"I couldn"t help it," said Marjorie. "I would not have come if I could have stayed at home."
"Is that proud heart satisfied now?"
"Perhaps it oughtn"t to be--if it is proud."
"We will not argue about it now as there"s somebody waiting for you down-stairs."
"I don"t want to see him--now."
"Suppose he wants to see you."
"Aunt Prue! I wish I could be selfish just a few minutes."
"You may. A whole hour. You may be selfish up here all by yourself until the dinner bell rings."
Marjorie laughed and drew the lounge afghan up about her shoulders. She was so happy that she wanted to go to sleep;--to go to sleep and be thankful. But the dinner bell found her in the parlor talking to Linnet; Prue and Hollis were chattering together in French. Prue corrected his p.r.o.nunciation and promised to lend him books.
The most inviting corner in the house to Marjorie was a cosey corner in the library; she found her way thither after dinner, and there Hollis found her, after searching parlors, dining-room, and halls for her. The cosey corner itself was an arm-chair near the revolving bookcase; Prue said that papa kept his "pets" in that bookcase.
Marjorie had taken a book into her hand and was gathering a thought here and there when Hollis entered; he pushed a chair to her side, and, seating himself, took the book from her fingers.
"Marjorie, I have come to ask you what to do?"
"About your father"s offer?"
"Yes. I should have written to-day. I fancy how he watches the mail. But I am in a great state of indecision. My heart is not in his plan."
"Is your heart in buying and selling laces?"
"I don"t see why you need put it that way," he returned, with some irritation. "Don"t you like my business?"
"Do you?"
"I like what it gives me to do."
"I should not choose it if I were a man."
"What would you choose?"
"I have not considered sufficiently to choose, I suppose. I should want to be one of the mediums through which good pa.s.sed to my neighbor."
"What would you choose for me to do?"
"The thing G.o.d bids you do."
"That may be to buy and sell laces."
"It may be. I hope it was while you were doing it."
"You mean that through this offer of father"s G.o.d may be indicating his will."
"He is certainly giving you an opportunity to choose."
"I had not looked upon it in that light. Marjorie, I"m afraid the thought of his will is not always as present with me as with you."
"I used to think I needed money, like Aunt Prue, if I would bless my neighbor; but once it came to me that Christ through his _poverty_ made us rich: the world"s workers have not always been the men and the women with most money. You see I am taking it for granted that you do not intend to decide for yourself, or work for yourself."
"No; I am thinking of working for you."
"I am too small a field."
"But you must be included."
"I can be one little corner; there"s all Middlefield beside. Isn"t there work for you as a citizen and as a Christian in our little town? Suppose you go to Middlefield with the same motives that you would go on a mission to India, Africa, or the Isles of the Sea! You will not be sent by any Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, but by him who has sent you, his disciple, into the world. You have your experience, you have your strength, you have your love to Christ and your neighbor, to give them. They need everything in Middlefield. They need young men, Christian young men. The village needs you, the Church needs you. It seems too bad for all the young men to rush away from their native place to make a name, or to make money. Somebody must work for Middlefield. Our church needs a lecture room and a Sunday school room; the village needs a reading room--the village needs more than I know. It needs Christian _push_. Perhaps it needs Hollis Rheid."
"Marjorie, it will change all my life for me."
"So it would if you should go West, as you spoke last night of doing. If you should study law, as you said you had thought of doing, that would change the course of your life. You can"t do a new thing and keep to the old ways."
"If I go I shall settle down for life."
"You mean you will settle down until you are unsettled again."
"What will unsettle me?"
"What unsettled you now?"
"Circ.u.mstances."
"Circ.u.mstances will keep on being in existence as long as we are in existence. I never forget a motto I chose for my birthday once on a time.
"The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.""
"He commands us to fight, sometimes."
"And then we must fight. You seem to be undergoing some struggles now.
Have you any opening here?"
"I answered an advertis.e.m.e.nt this morning, but we could not come to terms. Marjorie, what you say about Middlefield is worth thinking of."
"That is why I said it," she said archly.
"Would _you _like that life better?"
"Better for you?"
"No, better for yourself."
"I am there already, you know," with rising color.