Carolina Lee Part 13

Her greatest fear was that she would be unable to curb the hot temper which mortal mind had made into the law that it was a Lee inheritance.

She particularly dreaded her first interview with Noel St. Quentin, Kate, and Cousin Lois. She had yet, also, to face Doctor Colfax. She had not seen him since, by Mrs. G.o.ddard's advice, she wrote him a frank little note, saying that her healing had been marvellously hastened by Christian Science, and that she had so much faith in it that she felt compelled to relinquish all claim on materia medica, but that, in doing so, she wished to acknowledge most gratefully all that his skill had accomplished in her case.

It was a hard note to write, for Kate's a.s.sertion, which at first Carolina had indignantly repudiated, that Doctor Colfax was falling in love with her, had proved true, and Carolina knew that this dismissal of him as her physician would indicate that he need expect nothing more of her in any other capacity, either.

He wrote her a polite but stiff letter of acknowledgment, and soon afterward went away for a brief vacation.

Carolina realized how much antagonism she had aroused among her own immediate friends, and she spent many hours consulting Mrs. G.o.ddard how to conduct herself with tact.

When Mrs. Winchester returned from Boston, Carolina experienced her first battle with error. She possessed a high spirit, and to see Cousin Lois sit and look at her in silent despair, with tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks, irritated Carolina almost to the verge of madness, so that instead of waving aloft the glorious banner of a new religion, Carolina found herself longing to box Cousin Lois's ears. Anything, anything to stop those maddening tears!

She could only control herself by a violent effort. Mrs. Winchester, like Kate Howard, was an ardent churchwoman, and to both these women Carolina's acceptance of Christian Science was the greatest blow which could have fallen on them, short of her eloping with the coachman. They felt ashamed, and in no small degree degraded.

"Whatever can you see in it?" demanded Mrs. Winchester, plaintively, one Sunday morning just after she returned from church. "Why need you go to their church? Why can't you continue in the church you were baptized into as a baby? I don't care what you believe, just so you go to the Episcopal church! It is so respectable to be an Episcopalian! Oh, Carolina, as I sat there listening to that sermon to-morrow--oh, Carolina, how can you laugh when I am so serious!"

"Do forgive me, Cousin Lois, but you couldn't be any funnier if you said you had seen something week after next!"

"I am glad to know that a Christian Scientist can laugh," sighed Mrs.

Winchester, whose mild persistency in investing the new thought with every attribute that she particularly disliked was, to say the least, diverting.

"Am I improved or not since I began to study with Mrs. G.o.ddard?"

demanded Carolina, with recaptured good humour.

"I don't see any improvement, my dear. To me you were always as nearly perfect as a mortal could be!"

"Dear loyal Cousin Lois!" said Carolina.

She seldom kissed any one, but she kissed Mrs. Winchester, who blushed with pleasure under the unusual caress.

"Perhaps," she added, cautiously, "you are a trifle more demonstrative, but I always thought your apparent coldness was aristocratic."

"It wasn't," said Carolina, decidedly. "It was because I didn't care."

"And now?" questioned Mrs. Winchester, wistfully.

"Now," cried Carolina, "I care vitally for everything good!"

"You always did, I think," said Mrs. Winchester. "Even as a child you always gravitated toward the highest of everything. You are too remarkable a girl, Carolina, to throw yourself away at this late day on a fad which will die a natural death of its own accord."

"May I be there to see when Christian Science dies!" cried Carolina, brightly. She felt ashamed that she had ever lost patience with any one who loved her as idolatrously as Cousin Lois.

"Doctor Colfax--I forgot to tell you that I met him on the train, and that he asked fifty questions about you that I couldn't answer--Doctor Colfax will certainly be nonplussed when he sees you walking with only that cane. He told me he never expected to see you walk without two crutches."

"Then you do give Christian Science credit for that much, do you?" asked Carolina.

"Oh, yes. It must have some wonderful power. I simply don't understand it, that's all. And Carolina, it seems so--excuse me, but so disreputable!"

