Chapter 17 The Holidays
Chapter 17
The Holidays
“Mama,” said Helen the next morning “after hearing papa’s story, I decided not to try to finish that mat within a given time.”
“Then you did not understand its lesson, my dear.”
“But, Mama, I get so absorbed in whatever I do, that I care for nothing but to reach the end. I don’t know how I can help myself.”
“You surely don’t intend to sit with folded hands and an idle mind all your life, I suppose?”
“Why, no, Mama. But I thought I would not allow myself to set about anything very interesting, for fear of becoming too much in love with it.”
“On the contrary, I advise you to finish the mat. Miss Prigott likes to be remembered on her birthdays. And it will be a good discipline for you to make yourself to be interested in, but never overcome by such work.”
Helen hesitated. “Oh, Mama! You don’t know how weak I am!” she said.
“Almost anyone can run away from temptation,” replied her mother. “It is far nobler, and requires greater strength, to meet and conquer it.”
Helen ran for the mat and sat down to her work, which proved a sore temptation to her.
“I must just put in these crimsons, to see what the effect will be;” or “I will only finish this rosebud to see how it is going to look;” says the addicted embroiderer, when the still small voice of duty whispers of another and less enjoyable task. Many an innocent lamp-mat or fire-screen has seen frowns, shrugs, and sighs when it should have seen bending over it only a fair and unclouded face. Old Mr. This, and tiresome Mrs. That, if they intrude on this bewitching hobby, may be thankful if they are not consigned, in wish at least, to the bottom of the Red Sea, by girls that should use only friendly words of greeting and cordial welcome!
Helen was going on bravely with her work, and interruptions proved excessively annoying, so that when her friend Mary Anna was announced, she felt a slight emotion of frustration, and failed to rush to meet her with the ecstasy of delight that young lady thought necessary. Miss Mary Anna had not been in the best mood that morning, and had her feelings already wounded by a suggestion from a little sister, that she had “got out of bed on the wrong side.” She therefore acted offended, and seating herself at a distance from Helen, proceeded to make herself as annoying as possible.
“I’m glad,” she said, “you find time for embroidery and such hobbies. You must enjoy life vastly more than girls who have to do such low work as darning stockings!”
“Indeed,” returned Helen, “I hope my happiness does not depend on my hobbies. I think I could darn stockings if it were necessary.”
“But it isn’t necessary, since you can afford to have everything of that sort done for you. I only wish other people were so fortunate.”
As Mary Anna’s father was very well able to have her stockings mended for her, Helen didn’t know what to reply to this speech. Mary Anna, thus arrested in the progress of her remarks, turned to another point.
‘‘I suppose you were delighted to find you had won the prize. Of course, you deserved it, you sure did work for it! As for me, I didn’t think it was worth so much trouble. It was only a paltry desk, after all!”
“Oh, it was not the value of the prize!” said Helen.
“But the glory, I suppose?”
Helen colored a little. “Well, I suppose it was the glory, as you call it.” She felt annoyed, however, and looked in surprise at Mary Anna, who sat smiling with an air of sweetness that seemed impossible to quarrel with.
“I would have been very happy to have you win it, glory and all,” said Helen kindly.
“Oh, I assure you I care nothing about it. I value my friendships far more., I didn’t even try to win the prize.”
Helen was surprised at this announcement, but she would not contradict her.
“The girls all say they did not try for it,” pursued Mary Anna, “because they saw how determined you were to win it, cost what it might.”
“Mary Anna!” said Helen, “I am afraid you don’t love me as much as you once did. I never heard you talk like this before. I really thought you would be pleased to have me win the prize!”
‘‘Well, am not I pleased?” cried Mary Anna. “I’m sure I came this morning just to congratulate you. But I cannot go into raptures. It is not my way. My feelings are deep and strong.”
So saying, Mary Anna rose to leave and departed with the same smiling face that she had maintained throughout the conversation.
The moment she had gone, Helen took up her work and tried to go on with it. But she could not see to take one stitch. Her eyes kept filling with tears and were determined to keep full. She felt pained and grieved beyond measure. What had she done to deserve such treatment from her dear friend? But after all, what treatment? Had anything unkind really been said?
Her mother entered the room and detected the tears, and came towards her full of that sympathy a mother always has ready.
“Mama,” said Helen, returning her mother’s silent caress, “please don’t ask me any questions, for I hardly know myself what I’m crying for.”
“To tell the truth, I was in the next room, and unavoidably heard all that passed.”
“Oh, Mama! I’m so sorry! Please don’t judge Mary Anna by her behavior this morning! I never heard her talk like that before! I’m sure she’s sorry for it by this time.”
