CHAPTER XIV

IT WAS late that evening before mother and daughter were alone at last.

Mrs. Dunlap had responded to a telegram and left on the seven o'clock train for Boston to meet in conference with an important committee on some international work for young women.

Nelson Whitney had attended to all her wants as the son of the family might have waited on a powerful ally who had pulled them all out of distress.

He took Mrs. Sheldon and her daughter to a wonderful symphony orchestra concert with a soloist of world reputation, and then brought them back to the hotel refusing to remain for even a few minutes because they needed to rest. He attended them up to the door of their room, kissed Marguerite reverently, and then half shyly kissed her mother and said: "Good night, Mother!" with an accent in his tone that spoke volumes.

He left both mother and daughter tingling with joy and pride in him, and then at last the door was closed on the outer world, shutting them in alone together.

The girl hurried into the closet to hang up her coat and hat, feeling a sudden shyness before her mother, realizing all at once that there were some things that must be made clear between them before she could feel that all was right.

The mother removed her street things slowly, a light of almost other-worldly joy in her face. She was thinking of what her new friend had said to her that afternoon, and of the Bible verse she had quoted to her. And how wonderfully, and swiftly the promise had been made good to her. Why, she had scarcely waked from that refreshing sleep into which she had fallen pillowed on that promise, when the fulfillment had knocked at her door in the person of Nelson and Marguerite come to show her the ring.

Marguerite had been shy and lovely, but almost silent and they had not pressed her to talk much. She had been most humble and loving toward her mother and Mrs. Dunlap, thanking that great-hearted woman in no uncertain words, although they were few, and clasping her in a close penitent embrace when she left.

But to her mother Marguerite had as yet said not one word about the happenings of the last few days. She had let her lover do all the talking, and had sat with downcast lashes, and a childlike contentment in her face that yet spoke volumes of reassurance to the two who had waited through the long hours to know how it fared with her.

But now the time had come, and Marguerite knew it, to have it out with her mother.

She stayed in the closet several minutes arranging her things, being most careful about how her hat was placed on the shelf, and searching in her coat pocket for a handkerchief she was not sure was there. But at last she came out.

Mrs. Sheldon was taking down her hair for the night, and it fell in lovely silver waves to her waist, with soft little tendrils, and a curl or two at the ends. It seemed to glorify her delicate face and set her off as if it had been a halo.

The girl watched her lovely mother for a moment, wistfully, wishing she would begin, and then suddenly she burst forth with tears:

"I don't see how I could have done it to you!" she said in a cry of sorrow. "You are so dear and lovely, and here I've led you through all this horrible mess! I don't see how you can ever love me again!"

With one swift movement, as if she had been young again, the mother turned and folded her child in her arms.

"My darling!" she said. "Oh, my darling!" And held her so close she could hardly breathe.

It was a long time they stood so, Marguerite's face hidden in her mother's neck, the mother's lips against her child's hot forehead, touching her hair with caresses that could not be measured nor counted nor described because it would be a desecration.

No words passed between them, nor was there any need. It was as if their thoughts were as open to one another as if they had been one, so close their hearts seemed to come.

At last the girl lifted her hot, shamed, forgiven face to her mother. There was one more thing that had to be spoken:

"Mother, you must think I'm an awful fool. You must think awful things of me that I let Nelson—that he—that I—so soon after—" She hid her shamed face once more on her mother's shoulder, and the mother arms clasped her close again.

"No, dear, I don't think awful things. I think my girl has been through a bewildering experience and didn't know her own mind, was not capable of judging, but I think you have come back to your senses again, and I thank God that you have such a wonderful friend as Nelson who has been willing after all the suffering you have given him through these months, to put the protection of his love about you. He could not be a greater comfort to me, and to you if he were my own son."

The girl was still a long time, and then she said timidly:

"Yes, Mother, he is wonderful! More wonderful even than I have told you yet or you have seen. But Mother, you think I let him get that ring just to protect me from gossips, just to let others see that I had not been a fool! But I didn't, Mother. I truly didn't! I couldn't have done that not even to protect you from all the shame and disgrace of having people find out just what really did happen. I couldn't have unless I had loved him. You think perhaps it couldn't be true love so soon after I thought I was dying for that other man, but it is, it is. It seems as if I had never really known love before.

