CHAPTER I.

"AND I hope, Elsie, you will be careful, all the while you are gone, not to soil your hands."

They stood together in the hall, Elsie Burton and her pastor; he had held out his hand to bid her good-by, and added these words which brought a puzzled look to her eyes, and a rich glow of color to her cheeks.

What could Dr. Falconer mean? Elsie glanced swiftly down at her delicate, gracefully shaped hands, and then back to his face; he was not laughing; although there was a smile on his face, it was backed by an earnest gleam in his eyes that meant business. It was not probable that he was trying to rally her a little on the exquisite care which she took of those same hands, always managing to keep them in a state of dainty cleanliness, with the shapely nails of just the right length. No, that was simply absurd! In the first place, all respectable people took as good care of their hands as circumstances would admit, of course; and, in the second place, Dr. Falconer was not the man to rally people in regard to personal habits; he was too intensely in earnest for that, unless, indeed, there was some important end to be gained.

Could he possibly mean to refer to the fact that she took out her handkerchief, and carefully rubbed her hand, last Sabbath, after Teddy Reilly had held it! But there was certainly excuse for that; poor little Teddy's hand was so exceedingly dirty that it left its stain on the fair skin, and it was unnecessary, and therefore foolish, to draw on her delicate kid gloves over the brown marks, when a few passes of her handkerchief would efface them! She had waited until little Teddy was fairly out of sight; she would not have wounded his loving heart, nor indeed have missed the caressing from his dirty hand, for a great deal. Dr. Falconer certainly could not mean that.

She decided for frankness, as Elsie Burton was very apt to do. "Dr. Falconer, I don't in the least understand you; all people are careful of their hands, not to soil them more than is necessary in getting through this dirty world." The sentence closed with a little laugh, but the great bright eyes, fixed questioningly on his face, showed that Elsie was honestly in pursuit of light.

"Do you think so?" he said, and his voice was grave. "On the contrary, I think people are almost more careless of their hands than of any other organ which they possess. And hands soil readily, and are not easy to cleanse. Let me bring you a little book I have been reading; the marked passages in it will show you what I mean, and how I came to suggest my caution to you. I must not detain you longer, or you may miss your train. I have to call at the depot this morning, and I will give you the book there. I hope you will have a happy visit, and be the means of doing an incalculable amount of good."

"Oh! I shall not have much opportunity for doing either good or evil, Dr. Falconer; I am not going to be gone long enough. You know I have but a week's vacation."

"And you think a week not long enough to accomplish much! I see I shall have to mark another passage in my little book. Be sure to read the marked portion."

And then he was gone, and Elsie Burton went hurriedly about the final preparations for her journey. "Clean hands!" she repeated with a curious smile, as, having given the final touches to her brown hair, she applied the sweet-smelling soap lavishly, making a fine white foam in which to lave them. "I wonder what Dr. Falconer is aiming at! If he had told me to guard my tongue, I should have understood him without difficulty; but if there is anything about me that gets taken care of, I'm sure it is my hands." Whereupon she gave them an extra dash of fresh water.

Fairly seated in the East-bound express, shawl-strap and hand-satchel tucked away behind their proper lattice, herself by no means tucked into the corner, but spread out as luxuriously as a young lady of eighteen or so knows how to arrange, Elsie Burton had leisure to draw a long breath of satisfaction and look about her. The last few days had been so full of the bustle of preparation, combined with the closing hours of school, that she had had little leisure for anything. Now for the long-promised holiday week at Uncle Leonard's. Elsie Burton had few fittings from the home nest to remember. Indeed I may say that she was one of those fortunate young ladies who had never, until that time, been on the cars without either mother or father. A sweet, sheltered, happy life she had led, and a sweet, bright girl was she. Occasionally a little restless flutter had shown the mother-bird that her nestling longed to try her wings alone; hence this visit, promised and planned. And Elsie, curled comfortably in her seat, with the seat before her turned to receive her lunch basket and any stray apples or papers that she might purchase, felt that she was a little school girl no longer, but in the last half-hour had blossomed into a young lady.

"Take care of yourself, daughter," had been her father's last tenderly spoken message, a little anxious look about the eyes telling her that this business of trying one's wings was not so pleasant for the old birds as for those who wire experimenting; Dr. Falconer had added, with a meaning smile, "And remember the hands." This latter message lingered with her. She meant to take care of herself, to be so wise and prudent that both father and mother would be delighted with her. And of course she meant to take care of her hands! But the hint half-vexed her; she did not understand it, and felt for the little book which she had dropped into her pocket but a few minutes before. What a tiny book it was! Paper-covered too, but daintily illuminated; looking, indeed, as though it had been gotten up for choice moments.

