Chapter II: Part 2

'"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." "This is the will of God, even your sanctification." "That ye may be holy and without blame before Him in love." "Be ye perfect as My Father in heaven is perfect." According to the measure of our capacity, that is the idea, just as the tiny cup may be as full as the ocean. But for this we must lay all upon the altar. There must be no closed doors, no reserved corners in our hearts. We must give Christ the key to every room, so that He shall be, not merely a guest in the guest-chamber, but the owner of the house. Are you ready for that, dear child?'

And Pauline answered humbly:--

'I want the very best God has to give me.'

_Chapter VII_

A GREAT SURRENDER

The beautiful summer had slipped away and the glory of October was over the land. Pauline had crossed the borders and plunged, with all the zest of her thirsty soul, into the fair world of knowledge which lay stretched at her feet. Her three months of conscientious study had been of great service as a preparatory training, and already more than one of the professors had complimented her on her breadth of view, and the rapidity with which she was able to grasp an idea.

A subtle sense of power stole over her. Every part of her being seemed to expand In the congenial atmosphere. A brilliant future seemed opening before her enraptured gaze. The world should be the better for her life. God had endowed her with gifts. She would lay them at His feet. She would devote herself to the up-lifting of others. She would strive to lift them from the torpor of their common-place into a higher life. Life was magnificent! Poor Tryphosa, in her narrow sphere of pain, how could she be so happy!

Belle hurried along the hall and stopped at the door of the blue-draped chamber.

'My dear Paul, do you know we are all waiting? What have you been doing? If I could only get a snapshot at you now I should call it "The Intoxication of Success." You would make a splendid Jeanne d'Arc, with the light of high and holy purpose in her eyes; but as this is the last Saturday in the year that we shall have the chance of a ride to Forest Glen and home by moonlight, I move that we postpone our rhapsodies until a more convenient season. The boys are waiting below with the horses, and the servants started long ago with the hampers. Even Gwen has been wooed by the beauty of the morning to accompany us, though I think there are about a dozen meetings on her calendar. Here is a letter for you, but you have no time to read it now.'

'Have I kept you? Oh, I am sorry!' and catching up her silver-mounted riding whip Pauline threw her habit over her arm, and ran down to where Richard Everidge held the handsome bay mare which had been her uncle's gift. The letter she had tossed lightly on the table. It was from her father, but it would keep. There was never any news at Sleepy Hollow.

Aunt Rutha watched the merry party as they cantered off.

'How well Pauline looks in the saddle. We have been very fortunate in our adopted daughter, Robert.'

'Yes, she is a sweet girl, and her passion for knowledge is just the incentive that our lazy little Belle needs. I only hope her father will never take it into his head to claim her again. She is a blessing in the house.'

On and on the riders travelled, through the exhilarating autumn air, until they stopped for lunch on the borders of a forest which Jack Frost had set ablaze, and which glowed in the sunshine with a dazzling splendour of crimson and bronze and gold. The hours flew by, and when they started homewards the sun was sinking in majestic glory, while on the opposite horizon the moon rose, silver clear. Pauline's every nerve quivered with delight. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day.

When she went up to her room that night her eye fell on the forgotten letter. She opened it slowly with a smile on her lips. Suddenly the smile faded, and a cold chill crept into her heart.

'It has been such a happy day,' she had told Aunt Rutha, as, after the merry supper was over, she had stood by her side in the soft-lighted library. 'Such a happy day, without a flaw!' And now already it seemed to be fading into the dim, dim past! And yet it was only a few hours since Richard Everidge had climbed lightly up after the spray of brilliant leaves which she had admired, and she had pinned them against the dark background of her riding habit; even now they were before her on the table. She looked at them with a dull sense of pain.

'Mother has had a stroke of some sort,' Mr Harding wrote, 'the doctor doesn't seem to know rightly what. She is somewhat better, but she can't leave her bed. The children are well, except Polly, who seems weakly. The doctor thinks her spine has been hurt. Mother had her in her arms when she fell.'

Pauline shivered. Was this God's 'best' for her? The letter dropped from her hand, and she sat for hours motionless, her eyes taking in every detail of the pretty moonlit room, until it was indelibly engraved upon her memory.

* * * * *

When the morning came she took the letter to Tryphosa. She could not trust herself to tell the others yet.

The eyes that looked up at her from the open sheet were very tender.

'Dear child, are you satisfied?'

'With what, my lady?'

'With Christ, and the life He has planned for you?'

She hesitated. If it had been this other life that she had been planning for herself only the day before, how gladly she would have answered: but, if it should be Sleepy Hollow, could she say yes?

With her keen intuition, which had been sharpened by pain, Tryphosa divined her thought.

'I am going to give you a new beatitude,' she said, brightly. 'Blessed be drudgery, for it is the grey angel of success.'

'That is a hard gospel, my lady.'

