CHAPTER XX

Changing Corners

Were my whole life to come one heap of troubles, The pleasure of this moment would suffice, And sweeten all my griefs with its remembrance. LEE.

MOLLY'S wedding was the next event. It was a very quiet one, and she was married from Holly Grange. Betty went down for it. Nesta thought her looking thin and pale, and wanted her to stay on with her for a little, but this Betty said she could not do.

"Miss Miller is tired, and is going away for a holiday. I have promised to take charge during her absence."

"But it will be too great a responsibility for you."

Betty laughed.

"It won't be a feather's weight. They have such a good matron. She really does all the work."

The sisters had a long talk together before Molly's wedding-day. Molly was waking up to a sense of her responsibility in life.

"I want to be a good wife, Betty. I shall not dream any more; and Frank and I are going to try and help each other to be good. I know I am not clever, but mother taught me to be useful, and I shall try to help some of those that she tried to help."

"That will be lovely, Molly."

Then Betty threw her arms round her neck.

"Oh, Molly, I shall miss you. I shall be left quite alone. We shall never be quite the same to each other again."

"But you will come and stay with me, and you will help me about the poor and those who need relief. I can never be so clever as mother, but I want to be just like her, to have a full and a busy life."

Betty was silent for a minute, then she said softly,—

"I should like to tell you, Molly, what mother said to me in almost the last conversation I had with her. She was alluding to my taking up some work, and she said,—

"'I would warn you not to fill your life with work, to the exclusion of the One who should come first.'

"And then she made me read that verse to her,—

"'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.'

"I have never forgotten it. It has helped me so much."

Molly looked very thoughtful.

"I am not as good as you are, Betty. I believe you love God, and love the Bible. I have a respect and reverence for—for religion, but it doesn't come first to me, and it doesn't make me happy. I believe if you were stripped of everything, you would be happy. You always have a fund of happiness stowed away somewhere. It shows itself in your face and voice sometimes when one least expects it, and I believe you get it from—" Molly lowered her voice—"from God Himself."

"Oh, Molly dear, why shouldn't He give you happiness too?"

"I think I am happy, as a rule," said Molly. "I haven't so many ups and downs as you have, or as you used to have, but I am earnestly going to try to do right now."

"If you set your heart, Molly, to seek Christ, He will come into your heart and put you straight and keep you straight. Don't think I am preaching, but you know what the hymn says,—

"'O, Jesus, Thou art standing Outside the fast-closed door, In lowly patience waiting To pass the threshold o'er.'"

There was silence. Molly looked out of her window wistfully. This last day of her girlhood had been a heart-searching time with her. She realised that a chapter in her young life was closing, and another beginning.

Then she bent down her fair head to Betty's dark one, and whispered,—

"I have kept Him out, Betty,—all my life long I have,—but if He will forgive me, I will open my heart to Him now."

And Betty left her, and stole softly away to pray for her.

Major Stuart came down for the wedding, for he was going to give Molly away.

He said to Betty, when the ceremony was over, and the sisters had taken a farewell of each other before Molly was driven off to the station with her bridegroom,—

"And now one niece is off my hands! When are you going to follow her example?"

"You won't get rid of me yet, Uncle Harry," said Betty, laughing; "but I am sure I am very harmless. I cannot be a worry to you where I am in town."

"You are an infinite worry. A young lady with fads is a tremendous responsibility. You never know what mine she may spring upon you suddenly. It is a friend of the blind to-day, it may be a nurse to the lepers to-morrow, or a partisan of woman's rights. I don't know which contingency would be the worst! I'm sure the old-fashioned plan was best. Keep young women tight and fast in their homes till they marry. They will never be any anxiety then."

[Illustration: "YOU'RE GOING TO MARRY ME," OBSERVED JOSSY, WITH DETERMINATION.]

"But," said Betty, with something between fun and sadness lurking in her eyes, "I am homeless, and I never could be kept 'tight and fast' anywhere. I should suffocate and die. And I don't think I shall ever marry, so I shall be an anxiety to you for many a long day yet."

"You're going to marry me," observed Jossy, with determination. He was standing by, very proud of his big buttonhole and light kid gloves. "I made up my mind fresh in church to-day, that I would marry you directly I grew to be bigger than you. And I'm growing awfully fast, mother says so!"

Betty laughed at him, but her heart was a little sad. Molly had gone, and she was alone. She wondered as she threw a look back over the past year, whether every year would bring so many changes as this one had done to her. And then again the music danced in her heart—

"I nothing lack if I can His, And He is mine, for ever."

She went back to London very soon. She saw nothing of Gerald, but heard he was up in town on business, and when she returned found he had called to see her the very day before she arrived.

"He said, miss, he was sorry to miss you, for he was going out of town immediately," the maid told her.

Betty smiled and sighed; then settled down with great content to her old blind people.

A few weeks later, Nesta received a letter from Miss Miller, to say that she had just returned from her holiday, and found Betty struggling against an attack of influenza.

"She is very much pulled down by it, and does not seem able to throw it off. The doctor advises thorough rest and change of scene. I thought I had better let you know at once."

So it came to pass that Betty was once more at Holly Grange, looking white and frail, with a nasty cough, but in fairly good spirits.

"I am just ill enough to like nursing and petting, and to enjoy the luxury of idleness," she said to Nesta one afternoon, when she was settling her in a sunny corner in the drawing-room, with a book and a plate of grapes by her side.

"You will not mind being alone, dear, will you? Mother wants me to drive out with her."

Nesta was making up a cheerful fire, and arranging Betty's cushion in the big easy-chair as she spoke.

She stooped and kissed her, for Betty looked very small and white and forlorn, as she sat there, and Nesta's heart went out to her.