"I wonder," said our young lady to herself, "if this bit of a volume can be a dissertation on the care of hands?" She laughed a little as she said it, and stopped to fasten the fourth button of her dark, neat, exquisitely-fitting kid gloves; her hands certainly looked well in them. She could not endure ill-shaped gloves, and as for wearing ripped ones, she never did it; nor, truth to tell, did she like to wear mended ones. It would have been a pleasure to her, on the discovery of the first rip, to have consigned the offending gloves to the waste bag, but this was by no means the teaching of her mother; so the shapely hands were sometimes marred—in the estimation of their owner—by mended gloves, albeit the mending was very neat. Dr. Falconer could hardly have meant that. Now she began to look for the marked passages. Marked passages? Why, the little book was full of them!

Could her pastor have expected her to spend the hours of her first journey alone in reading them all? Ah, no; here was one, marked in different colored ink, and on the upper margin of the page was her own name, "Elsie." This, then, was the portion meant for her. (Not a lengthy passage; she could accomplish so much with a fair hope of remembering it.) And she read, "It may seem an odd idea, but a simple glance at one's hand, with the recollection, this hand is not mine; it has been given to Jesus, and it must be kept for Jesus,' may sometimes turn the scale in a doubtful matter, and be a safeguard from certain temptations. With that thought fresh in your mind, as you look at your hand, can you let it take up things, which, to say the least, are not 'for Jesus'? Things which evidently cannot be used, as they most certainly are not used, either for Him or by Him. Can you deliberately hold in it books of a kind which you know perfectly well, by sadly-repeated experience, lead you farther from, instead of nearer to Him? . . . Books which you would not care to read at all, if your heart were burning within you at the coming of His feet? Next time any temptation of this sort approaches you just look at your hand."

Elsie Burton paused in her reading and looked down at her hand, a singular expression on her face. Given to Christ! Certainly it was true of her; she had given herself to Him and promised to be His disciple; yet never until this moment had occurred to her that even her hands actually belonged to this Master. What a strange idea! How singular it would be for one to stop and think whether her hands were doing what He would have them? Yet, why not? If they really were given to Him, what more reasonable than that they should be kept for His service?

Would that make any difference with the work of her hands, she wondered, supposing she had thought of them in this light before? Such dainty care as she had taken of them! Had she possibly soiled them in His sight? There were other marked bits in this strange little book, her name attached; she read on: "Danger and temptation to let the hands move at other impulses is every bit as great to those who have nothing else to do but to render service: and who think they are doing nothing else. Take one practical instance—our letter writing. Have we not been tempted (and fallen before the temptation), according to our various dispositions, to let the hand that holds the pen move at the impulse to write an unkind thought of another; or to say a clever and sarcastic thing, which will make our point more telling; or to let out a grumble or a suspicion; or to let the pen run away with us into flippant words?"

The rich color on Elsie's cheek was deepening every moment. This was certainly narrow ground. She felt herself jostled against. "Clever and sarcastic things" were so natural to her pen that they almost seemed to write themselves. What a ridiculous report she had given of Ned Holden's failure in geometry. How skillfully she had turned into ridicule his mortified attempts to recover himself. She had imagined her cousins, Carrie and Ben, laughing immoderately over the whole thing. Well, what harm? Her account of it would never reach poor Ned's ears: she would not have given it for anything had there been the least fear, but—what good did it accomplish? Had she written it with a purpose? Yes, she had; her purpose had been to give a few minutes' fun to her cousins. Anything wrong about that? Yet the truthful girl admitted to herself almost immediately that it was fun at the expense of certain fine feelings which she had jarred. Was she inclined to be so sympathetic with failures as she would be if it were not such fun to write them up? What a caricature she had made of Ned as he stood there on the platform, his face aglow, the eyes of a hundred girls leveled at him! She laughed again as she remembered how funny her picture was; but then she sighed. Soiled hands. Was it possible that she had soiled hers that day? Did Dr. Falconer mean such things? Did he know about the letter and the caricature? She felt her face grow hot over the possibility; she would not have him know it for anything! Here again was a revelation. Why not? And if not Dr. Falconer, surely not the Lord Jesus! Yet He knew.

