Miss Prudence Part 17

"I think not."

"But she doesn't expect to go to Heaven, she says. Mother says she's almost in 'despair' and she pities her so!"

"Poor woman! I don't see how she can live through despair. The old proverb 'If it were not for hope, the heart would break,' is most certainly true."

"Why didn't you come before?" asked Marjorie, caressing the hand that still played with the fan.

"Perhaps you never lived on a farm and cannot understand. I could not come in the ox-cart because the oxen were in the field, and every day since I heard of your accident your uncle has had to drive your aunt to Portland on some business. And I did not feel strong enough to walk until this morning."

"How good you are to walk!"

"As good as you are to walk to see me."

"Oh, but I am young and strong, and I wanted to see you so, and ask you questions so."

"I believe the latter," said Miss Prudence smiling.

"Well, I'm happy now," Marjorie sighed, with the burden of her trouble still upon her. "Suppose I had been killed when I fell and had not told you about the pitcher nor made amends for it."

"I don't believe any of us could be taken away without one moment to make ready and not leave many things undone--many tangled threads and rough edges to be taken care of. We are very happy if we have no sin to confess, no wrong to make right."

"I think Hollis would have taken care of the plate for me," said Marjorie, simply; "but I wanted to tell you myself. Mother wants to go home as suddenly as that would have been for me, she says. I shouldn't wonder if she prays about it--she prays about everything. Do people have _that_ kind of a prayer answered?"

"I have known more than one instance--and I read about a gentleman who had desired to be taken suddenly and he was killed by lightning while sitting on his own piazza."

"Oh!" said Marjorie.

"That was all he could have wished. And the mother of my pastor at home, who was over ninety, was found dead on her knees at her bedside, and she had always wished to be summoned suddenly."

"When she was speaking to him, too," murmured Marjorie. "I like old people, don't you? Hollis' grandmother is at his house and Mrs. Rheid wants me to go to see her; she is ninety-three and blind, and she loves to tell stories about herself, and I am to stay all day and listen to her and take up her st.i.tches when she drops them in her knitting work and read the Bible to her. She won't listen to anything but the Bible; she says she's too old to hear other books read."

"What a treat you will have!"

"Isn't it lovely? I never had _that_ day in my air-castles, either. Nor you coming to stay all day with me, nor writing to Hollis. I had a letter from him last night, the funniest letter! I laughed all the time I was reading it. He begins: 'Poor little Mousie,' and ends, 'ours, till next time.' I'll show it to you. He doesn't say much about Helen. I shall tell him if I write about his mother he must write about Helen. I'm sorry to tell him what his mother said yesterday about herself but I promised and I must be faithful."

"I hope you will have happy news to write soon."

"I don't know; she says the minister doesn't do her any good, nor reading the Bible nor praying. Now what can help her?"

"G.o.d," was the solemn reply. "She has had to learn that the minister and Bible reading and prayer are not G.o.d. When she is sure that G.o.d will do all the helping and saving, she will be helped and saved. Perhaps she has gone to the minister and the Bible instead of to G.o.d, and she may have thought her prayers could save her instead of G.o.d."

"She said she was in despair because they did not help her and she did not know where to turn next," said Marjorie, who had listened with sympathetic eyes and aching heart.

"Don't worry about her, dear, G.o.d is teaching her to turn to himself."

"I told her about the plate, but she did not seem to care much. What different things people _do_ care about!" exclaimed Marjorie, her eyes alight with the newness of her thought.

"Mrs. Harrowgate will never be perfectly satisfied until she has a memorial of Pompeii. I've promised when I explore underground I'll find her a treasure. Your Holland plate is something for her small collection; she has but eighty-seven pieces of china, while a friend of hers has gathered together two hundred."

"What do _you_ care for most, Miss Prudence?

"In the way of collections? I haven't shown you my penny buried in the lava of Mt. Vesuvius; I told my friend that savored of Pompeii, the only difference is one is above ground and the other underneath, but I couldn't persuade her to believe it."

"I don't mean collecting coins or things; I mean what do you care for _most_?"

"If you haven't discovered, I cannot care very much for what I care for most."

Marjorie laughed at this way of putting it, then she answered gravely: "I do know. I think you care most--" she paused, choosing her phrase carefully--"to help people make something out of themselves."

"Thank you. That's fine. I never put it so excellently to myself."

"I haven't found out what I care most for."

"I think I know. You care most to make something out of yourself."

"Do I? Isn't that selfish? But I don't know how to help any one else, not even Linnet."

"Making the best of ourselves is the foundation for making something out of others."

"But I didn't say _that_" persisted Marjorie. "You help people to do it for themselves."

"I wonder if that is my work in the world," rejoined Miss Prudence, musingly. "I could not choose anything to fit me better--I had no thought that I have ever succeeded; I never put it to myself in that way."

"Perhaps I'll begin some day. Helen Rheid helps Hollis. He isn't the same boy; he studies and buys books and notices things to be admired in people, and when he is full of fun he isn't rough. I don't believe I ever helped anybody."

"You have some work to do upon yourself first. And I am sure you have helped educate your mother and father."

Marjorie pulled to pieces the green leaf that had floated in upon her lap and as she kept her eyes on the leaf she pondered.

Her companion was "talking over her head" purposely to-day; she had a plan for Marjorie and as she admitted to herself she was "trying the child to see what she was made of."

She congratulated herself upon success thus far.

"That children do educate their mothers is the only satisfactory reason I have found when I have questioned why G.o.d does give children to _some_ mothers."

"Then what becomes of the children?" asked Marjorie, alarmed.

"The Giver does not forget them; he can be a mother himself, you know."

Marjorie did not know; she had always had her mother. Had she lost something, therefore, in not thus finding out G.o.d? Perhaps, in after life she would find his tenderness by losing--or not having--some one else. It was not too bad, for it would be a great pity if there were not such interruptions, but at this instant Linnet's housewifely face was pushed in at the door, and her voice announced: "Dinner in three minutes and a half! Chicken-pie for the first course and some new and delicious thing for dessert."

"Oh, splendid!" cried Marjorie, hopping up. "And we'll finish everything after dinner, Miss Prudence."

"As the lady said to the famous traveller at a dinner party: 'We have five minutes before dinner, please tell me all about your travels,'" said Miss Prudence, rising and laughing.

"You remember you haven't told me what you sent me for the Bible to show me that unhappy--no, happy time--I broke the picture," reminded Marjorie, leading the way to the dining-room.