CHAPTER XI.

A SURPRISE.

WHEN Dilly reached home, she found her little charge safely tucked away for the night and sleeping sweetly, while her mother in pretty white wrapper, with black velvet trimming which made her look prettier, Dilly thought, than any of her elegant dresses, sat writing by the gleam of three wax candles, which she liked much better than kerosene lamplight.

"They make much prettier shadows on the wall," said Dilly to herself, as she watched them dance in the evening wind, "but I should think a light that would keep still would be better to write by."

Mrs. Hammond looked up as her little maid softly entered, and smiled pleasantly.

"So you are safely back," she said; "I am always glad when people get home from Table Rock. One could plunge so easily from one of those rocks, down, down!" She shivered a little, and asked quickly: "Where is Mr. Hart? He came home with you, did he not?"

"Yes'm, as far as the corner of Glen Avenue; then he went away with a friend. He said he had an errand down town."

A shadow fell over the mother's face. "Did he say when he would be at home?" she asked. And then, before Dilly could reply: "Of course he didn't. What a foolish question to ask you!" and the sentence finished with a sigh. "Well," she said, after a moment's pause, during which the pleasant look did not return to her face, "I shall not need anything to-night; Effie is resting quietly, and everything is done. You may go to bed if you wish."

"I should like to write a letter to father, if you please."

"Oh! Very well; Jeannette has a shaded lamp at the tent, and here are paper and envelopes if you wish. That is right, child, don't neglect your father; and don't give him any anxious thoughts about you if you can help it."

"I'll try not to," said Dilly earnestly, and she went away with a smile on her face, thinking what very good news she had for father, this time.

It took quite a while for Dilly to write the letter, though it was not very long. This was what she said:

"MY DEAR, DEAR FATHER:

"It isn't time to write to you yet, but I am going to write, because I have something so nice to tell you that I don't want it to wait. I am very much better; I grow strong every day, and I eat a great deal of baked potato, and oatmeal and milk, and fruit, and lots of nice things. Effie is just as sweet as she can be. She loves me better than anybody, except her mother, and sometimes she is even willing to come away from her mother to be with me. I have learned how to make a lovely pudding; when I come home I can make it for you; it doesn't cost very much, only a little bit of milk, and one egg, and Jeannette is showing me how to make other nice things; she is very good to me. She said at first she did not think she would like me, but now she does. Everybody is good to me. Mr. Hart is 'so nice;' he took me up on Table Rock to-night to see the sun set. Father, I do just wish I could tell you about it! All gold, and crimson, and purple mountains all around, and red streaks away up into the sky, and castles in the sky made of glory color, and angels hurrying around to get ready for the sun to come home; that is the way it seemed, you know. I can't tell about it; if you could only see it! Don't you think Mr. Hart was nice to take me up there? And he talked, and was pleasant all the while. I like him very much, for all I wrote to you that I never should. He is just us kind to me as he can be. But it isn't any of these things that I am writing this letter to tell you: I wanted to tell them first, and get them out of the way, because I have something so very much better; and I don't quite know how to tell that, either.

"Dear father, something very wonderful has come to me; I decided yesterday that I would belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. In Sunday-school the teacher talked about how he promised to draw all people unto him, and explained how he did it, and I knew he had been drawing me ever since before mother died; and I found out that it was Satan who kept me from making up my mind; and I did not like to obey Satan, nor have him keep me from doing things that I ought; so I just knelt down and began a prayer about giving myself to him, and then Mrs. Hammond called me, and I had to go, and for awhile I was worried because I hadn't finished; but when I got a chance to finish, I found it was all done! Such a little bit of word he had heard, and answered me! Isn't it wonderful, father?

"To-day I have found out new things; one is a verse:

"'Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'

"I knew the verse long ago; but it didn't mean me, then; but now it does, and the thing which troubles me, is, how I can do the work I have, so it will glorify him. But it doesn't trouble me as much as it did even a little while ago, because I met a very little girl who showed me how some work could be done to glorify him, that I never thought of, before; and I guess thinking will make me understand about other things. The little girl did not know she showed me about it, but she did. It is too long a story to tell you, and I must stop now, anyway, and go to bed; but I wanted you to know this, right away, because I was sure you would be glad.

