"Does she know?" asked Marjorie, springing up to greet Miss Prudence.
"Yes; she is very quiet, I have prayed with her twice; and we have talked about his life and his death. She says that it was unselfish to the end."
"He sent his love to her; did Hollis tell you?"
"I read the letter--I read it twice. She holds it in her hand now."
"Has the tall man gone?" asked Prue.
"Yes, he did not stay long. Marjorie, you did not bid him good-night."
"I know it; I did not think."
"Marjorie, dear;" Miss Prudence opened her arms, and Marjorie crept into them.
"Oh, Aunt Prue, I would not be so troubled, but he wanted to give me something--some little thing he had brought me--because he always did remember me, and I would not even look at it. I don"t know what it was. I refused it; and I know he was so hurt. I was almost tempted to take it when I saw his eyes; and then I wanted to be true."
"Were you true?"
"I tried to be."
"Then there is nothing to be troubled about. He is comforted for it now.
Don"t you want to go down and see his mother?"
"I"m afraid to see her."
"She will comfort you. She is sure now that G.o.d loves her. I have been trying to teach her, and now G.o.d has taught her so that she can rejoice in his love. Whom the Lord loveth, she says, he chastens; and he knows how he has chastened her. If it were not for his love, Marjorie, what would keep our hearts from breaking?"
"Papa died, too," said Prue.
Marjorie went down to the parlor. Mrs. Kemlo was sitting at the grate, leaning back in her steamer chair. Marjorie kissed her without a word.
"Marjorie! The girls ought to know. I don"t believe I can write."
"I can. I will write to-night."
"And copy this letter; then they will know it just as it is. He was with you so long they will not miss him as we do. They were older, and they loved each other, and left him to me. And, Marjorie--"
"Yes"m."
"Tell them I am going to your mother"s as soon as warm weather comes, unless one of them would rather take me home; tell them Miss Prudence has become a daughter to me; I am not in need of anything. Give them my love, and say that when they love their little ones, they must think of how I loved them."
"I will," said Marjorie, "You and mother will enjoy each other so much."
Marjorie wrote the letters that evening, her eyes so blinded with tears that she wrote very crookedly. No one would ever know what she had lost in Morris. He had been a part of herself that even Linnet had never been.
She was lost without him, and for months wandered in a new world. She suffered more keenly upon the anniversary of the day of the tidings of his death than she suffered that day. Then, she could appreciate more fully what G.o.d had taken from her. But the letters were written, and mailed on her way to school in the morning; her recitations were gone through with; and night came, when she could have the rest of sleep. The days went on outwardly as usual. Prue was daily becoming more and more a delight to them all. Mrs. Kemlo"s sad face was sweet and chastened; and Miss Prudence"s days were more full of busy doings, with a certain something of a new life about them that Marjorie did not understand. She could almost imagine what Miss Prudence had been twenty years ago.
Despite her lightness of foot, her inspiriting voice, and her _young_ interest in every question that pertained to life and work and study, Miss Prudence seemed old to eighteen-years-old Marjorie. Not as old as her mother; but nearly forty-five was very old. When she was forty-five, she thought, her life would be almost ended; and here was Miss Prudence always _beginning again_.
Answers to her letters arrived duly. They were not long; but they were conventionally sympathetic.
One daughter wrote: "Morris took you away from us to place you with friends whom he thought would take good care of you; if you are satisfied to stay with them, I think you will be better off than with me. Business is dull, and Peter thinks he has enough on his hands."
The other wrote: "I am glad you are among such kind friends. If Miss Pomeroy thinks she owes you anything, now is her time to repay it. But she could pay your board with me as well as with strangers, and you could help me with the children. I am glad you can be submissive, and that you are in a pleasanter frame of mind. Henry sends love, and says you never shall want a home while he has a roof over his own head."
The mother sighed over both letters. They both left so much unsaid. They were wrapped up in their husbands and children.
"I hope their children will love them when they are old," was the only remark she made about the letters.
"I am your child, too," said Marjorie. "Won"t you take me instead--no, not instead of Morris, but _with_ him?"
In April Will came home. He spent a night in Maple Street, and almost satisfied the mother"s hungry heart with the comfort he gave her.
Marjorie listened with tears. She went away by herself to open the tiny box that Will placed in her hand. Kissing the ring with loving and reverent lips, she slipped it on the finger that Morris would have chosen, the finger on which Linnet wore her wedding ring. "_Semper fidelis._" She could see the words now as he used to write them on the slate. If he might only know that she cared for the ring! If he might only know that she was waiting for him to come back to bring it to her.
If he might only know--But he had G.o.d now; he was in the presence of Jesus Christ. There was no marrying or giving in marriage in the presence of Christ in Heaven. Giving in marriage and marrying had been in his presence on the earth; but where fullness of joy was, there was something better. Marriage belonged to the earth. She belonged to the earth; but he belonged to Heaven. The ring did not signify that she was married to him--I think it might have meant that to her, if she had read the shallow sentimentalism of some love stories; but Miss Prudence had kept her from false ideas, and given her the truth; the truth, that marriage was the symbol of the union of Christ and his people; a pure marriage was the type of this union. Linnet"s marriage was holier and happier because of Miss Prudence"s teaching. Miss Prudence was an old maid; but she had helped others beside Linnet and Marjorie towards the happiest marriage. Marjorie had not one selfish, or shallow, or false idea with regard to marriage. And why should girls have, who have good mothers and the Old and New Testaments?
With no shamefacedness, no foolish consciousness, she went down among them with Morris" ring upon her finger. She would as soon have been ashamed to say that an angel had spoken to her. Perhaps she was not a modern school-girl, perhaps she was as old-fashioned as Miss Prudence herself.
XXIV.
JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE.
"I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well."--_Goldsmith._
"Prudence!"
"Well, John," she returned, as he seemed to hesitate.
"Have we arranged everything?"
"Everything! And you have been home three hours."
"Three and a half, if you please; it is now six o"clock."
"Then the tea-bell will ring."
"No; I told Deborah to ring at seven to-night."
"She will think you are putting on the airs of the master."
"Don"t you think it is about time? Or, it will be at half past six."
"Why, in half an hour?"
"Half an hour may make all the difference in the world."