"I can't imagine myself leaving you in danger," said Hemstead, with a look that brought the blood into Lottie's face.

"I thought you would feel so," she continued heartily. "You can preach awfully against sinners, but when you come to put your doctrines in practice, you say as you did to me, 'I wish I could bear all for you.' Heaven knows I'm selfish enough, but I can at least understand and appreciate generous and kindly sympathy, and could be won by it. But this cool and inflexible elaboration of character, where only the end is considered, and all our timid shrinking and human weakness are ignored,—this austere asceticism which despises the present world and life,—is to me unnatural and monstrous. I confess I never read the Bible very much, and have not listened when it was read. I have half forgotten the story of Lazarus. You left off where Lazarus was in his grave, and Christ was glad He was not there to prevent his death. But that was not all the story. I think, if I remember rightly, Christ raised him to life. Come, get a Bible, and let us read the whole story, and see if we cannot find something that will not make the word 'gospel' a mockery."

"Won't you read it?" asked Hemstead, humbly, handing her the Bible.

"Yes, if you wish me to, though it seems very funny that I should be reading the Bible to you."

"I begin to have a hope that you will teach me more than I ever learned from it before," he replied earnestly.

As in sweet, unaffected, girlish tones she read the ancient story of human suffering and sorrow, the scenes passed in seeming reality before the student. He was intensely excited, though so quiet. When one with a strong mind recognizes that he is approaching a crisis in life, there is an awe that calms and controls. Lottie, with her intense vitality, could arouse even a sluggish nature. But to earnest Hemstead, with his vivid fancy, and large faith, this beautiful but erratic creature reading the neglected Bible, to find for him a sweeter and sunnier gospel than he had preached, seemed a special providence that presaged more than he had dared to conjecture; and he listened as one who expected a new revelation.

Indeed his darkness was losing its opaqueness. Rays of light were quivering through it. Her plain and bitter words of protest against his sermon had already shown him, in a measure, that he had exaggerated, in his first crude sermonizing, one truth, and left out the balancing and correcting truth. Familiar with all the story of Lazarus, his mind travelled beyond the reader, and with mingled joy and self-condemnation he already began to see how he had misrepresented the God of Love. With intense eagerness he watched and waited to see the effect of the complete story on Lottie's mind.

When she came to the words, "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die,"—she stopped and said, "This is very remarkable language. What does it mean?"

"Read on; read to the end," he urged.

She caught his eager expectancy, and read, with an absorbing interest, the truth that now seemed stranger than any fiction.

When she reached the words, "He groaned in spirit, and was troubled," she raised her eyes in a quick glance of inquiry.

"Read on," said Hemstead, in breathless interest.

A moment later, the shortest verse in the Bible was upon her lips. Then she ceased reading aloud, and the student saw her eyes hastily, as if she were unable to endure the momentary delay of pronunciation, scanning the story to its end.

"Mr. Hemstead," she asked excitedly, "why did Jesus weep and groan, when in a few moments Lazarus would be alive, and the scene of mourning be changed to one of joy?"

With tears in his eyes, he replied, "There is One guiding you—guiding us both—who can answer that question better than I."

"We believe that Jesus Christ is God, do we not?" she half mused, half questioned, her brows contracting with intense thought.

"Yes," he said reverently.

"Why, Mr. Hemstead, don't you see—don't you see? This Being who is so keenly sympathetic, so tenderly alive to a spene of sorrow, that He weeps and groans, though knowing that joy is coming in a moment, is not the calm, passionless, inflexible God you chilled our hearts with this morning. Why, this is the very extravagance of tender-heartedness. This is a gentleness that I can scarcely understand. What mother, even, would first weep with her children over a sorrow that she was about to remove with a word! And yet this all-powerful Jesus, who can raise the dead to life, seems to cry just because the others do,—just as if He couldn't help it,—just as dear, good Auntie Jane's eyes moisten when she hears of any one in trouble. Mr. Hemstead, there is surely a mistake somewhere. How do you reconcile this Christ with the one you presented this morning?"

"I don't, and cannot."

"And yet He did say to His disciples, 'I am glad I was not there,'" continued Lottie, in deep perplexity.

Hemstead paced the room excitedly a few minutes, and then exclaimed, "It's growing as clear and beautiful as the light."

"It seems to me flat contradiction," said Lottie, dejectedly. "There are the words, 'I am glad I was not there '; and there is the fact that He let Lazarus die; and there also are the facts of His weeping and raising Lazarus: and, now I think of it, He performed many miracles equally kind, and helped and encouraged all sorts of people."

"Certainly He did," cried Hemstead. "Blind idiot that I was in developing a crude theological idea of my own, instead of simply presenting the God of the Bible! I can never thank you enough, Miss Marsden, for your strong good sense that has dissipated my fog-bank of words. I think I see the way into light. You have placed a clew in my hands which I trust will lead, not only me, but others into peace. I fear I did present to you a calm, unimpassioned, inflexible Being this morning,—a God of purposes and decrees and remorseless will; and I have felt before that this was the God of theology and religious philosophy, rather than the God of the Bible. Your words have shown me that I gave you a crude and one-sided view. Thoughts are thronging so upon my mind that I am confused, but it comes to me with almost the force of an inspiration that Christ's tears of sympathy form the key to the whole Bible."

"Well," said Lottie, in a low tone, "I can see how they might become the key to my heart. Come, Mr. Hemstead, I have been a heathen up to this time; and I hope you have been a heretic. If you can explain the Bible in accordance with Christ's tears, as He wept, when the kindest man living would have smiled, in view of the change so soon to occur,—then preach by all means. That is the kind of gospel we want. If I could believe that God felt with, and for, his creatures as tenderly as that, it seems to me that I could go to Him as naturally as I ever went to Auntie Jane in my troubles."

Hemstead was pacing the room, as was his custom when excited. His face was aglow with earnest, elevating thoughts. His ungainliness had utterly vanished; and Lottie acknowledged that she had never seen a nobler-looking man. She felt that perhaps they were both on the threshold of a larger and richer life than they had ever known before. She saw dimly, as through a mist, that which her heart longed to believe,—the truth that God does care about His earthly children,—that He was not to her a mere shaping force or power, but a tender, gentle-hearted helper. Therefore she waited eagerly and hopefully for Hemstead to speak.

But he felt that the glad tumult in his mind rendered him unfit to be her guide just then, and therefore said: "Miss Marsden, I want to think calmly and carefully over what you have said. I want to take this briefest of all texts, 'Jesus wept,' as a lamp in my hand, and with it explore the rest of the Bible. Already it seems that it may be like carrying a light into a treasure vault, and that where before was darkness, gems and riches now will glitter."

"And I, who have had the good fortune to strike the light for you, am in the mean time to sit outside of the 'treasure vault,' and perhaps neither see nor get any of the 'gems.' I don't agree at all to your gloating alone over what may be discovered."

"And can you think I would wish to 'gloat alone'?" said Hemstead, reddening. "It will be my chief joy to bring back all I find to you."

"I'm not that kind of a girl," said Lottie, with a little emphatic gesture. "If I wanted something from the top of a mountain, I would not send a man for it, but would go with him after it. This helpless waiting, or languid looking on, while men do everything for us, is as absurd in one direction as the Indian custom of making the squaw do all the hard work in another. I don't see why we can't take this genial little lamp of a text, and do some exploring together. I will hold the lamp, and you do the looking. Here is the Bible, and there is your seat beside this dismal, smoking fire. I fear you have treated it as you did us this morning,—put on green wood."

"I think you are right in both cases," he said, his telltale color again suddenly rising.

"No matter, it was good wood in both cases, as you will see when it becomes ripe and dry."

"It will never do for me to become dry as a preacher, Miss Marsden."

"Yes, it will in my sense, for then you will kindle more easily, and therefore kindle others. But come, I am holding the lamp, 'Jesus wept.' Every thing you can find in the Bible that will confirm the hope of God's sympathy—that He cares for us as we are, with all our faults and weaknesses—will be most welcome."

Lottie was so positive and determined, and her manner so irresistible, that Hemstead had no thought, save that of compliance. She had that piquant imperiousness to which men are willing slaves when it is manifested graciously, and by a pretty woman. He was like a ship caught in a gale, and there was nothing to do but scud before it. At the same time, it seemed that she was driving him swiftly towards the haven and rest of a better and broader faith.

Therefore he sat down by the dismal, smoky hearth, but turned expectantly to her face, which, in contrast, was all aflame with hope and interest.

"The impression grows upon me," he said, "that you are being guided, and therefore you shall guide me."