“I advise you, my dear, not to commit your happiness too entirely to those who will trifle with it when the occasion suits. Understand me, however, I’m not counseling you to love Mary Anna less, but Christ the more. Then every little trial will drive you to Him who never tampers with the love yielded to Him.”
“Lucy thinks Mary Anna has some excellent qualities, Mama.”
“I don’t doubt it, Dear. And by the way, do you know that Mrs. Lee has sent for Lucy to spend the holidays with her?”
“Oh, Mama! But Lucy is not going, I hope?”
“I don’t know. On some accounts, I think it would not be inappropriate. Lucy has left the decision to me.”
“She admires Mrs. Lee, I know, and Mrs. Lee seems to really love her. But I don’t think it’s fair to take her from us. Why couldn’t she go and spend one day and come home at night? We had planned to do so many things together!”
“I will see what your father says. But don’t look so dismal, my dear. What will you do when Lucy leaves us altogether?”
“I don’t even want to think of that.”
Mrs. Whittier stood reflecting a few moments and then went in search of her husband whose key she heard in the door.
“You’re just the woman I want to see,” he cried, as he met her. “Come here, and let me show you some of the things I’ve been getting for those girls. And by the way, I have decided that on New Year’s Day, Lucy shall begin to have an allowance equal to Helen’s. I wonder why I never thought of it before. How has the child got along without money?”
“I’ve taken care of that,” said Mrs. Whittier smiling a little triumphantly as he shook his head at her. “I dreaded proposing it, but she bore it pretty well. Of course, I provide her clothes, as I do Helen’s, and I told her that her quarterly allowance was to be used just as she pleased.”
“You manage these things admirably,” he answered.
“To tell the truth, I think that Lucy receives favors with less pain and more pleasure from me than from you.”
“What possible difference can it make, from which of us a favor comes?”
“I’ve tried to put myself in her place and to feel as I think she feels. And it has occurred to me that she might regard all you do for her as done because you feel obliged to help your sister; whereas what I do must clearly proceed from pure love, and for my own joy.”
“You may be right. But now look at these things. Which shall be Lucy’s and which Helen’s?”
“You must come and look at mine first. And have you got nothing for Charles?”
“Oh, yes, a couple of small things. But I didn’t know what he would like best. Now, with girls it is different.”
Mrs. Whittier prudently restrained the smile with which she was tempted to honor her husband’s purchases. They were silk fabrics, of a quality and color quite inappropriate for schoolgirls.
“You haven’t said which shall be for which,” said Mr. Whittier. “Now I thought Lucy would look best in the green, and Helen in the—what color do you call it? Red?”
“I call it a dashing pink; and as for the ‘green,’ as you call it; why, my dear, it’s sky blue! Just to think of our sober little Lucy in sky blue!”
“It is green, I assure you. I asked for green, and the shade of this struck my fancy. And as to the other: why, I am sorry you don’t like it; but what can I do? I’ll exchange them in the morning—”
“Which is Sunday, you know.”
“Dear me! And Monday is Christmas! Well! I did my best; I must run down after tea and see what else I can find. As to those ‘sky-blues’ and ‘flashy pinks,’ I’m sure I don’t see what you will do with them unless you’ll wear them yourself. I wish you would.”
“I’ll save them for wedding dresses for Lucy’s sisters,” said Mrs. Whittier, laughing. “As for Lucy herself, her taste is too Quaker-like for such colors. And now let me tell you; Mrs. Lee has invited her for the holidays.”
“Really! She must go then, of course.”
“So I said, at first; but Miss Prigott has sent me such a strange little note on the subject, full of dark hints and mysteries. I hardly know whether to heed her warnings or not.”
“How can you pay the least attention to anything Miss Prigott says on a subject in which she has no concern?”
“Why, she seems to know or suspect something that may be worth our heeding. She reminds me that Dr. Thornton once spoke to Lucy of his brother Edgar Thornton, you know, as if he were an acquaintance of hers. Lucy denied, at the time, ever having seen him. But Miss Prigott says Dr. Thornton evidently did not believe her, and that she heard Mrs. Lee afterward allude to it.”
“Oh, these old maids!” cried Mr. Whittier. “How much they do contrive to see and hear! Now, my own opinion is this: Let Lucy go. It will make a pleasant change for her; the company of Mrs. Lee would be an advantage to any young lady.”
“But Helen will be so disappointed!”
“Helen must learn that selfishness is an unattractive, unchristian trait.”
“Oh, my dear! Do you think Helen is selfish?”
“There is a danger of that for an only daughter, whose every wish is granted.”
“We will consider it settled, then, that Lucy is to go,” said Mrs. Whittier, reluctantly; and ashamed to admit that she too felt a little selfish about it.
