CHAPTER II.

A DISMAYED exclamation from Elsie; then she added, "Poor little things!" in a tone that conveyed much to the sad father's heart.

"You may well say that," he said, getting out his handkerchief hastily, to wipe the great tears that would gather in his eyes. "Two babies, you may say, with no one but a blundering father to do for them! I'm bound to do the very best I can, but what's a man worth when it comes to such work as that! And them crying for their mother every little while! This one," touching the head of the older child with gentle hand, "couldn't get herself to go to sleep, no how, last night. I patted her, and coaxed her for an hour; but she said she 'wanted mamma too bad for anything.'"

There were tears in Elsie's eyes now, and she reached for the soiled little hand and gathered it tenderly into her gloved one. For the rest of that journey the motherless child had a friend. The baby slept on his father's shoulder; and Elsie devoted herself to making the five-year-old happy. Among other womanly offices, she took the child forward to the water-cooler, and by dint of patient use of handkerchief and some of her own sweet-scented soap, she made the small hands rosy with cleanliness. This was so that she could have a delicately tinted card from the lady's pocket. An illuminated card, with an outline picture of two hands clasped; the one a small, childish hand, the other large and firm, suggestive of strength and protection. There were words underneath, and the child demanded that they be read. It was one of Elsie's class cards, and the verse: "Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart."

"It means, who shall go to live with Jesus in heaven?" explained Elsie.

The little girl looked gravely down at her small pink hands. "My hands are clean," she said, reflectively. "I guess I can go, mamma went. It was Jesus who took her."

Elsie's eyes dimmed again as she answered the child gently, "Yes, and He wants you; wants you to keep your hands clean, so you can go. Not simply clean with water, you know, but clean from every wrong and naughty thing."

The grave-eyed child considered. "I slap Johnnie, sometimes," she said, sadly, "when he's cross."

"Oh! And that soils your hands with the kind of soil that water will not wash away. Look at the picture; that little hand is clasped in a strong one; the picture is to make you think of Jesus' hand; He holds it out for you to put yours in it, so He can keep it safe from getting soiled."

"How?" said the child, looking puzzled. "Where is He? Why doesn't He hold His hand out to me?"

"He does, darling; you cannot see it, nor feel it, because He has not given you the kind of eyes yet with which to see Him; but if you give your hand to Him, and then ask Him every day to keep it from doing wrong things, and make it clean, He will; and by and by He will take you up to Heaven, where mamma is, and where you can see Him, and feel the touch of His hand."

Such sweet, serious eyes as that child had! She looked down at her small unmothered hand, in such a grave, considering way, as seemed almost too much for Elsie to bear; and at last she said, "I will do it; I mean to go to mamma." And the shadow of a smile was on her face—a serious little face, old beyond its years. Elsie did not wonder that the father wiped great tears away; but he grasped her hand heartily and said, "God bless you, ma'am, for showing the little girl how to smile. She hasn't smiled since—" and the sentence was left unfinished.

There was no time for further words. The car bell was ringing, and the dinner gong of the eating house was clattering, and the car was in a bustle of preparation to depart. Elsie gathered her wraps and packages, secured the little book which had told her strange truths, made tender by the practical commentary on them drawn from her new acquaintances, then shook hands with the little girl, bending to kiss her and whisper, "Remember."

"I will," the child said.

"And I will," murmured Elsie. "I must surely take the counsel which I have given her; else how could I bear to meet the child when we both see Him face to face?"

"Hurrah! here you are. I was afraid you did not come, after all. I left Carrie consumed with anxiety lest you had missed the train, or something."

It was Cousin Ben, face and voice full, of eager welcome. He seized upon Elsie's belongings as he spoke, managing shawl-strap and bag and bundles with the air of one long used to business; called for checks, and gave rapid, business-like orders to a porter in waiting, talking to Elsie incessantly all the time—at least, so it seemed to her.

"Now, shall we take a carriage or a sleigh? We have both at your service, you see; and the wheeling is so abominable that there is but one thing worse, which is the sleighing. The fact is, we have neither wheeling nor sleighing just now. Whichever way you take, you will be sure to wish you had chosen the other."

"Why can't we walk?" Elsie asked, laughing at his description and his volubility.

