Miss Prudence Part 66

It happened so long ago that she smiled as she looked up at him.

"I have never told you the reason. I thought Morris Kemlo had a prior claim."

"What right had you to think that?"

"From what I heard--and saw."

"I am ignorant of what you could hear or see. Morris was my twin-brother; he was my blessing; he _is_ my blessing."

"Is not my reason sufficient?"

"Oh, yes; it doesn't matter. But see that sumach. I have not seen anything so pretty this summer; mother must have them. You wouldn't think it, but she is very fond of wild flowers."

She stepped aside to pluck the sumach and sprays of goldenrod; they were growing beside a stone wall, and she crossed the road to them. He stood watching her. She was as unconscious as the goldenrod herself.

What had her mother meant? Was it all a mistake? Had his wretched days and wakeful nights been for nothing? Was there nothing for him to be grieved about? He knew now how much he loved her--and she? He was not a part of her life, at all. Would he dare speak the words he had planned to speak?

"Then, Marjorie, you will not write to me," he began afresh, after admiring the sumach.

"Oh, yes, I will! If you want to! I love to write letters; and my life isn't half full enough yet. I want new people in it."

"And you would as readily take me as another," he said, in a tone that she did not understand.

"More readily than one whom I do not know. I want you to hear extracts from one of Mrs. Holmes' delicious letters to-night."

"You are as happy as a lark to-day.

"That is what mother told me, only she did not specify the bird. Morris, I _am_ happier than I was Sunday morning."

He colored over the name. She smiled and said, "I've been thinking about him to-day, and wanting to tell him how changed I am."

"What has changed you?" he asked.

Her eyes filled before she could answer him. In a few brief sentences, sentences in which each word told, she gave him the story of her dark year.

"Poor little Mousie," he said tenderly. "And you bore the dark time all by yourself."

"That's the way I have my times. But I do not have my happy times by myself, you see."

"Did nothing else trouble you?"

"No; oh, no! Nothing like that. Father's death was not a trouble. I went with him as far as I could--I almost wanted to go all the way."

"And there was nothing else to hurt you?" he asked very earnestly.

"Oh, no; why should there be?" she answered, meeting his questioning eyes frankly. "Do you know of anything else that should have troubled me?"

"No, nothing else. But girls do have sometimes. Didn't your mother help you any? She helps other people."

"I could not tell her. I could not talk about it. She only thought I was ill, and sent for a physician. Perhaps I did worry myself into feeling ill."

"You take life easily," he said.

"Do I? I like to take it as G.o.d gives it to me; not before he gives it to me. This slowness--or faith--or whatever it is, is one of my inheritances from my blessed father. Who is it that says, 'I'd see to it pretty sharp that I didn't hurry Providence.' That has helped me."

"I wish it would some one else," he said grimly.

"I wish it would help _every one_ else. Everything is helping me now; if I were writing to you I could tell you some of them."

"I like to hear you talk, Marjorie."

"Do you?" she asked wonderingly. "Linnet does, too, and Mrs. Kemlo. As I shall never write a book, I must learn to talk, and talk myself all out.

Aunt Prue is living her book."

"Tell me something that has helped you," he urged.

She looked at the goldenrod in her hand, and raised it to her lips.

"It is coming to me that Christ made everything. He made those lilies of which he said, 'Consider the lilies.' Isn't it queer that we will not let him clothe us as he did the lilies? What girl ever had a white dress of the texture and whiteness and richness of the lily?"

"But the lily has but one dress; girls like a new dress for every occasion and a different one."

"'Shall he not much more clothe you?' But we do not let him clothe us.

When one lily fades, he makes another in a fresh dress. I wish I could live as he wants me to. Not think about dress or what we eat or drink?

Only do his beautiful work, and not have to worry and be anxious about things."

"Do you _have_ to be?" he asked smiling.

"My life is a part of lives that are anxious about these things. But I don't think about dress as some girls do. I never like to talk about it.

It is not a temptation to me. It would not trouble me to wear one dress all my life--one color, as the flowers do; it should be a soft gray--a cashmere, and when one was soiled or worn out I would have another like it--and never spend any more thought about it. Aunt Prue loves gray--she almost does that--she spends no thought on dress. If we didn't have to 'take thought,' how much time we would have--and how our minds would be at rest--to work for people and to study G.o.d's works and will."

Hollis smiled as he looked down at her.

"Girls don't usually talk like that," he said.

"Perhaps I don't--usually. What are you reading now?"

"History, chiefly--the history of the world and the history of the church."

They walked more and more slowly as they drifted into talk about books and then into his life in New York and the experiences he had had in his business tours and the people whom he had met.

"Do you like your life?" she asked.

"Yes, I like the movement and the life: I like to be 'on the go.' I expect to take my third trip across the ocean by and by. I like to mingle with men. I never could settle down into farming; not till I am old, at any rate."

They found Marjorie's mother standing in the front doorway, looking for them. She glanced at Hollis, but he was fastening the gate and would not be glanced at. Marjorie's face was no brighter than when she had set out for her walk. Linnet was setting the tea-table and singing, "A life on the ocean wave."

After tea the letter from Switzerland was read and discussed. Miss Prudence, as Mrs. West could not refrain from calling her, always gave them something to talk about. To give people something to think about that was worth thinking about, was something to live for, she had said once to Marjorie.