"I want to settle the question," she replied, "whether I can love and trust God; or whether, as I feared this morning, I must dread and almost hate Him. It seems to me that the only thing religion does for Cousin Bel is to make her uncomfortable. If what you told us, and what she experiences, is true religion, then I shall ignore it and forget all about it as long as I can,—till God commences with me, and puts me by way of trial into the fiery furnace of affliction. I fear only a cinder would be the result. But if the natural explanation of these two words, 'Jesus wept,' is true, then God is kinder, gentler, and more sympathetic than any human friend. Prove to me that the One who, out of pure tender-heartedness, cried just because others around Him were crying, though even about to remove the cause of their sorrow, is the God of the Bible, and I will thank you, with lasting and unmeasured gratitude. Then your teaching will be a gospel,—good news in very truth. You say the Old and New Testaments both make one Bible, do you not?"

"Yes."

"Well it is the Old Testament that I most dread. It is so full of wars and bloodshed, and strange, stern rites. And then the old prophets say such awful things! Still, I admit that it's all very vague and dim in my mind. Can you find anything in the Old Testament that corresponds with the words 'Jesus wept'?"

The student rapidly turned the leaves of the large Bible upon his lap, and read:

"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.

"For He knoweth our frame: He remembereth that we are dust."

"That fits like light to the eye," exclaimed Lottie, with exultation. "What becomes of your sermon, Mr. Hemstead, in view of such texts? Truth is not contradictory."

"You shall see in a moment, Miss Marsden what becomes of my sermon," and he hastily left the room.

While Lottie was wondering at his action, he returned and threw the manuscript on the hearth. But while the green wood had been smoking so dismally, it had also dried and kindled; and Hemstead's heavy sermon, so far from quenching the rising flame, seemed just the encouragement needed to develop a cheerful blaze, in the midst of which it perished, like a narrow, sour, but sincere, well-meaning old martyr of former days.

In committing this unripe fruit of his brain—his heart had dictated but little of it—to the flames, Hemstead would have felt, a few hours earlier, as a Hindu mother might when casting her child to the crocodiles of the Ganges. Now with exultation he saw it shrivel, as its teachings had shrivelled within his own mind a little before.

"Like as a father pitieth his children," was a better gospel than "like as a sculptor chisels his marble," or "like as a surgeon cuts remorselessly with pulse unquickened, though the patient writhes."

Preacher and pagan stood together by the hearth, and saw perish the Gospel of Fear—of gloomy asceticism—which for so many centuries, in dim, damp cloisters and stony cells has chilled the heart and quenched the spirit.

And yet, to-day, in the broad light of Bible lands, and in the midst of the wholesome and suggestive duties of family life, do not many, under false teachings like that of Hemstead's sermon, find spiritual paths as dark and painful as those of ascetics who made self-mortification the business of life? Christ spake truly when He said, "Men love darkness rather than light." We fill the service of the Author of Light with gloom. The hermit thought he could best serve God in the chill and dimness of a cave; and the anchorite's cave has been the type of our shadowy, vault-like churches, and of the worshippers' experience ever since.

God is too wise and good to teach a religion utterly repugnant and contradictory to the nature He has given us. A child's hand may lead a multitude; a giant's strength can drive but few.

Christ's tears had fallen on the ice in Lottie's heart, and melted it away. It was now tender, receptive, ready for the seeds of truth. Hemstead's sermon had only hardened it.

Like the Hebrew mothers with their little children, she had pushed her way through frowning doctrines and stately attributes that appeared to encompass God, as did the rebuking disciples of old their gentle Master; and there seemed One before her who, like Jesus, was ready to take her in His arms and lavish upon her tenderness without limit.

The glow of the burning sermon lighted up the faces of the Preacher and one who could no longer be called a Pagan, for she stood before the altar of "the unknown God," and was strongly inclined to place her heart upon it. She believed, though as yet she did not trust. She understood but little of Bible truth, yet it was no longer a repellent darkness, but rather a luminous haze against which Jesus stood distinctly, tearful from sympathy.

As the obnoxious sermon sank into ashes, Hemstead turned and took Lottie's hand with a pressure that made it ache for hours after, and said: "Now you have seen what has become of my sermon and many of my old beliefs. The furnace of God's discipline shall no longer, as you have said, flame as the lurid centre of my Gospel; but Jesus Christ, as you have discovered Him, the embodiment of love and sympathy, shall be its centre."

With a smile upon her lips, but with tears in her eyes, Lottie replied, "And such a gospel would win even the border ruffians. Yes," she added hesitatingly, "I half believe it might win even such a little pagan as Lottie Marsden."

Just then a broad ray of light glinted into the room, and illuminated Lottie's face into such marvellous beauty that Hemstead was spell-bound. He was too intent on watching her to be aware that the ray rested on him also; but she exclaimed: "O Mr. Hemstead! you don't know how your face is lighted up by the setting sun. If I believed in omens, I should know that your successful work will be out on the frontier,—in the West, whence comes, after this dreary day, such a beautiful light, which suggests, I hope, the fame and glory you are to win there."

"This light from the West falls equally upon you," he said impulsively.

There was a sudden crimson in her face, deeper than that caused by the setting sun.

She gave him a quick, shy glance, to gather his meaning, but said, "Omens are only half-truths, I have heard."

Under a vague but strong impulse he had spoken foolishly, he thought; and suggested that, in seeking to change her character, his motive in part might be a presumptuous hope of his own. Therefore a deeper flush crimsoned his face; but he said quietly: "I believe that, in our day, omens are will-of-the-wisps of the imagination. What need is there of such fitful lights, when the sun of God's truth is shining in this Bible? Shall we explore farther?"

Again they sat down and sought to reconcile the apparently conflicting truths of God's mercy and justice,—of His severity and unutterable tenderness. Proofs of both were found upon the page of inspiration "as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa." It was clearly evident that God would make no terms with sin, whatever He might do for the sinner. But the Divine man, as He stands between justice and the erring, appeared to solve the problem. And if God's discipline was at times severe, and Christ was glad when faith-inspiring sorrow came, it was also seen that He could weep with the weak human children who cried under the rod, though heaven might result from the transient pain.



CHAPTER XX.

THE DAWNING LIGHT.



Some little time before the supper-bell rang, De Forrest sauntered in, and witnessed a scene that both surprised and puzzled him. And yet a lover would scarcely have found, in the quiet and pretty picture that the parlor and its occupants made, any ground for jealousy. Hemstead was at the centre-table, under the now-lighted chandelier, reading aloud from the Bible. Lottie sat by the hearth, the firelight playing upon an unusually grave and thoughtful face.

"Well," he exclaimed, "you look for all the world like an old married couple keeping Sunday together."

Of course Hemstead flushed. But why should Lottie's color grow richer than the ruddy fire-light warranted? She knew she was blushing, and the fact puzzled her, for it was a new experience to find the blood flying into her face, and her heart in a sudden flutter.

She was also excessively annoyed at De Forrest's intrusion, for such it seemed, though he had an equal right to the parlor with herself. We usually judge unjustly, in proportion as we feel strongly.

But the habit of her old, insincere life swayed her, and she said lightly, "If, instead of dozing away the whole afternoon, you would follow Mr. Hemstead's example and read the Bible, you would be the better for it."

"I would have read to you all the afternoon, if you had given me a chance, and even from the Bible if you had asked for it," De Forrest replied, with an injured air.

"Well, you see Mr. Hemstead is a predestined missionary, and he no doubt thought, and correctly too, that he would never find a truer object of missionary effort than myself; so I have obtained a better knowledge of the Bible this afternoon than ever before."

They were now joined by others, and the conversation became general. Soon after they went out to supper.

The depression of the sermon appeared to have passed from the rest, as well as from Lottie and Hemstead, though for different reasons. The latter had gone out of themselves toward God, and had found Him the source of light and cheer. The others had forgotten Him, and still remained in the dim, chill grottos of their unbelief, illumining their darkness by such artificial and earth-lit tapers as the occasion offered. Mrs. Marchmont's apartments were cosey and elegant, the supper was inviting, the ruddy wood-fire and easy chairs suggested luxurious comfort; and why should they not be comfortable, and quietly forget their dismal thoughts about God, and the self-denial of the Cross? The current of ordinary and worldly life, which Hemstead's sincere but mistaken words had rudely interrupted, now began to flow on as quietly and smoothly as before.

But with Lottie it was very different, and the tides of her life seemed seeking new channels.

Bel, and to a certain extent the others, noted peculiarities in her manner and that of Hemstead. Her moodiness was gone, but in its place was not her old levity. When Moses came down from the presence of God, his face shone so that he was compelled to veil its brightness; and it has ever seemed true that nearness to God and His truth gives spiritual light and attractiveness to the plainest features.

Lottie was more than beautiful that evening. She was radiant. Like a sunrise in June, two forms of pure, ennobling love were dawning in her heart; and the first, faint, unrecognized emotions illumined her face strangely at times. Her manner was unusually gentle, and while responding to the general conversation she had many moments of abstraction, and was evidently carrying on a chain of thought very different from that appearing upon the surface of their table-talk. But all remembered that Lottie abounded in moods, and she was what the commonplace call "an odd girl."