"Why, Mother, when Nelson began to tell me how he felt toward me, and what I was to him, it opened a whole new world to me. I hadn't known what love was before. I hadn't dreamed what it could be. It seemed as if the other had just been a cheap imitation of it. It showed up the other experience. I began to see in contrast how selfish Rufus—I mean Mr. Oliver—had been, how all he talked about was a good time, something to amuse—how he did not seem to care about whether I was pleased or not, only to bend me to his will. It hadn't seemed that way at all before. But Mother, I've been thinking about it all the evening, trying to see how I could make you understand, and I believe I was just proud to think a man as wise and experienced as I thought he was, had stooped to notice me, and I was frantic when I thought I had lost him.

"But Mother, I didn't know the deep sweet joy I feel now in Nelson. I didn't know there was such joy. Truly, Mother and you know it isn't as if I had just met Nelson—he's been dear always—always—since I was just a little girl, only he never opened this door to his soul before and let me see how he had put me in his heart on a throne. And it has just carried me into heaven, Mother, but I know you think I haven't any right—not a bit of right to it—since—since—"

"Yes, you have, my dear. I do think you have. I have watched your face. You are a different girl. You have met the real thing at last and recognized it. I couldn't have hoped it would come to you so soon. I was fearful what might happen to you in the interval, till our new friend showed me that I might trust you with my heavenly Father. And somehow, my precious child, I believe He let this come to you so soon just to show us both how He can heal, and how He will lead and save and bless those who trust Him entirely with their lives."

Said the girl, laying her hot cheek against her mother's soft one:

"Oh, Mother! You are the most wonderful woman in the world! And Mrs. Dunlap is next. What should we have done without her? Suppose I had gone on and had my own way! Suppose—suppose—I had lost Nelson! Just think! Even if the other man hadn't been what he was—suppose I had missed knowing Nelson's love! Oh, Mother! You don't know how wonderful Nelson is! I can never make you understand. He is—different! He is—wonderful!"

"I believe it!" said the mother fervently. "And now let us kneel down and thank God for the wonderful way in which he has led us."

A little later, while her mother was preparing for the night, Marguerite took out her little Bible that always traveled with her when she went anywhere because it was a part of the fittings of the bag which her mother had given her the Christmas before. Opening it, she paused with startled eyes. At last she said:

"Mother, listen to this. I opened right to it, Isaiah 42.16, 'I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do to them, and not forsake them.' Mother, that was what He did for me. I was blind!"

THE END

The Inimitable "Pansy"

[Illustration]

Eighty-seven years old, a pain-wracked invalid—yet the author of "Ester Reid," "Four Girls At Chautauqua," "Mrs. Solomon Smith," has lost none of her earlier power and spontaneity. The problems of yesterday are the problems of to-day, though they may be furnished with electric lights, airplanes and automobiles to make them up-to-date. And Pansy knows life—her stories are real—they strike to the very heart of the girl and boy, the man and woman—they show us ourselves as God sees us—the real person beneath the sham and mockery of society. She weaves her stories around the common everyday lives of the people she knows—till her characters become alive and real to those who read.

A marvelous housekeeper; an ideal pastor's wife who took the whole parish into her life, who knew them and loved them, who cared for the sick and gathered the young people around her for a good time; a woman much in demand in public life as director of religious conferences and as a lecturer and, above all, an author beloved by thousands.

Many years ago she edited a small paper, "The Pansy," a Herculean task, for it brought her thousands of letters from the children who had joined the Pansy Society and wrote her about their faults and how to correct them. And other letters poured in, too, from all over the globe, asking for her autograph and photograph, for advice on how to become a great author, on how to get the right kind of a husband, and on every other question under the sun. And Pansy answered every letter, usually by her own hand.

Hers has been a busy life and a happy one—and an inspiration to thousands who have known her or her books. And to-day, bereft of husband and children, a cripple, she fights bravely on, writing the story of her life: "Yesterdays"—the beautiful record of a happy and consecrated life.

——————————————————————————— J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY