Probable Sons Part 8

"But how long? Two days, or six hours, or a week?"

"It would depend perhaps on how long they had been away from Him."

"It's rather hard to understand," said Milly, wrinkling her little brow perplexedly, "because G.o.d is everywhere, isn't He? and I should have thought He would have been close by them all the time. I was asking nurse about it, and she said that G.o.d was near them, only they wouldn't have anything to say to Him, and did bad things and shut the Lord Jesus out of their heart, and let Satan in, and then G.o.d had to leave them till they said they said they were sorry. I suppose directly they say: '_Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in Thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son,_' then G.o.d just folds them in His arms and forgives them and takes them back again; isn't that it?"

"Look here, I think we have had enough of this subject. Talk about something else."

Sir Edward's tone was irritable. Milly's ready tongue obeyed.

"Nurse says it's so cold to-day that she thinks it will snow. Do you think it will? It is quite smoky by the river; nurse says it is a fog. I wondered where it all came from. Do you think it might be G.o.d's breath, uncle?"

As she was chatting on, suddenly there came a sharp knock at the door, and a visitor appeared.

"Thought I'd look you up, for I heard you were on the sick list. Good gracious! you have been pretty bad, haven't you? Will you put me up for a night or two? I expect you want a little cheerful company."

Talking volubly, Major Lovell--for it was he--came forward and looked with real concern on Sir Edward's altered face.

"I'm very glad to see you," said the latter, heartily, holding out his hand. "Come and stay for as long as you like. I'm sick to death of my own society."

"And is this the small party that arrived so unexpectedly when I was here before?" inquired Major Lovell, looking down at Milly, who still sat in the big chair, regarding the new-comer with her large brown eyes.

"Yes," said Sir Edward, a faint smile hovering about his lips as he remembered his horror of her advent; "she is taking charge of me this afternoon."

Milly held out her little hand with all the grace of a d.u.c.h.ess.

"I remember you," she said; "you were one of the gentlemen that laughed at me."

"I don't think I could have been guilty of such rudeness, surely."

"Now, I think you may run away," Sir Edward said, "and tell nurse I will ring when I want her."

Milly obeyed, and confided to nurse that she hoped the "new gentleman"

would not keep her away from her uncle. "For do you know, nurse, I like Uncle Edward so much better when he is in bed. He looks so sad, and speaks so softly. I wish I could sit with him every day."

Major Lovell was a distant cousin of Sir Edward, and there existed a warm friends.h.i.+p between them. The very brightness of his tone seemed to do the invalid good, and Milly was quite delighted to find that her uncle's visitor not only listened with interest to the account of her favorite games and pastimes, but insisted upon joining her in them, and the walls of the quiet old house rang again with merry mirth and laughter such as they had not known for years.

Upstairs in the sick room Major Lovell proved a wonderfully patient and skillful nurse; but there were times when all his bright cheeriness could not smooth the furrows in the invalid's brow, or take away the fretfulness of tone.

One morning Major Lovell came down from an interview with him with a puzzled expression of face. Catching sight of Milly in the hall, equipped in hat and jacket, he asked,--

"Are you going out with nurse?"

"No, nurse is busy--just by my own self, in the avenue with Fritz. Do come with me."

The major consented, but with a graver face than usual, and then suddenly, very full of his own thoughts, said to the child,--

"I believe your uncle has something on his mind. It strikes me from different things he has let drop that he is turning pious."

"What is pious?" inquired Milly, instantly.

"What is it? A pious person thinks every one wicked but themselves, and condemns everybody and everything all round them. They are most objectionable people, little woman, so mind you never take up that line, and the worst of it is that they're so satisfied with their own goodness, that you can't crush them, try as much as you may."

"And is Uncle Edward going to be like them?" asked the child, with a perplexed face.

"I devoutly hope not. I shall do all in my power to prevent it."

"What do pious people do?" questioned Milly.

"Do! They give tracts away and sing hymns, and pull long faces over very well-bound Bibles."

"I like singing hymns," a.s.serted Milly, very emphatically; "everybody sings hymns to G.o.d, don't they? I listen to the birds, sometimes, and wish I could sing like them; and the trees sing, and the bees and flies.

Everything seems to sing out of doors in the summer time, but they've nearly all dropped asleep now till next year. What hymns do you sing, Major Lovell?"

"Bless the child! what do you take me for?" and the major laughed heartily as he spoke; then, with a twinkle in his eye, he went on gravely,--

"I shall begin to think that you are pious if you don't take care. What else do you do besides sing hymns?"

"I have a Bible," said Milly, solemnly, "and I just love it."

"And what makes you love such a dry book as the Bible? You can't understand a word of it."

"Oh, I can, Major Lovell, it's beautiful. I love nurse to read and read it to me. It tells about Jesus, you know, and I love Jesus, and He loves me. And it has such nice stories in it."

Major Lovell gave a long, low whistle.

"Ah!" he said, shaking his head comically at the little figure walking by his side, "I'm very much afraid you may be at the bottom of it all.

Do you read the Bible to your uncle? Do you tell him that he has been wasting his life and not fulfilling the end for which he was created, in fact, that he is a wicked sinner? For that has been the substance of his talk with me this morning!"

"Uncle Edward is a very good man," Milly replied, warmly. "I don't know what you mean, Major Lovell; don't you read the Bible?"

"What will you think of me if I tell you I don't?"

"Perhaps you know it all by heart? I expect that is why."

"I rather think I don't. You must not begin to catechise me too severely. Who has brought you up in this pious fas.h.i.+on?"

"I'm not pious. You said they were horrid people. But I thought all the grown-up people read the Bible, except people like Jack."

"Who is Jack?"

"He was a prodigal son, one of G.o.d's prodigal sons."

"And what are they, may I ask?"

Milly did not answer for a minute, then she stopped short, and said very solemnly, raising her large dark eyes to the major's face,--

"I wonder if you're a prodigal son. Uncle Edward said there were some rich ones. Have you run away from G.o.d, Major Lovell?"

"Oh, come now," said the major, pinching her cheek good-naturedly; "I didn't bargain for this when I came out with you. You must keep your sermons for some one else. Come along to the stables with me, and I will give you a ride."