeping.
"Molly dear," Elsie said, folding her in her arms and striving to soothe her with caresses, "you surprise me very much, for I have long seen the lovely fruit of the Spirit in your life and conversation. Do you not love Jesus and trust in him alone for salvation?"
"I thought I did, and oh I cannot bear to think of not belonging to him!
it breaks my heart!"