'Perhaps, but ease and victory are for ever incompatible. The Father loved the Son, yet He surrendered Him to a life of toil, and Christ Himself gave His chosen ones the heritage of tribulation, crowned with the sweet, bright gift of peace. It is the tried lives that ring the truest. The idea runs all through the Bible. "Silver purified seven times," and "gold tried in the fire," and "polished after the similitude of a palace." Have you ever thought of the friction that involves? The finest diamonds bear the most cutting, and it is the mission of the diamond to reflect the light. If we would have our lives a success, we must seek not happiness but harmony.'

'Harmony! With what, my lady?'

'The will of God, dear child. We are out of tune when God finds us. He puts us in tune with our great keynote Jesus, and then we are like an Æolian harp. The west and the east winds make music through it, and the shrieking storm the sweetest music of all. But remember, little one, it is the "joy of the Lord" which is our strength. We must sit in the sunshine if we would reflect the rainbow.'

That night Pauline spent upon her knees.

'It is ridiculous,' exclaimed Mr Davis, when, the next morning, she announced her decision to the family. 'I will send a nurse down by the early train, but it is not fit work for you, my child, and besides we cannot spare you.'

Her eyes filled.

'It is so good of you to say that! But my Father has called me, and I must go.'

'He does not say anything about your going in the letter,' said Mr Davis, as he ran his eyes over the words.

'I mean my heavenly Father, Uncle Robert.' she said simply. 'The message came last night.'

After that they could not shake her, although Belle hung about her tearfully. Russell and Gwen protested, Aunt Rutha looked at her with sorrowful eyes, and Mr Davis repeated that the very idea was absurd, as he paced up and down with a strange huskiness in his throat.

* * * * *

'I have come to say good-bye, my lady.'

Tryphosa looked wistfully at the brave, sweet face, which she knew she would see no more.

'So soon, dear child?'

'I have given Christ the key, as you said, and now I am under orders.'

'Well, I knew it would come. It is only that we must travel by different roads. We shall meet at the end of the journey.'

'But you never told me that my way to the kingdom lay through Sleepy Hollow!'

'Surely not, dear child! It is not for me to do the work of the Holy Spirit. I knew you would hear His voice speaking to you from out the shadows by-and-by.'

Pauline sighed.

'I have so longed for culture, my lady, and now I must put it by.'

'I am going to quote again. "Blessed be drudgery, the secret of all culture." Some one has said: "Latin and Greek, and music and art, and travel, are the decorations of life, but industry and perseverance, courage before difficulties, and cheer under straining burdens, self-control and self-denial are the indispensables. It is our daily task that mainly educates us, and the humblest woman may live splendidly." And remember, dear child, a life like Christ's is the grandest thing in the world. Angels may well envy us the opportunity of living it, for God Himself has lived it in Christ and rejoices to live it again in each of us. We should glory in the thought that our King allows us to be the mirror in which the world may see Jesus. May the Lord keep you as one of His "hidden ones," my darling, and make you to realise that He who "holdeth the height of the hills," spreads the hush of His presence over the valleys.'

Then she drew her close in a long, last farewell.

_Chapter VIII_

IDEALISING THE REAL

'If you cannot realise your Ideal, you can at least idealise your Real.'

As the train slackened speed, Pauline lifted her eyes from the book which Richard Everidge had laid on the seat beside her, after giving her that last strong handshake, to see her father standing in front of the Sleepy Hollow Station. A great pity filled her heart--how worn and old he looked!

They had all wanted to accompany her part of the way, and Belle had pleaded to be allowed to go and help nurse, but she had said them nay. She knew the accommodations of Hickory Farm, and it was easier to leave them where she had met them first, at the entrance of what would always be to her the city of delights.

Abraham Lincoln and the spring waggon! Had the whole beautiful summer been one delicious dream? Could it be only a week since she had stood entranced in that forest of flame? Here the leaves hung brown and shrivelled on the denuded branches, stray flakes of snow were in the air, and the early twilight fell chill and dreary.

'I'm terrible glad to see you, Pauline, though I hated to spoil your visit,' said Mr Harding, as he gave Abraham Lincoln a taste of the whip.

Pauline leaned towards him, and laid both hands upon his arm.

'Poor father! I am so sorry for you! Now tell me all about it.'

And the tired man turned to the daughter who for his sake had left ease and beauty and friends, and shifted to her shoulders the burden which he found too heavy for his own.

The children crowded to meet her as she stumbled through the narrow hall-way into the kitchen. How dark it was! Her quick glance comprehended the whole scene, and the contrast between it and that other home-coming smote her with a keen sense of physical pain. She looked at the solitary lamp with its grotesquely hideous ornament of red flannel, at Susan's expressionless, freckled face, at the boys in their copper-toed boots and overalls, at the good-natured, but hopelessly common-place Martha Spriggs, with her thin hair drawn tight into a knob the size of a bullet, and her bare arms akimbo. 'Idealize her real!' Would it be possible to idealize anything at Sleepy Hollow?

She got her welcome in various fashions.