But why Hemstead, after his gloom and chagrin at dinner, should now be beaming, was not so clear. Bel thought, "The poor moth! Lottie has been dazzling him with her dangerous smiles. It's a shame."

After supper Harcourt appeared, and sacred music was in order. Even De Forrest and Addie joined in this with considerable zest. It was the proper, and about the only thing that could be done on a Sabbath evening. The most irreligious feel better for the occasional indulgence of a little religious sentimentality. When the aesthetic element is supreme, and thorny self-denial absent, devotion is quite attractive to average humanity. Moreover the dwarfed spiritual nature of the most materialistic often craves its natural sustenance; and Sabbath evening at times suggests to the worldly that which alone can satisfy. The "Sun of Righteousness" sheds a pale, reflected ray upon them; but this is better than utter darkness, and may lure forward where the Divine smile will beam fully upon them. Do not let us undervalue Sunday evening sentiment and sacred music, even though occurring where there was a dance yesterday, and where there will be a revel to-morrow. There must always be a first support on which the grovelling vine can begin to climb heavenward.

Though sentiment, like pale moonlight, causes no ripe and wholesome growth, it is better than darkness, and is proof that the vivifying light is shining somewhere.

In the case of Hemstead, however, the words of praise and prayer composing the hymns sung were the intelligent utterances of a believing heart to the natural object of its faith and devotion.

Lottie was not much given to sentiment, even in religion, and the sacred words, a week before, would have come from her lips only, while she thought of other things; but now she was surprised to find how her heart was stirred by them, and how, from being empty phrases, they were becoming full of beautiful meaning.

That was a memorable Sabbath evening to her. It seemed as if within her old, earth-born, material life, a subtile spiritual one had been kindled, which illumined and glorified everything.

She felt as if endowed with a new sense, by means of which she was becoming dimly conscious of a new and different world. She was more than happy: she was thrilling with strange and mysterious joy, and was elated beyond measure, as if Christian principle and heaven were already won; as many a pilgrim is happier before the quickly coming fall into the "Slough of Despond" than ever again until within the gates of the Celestial City.

Lottie's flame-like spirit was not prone to take anything coolly; and now that her soul was kindled by fire from heaven, and in addition her whole nature awakened by the as yet unrecognized, but strongest of earthly forces,—the natural love of her heart for the one to whom only had been given the power to inspire it, little wonder that her but half-suppressed excitement was surprising both to herself and others,—little wonder that she was more radiant than ever she had been upon the gayest and most brilliant occasions.

There was nothing unnatural in her experience. She had looked upon the face of Him who is the light and life of the world. Let her enjoy the brief ecstasy. Never chill the soul that is thrilling with the first strong pulses of spiritual life by discouraging doubts. Remind such, if you will, that now, as with the disciples of old, the moments on the Mount of Transfiguration are few, and the days of work and self-denial on the lowly plain many. But do not fail to close your homily with the assurance that the work and self-denial are of earth, while the illumined mount is the type of an eternal heaven.

The evening was passing. While devotion burned more brightly, sentiment was flickering out. The others were growing weary. Hemstead had the tact to see this, and he also wished to be alone that he might think over the bewildering experiences of the day. Therefore he suggested that they close with Ray Palmer's beautiful hymn, that from the first moment of faith, until faith's fruition, is the appropriate language of those who accept of God's remedy for evil.

"My faith looks up to Thee, Thou Lamb of Calvary, Saviour divine. Now hear me while I pray, Take all my guilt away, O, let me from this day Be wholly Thine."

He hoped that with Lottie it might crown the teachings of the day, and fix her thoughts on the true source of help.

This hope found a richer fulfilment than he expected, for to her awakened spirit the lines seemed inspired to express her deepest need. As the last words trembled from her lips the rush of feeling was too strong for repression, and she impetuously left the room.



CHAPTER XXI.

MISUNDERSTOOD.



Lottie was conscious of a strange lightness of heart when she awoke on the morrow. It seemed as if her life had been unexpectedly enriched. She could not understand it, nor did she seek to, being contented with the fact that she was happy. She had always been seeking her own enjoyment, and now she was happier than ever before. She was not a philosopher who must analyze everything. She widely differed from some prudent people who must take an emotion to pieces, and resolve it into its original elements, and thus be sure that it is properly caused and wholesome before enjoying it. Many seem to partake of life's pleasures as did the members of the royal family of their feasts, in the days of the ancient Roman empire, when it was feared that poison lurked in every dish.

We have seen, however, that Lottie was not morbidly conscientious. She had gathered honey everywhere, and often in spite of conscience's protest. But now, for a rarity, conscience appeared with, and not against her. She was satisfied with the fact that she felt better than ever before; and the majority of even somewhat experienced Christians ask, as their ground of confidence, not "What is truth?" "What has God promised?"—but, "How do I feel to-day?" Little wonder, then, if inexperienced Lottie, with everything to learn, was content with being happy.

She had always looked upon religion as a painful necessity at some remote and desperate emergency of the future; but, after the hours spent with Hemstead, it seemed a source of joy beyond all the pleasures of her highly favored life. She was like one who had been living in the glare of artificial light, brilliant enough, it is true, but who had suddenly come out into the natural sunshine, and found it warmer, sweeter,—in brief, just what she craved and needed.

The distrust of these exalted and emotional states is general, and often well-founded, especially when experienced by such mercurial temperaments as that of Lottie Marsden. And when it is remembered that her ideas of true religion were of the vaguest kind, the conservative will think, "Whatever may take place in a book, the morning dew would be the type of all this feeling in real life."

And this would be true—alas, it is true of multitudes—had she been stirred by merely human causes, as sympathetic excitement, or appeals to her feelings or fears. But, as we have said before, she had looked upon the face of the Son of God. Circumstances, and the story of Lazarus, had concentrated her mind on Jesus Christ, as in that old and touching record He stands before the world in one of His most winning attitudes. She did not understand how she connected with Him the hope and happiness she felt. She was no doubt like many who, eighteen centuries ago, knew little of Christ, but in the midst of their pain and anguish suddenly felt his healing touch, and exulted with great joy, forgetting that only one disease had been cured, or one trouble banished, and that they still remained in a world where pain and trouble threatened to the very end. But here was the ground of hope for those whom Jesus touched, as well as for Lottie: in curing one evil, He had proved His power and willingness to remove every evil, and when pain of body and the suffering of guilt again oppressed, the true source of help was known, and so Christ eventually became their Good Physician, intrusted with the entire care of their spiritual health.

No doubt at the time of Christ many a heart was stirred and borne heavenward, on the wings of strong emotion, by the eloquence of some gifted rabbi, by a gorgeous ceremonial in the Temple, or by the chantings of the multitudinous priests. But the emotions passed away, as they do now; and men and women relapsed into their old, material, selfish lives. They may have looked back with regret upon the ecstasy that once thrilled them, and wished that it could always have been maintained; but they found this impossible. So, now, the emotion goes, and the combinations that once produced it never return, or fail to inspire it again. Looking to themselves and their own feelings,—to inadequate means of help,—such persons are of course disappointed; and so gradually grow hard and legal, or apathetic and unbelieving. When in trouble, when the natural springs of life begin to fail, there seems no real and practical help.

If human experience proves anything it is that every life needs the personal and practical help-the direct touch and word—of One who is Divinely powerful and Divinely patient.

Many days of folly—of sin, sorrow, and deep despondency—are before Lottie still; but she has seen her God weeping from sympathy with weak humanity, and a moment later rescuing from the hopeless extremity of death and corruption. Here is not some vague thing like a half-forgotten emotion or an exalted religious experience in which to trust, but One who, instead of being a vanished, half-forgotten sensation, a philosophy, or even a sound creed and a logical doctrine, is a living personal and powerful Friend, who can put forth His hand and sustain, as He did the timid Apostle who was sinking in the threatening waves.

The temple of Lottie's faith was yet to be built; but she had been so fortunate as to commence with the true "corner stone."

During the morning hours she was the object of considerable and perplexed thought on the part of several of the household. There was in her face the sweet spiritual radiance of the evening before, and the same gentleness and considerateness of manner marked her action. Mrs. Marchmont and her daughter said, "It is one of Lottie's moods." Bel surmised that she was a little sentimental over Hemstead, and was indignant that she should herself indulge, and awake in the student, feelings that doubtless, on Lottie's part, would end with the visit. As for De Forrest, he was thoroughly puzzled. The idea that Hemstead could be anything to her was perfectly preposterous; and as for religion, that was a decorous thing of form and ceremonial pertaining to Sunday, and this was Monday. And yet, from some cause, Lottie seemed different from her old self.

He could not complain, however, for she had never been kinder to him; and if her eyes did seek Hemstead's face rather often, she could see nothing there which for a moment could compare with his own handsome features. He also concluded that it was a "mood"; but liked the new and gentle Lottie quite as well as the piquant, and often rather brusque girl of other days.