"Does it? I hadn't thought of it in that light."

"And so uns.e.xing! Don't you have women in the pulpit?"

"Yes. Christian Science recognizes woman as the spiritual equal, if not the spiritual superior, of man."

"There!" said Mrs. Winchester, triumphantly, as if having scored a point against the new religion. "Yet woman caused man's fall!"

"No, she didn't, Cousin Lois. Christian Science doesn't take that allegory as history."

"Oh, Carolina! Carolina! You are indeed in a sad way when you forsake the faith of your ancestors! Such disloyalty cannot fail to have a depressing effect upon your character!"

"On the contrary," said Carolina, "it is as exhilarating to kick down all one's old, stale beliefs as a game of football."

At this Mrs. Winchester's asthma returned. There was nothing left for her to do, in her state of mind, but to choke or to swoon.

A few evenings later Doctor Colfax telephoned to Kate that he would drop in for a few minutes after dinner.

"H-he can't stand it for another minute, Carolina!" cried Kate. "I am crazy to see his face when you walk in without your crutches! C-Carol, couldn't you take an extra treatment or so, and come in without even your c-cane?"

Carolina's eyes blazed with joy at this unconscious admission on Kate's part that she believed even that little in the new faith.

For reply Carolina rose by means of the arms of her chair, and without any material aid whatsoever took half a dozen steps.

"Oh, Carol! Carol!" shrieked Kate, bursting into tears. "Y-you never even limped! Oh, it's l-like the d-days when Christ was on earth to s-see a m-miracle like that!"

She seized her friend in her arms and almost lifted her from her feet.

"D-do it to-night, Carolina, and we'll knock their eye out! I'll get the whole family together, a-a-and you j-just walk in like that! Will you?"

"Yes, if you will go away and let me work over it this afternoon. And don't tell anybody!"

"Oh, certainly not! That would spoil the surprise."

"I don't mean for that reason. I mean that outsiders' adverse thought would hinder my work. Mortal mind makes false laws."

"C-could you just as well t-talk United States when you are heaving your ideas at me?" pleaded Kate. "Y-you know I'm not on to the new jargon, and I fail to connect more than half the time."

As Carolina laughed, Kate nodded her head with great satisfaction.

"I am glad to see that Christian Science has not destroyed your royal sense of humour," she said. "Now I'm off to let you w-work!"

But when the door closed behind Kate, a prolonged sense of discouragement seized Carolina. She looked forward to the evening with dread. Kate made fun of it, Doctor Colfax was coming purposely to scoff, and she knew that she was to be made conspicuous because of her religion.

She tried to walk without her cane, but her knee bent under her and she fell to the floor. Her first impulse was to burst into tears, but, as she lay there alone, too far from the bell to summon help, apparently without human aid, she fancied she heard the voice of Mrs. G.o.ddard repeating: "For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."

She said this over and over to herself, and it comforted her. Then the face of Mrs. G.o.ddard came before her mental vision, and the lovely earnestness of her voice sounded in Carolina's ear. She remembered her last words, which now came back to her with strange and timely significance:

"The way will not always be smooth beneath your feet. Error in the guise of fear, selfish or vainglorious thoughts, revenge, self-pity, or desire to s.h.i.+ne before others will sometimes cause you to stumble and fall. But at such times, remember to blame, not circ.u.mstances nor others, but your own faulty thought. Be severe with yourself. Then turn your thought instantly to the Source of your supply. No one can help you, Carolina, but G.o.d, your Father, Divine Love, the All in All of your existence, your very Reason for being. Realize that G.o.d is all there is. Beyond Him there is nothing and nothingness. Breathe His spirit. Drink in His divine power. Make yourself one with Him, and you will instantly find that the mists which covered the surface of your spiritual reflection of His image will disappear, and you will begin to reflect His government clearly. At that same moment, you will be healed of your infirmity."

As she repeated these last few words aloud, a feeling of complete security took possession of her, and she rose, first to her knees, then to her feet, and walked confidently to her chair by the window.