'It's about time you were getting back!' exclaimed Mrs Harding from the bed on which she was forced to lie, in bitterness of spirit, with Polly by her side. 'I suppose nothing less than a stroke would have brought you. It beats me how people can be such sponges! I'm thankful I was never one to go trailin' about the country after my relations. I never was away from home more than a day in my life till I was married, and it's been nothing but work ever since, and now to be laid here like a useless log, with everything going hotfoot to destruction! It's a good thing you've come at last, for the children are makin' sawdust and splinters of every bit of crockery in the house, and that Martha Spriggs has no more management than a settin' hen. I don't suppose you'll be much better, though. You never did hev much of a head, an' now you've been up among the clouds so long, you'll be more like to sugar the butter and salt the pies than before.'

Pauline lifted Polly from her uncomfortable position with a warm glow about her heart, which all the sick woman's bitterness was powerless to quench. If she could see Richard Everidge, she would tell him that she did believe in altitudes now. It was possible even in the valleys to live above the clouds. 'Do not seek happiness,' Tryphosa had said, 'but harmony with God's will,' and God's will for her was Sleepy Hollow. 'It is not what we do, but what we are, dear child,' she seemed to hear her saying. She remembered reading that 'the smallest roadside pool has its water from heaven, and its gleam from the sun, and can hold the stars in its bosom, as well as the great ocean.' God could make a 'perfect Christian' even in Sleepy Hollow.

'I'm powerful glad ye've cum, Pawliney,' said Martha Spriggs, as she followed her into the dairy after the meal was over. 'I'm that beset I dunno where I'm standin', for Miss Hardin's been as crooked as a snake fence, an' as contrairy as a yearlin' colt, an' the childern dew train awful.'

'Yer've got to tell me stories all night, miles of 'em,' said Lemuel, as he bestowed his small person on the floor, with his legs in the air.

'No, no, Lemuel, you're going right to bed, like a good little brother, so Polly can get to sleep. Poor Polly is so tired,' and Pauline walked up and down the floor of her tiny room trying to soothe the weary child.

'Hi! Poll's no 'count; she's only a gurl. I ain't goin' ter sleep nuther. I'm goin' ter stay up fer hours an' hours, an' if yer don't keep right on tellin' stories quick, I'll holler, an' that'll make mar mad, an' then she'll send par up with a stick ter beat me. I don't care, he don't hit ez hard as she duz, anyhow.'

'If you'll get undressed right away, Lemuel, I'll tell you about a little boy who lived with an' old, old man, and one night he couldn't sleep, but----'

'Huh! that's a Bible story. This ain't Sunday. Par never reads the Bible 'cept Sunday. I want 'em 'bout lions an' tigers, an' men tumblin' down mountains, and boys gettin' eaten by bears.'

'What did you do when I was away, Lemuel?'

His lower lip protruded ominously.

'Ain't had nuthin'. Martha Spriggs don't hev any. She only knows "the cow that jumped over the moon," an' that's no good: 'tain't true, nuther, fer our cows don't do it.'

No time the next morning for the long hours of delightful study. It was churning day, and there was baking to be done, and the mending was behindhand, and the children needed clothes; besides the numerous 'odd jobs' which Mrs Harding had deferred, but which she was prompt to require done as soon as she had some one besides Martha to call on. Then her meals must be given to her, and nothing tasted right, and the children were so noisy, and the older boys so uncouth.

Wearily Pauline toiled up the narrow stairs with Polly as the clock struck nine. She laid the sleeping child on her bed softly, so as not to wake Lemuel, and knelt down by the window. Not a sound broke the stillness. Her thoughts flew to the blue-draped chamber, and the soft lighted library, where she could almost see Uncle Robert and Aunt Rutha, and Belle and Richard, and Russell and Gwen. But they might not be there yet; they had set apart this night, she remembered, to run over for a look through the big telescope. Last week that was, before she had decided to come to Sleepy Hollow, and broken up all their happy plans. Only last week! Then she thought of Tryphosa, lying with closed eyes in her darkened room, waiting patiently for the sleep which so often refused to come, while the angel of pain brooded over her pillow. Then her eyes sought the stars.

'You dear things!' she whispered. 'God put you in your places and told you to shine, and for all these hundreds of years you've just kept on shining. Oh! my lady, ask God to help me to make this dark place bright.'

She knelt on in the clear, cold moonlight until at last the hush of God's peace crept into her heart, and there was a great calm.

The winter crept on steadily. Jack Frost threw photographs of fairyland upon the windows, and hung the roofs with fringes of crystal pendants, while the snowflakes piled themselves over the fences and made a shroud for the trees, and every day Pauline, with this strange peace in her heart, did her housework to the glory of God.

There were bright spots here and there, for the Boston letters came freely, and the magazines which she had liked best, and now and then a book, as Belle said, 'to keep Mr Hallam company.' They would not let her drop out of their life, these kind friends, and she took it all thankfully, though she could only glance at the magazines, and never opened the books. There would be time by-and-by, she said to herself cheerfully. There was so much waiting for her in the beautiful by-and-by.