But to Hemstead, as with chatting and reading they whiled away the morning hours around the parlor fire, Lottie was the bright particular star. Her face, now transfigured in its spiritual light, captivated his beauty-loving soul; while her words and manner suggested the hope that she, with himself, had found her way into the Holy of Holies. If this could ever be true, he felt that he could go to his work in the Western wilds, content and grateful, and that a long and toilsome life would be illumined by this dear memory. He, too, like Lottie, was on the Mount; but both would soon have to come down to the plain where the "multitude" was, and some of them "lunatic"; and when in the plain they would be very much like the multitude.

After dinner, in compliance with an invitation from Dr. Beams, they all went over to the church, to aid in decorating it with evergreens. They found Miss Martell and several other ladies at work; also a sprinkling of gentlemen and a few young men who were on the border line between boys and beaux, and who were frequently passing from one character to the other.

Miss Martell greeted Hemstead more cordially than she did any of the others in the party from Mrs. Marchmont's; and seemed slightly surprised at Lottie's gentle and hearty salutation.

De Forrest remained closely at the latter's side, but Hemstead noted with deep and secret satisfaction that there was in her grave kindness nothing responsive to his constant and lover-like attention. Her brow often contracted, as if his sentiment annoyed her, and she treated him as one who, for some reason, must be borne with patiently.

"She is probably engaged, but is ceasing to love him," he thought. "She never could have respected him, and now be has forfeited whatever affection she may have had. Still she feels that she is chained to him, and must endure the life-long martyrdom of an ill-mated marriage"; and his heart overflowed with a great pity.

It did not occur to him that he was a miracle of disinterestedness when Lottie was concerned; and that her troubles moved him more than the woes of all the world beside. Like many another life-voyager, with hand upon the helm, he thought that he was directing his course, when in feet a strong and subtile current was sweeping him he not whither.

He and Lottie did not have much to say to each but their eyes often met, and at times, in his frank impulsiveness, he looked at her so earnestly and sympathetically that she turned away to hide her heightened color. She was becoming conscious, with a secret wonder, that he, as no man ever before, had the power to cause her blood to ebb and flow in the most unaccountable manner.

A short time after their arrival he wandered over to the side of the chapel where Miss Martell was working, and she seemingly fascinated him. They apparently became so absorbed in each other's words as to think of no one else, and Lottie grew pale and quiet, feeling, in the mean time, an unreasonable resentment towards Miss Martell. If Lottie has received a little grace, she is, and ever will be, the natural possessor of abundance of human nature. Is this pale and silent girl the one whose cheeks, a little before, were aflame, and every nerve tingling with the most unwonted sensations, and for no better reason apparently than that Hemstead had seen her tugging at a fibrous spray of hemlock, and had severed it with his knife? That was all the others had seen; but there was a great deal more, for in the act their hands had touched, and both had seemed in a positive state in the power to give, and in the negative in readiness to receive, a subtile influence, compared with which electricity is a slow and material agent. And he had lifted his large gray eyes to hers full of—he did not realize what, nor did she—but the cause was there, and the effect followed.

But now, with secret uneasiness, Lottie notes that he seems oblivious of her in his eager talk with Miss Martell.

Soon after joining the latter, Hemstead had said, in his straightforward manner, "You intimated to Mr. Harcourt yesterday that you were 'sorry he heard my sermon.'"

With a little embarrassment she replied, "I do not think that Mr. Harcourt was in the right condition of mind to be benefited by your line of thought."

"Do you think that any one could be benefited by it?"

She was a little puzzled. Was he, like some young clergy-men she had known, eager for a few crumbs of praise for his first crude efforts? She was not one to give any faint and hollow commendation, and yet she did not wish to hurt his feelings. But her reply had a tinge of satire in it, for she had no patience with the weakness of vanity.

"I will hardly venture an opinion. You, who have given so much time and thought to these subjects, ought to be a better judge than I."

He felt, rather than saw, the delicate barb, and flushed slightly as he replied, "I admit that perhaps I ought to be, but whether I am or not, is quite another question. I am sure that your views upon the subjects treated yesterday are far truer than mine were. The wretched, heretical sermon that I inflicted upon you has already justly suffered an auto da fe. Before the day was over I saw that instead of preaching the gospel I had been elaborating, from a partial premise, a crude view of my own. I shall no longer preach, that is, if I preach at all, as if human nature were the raw material which God intended to work up without any regard to the process, or how much refuse there was, or what became of it. Is not Christ weeping from sympathy at the grave of Lazarus a true manifestation of God's feeling toward us?"

"Mr. Hemstead," Miss Martell exclaimed, "I cannot tell you how glad I am to know your change of views. Most emphatically I say yes to your question. God is seeking to develop my character; only He is more patient and gentle than my good, kind father. But why do you say, 'If I preach at all'?"

His head bowed in honest humility, as he replied, in a low tone, "I often doubt whether I am worthy,—whether I am called."

She now saw that she had misjudged him, and was eager to reassure and confirm his purpose for life; and the converse that followed had grown so absorbing as to cause Hemstead to forget for the time one, who by some right, divine or otherwise, had suddenly taken possession of his thoughts with a despotism as sweet as absolute.

But while Miss Martell was speaking most earnestly to Hemstead, she saw some one enter the chapel door. Her color came and went. The sentence upon her lips faltered to a lame conclusion, and though she became deeply absorbed in the process of twining the fragrant cedar with the shiny laurel, she did not work as deftly as before. Looking round to see the cause, Hemstead caught one of Lottie's reproachful glances, and was soon at her side with a sense of almost guilty neglect.

Addie Marchmont found work of any kind, even preparation for the Christmas festival, stupid and tiresome; therefore she welcomed the diversion of Harcourt's coming with double zest; and with extravagant exclamations of delight summoned him to her side. Miss Martell stood at some distance, and had turned her back towards them. Harcourt did not see her at first, but the quest of his restless eyes indicated his hope that she was there. In the mean time he laughed and jested with Addie in something of his old-time style.

Lottie Marsden, like many of her young American sisters, could be decidedly pronounced at times; but a certain amount of grace and good taste characterized her manner. Addie had never been taught restraint of any kind, and to her a church was just the place for a little wild nonsense, and all present were compelled to feel that both her words and manner went beyond the limits of good taste, to say the least. To Harcourt, in his present state of mind, they were so annoying as to be almost offensive, and, thinking that Miss Martell was not present, he was about to leave the church in order to escape.

But Miss Martell, with her back towards them, had no means of knowing that Harcourt was not encouraging Addie, and that her freedom with him was not warranted by their relations.

"I have an engagement," said Harcourt, abruptly; and he was about to hasten away, when between intervening groups his eye caught a glimpse of a figure rising for a moment out of one of the high-backed pews, and suggesting to him the object of his thoughts. As he stepped over to speak to Lottie, his eye lingered in that direction. Instead of going directly out, he strolled to the farther end of the audience room, speaking and bowing to one and another, but not permitting his eyes to wander long from the bent figure of a lady who sat with her back towards him, apparently wholly absorbed in wreathing evergreens.

She felt that he was coming towards her,—she heard his voice, and soon knew that his eyes were scanning her downcast face,—but she would not look up till he spoke.

"Won't you deign me even a glance, Miss Martell?" he asked.

The color deepened somewhat in her cheeks, but she looked him full in the face, and said quietly, "Why use the word 'deign,' Mr. Harcourt?"

"I suppose because my conscience suggests that from you I deserve glances of dis-dain."

"Such 'glances' are not becoming from any one, and certainly not from me. Besides," she added, a little bitterly, at the thought of such a brainless, frivolous girl as Addie Marchmont enchaining a man like Harcourt, "people do not get their deserts in this world."

"You certainly will not."

"How is that?" she asked quickly, not taking his meaning,

"The world is not rich enough to give it you."

Her brow contracted into a sudden frown, and she said, a trifle coldly, "I do not enjoy that style of compliment, Mr. Harcourt."

"Is there any that you do enjoy?"

Her head bent over her work; her thoughts were swift and many, and in the quiet moment that Harcourt waited for an answer to his commonplace question, she fought and iron a battle which, if never known on earth, would never be forgotten in heaven. She mastered self and selfishness, in the very citadel of their strength. Fierce though brief was the struggle that took place beneath that gentle, calm exterior, for the human heart is ever the same,—wilful, passionate. With many it is often like the wild storm that will spend itself to the end, no matter how much of wreck and ruin is wrought. With such as Miss Martell, it is like the storm which, at its height, heard the words of the Divine Master, "Peace, be still."

"Let him marry Addie Marchmont if he will," she concluded. "I will be kind and gentle to him all the same, and, cost me what it may, I will still see him, and seek to make him a true, good man."