There really was not much comfort in thinking about it. But Elsie decided that these things must be thought about and decided another time. If it really was wrong to repeat in a ludicrous way the ludicrous things that the boys, and sometimes the girls, and sometimes the professors were doing, why, then she must give it up; but it was great fun. Another marked sentence—her name again: "Perhaps one hardly needs to say that kept hands will be very gentle hands. Quick, angry motions of the heart will sometimes force themselves into expression by the hand, though the tongue may be restrained. The very way in which we close a door, or lay down a book, may be a victory or a defeat."

At this point Elsie closed the little book and laid it down with no gentle hand. She was vexed with it. What nonsense was this! The idea that when one banged the door a little with nobody around to see, and not meaning anything in particular, only a general vexation, one had dishonored Christ! That was straining a point! Just as if people could keep from doing those little things! And just as though they did any hurt! The little book was fanatical; she didn't like it at all.

What sent her back, just then, to her little class in Sabbath-school? seven or eight of the babies under her care. What verse was that which she had taught them only last Sabbath? "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in His holy place?" That was the question she had asked. How had she taught them to answer? She seemed to see the sixteen little hands raised, while eight little voices repeated: "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." Whose fanaticism was this? What had she herself taught those little ones that "clean hands" meant? Had she really meant that they, those babes in Christ, must carefully watch their small hands, lest they slam the door in anger or throw the book, and that she, Elsie Burton, eighteen years old and for four years a Christian, could do any of these trifles without soiling hers? It was illogical, certainly.

Yet, can I make you understand, I wonder, what a ferment all these little things set Miss Elsie into? They seemed so new to her; so unexpected. She was a bright young Christian; she desired in general, to honor her Master. Yet, like many another, she had selected great ways in which to honor Him, and, occasionally, at least, looked about for something large to do in His service, forgetting, or ignoring, many small daily opportunities. She liked her own way royally well, did this young lady; and when on occasion older wills in authority crossed hers, she submitted indeed; it would be unladylike to do otherwise, and Elsie Burton did not like to be unladylike; but she frowned and banged the door; yes, she did, a little, a very little, occasionally, and threw her books on the table with determination, and wrote sarcastic letters to her special friend, and grumbled occasionally to mamma. All these things she had rather looked upon as her perquisites; little personal rewards for submitting. In what a different way did the tiny book talk about them all!

She sat very still and thought it over. "It reaches too far," she told herself, catching her breath. "It would make perfectly awful work of living! Just think! One couldn't—oh dear! one couldn't do anything, without looking at it to see if it were just exactly the right thing to do. According to that doctrine, I don't belong to myself at all. Such fanaticism!"

"Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your bodies and your spirits, which are His." Who whispered that verse to her? It was not in the offending little book. Whose fanaticism was this?

Meantime the car had been filling up. Her luxurious turned seat had been unceremoniously returned, while she was too busy with her book even to frown. There come next a man with a child in his arms, and leading one by the hand; a commonly-dressed, jaded man; he looked about him right and left for a seat; vain hope; Elsie's was the only unoccupied one in the car. "May I sit here?" he asked meekly and prepared to seat himself, taking the other child on his knee, her small hand which was not of the cleanest coming in dangerous contact with Elsie's faultless bronze travelling suit. She saw it and twitched the skirt of her dress, not gently, away from the disagreeable member, muttering low as she did so, that the seat was "not intended for four persons."

"Perhaps one hardly need to say that the kept hands will be very gentle hands." She did not repeat the words, but they repeated themselves to her, in a way that startled. Once more she looked down at her hands. Was He actually dishonored by that quick, irritable movement? The face of the man beside her looked troubled; he had seen the movement and had reached forth and clasped the offending little hand in his own rough one. He looked very careworn, and the smaller of the children, who was but a baby, began to utter wailing cries which he vainly tried to hush. Hopeless little cries they were; they went, someway, to Elsie's heart. She was sorry her hand had been so un-Christ-like in its movement. How could she atone for it? She reached forth for her lunch basket, and drawing therefrom a rosy-cheeked apple presented it to the little girl. The small soiled hand grasped after it eagerly, and the father smiled and leaned forward to admonish the child to thank the giver. "They both look very tired," Elsie said, gently; "travelling is hard for children."

The man drew a heavy sigh. "It is hard for them," he said. "They miss their mother; they don't know what to make of it, and I don't know how to do for them as she would. I buried her last Tuesday."