'It beats me,' said Mrs Harding fretfully, as Pauline hushed Polly to sleep, 'what you do to that child. I used to sing to her till my throat cracked, but you just smooth her hair awhile with those fingers of yours, and off she goes. I wish you'd come and smooth me off to sleep. I'm that tired lying here, I don't know what to do. That new doctor's no more good than his powders are. I don't see what old Dr Ross had to die for, just before I was goin' ter need him.' And the sick woman groaned.

Pauline laid Polly in her cot with a smile. This grudging praise was very sweet to her. To make darkness light, that was Christ's mission, and hers. She was putting her whole soul in the effort.

'What makes P'liney so different?' queried Leander of Stephen and John, as they rested from their daily task of cutting wood. 'She used ter be as mad as hops if yer mussed up yer clothes, an' now she only laughs an' sez, "Never mind, if it's a stain that soap will conquer."'

'An' she's always singin' too,' said John thoughtfully; 'if mother didn't scold so it would be real pleasant.'

'I'd like to know why it is, though,' repeated Leander thoughtfully.

'Because she belongs to the King,' said the clear, sweet voice of his step-sister from the doorway, 'and she wants you all to belong to Him too.'

When she went back into the house, she found Lemuel brandishing a broomstick over the frightened Polly.

'Why, Lemuel, what are you doing?'

'I've casted the devils out of her,' exclaimed that youth triumphantly, 'an' they've gone inter the pig pen, whole leguns of 'em, an' they're kickin' orful!'

_Chapter IX_

A LOST LETTER

Seven years had gone by, and every day of each successive month had been full to overflowing of hard work for Pauline.

'Dear Tryphosa,' she whispered to herself with a smile, 'you little thought, when you gave me that new beatitude, what constant friends the grey angel of Drudgery and I were to be.'

She climbed slowly up the narrow stairs to her room, and shaded the lamp that it might not disturb Polly's troubled sleep,--poor Polly, who would be an invalid for life. Then she sat down with a sigh of relief to read Belle's last letter. It had been a hard day, her step-mother had been more than usually restless, and the farm-work had been very heavy, for Martha Spriggs was home on a visit; every nerve in her body seemed to quiver with the strain.

'My dearest Paul,' Belle wrote, 'I can hardly see for crying, but I promised her that you should know at once.

'Tryphosa went away from us to "the other shore" last night. We were all there--her "inner circle" as she used to call us--all except you, and she seemed to miss you so. I never knew her to grow fond of any one in so short a time, but she took you right into her heart from the first. If I had not loved you so much I should have been jealous, but who could be jealous of you, you precious, brave saint?

'I have heard of the gate of heaven, but last night we were there.

'Dick was supporting her in his arms, poor Dick, he was so fond of her, and it was so hard for her to breathe--and we were all gathered round her, our hearts breaking to think it was the last time. She has suffered terribly lately, but at the last the pain left her, and she lay with the very rapture of heaven on her dear face, talking so brightly of how we should do after she had gone. It was just as if she were going on a pleasure trip, and we were to follow later. She turned to me with her lovely eyes all aglow with joy, and said:--

'"Give my Bible to the dear child in the valley" (that was what she always called you), "and tell her 'the miles to heaven are but short and few.'"

'She had a message for us all, and then, suddenly, just as the dawn broke, a great light swept over her face and she turned her head and whispered, "Jesus!" just as if He were close beside her, and then--she was gone.

'I shall never forget it. I have always thought of Death as the King of Terrors, but last night it was the coming of the Bridegroom for His own.'

With a low cry Pauline's head dropped. There could never be anyone just like 'my lady,' and she had gone away.

The hours passed silently, as she sat benumbed in the grasp of her great sorrow.

Suddenly she sprang up. Her father was calling her from the foot of the stairs.

'Mother's had a bad turn. Send Stephen for the doctor, and come, quick!'

She hurried down, and mechanically heated water, and did what she could to help the stricken woman, but before the doctor could reach the house, the Angel of Death had swept over the threshold, and Pauline and her father were left alone.

* * * * *

'Here's a letter for yer, Pawliney. Don't yer wish yer may git it?' and Lemuel, the irrepressible, waved it at her tantalisingly from the top of the tall hickory, where he had perched himself, like the monkey that he was.

She saw the Boston post-mark, and stretched out her hands for it longingly.

'Bring it down, there's a dear boy.'

'Not much! I bet Leander that I could make you mad, an' he bet his new jack-knife that I couldn't. I'm goin' to chew it up. It's orful thin, 'taint no good anyhow. You won't miss it, P'liney,' and crushing the letter into a small wad he put it into his capacious mouth.

It was, as Lemuel said, 'awful thin,' not much like the volumes which Belle usually wrote. She had not been able to distinguish the writing, but, of course, it must be from Belle. The two cousins had grown very near to each other as the years rolled by, and a summer never passed without some of her uncle's family spending a week or two in Sleepy Hollow. Those were Pauline's red-letter days--the bright, scintillating points where she was brought into touch again with the world of thought and light and beauty.

'Throw it down to me, Lemuel, dear.'