So with woman's tact she turned his question, which savored only of sentimental gallantry, to good account, and said quietly, "You know the only 'style of compliment' that I like, and you enriched me with it at Mrs. Byram's company,—the promise you made me."

Harcourt sighed involuntarily. She seemed too angelic,—too far above and beyond him. As with a ministering spirit from heaven, her only thought was to win him from evil. Her face was pale from the hidden conflict which had cost her more dearly than he would ever know. Her eyes beamed upon him with a gentle, yet sweet, strange, spiritual light. She scarcely appeared flesh and blood. But he was very human, and his heart craved from her human love and earthly solace. Though now, as at other times, this seemed as presumptuous to him as if some devotee had sacrilegiously fallen in love with his fair patron saint, still he felt a sudden and strong irritation that they should be so far apart.

She misunderstood his sigh, and added, "Am I a hard task-mistress?"

He shook his head, but there was dejection in his tone as he replied, "There have been many forms of idolatry in the world, but I have thought that those who worshipped the stars must have become a little discouraged at times,—they are so far off."

Her face had the pained expression of one misunderstood, but who cannot well explain. She said only, "Idolatry is ever profitless." She meant to hint, he thought, that his worship of her certainly would be.

He was chilled at heart. His quick, impetuous spirit prompted him towards recklessness. She saw that he was about to leave abruptly. As she played to win him, not for herself, but heaven, she saw that she had made a mistaken move, though she could not understand his manner. In her maidenly pride and delicacy, she would have let him go if she had thought only of herself; but, conscious of her other motive, she could seek to detain him, and asked, "What did you mean, Mr. Harcourt, by your fanciful allusion to star-worship?"

"I meant," he replied bitterly, "that to ordinary flesh and blood, kneeling in the cold before a distant star, be it ever so bright, is rather chilling and discouraging. The Greeks were shrewder. They had goddesses with warm, helping hands, and with a little sympathetic, human imperfection."

It hurt her cruelly that he so misjudged her; and in her confusion, she again said that which he interpreted wrongly.

"It is folly, then, to worship anything so cold and distant." She was about to add plainly, "I am neither a star nor a goddess, but a sincere, human friend,—human as yourself." She was about to make some delicate allusion to the time when he often sought her sisterly advice. But he, in the blindness of strong feeling, saw in her words only rebuke for the presumption of his love, and he harshly interrupted her.

"No doubt it is; but let me remind you of a fact often true in missionary experience. After the poor devils have been bereft of the objects of their fond and credulous worship, by proof that their deities are indifferent, they cease to have any faith at all"; and with a cold and rather formal bow he left her side and also left the church.

Miss Martell's head bent lower than ever over her work, and it was a long time before she lifted it or spoke to any one. But the others were occupied with themselves, and no one had noted this little side scene save Addie, who pouted that Harcourt had remained, but not at her side, after his expressed intention of leaving. No one surmised that two who had been present were sorely hurt. When we receive our slight cuts and bruises through life, there are usually outcry and abundant sympathy. But when we receive our deep wounds, that leave scars, often only God knows; and it is best so, for He can heal, but the world can only probe.



CHAPTER XXII.

"YOU MUST WAIT AND SEE."



"How can you leave Miss Martell?" asked Lottie, as Hemstead approached propitiatingly with a large armful of the choicest evergreens.

"Well, I can," he replied with a smile.

"As yet, but the next time you will stay longer, and the next longer still."

"That depends. I would not remain at her side, nor at any one's, if I thought they were tiring of me a little."

"O, she got tired of you."

"Well, yes; a little, I think. She suddenly seemed to lose her interest in the conversation. Still she was very good to talk to me as long and as kindly as she did. She is a very superior woman. It has never been my good fortune to meet just such a lady before."

"Make the most of your rare 'good fortune.'"

"I have."

"And now that she is tired of you, you come back to me as a dernier ressort."

"Coming back to you, is like coming back home, for you have given me the only home-like feeling that I have had during my visit."

The language of coquetry was to Lottie like her mother-tongue, and she fell into it as naturally as she breathed. Only now, instead of suggesting the false hope that he had been missed and she had cared, it expressed her true feeling, for she did care.

De Forrest now returned from a momentary absence, and had it not been for his garrulity the little group would have been a rather silent one. Both young men sought to supply Lottie with the sprays of green that she was twining. She took the evergreens chiefly from De Forrest's hands, but gave her thoughts and eyes to Hemstead. He, with man's usual penetration, thought De Forrest the favored one, and was inclined to reverse his half-formed opinion that she was destined to pathetic martyrdom, because bound by an engagement to a man whom she could not love.

"He can't think much of me," thought Lottie, with a sigh, "or he couldn't speak so frankly." She, too, was losing her wonted quick discernment.

Only lynx-eyed Bel Parton partially surmised the truth, and suspected that Lottie was developing a genuine, though of course a passing interest, in the student whom at first she had purposed to beguile in mere reckless sport.

During the remainder of the afternoon and evening, De Forrest was Lottie's shadow, and she could escape him, and be with Hemstead, only by remaining with all the others. She was longing for another of their suggestive talks, when, without the restraint of the curious and unsympathetic, they could continue the theme that De Forrest had interrupted on Sunday afternoon.

She was thinking how to bring this about, when the old plan of visiting Mrs. Dlimm occurred to her, and she adopted it at once.

Getting a moment aside with Hemstead, by being down to breakfast a little before the others, she said, "After my naughty behavior in regard to our visit to Mrs. Dlimm, will you still take me there?"

"I wish you would give me a chance," he answered eagerly.

"Well, I will, at ten this morning. But please say nothing about it. Drive to the door in the cutter, and I will be ready. If the matter is discussed, there may be half a dozen other projects started."

Hemstead ate but an indifferent breakfast, and there was also a faint glow of expectant excitement in Lottie's face.

Hemstead promptly sought his aunt, and asked if he might have a horse and the single sleigh.

"I hope another time will answer," said Mrs. Marchmont, carelessly. "Addie wishes the horses this morning, but I believe proposes taking you all out."

But Hemstead was not to be baffled, and acted with more energy than prudence perhaps. Lottie from her window saw him posting with long strides towards the village, and exultingly surmised his object. At ten he drove up to the door with a neat little turnout from the livery stable; and she tripped down and took a seat at his side, and they were off before the rest of the household realized their purpose.

They all looked at each other questioningly, as a few moments later they gathered in the parlor for a general sleighride.

Mr. Dimmerly, who had quietly watched proceedings, broke out into his cackling laugh, as he chuckled, "He shows his blood. A dozen seminaries could not quench him utterly."

Mrs. Marchmont frowned. She rigidly applied the rules of propriety to all save her own children, and she justly thought that both Hemstead and Lottie had failed in courtesy to her and her guests, by stealing away, as it were, without any explanations. But people of one idea often fail in more than mere matters of courtesy; and Hemstead and Lottie were emphatically becoming people of one idea. And they both had misgivings and a sense of wrong-doing as they drove away without a word of explanation.

Mrs. Marchmont was still more puzzled when Addie exclaimed petulantly, "I thought the agreement was that Lottie should carry out the joke when and where we could all enjoy it."

The lady was led to suspect that there was something on foot that might need her investigation, and she quietly resolved to use her eyes and ears judiciously. She well knew that her proud and fashionable sister, Lottie's mother, would hold her to strict account if Lottie did anything foolish.

Bel merely shrugged her shoulders cynically. She had a certain kind of loyalty to her friend, and said all her harsh things to Lottie herself, and not behind her back.

De Forrest had no other resource than to believe that Lottie was carrying out the practical joke; but a sorry jest he found it that morning, during which he scarcely spoke to any one.

They drove over to town for Harcourt, but he greatly provoked Addie by pleading that his business would not permit absence. During the rest of the drive they all might have formed part of a funeral procession.

But the snow-crystals did not sparkle in the sunlight more brightly than Lottie's eyes, as she turned to her companion, and said, "I am so delighted that we are safely off on our drive."

"O, it's the 'drive' you are thinking of. That is better than I hoped. I thought we were visiting Mrs. Dlimm."

"So we are, and I want to see her too," said Lottie, with a sudden blush.

"Well, I'm glad you don't dread the long, intervening miles, with no better company than mine."

"It's a good chance to learn patient endurance," she replied, with a look delightfully arch. "So please drive slower."

The horse instantly came to a walk.

"That is the other extreme," she continued. "You always go to extremes, as, for instance, your quixotic purpose to go out among the border ruffians."

"Honestly, Miss Marsden," said Hemstead, his laughing face suddenly becoming grave, "you do not now think, in your heart, my purpose to be a home missionary 'quixotic'?"

"I don't know much about my heart, Mr. Hemstead, except that it has always been very perverse. But I now wish I had a better one. You have disturbed the equanimity with which I could do wrong most wofully. I even feel a little guilty for leaving them all this morning, with no explanations."