Lucy, therefore, went to Mrs. Lee’s, where she found herself in a warm and welcoming environment. Mrs. Lee herself, though not young in years, was a child at heart, as fresh and as simple as Lucy. She felt a real interest in hearing everything she could learn of her old friend and schoolmate and was never weary of the little stories Lucy told of her sisters and brothers. She suggested books for her to read as she had time, and subjects to write about. But the cultivated mind, the refined taste, the simple manner, were not what attracted Lucy the most, charming as they were. The cheerful piety that adorned her life won Lucy’s heart when talent and skill only won admiration.
A genuine Christian’s influence is as silent as the continual falling of a summer shower, which refreshes and enriches oftentimes more than the heavy rain. Who has not felt his heart glow with lively warmth at a mere glimpse into a holy soul? Or stimulated to like grace in witnessing an act of patience or forbearance? If amid the pressure of labor at school and home, Lucy had lost any of her habitual devout temper, she was now in circumstances to regain it tenfold. Every word, look, and tone of Mrs. Lee was free and cheerful as true liberty in Christ could make it, yet said, “I am not of this world.” There were plenty of visitors, and the claims of many children, and the pressure of many cares; yet there always hung about her like a halo, that serene manner, unbroken, unagitated. There are two ways in which genuine holiness develops itself. One busies itself chiefly in lopping off useless, diseased, and unsightly branches, and this work occupies it so incessantly that it has no time to perceive that good quality fruit is not produced.
The other rather lets the branches take care of themselves, and goes to the root of the matter, assured that if all is right there, all will become right outside. To this latter group, Mrs. Lee belonged; and there was a naturalness about her, that mere religious surface-work would have destroyed. She could afford to be enthusiastic, joyous, and in a good sense, careless and impulsive. The branches took care of themselves. Some vague notions of this sort had long floated in Lucy’s mind; but conversations with Mrs. Lee, and close study of her ingenuous, open character, shaped these notions into convictions that were extremely helpful in her life.
But this happy week came to an end, as even wretched weeks will, and Lucy returned to her uncle and school, greatly refreshed, and with her head and heart as full as they could be. So full of better things, that the united flatteries of Mr. Jackson, Mr. Lenoux, and all the other teachers, only reached the outside, where they fell harmless.
On the evening after her departure, Dr. Thornton was sitting by his sister’s side reading a foreign letter, one sentence of which, if it is not impolite, we can read over his shoulder, without troubling ourselves to hear the whole sheet.
“Your mysterious hints about a certain young woman who shall be nameless, were duly pondered. I will be interested in anything further in that regard.”
“There, you see, he’s still interested,” said Dr. Thornton. “I told you how it would be. Edgar is not a man to move his affections from post to post, like men on a chessboard.”
“But didn’t you tell me he had seen her but once?” asked Mrs. Lee.
“Once, more or less,” said Dr. Thornton, smiling “But also consider how you have kept the fire alive by your letters.”
“Fire! If he has got so far already, I yield the field. I thought it was a vague attraction, that the first pretty face he saw would dispel.”
“Well, if I take the field, what am I to do? Skirmish about, and attack the enemy little by little?”
“My dear brother, do remember what a child she still is, and how improper it would be to put such ideas into her head.”
“Meanwhile, she grows older every day, and the first thing you know, some country lover will bear down on the field and carry her off. I declare, I am half tempted to do it myself.”
“You can’t have her, you’re not half good enough. Besides, you’re too old. No, Edgar found her, and I hope he’ll win her, but there’s time enough; they’re both young.”
“Well! I think I’ll run over Miss Herbert’s little brother, and half-kill him, and then fall in love with her while she’s nursing him. Edgar shouldn’t be allowed to do all the courting in the family.”
Mrs. Lee looked at him. He yawned and half smiled, as he observed it.
“I don’t think that case is so hopeless,” she said “Miss Herbert’s father may yet relent. Don’t be discouraged.” Dr. Thornton did not answer but got up and walked with an uneasy whistle through the room.
At length, he said, “How old did you say Miss Lucy is?”
“Nearly seventeen now.”
“And Edgar is nearly twenty-two. Supposing he stays abroad four years; she’ll then be twenty-one. Old enough, in all conscience.”
“But are you so sure that he will remain constant to a mere shadow? That’s what one look at even a girl like Lucy, seems to me.”
Dr. Thornton stopped walking and came and stood before her.
“Mark my words,” he said. “Edgar will marry either Miss Lucy or nobody. I say it, who will have either Grace Herbert as my wife or none.”
“What wills you boys have!” said Mrs. Lee. “I hope this time, however, they’ll not be put to the test.