'Can't,' said the boy coolly, 'I'm goin' ter tie it to Poll's balloon, an' let go of the string, an' then it'll go straight to heaven,' and, with the letter reposing in his cheek, he began to sing vociferously:--

'"I want ter be an angel,
An' with the angels stand;
A crown upon my forehead,
A harp within my hand."

'Git mad now, P'liney, quick, fer I want that knife orful.'

A cry from Polly made Pauline hurry into the house to find that Martha Spriggs had slipped while passing the child's couch, and upset a bowl of scalding milk, which she was carrying, right over the little invalid's foot. In the confusion which followed, Pauline forgot Lemuel and her longed-for letter. When she went out to look for him he was gone.

'Give it to me now, Lemuel,' she said, as he came into supper; 'you've had enough fun for to-day.'

'Can't P'liney. I used it fer a gun wad to shoot a squirrel with, an' the cat ate the squirrel, letter an' all. Yer don't want me ter kill the cat, do yer, P'liney?'

'Oh! Lemuel,' she cried softly, 'how could you? How could you do it?'

She sighed sorrowfully. She had tried so hard to make Lemuel a good boy, but nothing seemed to touch him, and, young as he was, the neighbours had begun to lay the blame of every misdeed upon his shoulders, and Deacon Croaker predicted with a mournful shake of his head, 'No good will ever come of Lemuel Harding. He's a bad lot, a bad lot.'

'Sing to me!' cried Polly, 'the pain's awful!' and taking the weary little form in her arms, Pauline sang herself back into her usual happy trust.

She would not tell Belle her letter had been destroyed. She must shield Lemuel.

'I'm doing my best,' she said to herself, 'God understands.'

'Ain't yer mad yit?' whispered Lemuel anxiously, as he peered into the bright peaceful face on his way to bed.

The hand that stroked his tumbled hair was very gentle.

'No, Lemuel, only sorry that my boy forgot the King was looking on.'

With a shame-faced look the boy's hand sought his pocket, but Satan whispered, 'She may be mad to-morrow,' and he crept away.

'What are you teasing Pauline about?' asked Stephen, as he went upstairs.

'Ain't doin' nuthin',' was the sullen reply.

'Yes, you are. She don't hev sorrowful looks in her eyes unless you're cuttin' up worse than common. You've just got to leave off sudden, or I'll give you something you won't ever forgit.'

'Ain't goin' ter be bossed by nobody,' said the boy doggedly, as he reached his room. 'Was goin' ter give her the old letter to-morrow, anyway, but now I don't care if she never gits it,' and opening the chest which held his few treasures, he deliberately shut up the letter in an old tin box, and went to bed.

* * * * *

'Father is gettin' so mortal queer,' said Stephen discontentedly. 'First he tells me to top-dress the upper lot, and then right off he wants me to harness up and go to the mill. I don't see how a feller's to know what to do. Most wish I'd gone West with Leander, it's a free life there, and he's his own master.'

'"One is our Master, even Christ,"' Pauline quoted softly. 'Don't go, Stephen, you and Lemuel are the only ones on the farm now, and father is getting old.'

She spoke sadly. She had noticed with a sinking heart how 'queer' her father was.

The years had slipped by until Polly was seventeen. A very frail little body she was, but always so patient and sweet, that Pauline never grudged the constant care.

Two of the boys had taken the shaping of their own lives and gone away, and Susan Ann had a home of her own with two little freckled-faced children to call her mother.

'We'll jog along together, Stephen,' she said in her bright, cheery way. 'Father forgets now and then, but he doesn't mean any harm, and it's only one day at a time, you know.'

Stephen looked at her admiringly.

'You're a brick, Pawliney, and I guess if you can stand it, I ought to be able to, with you round making the sunshine. I'd be a brute to go and leave you and Lem with it all on your shoulders'; and the honest, good-hearted fellow went in to give Polly a kiss before he started for the mill.

Clearing out an old trunk next day Pauline came across a soiled, tumbled envelope. It was the letter which Lemuel had tucked away and forgotten while he waited for her to 'get mad.'

She opened it eagerly. It was from Richard Everidge.

'I should like to come down and see you,' he wrote, 'in Sleepy Hollow, that is, if you care to have me, and it is quite convenient. Do not trouble to write unless you want me. If I do not get an answer I shall know you do not care.'

Richard Everidge had been married for three years now, and had a little girl.

She clasped her hands with one quick cry of pain. What must he have thought of her all these years? Her friend, who had always been so kind! so kind!

'Pawliney!' called her father, in the querulous accents of one whose brain is weakening. 'Pawliney, I wish you'd come down and sing a little, the house is terrible lonesome since mother's gone.'

And Pauline sang, in her full, sweet tones:--

'"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform."'

'God is good, Pawliney?'

'Yes, father.'

'He never makes mistakes?'

'Oh, no, father.'

'You believe that, Pawliney?'

'Yes, yes, I know it, father.'

And her voice rang out triumphantly in another stanza:--

'"Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace:
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face."'

_Chapter X_

THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE

'Here's the mortgage money, Pawliney,' said Stephen, as he handed her a roll of bank-notes. 'It's not due for a month yet, but I'll be away for a week at the Bend, and if father gets hold of it he'll take it to make matches of, as like as not. You'd better stow it away somewheres till the time comes.'

'Very well, Stephen, I'll put it in my strong box, and carry the key in my pocket. You won't be away at the Bend any longer than you can help, Stephen? It's such a comfort to have you in the house.'

They were standing by the light waggon, which Lemuel had brought round from the barn, ready for Stephen's journey.

'Don't know about the comfort part, Pawliney,' said Stephen, with a queer choke in his voice. 'Seems like as if we all depended on you for that commodity. But I'll be as quick as I kin. Good-bye, all of you. Git along, Goliath.'

Three days had passed since his departure, and Pauline stood in the doorway feasting her eyes on the lights and shadows which grouped themselves about the distant hills, when Lemuel brushed past her, clad in his Sunday best.

'Why, Lemuel!' she cried astonished, 'you haven't had your supper yet. Where are you going?'

'To China,' was the brusque response. 'I've hed enuff of Sleepy Hollow, an' bein' ordered round by an old man with his head in the moon. It's "Lemuel, do this," an' before I git started it's "Lemuel, do the t'other thing." You kin stand it ef you're a mind ter; I won't.'

'But, Lemuel!' gasped Pauline, 'what will Stephen say?'

'I don't care what he says,' said the boy roughly. 'Stephen ain't my boss.'

'Oh, Lemuel, you can't mean it!' cried Pauline, as she followed him down the path to the main road.

'See if I don't!' And he strode away from her, and vaulted over the gate.

'But what will father do?'

'Git somebody that's ez loony ez himself. I ain't,' was the jeering reply.

'Lemuel, you mustn't go, it will kill father!' and Pauline stretched out her hands to him appealingly.

A mocking laugh was the only reply as he disappeared round a bend of the road.

Pauline went slowly back to the house feeling bruised and stunned.

'Pawliney,' piped her father in his shrill voice, 'where's Lemuel? I told him to take the horse to the forge, and hoe the potatoes, and weed the onions, and go to the woods for a load. I don't see how I'm to get through with such a lot of heedless boys around. What hev you done with him? You just spoil them all with your cossetin'.'

'It will all come right, father,' said Pauline soothingly. 'Lemuel has gone away for awhile.'

'Away!' echoed the old man suspiciously. 'Away, Pawliney? Did you know he was going?'

'Yes, father; he will be back by-and-by, and Stephen will be home next week.'

She paced her room that night with a heavy heart. There was no way to hinder the misguided boy. Before Stephen could follow him he would be on the sea. He had often declared he meant to be a sailor. Suddenly she stopped, thunder-struck. The lid of her strong box had been forced open! With an awful dread at her heart she lifted it and looked in. The money was gone!

With a bitter cry she fell upon her knees. 'A thief!' Her Lemuel. The boy that she had borne with and prayed over all these years! And the money was due in a month! What should she do? Stephen must never know--Stephen, with his stalwart honesty and upright soul. His anger would be terrible, and she must shield Lemuel all she could. Poor Lemuel!

All night long she pondered sorrowfully. When the morning came she went to Deacon Croaker.

'I hear you are behindhand with your wool,' she said, in her straightforward way. 'I will spin it for you if you like, and, Deacon, may I ask you as a favour to let me have the money in advance?'

The deacon looked at her curiously.

'Hard up, air ye, Pawliney? Well, well, don't colour up so, we all hev our scarce times. I ain't partial to payin' forehanded, but you was awful kind to Mis' Croaker when her rheumatiz was bad on her, an' I ain't one ter forgit a favour. Cum in, Pawliney, while I git the money. Mis' Croaker will be rale pleased; she thinks you're the best spinner in the valley.'

'No, thank you, I will wait out here.'

The old man hobbled into the house, and she stood waiting, clothed in her sorrow and shame.

'So Lemuel's ben an' tuk French leave?' he said, as he handed her the money. 'Well, well, I allers did say that boy'd be a heart break tew ye, Pawliney. Well, what's gone's forgot. Don't fret over him, Pawliney, he was a bad lot, a bad lot. Ye'er well rid of him, my dear.'

'I never shall forget him,' Pauline said gravely, 'and he can't get away from God, Deacon Croaker.'

She counted the bills as she hurried along. It would just make enough, with the butter money. That was all she had for clothes for herself and Polly--but Polly had enough for a while, and she could go without.

In the evenings, long after the others were in bed, she paced up and down the kitchen, spinning Deacon Croaker's wool into smooth, even threads, but her heart ached as she prayed for her boy, and often, when in the still watches of the night Polly kept her vigils with pain, she heard her cry softly:--

'Lemuel, Lemuel, oh! how could you, how could you do it?'

Her uncle's family were living abroad now, and it was from Paris that Belle wrote, announcing her engagement to Reginald Gordon.