"It was hardly right, now I think of it," said Hemstead, reflectively.

"Have you just thought of it? How preoccupied you have been! What have you been thinking about? Yes, it was wrong; but as it is the first wicked thing I have caught you in I am quite comforted. I have been hoping all along that you would do something just a little bit encouragingly wicked."

"How little you understand me! My wickedness and consequent twinges of conscience have been my chief sources of trouble thus far."

"O, well, your conscience is like Auntie Jane. A speck of dust gives her the fidgets where other people would not see any dust at all. If your conscience had to deal with my sins there would not be ashes and hair-cloth enough for you."

"What good can ashes, hair-cloth, or any kind of self-punishment, or even self-condemnation, do us?"

"Well, we ought to be sorry, at least."

"Certainly, but there must be more than that. Many a wrong-doer has been sincerely sorry, but has been punished all the same. I cannot tell you, Miss Marsden, how much good you did me on Sunday afternoon. My mind had been dwelling on the attributes of God,—upon doctrines as if they were things by themselves and complete in themselves. I almost fear that I should have become, as I fear some are, the disciple of a religious system, instead of a simple and loyal follower of Christ. But you fixed my eyes on a living personality, who has the right to say, 'I forgive you,' and I am forgiven; who has the right to say, 'I will save you,' and I am saved. If He is the Divine Son of God, as He claims to be, has He not the right?"

"Yes. He must be able to do just what is pleasing to Him," said Lottie.

"Then look upon Him as you saw Him at the grave of Lazarus,—the very embodiment of sympathy. Suppose that in sincere regret for all the wrong you have ever done, and with the honest wish to be better, you go to such a being and cry, 'Forgive.' Can you doubt His natural, inevitable course towards you? If pardoning love and mercy should encircle you at once, would it not be in perfect keeping with His tears of sympathy?"

"And is that all I have to do to get rid of the old, dark record against me? O, how black it looked last Saturday!"

"That is all. What more can you do? Who was it that said, 'Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee'?"

"Mr. Hemstead," said Lottie, in a low tone, "I have felt very strangely—differently from any time before in all my life—since last Sunday afternoon. I seemed to look upon Christ as if He were before me, and I saw the tears in His eyes, as I saw them in yours the evening you said such plain things to me, and I have felt a peculiar lightness of heart ever since. That hymn we sang on Sunday evening expressed so exactly what I felt that I was overpowered. It appeared written for me alone. Do you think that I can be a Christian?"

Hemstead's eyes glistened, and his heart bounded at the thought; but he felt that he was in a grave and responsible position, and after a moment's thought answered wisely: 'I can base no safe and positive answer on your feeling. I have already learned, from my own experience and that of others, that religious feeling is something that comes and goes, and cannot be depended upon. The test question is, How will you treat this Jesus whom you have seen, and who has proved Himself both worthy to win and keep your trust? A little strong feeling and sentiment in regard to Him can. not do you much good. What practical relation do you intend to hold towards Him? No doubt many that saw Him weep, and then raise Lazarus after he had been four days dead, were profoundly moved, but the majority went on in their old ways all the same. You abound in strong common sense, and must see that more that even sincere, deep feeling is necessary. What do you propose to DO? Are you willing to take up your cross and become His faithful follower?"

"That involves a great deal," said Lottie, with a long breath.

"It does indeed," he replied earnestly. "I would give my life to make you a Christian, and yet I would not seek to win you for Him by false pretences, or hide any part of the rugged path of self-denial. Count well the cost. But, believe me, Miss Marsden," he added, in a tone that brought a sudden paleness to her cheek, "not following Him involves far more that is sad and terrible."

Tears stood in Lottie's eyes. She was silent a few moments, and was evidently thinking deeply. The young clergyman was desperately in earnest, and fairly trembled in the eagerness of his expectation. He hoped that Lottie would come to a solemn and half-heroic and formal decision. But he was both puzzled and disappointed by the sudden and brusque manner with which she turned upon him as she said: "Where is the heavy cross that I must take up? Show it to me, and I will think about it. Where is the rugged path? This one that leads to Mrs. Dlimm is very pleasant. I don't see anything very awful in being a Christian nowadays. Of course I shall have to give up all my old nonsense and flirt—Well, I suppose I might as well say it out. But there are no Inquisitions, with thumbscrews and racks, any longer. Come, Mr. Hemstead, you are a Christian. What heavy cross are you bearing? I hope you are not in the rugged path of self-denial this morning, while taking me to Mrs. Dlimm's. I don't know any one who appears to enjoy the good things of life more than you. I don't know what answer to give to your solemn and far-reaching questions. I haven't much confidence in what Lottie Marsden will do. All I know is that I feel as I imagine one of those children did whom Jesus took in his arms and blessed."

"But suppose," urged her anxious spiritual guide, who felt that she was giving a reason for her faith that would hardly satisfy the grave elders of the church,—"suppose that at some future time He should impose a heavy cross, or ask of you painful self-denial, would you shrink?"

She turned her dewy eyes upon him with a look of mingled archness and earnestness that he never forgot, and said significantly, "I do not remember the New Testament story very perfectly, but when the last, dark days came, women stood by their Lord as faithfully as the men,—didn't they?"

Hemstead bowed his head in sudden humility, and said: "You are right. It was not woman who betrayed, nor did woman desert or deny Him. Still I treasure the suggestion of your answer beyond all words."

The tears stood thick in Lottie's eyes, and she was provoked that they did. Her strong feelings were quick to find expression, and Hemstead seemed to have the power, as no one else ever had, to evoke them. But she had a morbid dislike of showing emotion or anything verging toward sentiment; therefore she would persist in giving a light and playful turn to his sombre earnestness.

"I did not mean," she said, "to be so hard upon the men, nor to secure so rich a tribute to my sex. I imagine we all stand in need of charity alike. Only do not expect too much of me. I dare not promise anything. You must wait and see."

"Though you promise so little, you inspire me with more confidence than many whom I have heard make great professions"; and the light of a great joy and a great hope shone in his eyes.

"You look very happy, Mr. Hemstead," said Lottie, gratefully. "Would you be very glad to have me become a Christian?"

He looked at her so earnestly that the rich blood mounted to her very brow. After a moment, he replied, in a low, trembling tone: "I scarcely dare trust myself to answer your question, and yet I do not exaggerate when I assure you that if I could feel that you were a Christian before I go away, it seems as if I could never see a dark day again. O Miss Marsden, how I have hoped and prayed that you might become one!"

Her head bowed low in guilty shame. She compared her purpose towards him with his towards her. Before she thought, the words slipped out, "And for all my wrong to you, you seek to give me heaven in return."

He looked at her inquiringly, not understanding her remark; but after a moment said, "It would be heaven to me on earth, even in my lonely work in the West, if I could remember that, as a result of our brief acquaintance, you had become a Christian."

"Well," she said emphatically, "our acquaintance does promise to end differently from what I expected; and it is because you are different. You are not the kind of a man that I expected you would be."

"But I understood you from the first," remarked Hemstead, complacently. "My first impression when you gave me your warm hand, and the only true welcome I received, has been borne out. Though at times you have puzzled me, still, the proof you gave—on the evening of my arrival—of a true, generous, and womanly nature, has been confirmed again and again. It has seemed to me that your faults were due largely to circumstances, but that your good qualities were native."

Again Lottie turned away her burning cheeks in deep embarrassment. Should she tell him all? She felt she could not. To lose his good opinion and friendship now seemed terrible. But conscience demanded that she should be perfectly frank and sincere with him, and her fears whispered, "He may learn it from the others, and that would be far worse than if I told him myself."

But her moral strength was not yet equal to the test. The old, prevailing influences of her life again swayed her, and she guided the conversation from the topic as a pilot would shun a dangerous rock.

"I will tell him all about it at some future time," she thought; "but not yet when the knowledge might drive him away in anger."

She seized upon one of his words, which, when spoken, had jarred unpleasantly upon her feeling.

"Why do you speak of our acquaintance as brief? Are we to be strangers again after this short visit is over?"

"I most positively assure you that you can never be a stranger to me again," he said eagerly. "But in a few days you will go to New York, and I thousands of miles in another direction. If I should tell you how you will dwell in my thoughts like an inspiration, I fear you would think me sentimental. But in your absorbing city life I fear that I shall soon become as a stranger to you."

"Well," said Lottie, averting her face, "I don't think I'll promise you anything this time either. You must wait and see. But is that dreadful frontier life of yours a foregone conclusion?"

"Yes," he said, with quiet emphasis.

"There are plenty of heathen in New York, Mr. Hemstead. You found one of them in me, and see how much good you have done; at least, I hope you have."

"There are also plenty of Christians in New York to take care of them. I commend some of the heathen to you."

"I fear that they will remain heathen for all that I can do."

