Janet's Love and Service Part 27

"Yes," continued her father. "It was rather sudden, it seems--soon after she had decided to come out here. It will be doubly hard for her daughter to bear on that account. I must speak to her, poor Janet!"

Graeme was left alone to muse on the uncertainly of all things, and to tell herself over and over again, how vain it was to set the heart on any earthly good. "Poor Janet!" well might her father say; and amid her own sorrow Graeme grieved sincerely for the sorrow of her friend. It was very hard to bear, now that she had been looking forward to a happy meeting, and a few quiet years together after their long separation. It did seem very hard, and it was with a full heart that in an hour afterward, when her father returned, she sought her friend.

Mr Snow had gone home and his wife was to stay all night, Graeme found when she entered her sister's room. Marian was asleep, and coming close to Mrs Snow, who sat gazing into the fire, Graeme knelt down beside her and put her arm's about her neck without a word. At first Graeme thought she was weeping. She was not; but in a little she said, in a voice that showed how much her apparent calmness cost her, "You see, my dear, the upshot of all our fine plans."

"Oh, Janet! There's nothing in all the world that we can trust in."

"Ay, you may weel say that. But it is a lesson that we are slow to learn; and the Lord winna let us forget."

There was a pause.

"When was it?" asked Graeme, softly.

"Six weeks ago this very night, I have been thinking, since I sat here.

Her trouble was short and sharp, and she was glad to go."

"And would she have come?"

"Ay, la.s.s, but it wasna to be, as I might have kenned from the beginning. I thought I asked G.o.d's guiding, and I was persuaded into thinking I had gotten it. But you see my heart was set on it from the very first--guiding or no guiding--and now the Lord has seen fit to punish me for my self-seeking."

"Oh, Janet!" said Graeme, remonstratingly.

"My dear, it's true, though it sets me ill to vex you with saying it now. I have more need to take the lesson to heart. May the Lord give me grace to do it."

Graeme could say nothing, and Janet continued--

"It's ill done in me to grieve for her. She is far better off than ever I could have made her with the best of wills, and as for me--I must submit."

"You have Sandy still."

"Aye, thank G.o.d. May He have him in His keeping."

"And he will come yet."

"Yes, I have little doubt. But I'll no' set myself to the hewing out of broken cisterns this while again. The Lord kens best."

After that night Mrs Snow never left the house for many hours at a time till Menie went away. Graeme never told her father of the sorrow that was drawing near. As the days went on, she saw by many a token, that he knew of the coming parting, but it did not seem to look sorrowful to him. He was much with her now, but all could see that the hours by her bedside were not sorrowful ones to him or to her. But to Graeme he did not speak of her sister's state till near the very last.

They were sitting together in the firelight of the study, as they seldom sat now. They had been sitting thus a long time--so long that Graeme, forgetting to wear a cheerful look in her father's presence, had let her weary eyes close, and her hands drop listlessly on her lap. She looked utterly weary and despondent, as she sat there, quite unconscious that her father's eyes were upon her.

"You are tired to-night, Graeme," said he, at last. Graeme started, but it was not easy to bring her usual look back, so she busied herself with something at the table and did not speak. Her father sighed.

"It will not be long now."

Graeme sat motionless, but she had no voice with which to speak.

"We little thought it was our bonny Menie who was to see her mother first. Think of the joy of that meeting, Graeme!"

Graeme's head drooped down on the table. If she had spoken a word, it must have been with a great burst of weeping. She trembled from head to foot in her effort to keep herself quiet. Her father watched her for a moment.

"Graeme, you are not grudging your sister to such blessedness?"

"Not now, papa," whispered she, heavily. "I am almost willing now."

"What is the happiest life here--and Menie's has been happy--to the blessedness of the rest which I confidently believe awaits her, dear child?"

"It is not that I grudge to let her go, but that I fear to be left behind."

"Ay, love! But we must bide G.o.d's time. And you will have your brothers and Rose, and you are young, and time heals sore wounds in young hearts."

Graeme's head drooped lower. She was weeping unrestrainedly but quietly now. Her father went on--

"And afterwards you will have many things to comfort you. I used to think in the time of my sorrow, that its suddenness added to its bitterness. If it had ever come into my mind that your mother might leave me, I might have borne it better, I thought. But G.o.d knows.

There are some things for which we cannot prepare."

There was a long silence.

"Graeme, I have something which I must say to you," said her father, and his voice showed that he was speaking with an effort. "If the time comes--when the time comes--my child, I grieve to give you pain, but what I have to say had best be said now; it will bring the time no nearer. My child, I have something to say to you of the time when we shall no longer be together--" Graeme did not move.

"My child, the backward look over one's life, is so different from the doubtful glances one sends into the future. I stand now, and see all the way by which G.o.d has led me, with a grieved wonder, that I should ever have doubted his love and care, and how it was all to end. The dark places, and the rough places that once made my heart faint with fear, are, to look back upon, radiant with light and beauty--Mounts of G.o.d, with the bright cloud overshadowing them. And yet, I mind groping about before them, like a bond man, with a fear and dread unspeakable.

"My child, are you hearing me? Oh! if my experience could teach you! I know it cannot be. The blessed lesson that suffering teaches, each must bear for himself; and I need not tell you that there never yet was sorrow sent to a child of G.o.d, for which there is no balm. You are young; and weary and spent as you are to-night, no wonder that you think at the sight, of the deep wastes you may have to pa.s.s, and the dreary waters you may have to cross. But there is no fear that you will be alone, dear, or that He will give you anything to do, or bear, and yet withhold the needed strength. Are you hearing me, my child?"

Graeme gave a mute sign of a.s.sent.

"Menie, dear child, has had a life bright and brief. Yours may be long and toilsome, but if the end be the same, what matter! you may desire to change with her to-night, but we cannot change our lot. G.o.d make us patient in it,--patient and helpful. Short as your sister's life has been, it has not been in vain. She has been like light among us, and her memory will always be a blessedness--and to you Graeme, most of all."

Graeme's lips opened with a cry. Turning, she laid her face down on her father's knee, and her tears fell fast. Her father raised her, and clasping her closely, let her weep for a little.

"Hush, love, calm yourself," said he, at last. "Nay," he added, as she would have risen, "rest here, my poor tired Graeme, my child, my best comforter always."

Graeme's frame shook with sobs.

"Don't papa--I cannot bear it--"

She struggled with herself, and grew calm again.

"Forgive me, papa. I know I ought not. And indeed, it is not because I am altogether unhappy, or because I am not willing to let her go--"

"Hush, love, I know. You are your mother's own patient child. I trust you quite, Graeme, and that is why I have courage to give you pain. For I must say more to-night. If anything should happen to me--hush, love.

My saying it does not hasten it. But when I am gone, you will care for the others. I do not fear for you. You will always have kind friends in Janet and her husband, and will never want a home while they can give you one, I am sure. But Graeme, I would like you all to keep together.

Be one family, as long as possible. So if Arthur wishes you to go to him, go all together. He may have to work hard for a time, but you will take a blessing with you. And it will be best for all, that you should keep together."

The shock which her father's words gave, calmed Graeme in a moment.

"But, papa, you are not ill, not more than you have been?"

"No, love, I am better, much better. Still, I wished to say this to you, because it is always well to be prepared. That is all I had to say, love."