'Just imagine, Paul,' the letter went on, 'I, of all possible people, a missionary's wife! But the fact of the matter is, my precious saint, your splendid, consecrated life made me tingle with shame to my finger tips when I thought of my aimless existence, and when I remembered how you took up your cross and followed your Master to Sleepy Hollow, there seemed to be no reason why I should not follow Him to Africa. If it will comfort you, I want you to know that you have been the guiding star which has led me out of the sloth of my selfishness into active work for the King.'

The years slipped by peacefully after that. Her father grew daily more childish, and needed more constant watching, but she found time to read to Polly many a snatch from her favourite authors, and Tryphosa's Bible lay always open near her hand.

At last the day came when, in the full noontide, her father had called to her in his weak voice, 'It's gettin' dark, Pawliney, and Lemuel's not come home.'

And she had answered with her brave, sweet faith, 'Not yet, father, but he'll come by-and-by. God knows.'

'Yes, God knows,' said the old man with a peaceful smile, 'I think I'll go to sleep now, I'm very tired. You've been a good girl, Pawliney; a good girl. God bless you, my dear.'

When the evening came Pauline laid her hand softly on the wrinkled brow, from which the shadows had forever lifted. 'Dear old father,' she whispered, 'how little I thought, when I wished you and I could leave Sleepy Hollow, that you would be the first one to go away!'

* * * * *

'You ought always to dress in silk, Pauline, instead of calico. I wish you could,' and Polly's eyes rested on her with a world of love in their depths.

Pauline laughed as she kissed her.

'You silly child! Don't you know that cotton grows, and silk has to be spun, which makes it costly? and cotton is content to be washed in spring water, while silk has to be bathed in tea. Can you spare me for a whole afternoon do you think, if I leave Carlyle and Whittier by your pillow?'

'Where are you going?'

'Well, I want to take some apple custard to that poor Dan who fell from the haymow, and I must go and see how Susan's children are getting through the measles. Then old Mrs Croaker wants to be sung to, and the widow Larkin wants to be read to, and Matilda Jones is "jest pinin' fer a talk."' She laughed merrily.

'I never saw anyone get so much into their lives,' said Polly wistfully. 'I am so useless.'

'You blessed child!' cried Pauline, with the tears in her eyes; 'you are our Angel of Patience. Don't ever call yourself useless, dear, you are the centre of gravity for Stephen and me.'

When the twilight fell she sat in her favourite position near the open door, looking up at the rose-tinted clouds, as she made Polly laugh with merry descriptions of her different visits.

Suddenly she grew still, for a sun-browned, bearded man had crossed the threshold, and thrown a paper into her lap, saying huskily:--

'There's the mortgage, Pauline, to make a bonfire of. I've come home to stay.'

Before he had finished, her arms were around his neck, and Polly heard her cry softly, with the break of a great gladness in her voice:--

'Lemuel! Why, Lemuel!'

_Chapter XI_

PURE GOLD

Richard Everidge sat in his handsome library one evening in early summer, reading a letter from his only child, Muriel, the joy of his heart:--

'MY DEAREST PAPA,--We are stopping now in the quaintest little
place, a veritable Sleepy Hollow, like its name, where Rip Van
Winkle might have snoozed away for centuries without fear of
being disturbed.

'As I advised you in my last, we were on our way to Farningham,
when something went wrong with the engine, and we had to stop
here for repairs, and mamma was so charmed with this little
village that she decided to stay awhile; she says it seems to
suit her better than any place she has seen; poor mamma, I wish
I could find some place where she would be satisfied. To me all
the world seems so beautiful, but she says no one knows how to
sympathise with her peculiar organisation.

'That was Saturday. On Sunday morning I went to the little
church, mamma was too tired, and now comes the best part of the
story. I was looking round watching the different families, all
in their Sunday best, coming in and getting seated, when
suddenly a woman's voice began to lead the little choir. I
looked up with a start. She was tall and slender; and as she
stood with lifted head singing her heart out, I don't think I
ever saw such a splendid carriage, even at the President's
reception in Washington. She looked like a princess among the
plain farmer folk; for a crown she had a mass of lovely soft
white hair, and the sweetest, clearest eyes I ever saw. When she
was singing "Coronation" (which was quite appropriate for a
princess) it seemed as if she would lift the whole congregation
up to God.

'After the service I could not help watching her for a minute,
for, as you will have imagined ere this, my silly heart went out
to her at once. She was the centre of a group; every one seemed
to have something to say to her, and she was so nice with them
all, kissing the children, and having a bright smile and word
for some of the most uninteresting women and stupid-looking boys
I ever saw. Just as I was going out of the door I felt a soft
touch upon my arm, and turned to find her beside me. I am free
to confess I never received such a welcome to any church before.

'When I gave her my name she looked puzzled for a minute.

'"Everidge," she repeated. "It is, it must be; she would be just
about your age. I believe you are the little Muriel that my
cousin Belle used to write about. You must come home with me at
once: your father was my dear friend in the long ago."

'And so here we are, ensconced with my princess. She has a
wonderful way with her, for mamma came without making the
slightest objection, and seems happier than I have seen her for
months.