"No, indeed, Miss Marsden. Please never think that. No one has a right to say, 'I can do nothing,' and you least of all. Apart from your other gifts, you abound in personal magnetism, and almost instantly gain control of those around you."

"How mistaken you are! I have no control over you."

"More than you think, perhaps," he said, flushing deeply.

It was his heart that spoke then, and not his will, instructed by deliberate reason.

She too blushed, but said laughingly, "What are words? Let me test my power. Take a church in New York, instead of a thousand miles out of the world."

"You are not in earnest," he said, a little sadly. "You would not seek to dissuade me from what I regard as a sacred duty?"

"But is it 'a sacred duty'? There are plenty of others—less cultivated, less capable of doing good—in the refined and critical East."

"That is not the way a soldier reasons. Some one must go to the front of the battle. And what excuse can such a vigorous young fellow as I am have for hanging back?"

As he turned his glowing face upon her she caught his enthusiasm, and said impulsively, "And in the front of the battle I would be, if I were a man, as I often wish I were."

"The line of God's battle with evil is very long, Miss Marsden. I think you can find the front in New York as truly as I in the West. In this fight woman can often do as much as man. Won't you try?"

"I shall not promise you anything," she said. "You must wait and see."

They were now before the parsonage in the hamlet of Scrub Oaks. The sound of the bells brought Mrs. Dlimm's faded face to the window, and on recognizing them she clapped her hands for joy, as one of her own children might have done; and a moment later was smiling upon the little porch, the very embodiment of welcome.



CHAPTER XXIII.

A RATIONALIST OF THE OLD SCHOOL.



"I knew you would come," said Mrs. Dlimm, taking both of Lottie's hands with utter absence of formality. "Husband said I needn't look for you any more, but I felt it in my bones—no, my heart—that you would come. When I feel a thing is going to take place it always does. So you are here. I am very glad to see your—Mr. Hemstead—too. This is splendid." And Mrs. Dlimm exultantly ushered Lottie into the room that, when last seen, was crowded with such a motley assembly. Hemstead meanwhile drove the horse to an adjacent shed.

"But he isn't my Mr. Hemstead," said Lottie, laughing.

"Well, it seems as if he were related, or belonged to you in some way. When I think of one, I can't help thinking of the other."

"O dear!" exclaimed Lottie, still laughing, blushing, and affecting comic alarm; "being joined together by a minister's wife is almost as bad as by the minister himself."

"Almost as good, you mean. You would have my congratulation rather than sympathy if you secured such a prince among men."

"How little you know about him, Mrs. Dlimm! He is going to be a poor, forlorn home missionary; and your husband's increased salary will be royal compared with his."

"He will never be forlorn; and how long will he be poor?"

—"All his life possibly."

"That's not very long. What will come after? What kind of a master is he serving?"

"Do you know," said Lottie, lowering her tone, and giving her chair a little confidential hitch toward the simple-hearted lady with whom formality and circumlocution were impossible, "that I am beginning to think about these things a great deal?"

"I don't wonder, my dear," said Mrs. Dlimm, with a little sigh of satisfaction. "No one could help thinking about him who saw his manly courtesy and tact the evening you were here."

"O, no," said Lottie, blushing still more deeply; "I did not mean that. Please understand me. Mr. Hemstead is only a chance acquaintance that I have met while visiting my aunt, Mrs. Marchmont. I mean that when I was here last I was a very naughty girl, but I have since been thinking how I could be a better one. Indeed, I should like to be a Christian, as you are."

In a moment the little lady was all tender solicitude. She was one who believed in conversion; and, to her, being converted was the greatest event of life.

But just then Hemstead entered, and she had enough natural, womanly interest—not curiosity—to note the unconscious welcome of Lottie's eyes, and the quick color come and go in her face, as if a fire were burning in her heart and throwing its flickering light upon her fair features.

"Chance acquaintance, indeed!" she thought. "Why, here is this city-bred girl blushing as I once did about Mr. Dlimm. Whether she knows it or not, her blushes must tell the same story as mine."

But though Mrs. Dlimm was so unconventional, she had tact, and turned the conversation to the subject of the donation party.

"See here," she exclaimed exultantly, tugging a bulky commentary; "this is one of the results of your coming the other evening. Mr. Dlimm has been wanting this book a long time, and now he pores over it so much that I am getting jealous."

"The opinions expressed in such a ponderous volume ought to have great weight, surely," said Hemstead, smiling.

"And do you know," she continued, in an aside to Lottie, "that each of the children has had a new warm winter suit? and, wonderful to tell, I have bought myself a dress right from the store, instead of making over something sent me by brother Abel's wife from New York."

Lottie's eyes moistened, and she said in half soliloquy, "I didn't know it was so nice and easy to make others happy."

"Ah! depend upon it, you are learning lots of things," said Mrs. Dlimm, significantly. "When God begins to teach, then we do learn, and something worth knowing, too."

"I thought that God's lessons were very hard and painful," said Lottie to Hemstead, with a spice of mischief in her manner.

"Mrs. Dlimm is a better authority than I was," he replied. "Do you know," he continued, addressing their hostess, "that Miss Marsden has done more to teach me how to preach than all my years at the seminary?"

"Surely," exclaimed Mrs. Dlimm, "that's a rather strong statement. I can understand how Miss Marsden can do a great deal for one. We have had very nice experience in that direction; but just how she should teach you more than all the grave professors and learned text-books is not clear at once."

"Well, she has," he maintained stoutly. "I doubt whether your husband gets as much light upon the Bible from that huge commentary there as Miss Marsden gave me in one afternoon."

Mrs. Dlimm turned her eyes inquiringly toward Lottie, who said, laughingly, "It would seem, last week, that I was a heathen and Mr. Hemstead a heretic."

"And what are you now?"

"O, he's all right now."

"And not you?"

"I fear I shall always be a little crooked; but I hope I am not exactly a heathen any longer."

"Miss Marsden was a heathen, as Nathanael was a shrewd and dishonest Jew," said Hemstead.

"What kind of a Jew was Nathanael?" asked Lottie, innocently.

"Christ said, when he first saw him," replied Mrs. Dlimm, smiling, "'Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.'"

Then both were puzzled at Lottie's sudden and painful flush, but they ascribed it to her modesty; and Hemstead, to give her time to recover herself, gave a brief sketch of his sermon, and how, in the afternoon, while reading, at Lottie's suggestion, the complete story of Lazarus, they both had seen the unspeakable sympathy of Christ for those He sought to save.

"O dear!" thought Lottie, "when shall I escape the consequences of my foolish jest? 'Without guile,' indeed!"

Mr. Dlimm now appeared, and he and Hemstead were soon discussing the rendering of an obscure passage, upon which the big commentary gave the conflicting opinions of a dozen learned doctors. Mrs. Dlimm carried Lottie off to her sanctum, the nursery,—the fruitful source of questions and mysteries the learned doctors would find still more difficult to solve.

"And you are contented with this narrow round of life?" asked Lottie, curiously, as Mrs. Dlimm finished the narration of what seemed to her very tame experience.

"Narrow!" said Mrs. Dliram, reproachfully; "my life and work are not narrow. I have six little immortals to train. A million years hence they will either bless or reproach me. What consideration in fashionable life is equal to that? Besides, my husband is engaged in the same kind of work that brought the Son of God from heaven to earth. It is my privilege to help him. Scrub Oaks is as much of a place as many of the villages in which He preached, and I am grateful that I can take part in so royal a calling."

"Mrs. Dlimm," said Lottie, with sudden animation, "I shouldn't wonder if you and your husband were very great people in heaven."

"Oh!" cried the little lady, laughing. "We never think of that. Why should we? But I know there will be a nook there for us, and the thought makes me very happy."

"And you really and truly have been happy in all your toil and privations?"

"Yes," said Mrs Dlimm, with a strange, far-away look coming into her large blue eyes; "when everything on earth has been darkest I have been most happy, and this has confirmed my faith. Little children are sources of great joy, but they also cause much pain and anxiety. Yet when I have been suffering most,—when the wardrobe has been scanty and the larder almost bare,—God has taken me to His heart as I clasp this child here, and comforted by assuring me, 'Never fear, my child, I will take care of you and yours.' See how He keeps His word. He sent you here, with your bright, sunny face. He sent Mr. Hemstead here; and between you both we shall make a long stage of our homeward journey most pleasantly."

"I never heard any one talk like you before," said Lottie, musingly. "You seem to believe all the Bible says, as if it were actually right before you."

"Believe! Why not? The idea of God not keeping His word!"

"And is faith just the certainty that God will keep His word?"

"That is just faith; and though this great world—for little bits of which people lose their souls—shall pass away, God's word shall stand until His least promise is fulfilled."

"That is not our creed on Fifth Avenue," said Lottie sadly. "The world first, God last. But you sometimes, surely, wish that Mr. Dlimm was rich, and that you could have for him and the children and yourself all that heart could wish?"

