The Maidens' Lodge Part 15

"Why, I shall have White-Ladies," answered Rhoda. "And of course Aunt Harriet will leave me everything."

"Have Madam and Mrs Harriet told you so, my dear?"

"No," said Rhoda, rather impatiently. "But who else should they leave it to?"

Mrs Dorothy let that part of the matter drop quietly.

"'They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare,'" she said, taking up her work again.

"What snare?" said Rhoda, bluntly.

"They get their hearts choked up," said the old lady.

"With what, Mrs Dolly?"

"'Cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life.' O my dear, may the Lord make your heart soft! Yet I am afraid--I am very sore afraid, that the only way of making some hearts soft is--to break them."

"Well, I don't want my heart breaking, thank you," laughed Rhoda; "and I don't think anything would break it, unless I lost all my money, and was left an old maid. O Mrs Dolly, I can't think how you bear it! To come down, now, and live in one of these little houses, and have people looking down on you, instead of looking up to you--if anything of the sort would kill me, I think that would."

"Well, it hasn't killed me, child," said Mrs Dorothy, calmly; "but then, you see, I chose it. That makes a difference."

"But you didn't choose to be poor, Mrs Dolly?"

"Well, yes, in one sense, I did," answered the old lady, a little tinge of colour rising in her pale cheek.

"How so?" demanded Rhoda, who was not deterred from gaining information by any delicacy in asking questions.

"There was a time once, my dear, that I might have married a gentleman of t.i.tle, with a rent-roll of six thousand a year."

"Mrs Dolly! you don't mean that?" cried Rhoda. "And why on earth didn't you?"

"Well, my dear, I had two reasons," answered Mrs Dorothy. "One was"-- with a little laugh--"that as you see, I preferred to be one of these same ill-conditioned, lonely, disappointed old maids. And the other was"--and Mrs Dorothy's voice sank to a softer and graver tone--"I could not have taken my Master with me into that house. I saw no track of His footsteps along that road. And His sheep follow Him."

"But G.o.d means us to be happy, Mrs Dolly?"

"Surely, my dear. But He knows better than we how empty and fleeting is all happiness other than is found in Him. 'Tis only because the Lord is our Shepherd that we shall not want."

"Mrs Dolly, that is what good people say; but it always sounds so gloomy and melancholy."

"What sounds melancholy, my dear?" inquired Mrs Dorothy, with slight surprise in her tone.

"Why, that one must find all one's happiness in reading sermons, and chanting Psalms, and thinking how soon one is going to die," said Rhoda, with an uncomfortable shrug.

"My dear!" exclaimed Mrs Dorothy, "when did you ever hear me say anything of the kind?"

"Why, that was what you meant, wasn't it," answered Rhoda, "when you talked about finding happiness in piety?"

"And when did I do that?"

"Just now, this minute back," said Rhoda in surprise.

"My dear child, you strangely misapprehend me. I never spoke a word of finding happiness in piety; I spoke of finding it in G.o.d. And G.o.d is not sermons, nor chanting, nor death. He is life, and light, and love.

I never think how soon I shall die. I often think how soon the Lord may come; but there is a vast difference between looking for the coming of a thing that you dread, and looking for the coming of a person whom you long to see."

"But you will die, Mrs Dolly?"

"Perhaps, my dear. The Lord may come first; I hope so."

"Oh dear!" said Rhoda. "But that means the world may come to an end."

"Yes. The sooner the better," replied the old lady.

"But you don't _want_ the world to end, Mrs Dolly?"

"I do, my clear. I want the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

"Oh dear!" cried Rhoda again. "Why, Mrs Dolly, I can't bear to think of it. It would be an end of everything I care about."

"My dear," said the old lady, gravely and yet tenderly, "if the Lord's coming will put an end to everything you care about, that must be because you don't care much for Him."

"I don't know anything about Him, except what we hear in church,"

answered Rhoda uneasily.

"And don't care for that?" softly responded her old friend.

Rhoda fidgeted for a moment, and then let the truth out.

"Well, no, Mrs Dolly, I _don't_. I know it sounds very wicked and shocking; but how can I, when 'tis all so far off? It doesn't feel real, as you do, and Madam, and all the other people I know. I can't tell how you make it real."

"_He_ makes it real, my child. 'Tis faith which sees G.o.d. How can you see Him without it? But I am not shocked, my dear. You have only told me what I knew before."

"I don't see how you knew," said Rhoda uncomfortably; "and I don't know how people get faith."

"By asking the Lord for it," said Mrs Dolly. "Phoebe, my child, is it a sorrowful thing to thee to think on Christ and His coming again?"

"Oh no!" was Phoebe's warm answer. "You see, Madam, I haven't anything else."

"Dear child, thank G.o.d for it!" replied Mrs Dorothy softly. "'Ton sort n'est pas a plaindre.'"

"I declare, if 'tis not four o'clock!" cried Rhoda, springing up, and perhaps not sorry for the diversion. "There, now! I meant you to finish your story, and we haven't time left. Come along, Phoebe! We are going to look in a minute on Mrs Marcella, and then we must hurry home."

CHAPTER FIVE.

GATTY'S TROUBLES.

"And I come down no more to chilling praise, To sneers, to wearing out of empty days, But rest, rejoicing in the power I've won, To go on learning, though my crying's done."