"O father! When I get home, I will be a better girl than I ever was before. It is so nice to be well, and to feel cool and pleasant, and to want to eat things. Father, you and I will have a nice time together when I come; I am learning how to make other things besides puddings. Dear father, I shall be very glad to get home. Good-by!

"Your loving little

"DILLY."

Wasn't it a nice letter? Dilly read it over carefully, and did not like it. She had not expressed herself as she wished; it seemed to her she had told the wonderful news altogether too simply; she thought common words ought not to belong to such great changes as had come to her. If she had only known some great words to put the story into, I think she would have written it all over again, that night, tired though she was; but fortunately she knew no long words, so her letter was not spoiled. If Dilly ever grows to womanhood, and has an education, she will probably adopt a very good rule which will apply equally to letter-writing, and to conversation. This is the rule: Never use a long word, when you can find a short one which will express your meaning.

Meantime, Hart Hammond, having done his errands and said good-by to his friend, walked slowly homeward, thinking of his lesson which Dilly had given him that evening. If it was Dilly's duty to tell this new experience to her father, why had he not something which he ought to tell his mother? Yet he had a shrewd suspicion that while Dilly's father would understand in a moment what it all meant, his mother would be bewildered, and perhaps troubled. Perhaps she would not attach any importance to it; perhaps it would even trouble her; he had heard of people being troubled about such news as he had to tell. There was that fellow, Harrison, in school, whose change of views about this one thing made an utter change in his life; made him worth something to himself and to others, instead of being an idler, and a spender of pocket money; yet when he told his mother all about it, she cried, and said he had disappointed her ambitions for him! What if his mother should do the same?

"But the thing is settled," said Hart to himself, speaking very gravely, "and perhaps I ought to tell her, just because as Dilly says, 'Mothers ought to know all about us.'"

He walked past his tent door three times before he seemed to come to the decision which turned his steps in the direction of the hotel. But at last, his mother, her letter long ago deserted, because she felt too restless to write, saw in the moonlight his quick, springing step, and turning from the window dropped into her easy chair with a glad smile. For one night more he was safe.

He chatted with her pleasantly for ten minutes before he came to the subject of which he had been all the time thinking. Then he dashed into it without introduction.

"Mother, I've something to tell you; I don't know what you think of such things, but ever since I was in school last winter, I have known something which I ought to do, and not being able to make up my mind to do it, and, indeed, trying to get rid of the belief that I ought to do it, has made an unusually miserable fellow of me all the spring and summer, thus far. When I came up here I thought I had fully settled 'not' to do it; but within a few days that little nursemaid of Effie's has overturned all my reasoning, without knowing it, and at last—well, to make a long story short, mother, the thing is fixed; I've enlisted in the regular army, and there is no backing out."

And his mother, who had been growing paler every moment, gave at this last sentence a low frightened cry, and said, "Hart Hammond, what do you mean!" It was evident that she did not in the least understand him.

He arose from his easy chair, came over to her side, and dropping on one knee, put an arm caressingly over her shoulder and spoke very gently. "Dear mother, did I frighten you? I assure you there is nothing which need trouble you, only I don't know how to tell such things. I mean—mother, do you know Jesus Christ? I'm pledged to serve him with all my powers all the days of my life; that is all."

Then he had a surprise. Such a look as came over that mother's face he will never forget, even if he lives to be an old, old man.

"My boy," she said, her lips trembling, her voice so low he could hardly hear it, yet the strangest brightness in her eyes, "my dear boy, I do not know Him as I ought, as people do who are called Christians, but I know enough about Him to feel like shouting for joy all night long! I never even dreamed of such blessed news as this. Hart, I know that people who truly belong to Him are safe, safe, safe! And yet it never entered my mind that you were one who would ever be one of that sort. O Hart, my precious son! You do not know how happy you have made your mother to-night. And my little Dilly helped you on! Bless the child! Will I ever forget it?"

Of course I am not going to tell you all they said to each other, nor how late it was when Hart Hammond at last untied the strings of his tent; but I know that Jeannette, looking out from her upraised curtains, saw him, and knew the hour, and murmured as she laid her head back—

"If she saw him steal in at this time of night—and I dare say she is watching, there will be some more heavy eyes, and another headache to-morrow."

But Jeannette was mistaken.