"Walk! A young lady, just arrived from a fatiguing journey of three hours' duration, walking up from the depot! I'm afraid Carrie will faint. Still, in all sincerity, it is much the better way, if one only thinks so. Do you honestly vote for it? Sensible young lady—the first one I have met this winter. Halloo, porter! That scamp has gone already, I declare! He will be back here, ready to earn another fifty cents, before we get started. I wanted to palm off some of these dry goods on him. O, no, not at all," as Elsie tried to offer her assistance; "they are not heavy, only slippery. This wretched little box is such a nuisance. I found it at the express office, and I wish I had left it there. Ah, well, now, if you insist, you may carry the box. It is small, you see, but slippery; seems to have an affinity for the pavement. I've landed it there once, already."

The small, compact box, neatly wrapped in paper, was transferred from Ben's crowded arms to Elsie's empty ones. Then the walk commenced. A bright sunny day, the air just keen enough to be exhilarating, and the business street down which their road lay was aglow with holiday trappings. A walk was certainly not an unattractive thing. Yet there was a cloud on Elsie's face; and if her gay cousin had been watching her, he would have discovered that she bestowed suspicious glances on the innocent-looking box which she carried. It was not its weight that disturbed her; that was a mere trifle. What then? She watched her opportunity, when Ben was busy re-arranging his load, and unceremoniously applied her nose to the box. Faugh! It was as she suspected. Here was she, Elsie Burton, who hated the sight and smell and very name of the vile weed tobacco, actually carrying a box of cigars through the street! She could have dropped them into the muddy carriage drive, across which they were just picking their way, with a good grace.

"I wonder if Ben smokes!" This was her indignant mental query. "I declare, if that boy has gone and spoiled himself in such a hateful way, I shall drop him." There were certain phases of moral courage in which Elsie was by no means lacking. She was entirely willing to express then and there, to her handsome young cousin, her utter and intense abhorrence of everything pertaining to tobacco; and the probabilities are strong that her very manner of doing so would have outwitted any good which she desired to accomplish; that is, if she really wished to accomplish anything beyond expressing her indignation. Something quieted her just then. The memory of certain words: "Can you let it take up things which, to say the very least, are not 'for Jesus'?" Suppose people really did govern their lives by such rules as that? Suppose Ben did. Would he be carrying home cigars to smoke? What a thing it was that he had been the one to lead her unwittingly into this first soiling of her hands! Almost before she realized that she was doing so, she spoke her thoughts aloud: "Oh, Ben! You have made me soil my hands."

Her cousin turned to her quickly, his face expressive of concern. "I beg ten thousand pardons! Was I such a stupid dolt as to give you a soiled paper to carry? What is it? Are your gloves ruined?" But he looked in vain for soil; the delicate bronze gloves were as delicate as before she touched the box, and the neat manilla wrapping was guiltless of a stain.

Elsie laughed a little. "I was thinking aloud," she said. "I did not mean my gloves, but my hands. Ben, I don't like the soil of cigars."

"Are they so very offensive to you?" This with a puzzled air. "It isn't possible that you get their odor at this distance!"

"O, Ben! You know you are not stupid. Why do you pretend that you don't understand me to mean moral soil?"

"Upon my word, I never thought of such a thing!" And Ben stared at his cousin in genuine astonishment. "Isn't that straining a point, my wise little cousin?"

"Is it? Suppose I believe that my hands should do nothing to help along anything that is wrong in the world, could I, in that case, handle cigars much?"

"That depends. Are cigars wicked?"

Elsie flashed a pair of keen eyes on him. "Are cigars good?"

He laughed good-naturedly. "Why, no; I haven't been in the habit of attaching any moral character to them whatever."

"Very well; then why do you pretend that I am talking about their moral character? The question is, do I believe that it is wrong to spend money for cigars, and to spoil one's breath, and poison the air that belongs to other people with their vile odors? In that case, I must be consistent with my belief, and not let my hands help along that which I consider mischievous."

"Pitch them into the gutter if you want to," he said, good-humoredly. "You see they are not mine; I promised to bring them up for Hal; so I can afford to be generous."

"Does Hal smoke?"

"Like a furnace. I won't tell him, though, that you helped the matter along. I'll appear to have carried the offending box every step of the way myself."

But Elsie did not smile. "If I were Emmeline," she began, then stopped.

"What then? Supposing I can stretch my credulity enough to imagine anything so preposterous."

"Never mind; perhaps I ought not to say it."

"But it will do no harm for me to guess it. In the light of your last sharp remarks, I fancy you were going to say: If I were Emmeline I would not marry a cigar smoker.'"

"It is true," Elsie said, laughing a little, "I wouldn't."

"Really? Are you serious about this thing? Do you honestly think there is anything so very wicked about smoking a cigar now and then?"

"What a way to put it! As if a thing must be 'so very wrong' in order to be—not right. As to the 'now and then'—Oh, if you needed a lecture, Ben, I think I could give it; I've thought a great deal about the matter; but just now I was looking at it from such a simple platform that it doesn't need argument. Hal, you know, is a Christian, and he professes to govern all his life by one rule, as a servant who belongs body and purse to Christ. How very easy it would be for him to decide whether he ought to spend his money on cigars!"

Ben, I regret to say, was guilty of the ungentlemanly act of whistling. A low whistle, instantly suppressed, but it expressed his views. "How many Christians do you suppose govern themselves by any such rules?"

"The question has nothing whatever to do with the argument," Elsie said; "but I'll answer it. Very few, I think. Does that annihilate the rule?"

"How fortunate it is for me that we are just at the door," Ben answered, gayly. "Give me the box of cigars, quick; and don't convert Emmeline to your way of thinking, or we shall have no wedding to attend."

I do not know whether, had Elsie known all the temptations and embarrassments to beset her on that very next day, she would have been able to make so emphatic a resolution as the one with which she left the car. A shopping excursion was in order for the morning. Cousin Carrie had a dozen trifles which must be bought that day, and it suited Ben to attend them gallantly all the morning. Now shopping was not a trial to Elsie; it had all the charm of novelty for her, for hitherto her busy young life had known comparatively little of it. On this particular morning the circumstances were particularly agreeable. She had no grave responsibilities, but was merely an interested looker-on, ready to give bits of advice as occasion offered; while nestled away in her pretty porte-monnaie were two shining gold pieces which her father had given her that morning to spend as she pleased. Oh, the charming things that a girl of eighteen may please to buy! Cousin Carrie was a helpful companion in that direction. She had wide-open eyes, and dealt in superlatives:

"Oh, Elsie! Do look at this lovely shade in kids. Aren't they perfectly exquisite? Just your number, too, and, match your new hat exactly. Really, Elsie, you ought to have a pair of those. I never saw a more perfect match."

Elsie looked interested but doubtful. "I have just bought new gloves," she said, "and they match nicely, I think."

"Oh, they do; they are charming. But these are that lovely, peculiar shade which one so rarely finds in kid—just the tint of your long plume. Oh, I do think they are too lovely for anything!"

"They are expensive."

"Oh, I don't think so. Only two and a quarter. You can't get really good kid for less than that, and poor gloves are not worth buying. Besides, they have the Foster fastenings. Now I really dote on Foster fastenings."

Elsie was being persuaded. They did look as though they would fit her shapely hand so well, and they really were a remarkable match. What if she had just bought a pair? Gloves would keep and would be always needed. Mamma approved of good gloves, and papa had told her to spend the gold pieces just as she pleased.

"Well," she said, a slight hesitation still in her voice, "I think I'll—" and she glanced down at her hands.

"Next time any temptation of this sort approaches you, just look at your hand." It was to Elsie as though the words were written on the back of her glove, so distinctly did she seem to see them. A temptation of what sort? Was this box of gloves in the list? "Can you let it take up things, which, to say the least, are not for Jesus?" Were the gloves for Him? The question startled her, seemed a little irreverent, yet she was a clear-brained girl and knew what the query meant.

Was she buying them because she felt that she needed them to complete a neat and tasteful toilet? If—it was a sufficiently startling thought to make the color run into her cheeks, yet she thought it—if the Lord Jesus Christ stood there in the flesh, occupying the space at her side now filled by Cousin Ben, would she spend two dollars and a quarter for an unneeded pair of gloves? Should the hand belonging to Him do aught that His glance would not approve?

She was ready to finish her sentence. "I think I will not take them, Carrie. I have gloves enough for the present, and the styles may change, before I need them."

"What nonsense! These are in the very latest shade. I never saw any quite like them before. I wish they would match anything of mine and would buy them in a moment, although Auntie gave me a full box of gloves at Christmas. How many pairs have you, Elsie?"

This question amused Ben wonderfully. "An official report, if you please," he said, his eyes twinkling with laughter. "How many handkerchiefs have you, and how many ribbons and how many ruffles? Do you young ladies keep an inventory for each other's special benefit?"

Elsie laughed, but Carrie turned from her coldly. She set her heart on managing the glove matter, and it was ignominious to fail.