'There are just four in the family, besides Martha Spriggs, the
funny old girl. My princess, and her two stepbrothers, Stephen
and Lemuel, and Polly, who has been a sufferer from spinal
trouble all her life.

'It is the quaintest old house, with low, small rooms, except on
the east side, where Captain Lemuel has added two large rooms
with the loveliest bay windows, which are always full of flowers
and sunshine. I think the neighbours are horrified that they use
them for common. You know country people always keep their best
parlours done up in must and green paper; but the princess says,
"Nothing is too good for Polly and the boys!" They just idolize
her, and I fancy they have good reason to, for, as Stephen said,
in his queer, blunt way, "she comes as near to an angel as any
mortal ever will." Captain Lemuel has been all over the world,
and is very interesting. Mamma is so amused over his stories.
Stephen is blunt, but I shouldn't be afraid to trust him with
every cent I owned, and Polly is just a bundle of sweetness and
patience. I wish you could see how gentle these great, strong
men are with her: Stephen won't let any one but himself carry
her to bed, and Lemuel is always ready to push her about in her
wheel chair, and talk nonsense to her till she laughs and cries
together.

'And the princess! She is just everything to everybody. I cannot
fancy what the house would be without her. I only hope she won't
die before Polly, for I'm sure it would kill her. She never
takes her eyes off her when she is in the room, and when I
teased her a little about it her eyes filled, and she cried
softly:--

'"It's little wonder if I do love her, after thirty years of
such nursing as no one even dreamed of." It made me almost wish
to be sick myself.

'She has such a merry, tender way with her. I do not wonder
Lemuel says they don't mind rainy weather since Pauline makes
sunshine to order. And she is the busiest creature! I believe
she carries the whole of Sleepy Hollow on her heart and
shoulders. She seems to have all the destitute and afflicted
under her wing, and dispenses beef-tea and Bible promises with
the same liberal hand.

'Oh! Papa, I am so glad we were detained at Sleepy Hollow, for
at last I have found what I have been looking for--an absolutely
Christ-like life. Your own little daughter, 'MURIEL.'

Richard Everidge remained deep in thought for a long time after he had kissed the large, girlish signature; then he drew a sheet of paper towards him, and wrote, in his clear, bold hand:--

'MY DARLING MURIEL,--I knew your princess, as she says, in "the
long ago," and she is, as you have found her, pure gold.

'Make the most of your visit, for, next to your Bible, she is
the best teacher you could have. Your loving 'FATHER.'

The days lengthened into weeks and the Everidges were still at the Farm.

'Why should you go?' Pauline said, in her cheery, unanswerable way, when they spoke of leaving: 'it does us good to have you, and it does you good to be here,' and Muriel and her mother were content.

'Princess,' said the girl one day, as she watched her moving lightly about the kitchen, 'I envy you your altitude.'

Pauline laughed merrily.

'You dear child! Every one gets up the mountain if they keep on climbing.'

'But I have not an atom of perseverance,' sighed Muriel. 'Christianity seems such a tremendous undertaking to me.'

'Let me give you what was to me the beginning of all Gospels: "The kingdom of heaven is just as near us as our work is, for the gate of heaven for each soul lies in the endeavour to do that work perfectly."

'But, princess, you are such a royal creature. It seems such a waste for you to be buried here.'

'The King never wastes, little one. If we have the angel aim and standard, we can consecrate the smallest acts. Don't you know that "he who aims for perfectness in a trifle, is trying to do that trifle holily?"'

'You dear princess! You make me think of one of Murillo's pictures in the Louvre, which we saw when we were abroad last year. It is the interior of a convent kitchen, and instead of mortals in old dresses doing the work, there are beautiful white-winged angels. One puts the kettle on the fire, and one is lifting up a pail of water, and one is at the kitchen dresser reaching up for plates.'

Pauline smiled.

'That is it exactly. How can anything we do be common when we remember our inheritance? You call me Princess, out of love, little one, but I am a princess in reality, for my Father is a King. Let me give you a good word which your father gave me long ago. "If you cannot realize your Ideal, you can at least idealize your Real." I have been trying to do it ever since.'

'That is just like papa,' said Muriel, with a proud smile. 'He says you are "pure gold," princess.'

'Did Rich--did your father say that?' cried Pauline, and Muriel looked up to see a soft flush in her face, while her eyes shone. 'The King's daughter is all glorious within,' she repeated slowly, 'her clothing is of wrought gold.' Then she chanted in her clear, triumphant voice:--

'"They have clean robes,
White robes;
White robes are waiting for me!"

'Ah! little one, "the court dress of heaven differs somewhat from that of earth."'

'But, princess,' said Muriel wistfully, 'farm work and cooking and washing dishes over and over--it seems such drudgery.'

A great light broke over her face, and she cried in a low, exultant tone:--

'"Blessed be Drudgery!" Christ bore it for thirty years, why should I mind for forty-nine? I have only to wait a little now for the "fulness of joy" and "pleasures for evermore."'

Muriel threw her arms about her and kissed her softly.

'Then our princess will be at home,' she whispered, 'in the Palace of the King.'

* * * * *

TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.