"I shall be perfectly happy. I feel I can sleep and sleep and sleep here! It is so quiet and restful. I longed for silence in town so; everything seemed to get on my nerves, the horses and carriages in the street, and everybody's footstep. Please don't think of me at all, except that I am enjoying it all so here. And stay out as long as you can. It is such a sunny afternoon."

She was left, and for a time she dozed. Then the door quietly opened, and a maid appeared.

"If you please, miss, Mr. Arundel called to ask how you were. He asked if you were well enough to see him."

"Yes, show him in here," Betty said, and a pink flush rose in her cheeks as Gerald came in.

He came up to her and took her hand.

Betty could not meet his eyes; and then he sat down.

"I heard that you had been ill, and I met Mrs. St. Clair this afternoon. She thought perhaps a visit from me would not hurt you."

"Indeed it will not," said Betty quietly. "Tell me about your farm; it always sounds so nice."

"I am thankful to say it is doing well. It keeps me very busy, except in the evenings. A farmer cannot do much after dark. If the time does drag at all with me, it is then."

"But you have your books?"

"Yes—and my thoughts."

There was a little silence, then he turned to her.

"You are working yourself to death, Miss Betty. I am sure London is not the right corner for you."

"But I think it is," said Betty, with some spirit. "Influenza has had me in its grip. The idlest people get that. It isn't the work."

"It is not the right corner for you," Gerald persisted. "You were run down before the influenza attacked you."

"You mustn't abuse my corner," said Betty, smiling.

"Do you remember asking me long ago to let you know if I found an empty corner that wanted filling?"

"Yes," Betty replied, looking up at him. "But I can't fill two corners at once."

"And you would rather not hear of another one?"

Betty's gaze was a wistful and a dubious one.

"Is it anything to do with your almshouses?" she asked.

He gave a short laugh, then bent forward earnestly.

"It is a corner that is very empty and desolate; that wants some sunshine in it. I think I may say truly that it is quite as comfortable a one as the one you are now filling, but whether it would be good enough for you is what I doubt. It is a corner that I thought would have to remain empty for good and all, but I wondered lately if I might venture to tell you of it."

There was something in the gentle diffidence of this strong, self-restrained man, that almost brought the tears to Betty's eyes. She knew now what was coming, and caught her breath. Then, obeying an impulse that seized her, she put out her little hand, and laid it on his very softly.

"Tell me," she said.

And then he told her. He took her hand in his, and drew her very gently to him. "Oh, Betty, my little Betty, I have so little to offer you. Will you cheer the life of a very lonely man by your sweet, sunshiny presence? Will it be asking you to give up too much?"

Betty could not answer; she only gave a little sob of happiness. All the past, with its aches and pains, its struggles and disappointments, was swallowed up by the present sweet moment, and presently she found courage to raise her eyes to the ones regarding her so tenderly.

"It will be taking all," she said, "and giving up nothing."

Later on, Nesta found them together, and Gerald stood up to greet her with a light upon his face that she had never seen on it before.

"I am sure you will give us your blessing," he said, "for your advice did much to instil into me the courage I needed."

Nesta bent down and kissed Betty, with smiles and tears.

"I am so glad, darling," she said; "for I know you will be happy. It has been my greatest wish to see you two come together, and it was somebody else's wish too."

"You mean Mr. Russell," said Betty softly; and then she shyly laid her hand on Gerald's arm. "It almost seemed to be his last thought."

"It was," Gerald said.

Jossy's entrance chased away the momentary sadness that filled Betty's eyes.

"Come here, young man," Gerald said. "Do you remember our first meeting? You introduced me to this lady as her 'dear husband'? I am going to be so. Do you approve?"

Jossy's quick eyes wandered from Gerald's humorous glance to Betty's confusion and blushes.

"Are you playing that game?" he asked. "Is it make-believe or really true?"

"Really and soberly true."

"And you are going to be her lord, and take her away to your castle?" said the boy, with kindling eyes. Then his face fell. "You haven't got a castle," he added; "it's only a common farmhouse."

If Gerald winced in his heart, he showed no outward discomposure.

"Only a common farmhouse," he repeated quietly. "Do you think my lady can be happy in it?"

Jossy looked at Betty rather doubtfully.

"She seemed to think it a very nice place when we were drying our clothes, but when she was in your room she nearly cried over your book she was reading, and she kissed the back of your chair. Why did you do that, Betty?"

"Oh, Jossy, you awful boy! Do stop!"

His mother took him promptly out of the room. Gerald put his hand into his breast-pocket and laid something very softly on Betty's lap.

She looked up startled.

"I kept it," he said, kneeling down by her chair again and taking both her hands in his. "I determined not to give it back to its owner till I could claim the hand as my own."

Betty looked at the little brown glove with pretty confusion.

Gerald went on earnestly.

"I am glad you have seen what a poor home I can offer you. But with our dear friend's legacy I am going to enlarge it. I would not bring you to it in its present condition."

"But," said Betty, with sudden warmth and impetuosity, "I love it as it is. You must not alter it. It is a sweet home, and I shall only come to it under condition that it remains unaltered. I have always thought, ever since I was a child, that a farmhouse is an ideal place to be in."

"In theory, not in practice," said Gerald, smiling.

But Betty stoutly insisted that it was both. "And what about your London corner?" he asked her before they separated that day. "Will you feel giving up that? Can any one else be found to take your place?"

"Yes," said Betty, smiling up at him. "I have tried to brighten and cheer their lives, but there are others who will do that as well and better than I can. And now I am going to turn my attention to a 'very' neglected spot. After all, it will be only changing corners."