"I used to feel so occasionally, but I have got past that now. God loves my husband and children better than I do, and He will provide what is best for us all. I simply try to rest in His arms as this child does in mine."

"How strange it all is!" said Lottie, thoughtfully.

"Why strange? Your earthly father provides for you the best he can; and if our Heavenly Father provides for us in the same way, surely will not His be the better provision? What an absurd, unnatural thing it is to suppose there is anything better than what God will give His own dear children. Are not both earth and heaven His? and He has promised the best of both to us."

"I can scarcely realize it all yet," said Lottie, with tears in her eyes. "I suppose it is because you are so natural and true that you seem so odd to me, who have been brought up among those that I fear look at things in false lights."

"I think I understand you, my dear," said Mrs. Dlimm, hopefully. "A child's penny toy will hide a great mountain if held too near the eyes. It is thus the eyes of the worldly are blinded by trifles till I fear some will never see God or heaven. But He is teaching you better. As long as you follow His gentle leadings, and the pure impulses of your own heart, all will be well. But as soon as you begin to take counsel of the world and its self-seeking spirit, you will find yourself in trouble. If we wish to prosper and be happy in God's world, we must do His will. This is good, sound common sense, which the experience of every age has borne out. It often seems hard at first, my dear, as you will find out. The scourging was very hard to bear; but Paul and Silas, singing in prison, with their feet made fast in the stocks, were better off than their jailer, who was about to kill himself, and the magistrates, who, no doubt, were in mortal fear because of the earthquake. We, too, can sing, whatever happens, as long as God and conscience are upon our side."

It will thus be seen that Mrs. Dlimm was a rationalist as well as a believer, though not of the new school.

For some reason, her philosophy was peculiarly acceptable to Lottie, and, though scarcely conscious why, the exhortation to follow the impulses of her own heart seemed especially natural and right; but her fashionable mother would have been alarmed indeed, if she had known that her beautiful daughter was becoming the disciple of Mrs. Dlimm.

Though their call was by no means a short one, it passed all too quickly. The memory of it would never fade from Lottie's mind; and it became another link in the chain by which God was seeking to bind her to a better future than her friends could dream of in their earthly ambition.

"I am very glad I made this visit," Lottie said, as they were hastening home lest they should be late to dinner. "It was very kind of you to take me so far."

He turned and lifted his eyebrows comically.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"To hear you, one would think that I had been a martyr for your sake, while, in truth, I never enjoyed myself more."

"Yes," said she; "but you welcome afflictions and trials of your patience."

"Would that I might be ever thus afflicted!" he exclaimed impulsively. Then, suddenly becoming conscious of the natural suggestion of his words, he blushed deeply; but not more so than Lottie, who turned away her face to hide her flaming cheeks. He, misinterpreting the act, thought that she meant a hint that such remarks were not agreeable, and was thinking how to remedy what he now regarded as a very foolish speech, when she, with woman's tact, led the conversation to unembarrassing topics, and before they were aware the horse stopped at Mrs. Marchmont's door.

Lottie disarmed both suspicion and censure to a considerable extent by saying, "I had promised Mrs. Dlimm to come and see her again, and wished to keep my word. I knew no one would care to go there save Mr. Hemstead, so I took him to see the parson while I visited the parson's wife. I enjoyed my call very much, too; and as Mr. Hemstead and Mr. Dlimm had a great argument over a knotty theological point, I suppose he feels somewhat repaid also."

This put matters in quite another light. That one should go to see a parson's wife, and the other to discuss theology with the parson, was very different from stealing off for an indefinite ride with the purpose of being alone together. De Forrest was quite comforted, and was even inclined to regard Lottie as rather considerate in not asking him to accompany her when visiting such undesirable people as the Dlimms. Though why she should wish to visit them herself was a mystery. But then, he thought, "Lottie is odd and full of queer moods and whims. Let her indulge them now, because, as my wife, they will scarcely be the thing." He was still more comforted by noting that she did not have a great deal to say to Hemstead—indeed, that she rather avoided him.

"She has had enough, and too much, of his heavy stupid company," he thought, "and finds that even the carrying out of the practical joke is too hard work. If I can only get another good opportunity, I won't wait till she goes to sleep before bringing the question to an issue."

But Lottie gave him no opportunity, and, while kind and gentle toward him, adroitly managed that they should never be alone.

And Hemstead also, who had found their private tete-a-tetes so delightful and productive of good results, was equally unable to be alone with her. Not that Lottie was averse, but because she saw that lynx-eyed Bel was watching her; and again for the hundredth time she wished her cynical friend back in the city.

Lottie's manner and apparent reserve were so marked at one time that Hemstead began to grow troubled, though why he scarcely knew. There was no cause, save the peculiar sensitiveness of one whose sunshine is beginning to come, not from the skies, but from the changing features of a fellow-mortal.

Lottie quickly saw his shadowed face, and surmised the cause. Soon after, when his eyes were questioningly seeking hers, she gave him such a sunny, genial smile as to assure him that, whatever might be the cause of her somewhat distant manner, it did not result from any estrangement from him.

Heretofore, when Lottie had liked a gentleman, she had been frank in showing that preference within the limits of lady-like bearing. But, for some reason, she began to grow excessively shy in manifesting any interest in Hemstead that the others could note. The reason with which she satisfied herself explained her feeling but partially.

"They will think I am still trying to carry out my wicked, foolish joke."

But she did long for another unrestrained talk with him, and watched keenly to secure it without exciting remark. De Forrest did all he could to prevent this, however, and Bel unconsciously became his ally. With woman's quick perception, she saw that Lottie was indulging in something more than a "mood," and felt that it was a duty she owed to her friend to prevent mischief.

Thus Monday and Tuesday passed away, Lottie being too circumspect to give Bel sufficient cause for speaking plainly.

Dan and Mr. Dimmerly were the only ones of the household who regarded the change in Lottie with unmixed satisfaction. Not giving a thought to the cause, they were pleased with the gentleness and attention which resulted.

"Lottie," said her brother Dan, as she kissed him good-night, after telling a marvellously good story, "what has come over you? You make me think of Auntie Jane."

"I must be growing good indeed, if I remind any one of Auntie Jane," thought Lottie, exultantly.



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE TERROR OF A GREAT FEAR.



Long before Harcourt reached his law-office, he was satisfied that he had blundered foolishly, and done Miss Martell great injustice. Her right to refuse his unwelcome love was perfect, and her manner of doing so, as he understood her, had been most delicate, even in his estimation. At the same time she had never given him the slightest ground for his implied aspersion that in her pure, Christian life she shone down upon him with the cold distance of a "star."

He recalled her words and bearing in Mrs. Byram's conservatory, and the degree in which his unreasonable passion had blinded him grew more apparent.

"Why should I expect her to love me?" he asked himself in bitterness. "It is a hundred-fold more than I deserve, or had a right to hope, that she should put out her hand to save me."

He was on the point of returning twenty times, and asking her pardon for his folly, but that bane of our life,—that hinderance to more good and happiness than perhaps any other one cause,—pride, deterred, and Monday evening passed, an unhappy one to the object of his thoughts as well as to himself.

On Tuesday pride was vanquished, and as soon as his business permitted he repaired to the Martell mansion, eager to ask forgiveness. To his deep disappointment, he learned that Mr. Martell and his daughter had driven up to town, crossed on the ferry-boat, and were paying some visits on the other side of the river.

He now purposed to call again as soon as they returned, but was unexpectedly detained until quite late in the evening. He approached the familiar place that now enshrined, to him, the jewel of the world, in both a humble and an heroic mood. He would not presume again, but in silence live worthily of his love for one so lovely. He would be more than content—yes, grateful—if she would deign to help him climb toward her moral height.

As he stood on the piazza, after ringing the door-bell, he was in greater trepidation than when he had made his first plea in court, and was so intent in trying to frame his thoughts into appropriate language that he did not note for the moment that no one answered. Again he rang, but there was no response. There were lights in the house, and he knocked upon the door quite loudly. A housemaid soon after appeared, with a scared and anxious face.

"Is Miss Martell at home?" he asked, a sudden boding of evil chilling his heart.

"Indade an' she is not. Would to God she was!"

"What do you mean?"

"Faix, an' I'm sure I'm glad ye's come, Misther Harcourt. The coachman is down at the shore, and he'll tell ye all."

Harcourt dashed through the snow and shrubbery, over rocks and down steeps that gave him one or two severe falls, that he might, the nearest way, reach Mr. Martell's boat-house. Here he found the coachman peering out upon the dark waters, and occasionally uttering a hoarse, feeble shout, which could scarcely be heard above the surf that beat with increasing heaviness upon the icy beach.

The man seemed nearly exhausted with cold and anxiety, and was overjoyed at seeing Harcourt; but he told the young man a story which filled him with deepest alarm. It was to this effect: