CHAPTER IV.

THEN began a babel of tongues. The book was "elegant!" "Charming!" Everybody said it was the best one from that popular writer's pen. The "critics were just raving over it." "Certainly it was written in a most fascinating manner."

These were some of the statements which Elsie seemed to be expected to answer. She had very little to say. The truth was, she felt painfully conscious of the fact that many of her arguments would sound to this company like an unknown tongue. What did they know of loyalty to the Master who owned her, heart and hands? What wild fanaticism would they think it, if she said that she felt herself to have dishonored Christ, in having lent her hands and her voice to the book which she had just dropped?

Yet she said this, speaking steadily, albeit with glowing cheeks. She felt it to be the least that she could do, as His witness, to speak the simple truth, and bear the storm of words, the incredulity, the laughter, the raillery; and the almost more disagreeable attempt to be patient with her, as with an ignorant child, fresh from country life and country ideas.

"Oh, well!" said Carrie, at last. "We might as well save our breath, as to coax her after she has made up her mind. You always were an obstinate child, you know, Elsie, my dear. Ben, suppose you read."

"Not I," said Ben, with emphasis. "It is my brains, instead of my hands, that I am afraid of; I never had the proper amount to bear me out in reading aloud. Vance, will you volunteer?"

An expressive shrug of shapely shoulders was the young man's only reply, but it seemed to be considered decisive.

"Then we must give it up," Carrie said, great vexation in her voice.

"What shall we do? I'm too dull to talk. Oh, I'll tell you, let's have a game. Freem Vance, I owe you a grudge for beating me, the last time we played. Get the cards, Ben, and I'll see if I cannot redeem my reputation in that line."

Ben laughed good-humoredly, but made no attempt to obey.

"You are dull to-night, Carrie, duller than usual, that's a fact, if you have any idea that our fair cousin will let her hands go so far astray as to dabble with cards."

"Well, I should like to know why not. There is no irreligion about them, certainly, poor little innocent things! Elsie, you will play a game with us, won't you?"

"Thank you," Elsie said, trying to make her voice sound natural; "I never play cards."

"Oh, that's of no consequence! You can easily learn. Ben, you could teach her in five minutes, so she could play with you, couldn't you?"

"Doubt it exceedingly. There is an insurmountable objection, I fancy. Unless I am mistaken, she will decline to be taught."

"No, she won't; we can't make up a set without her, and she will not be so disagreeable as to refuse. Come, Elsie, you will be accommodating, won't you?"

Poor Elsie felt like nothing so much as bursting into tears, and running away, but she stood her ground bravely.

"I am sorry to appear unaccommodating, Carrie, but Ben is right; I cannot play cards any better than I can read that book."

"What is the matter with cards?" There was a sneering tone to Carrie's voice; perhaps it was well for Elsie that such was the case. Sneers were apt to give her courage.

She choked back the tears, and tried to answer lightly: "They are innocent enough, I suppose; it is the rough handling that the poor things get to which I object."

"That is begging the question. Our professor of rhetoric says people always do that when they are unable to prove their statements. I am tired of hints and sanctimonious flings. Everything is wicked nowadays. You used to have as much life in you as anybody; if there is any reason for such pokiness, I should like to hear it. Why won't you play cards?"

"The prisoner will stand and answer to the solemn charge preferred against her."

This from Ben. His sister's manner was so dictatorial that he was ashamed of her, and was inclined, in a rollicking way, to aid Elsie. She glanced toward him, smiling, then turned to Carrie.

"Why, Caroline, my dear, you surely do not need the ordinary arguments against card-playing quoted to you! Everybody who has given any thought to the subject understands them, and it wouldn't make them any plainer or more forceful to quote them. For myself, I am sure I need only give you one. My father and mother do not approve of the amusement."

Ben gave a curious little laugh at this point. "No more do ours, eh, Carrie?" he said.

"Nonsense!" returned that young lady sharply. "I'm sure papa said only the other night that times were changed since he was young, and lived in the country. A great many people who live in little country towns get narrow views of things, breathe them in the atmosphere which surrounds them; but that is no reason they should hold to them when they get a chance to see the world. I don't know what you mean, Ben; I'm sure papa has never forbidden us to play cards. I am going to have a game—I know that; and if Elsie won't play, I'll call Mary down. She will like the fun of joining us."

"Mary" was the fourteen-year-old sister who was tolerated only occasionally among the older young people.

As Carrie arose to summon her, Mr. Freeman Vance spoke the first sentence he seemed to have considered himself called upon to utter since the conversation commenced.

"At the same time, Miss Carrie, suppose you secure little Belle to take my place. I do not feel equal to cards this evening."

Whereupon Ben burst into hearty laughter. "Amusement under difficulties, upon my word!" he said, as soon as he could speak. "What shall be done with them, Carrie?"

"Oh, well!" Carrie said, returning to her seat with an offended air. "Since you are all disposed to be so very accommodating, you may entertain yourselves. I'm sure I shall make no farther attempt. It is the first time I ever knew you, Freem Vance, to decline cards. You are playing a new game to-night, I should think."

Whereunto this embarrassing and ill-humored conversation would have grown, I cannot tell you; for at that point occurred an interruption, in the shape of a summons for Ben.

His father desired to see him at once, in the library, on a matter of business.

And no sooner had he, with a little good-humored grumbling, departed, than Carrie unceremoniously left the room by another door, and the two guests were alone together.

I am aware that I have had to present Miss Carrie to you in a very unfavorable light. As a rule, she was good-humored and ladylike, and, being a year or two older than Elsie, was in the habit of being looked up to by her. But, being a young woman without a settled purpose of life or a guiding motive for speech or action, she was left, more or less, at the mercy of the passing mood; and the excitements of the past few days had served to unsettle her nerves to an unusual degree.

Left to themselves, an embarrassing silence followed. Elsie did not know how to commence a conversation with this cultured man of the world; especially, after the experiences of the last hour.

It was he who finally led the way:

"Would you mind giving me some of your objections to card-playing for amusement? I think I am not well posted as you suppose your cousin to be."

There was neither banter nor sarcasm in his voice; instead, he seemed to be in earnest. But Elsie, full of sparkling logic for the boys and girls, was unused to arguing with a gentleman, and hesitated.

"Don't they become snares to some young men, and lead them into temptation and misery sometimes?" she said at last.

He seemed surprised at the answer, and waited a moment before he said, "I think they do; but it does not seem to me that your cousin Ben is tempted in that direction."

"I was not thinking of him at all. If any person came to mind it was little Teddy Reilly, my Sabbath-school boy, whose father is a professional gambler, and who lives in an atmosphere of impurity. I want to keep my hands so clean from all such things that there shall never be the possibility of his associating me with them. And the world is full of Teddy Reillys; we may meet them when we do not know it, and influence them when we are not thinking of such a thing. Besides, I have two little brothers. I don't want them ever to find in gambling saloons anything that will remind them of home and home pleasures."

"I am answered," he said, smiling; but there was nothing unpleasant in the smile.

After a little, he spoke again, still in the same gentle tone: "Would it be disagreeable to you to tell me what you meant, a little while ago, about the book, and what Ben's reference to 'clean hands' had to do with it?"

This question caused the color to deepen on Elsie's cheeks. Such things were harder to explain; she doubted his ability to understand.

"It began with Dr. Falconer, my pastor," she replied, hesitatingly. "He said, when he bade me good-by, that he hoped I would be careful not to soil my hands. Then he lent me a little book of Miss Havergal's, and I read it on the cars. There were marked passages in it, about hands having been given to Christ and being kept for His service. One sentence is, 'Can you let your hands take up things which, to say the least, are not for Jesus? Can you deliberately hold in it books of a kind which you know perfectly well lead you farther from, instead of nearer to, Him?' I thought of that all the time I was reading the book; and at last, when it came to a direct profanation of His name, I dropped it. I wish I had done so before."

"It is narrow ground," said Freeman Vance.

"Yes, it is. I am amazed to see how it hedges one in. One of my Sabbath-school verses is, 'He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.' I have been very careful to teach the children what the words mean, and that has made them plainer to myself, I think. At home, with my father and mother, the way is plain enough, and bright and pleasant, but in this atmosphere things are hard. I think I need mamma to-night."

Her lip was quivering. With the quotation of the Bible verse, Freeman Vance had shaded his face with his hand. He made no response to her words, and she struggled silently for composure.

At last he spoke again; a quiet voice, but it revealed a good deal of suppressed feeling.

"Cards are a great temptation to me. I am very fond of them, and, like you, I need my mother, and can never have her any more."

"Oh!" said Elsie, and the sympathy she put into that word must be imagined, not described. "You need Jesus, Mr. Vance. If you give your hands to Him, He will keep them and you."

There were footsteps in the hall. Carrie, ashamed apparently of her ill humor and rudeness, had returned in a better mood. But there was no more conversation. Freeman Vance arose almost immediately, saying that he had but waited to bid her good-night.

"You have made an enemy of poor Freem," Carrie said, trying to laugh, as the outer door closed after him. "He thinks an evening without cards is a dreadful bore. People do say that he plays for something besides amusement. But he has so much money that I suppose he thinks it no harm to throw away some of it if he wants to. They say he never keeps any that he wins. It seems a pity, though, to have him play with those fellows. I always keep him at cards just as late as I can, so that he will not be tempted to go to the saloons."

But Elsie had no answer for this phase of virtuous self-abnegation. She was sore-hearted and disappointed. The world was not the beautiful thing she had thought it. The shelter of home and mother were treasures to be prized. The atmosphere of home was something to look forward to with longing. The week was gone; she was glad of it. On Monday she was going home. But—and here was the place for tears—she had disappointed herself. She was not going back with hands as clean as she had hoped. They were stained. His hands? Yes, but not kept always sheltered in His grasp. And her lips had spoken few words for Him.

Here was this young man, Freeman Vance, in danger, it seemed, and motherless; and she had met him every day for a week, several times a day, indeed, and to-night's stammering sentence had been the first that she had ever spoken to him of Christ. What a servant was she?

It was evening, and it was raining; and in the back parlor there was a fire in the grate, throwing its bright gleams of light over the room and playing gayly with the pictures on the walls.

Two easy chairs were drawn near to the grate, that their occupants might the better enjoy the play of firelight and shadow. In one of them sat Elsie Burton. A trifle over a year older than when you saw her last. Not changed much, unless the brightness on her face has toned into something softer, something which, while it belongs still to the freshness of girlhood, hints of the coming woman.

The parlor is not the same in which you last saw her. It is her father's own.

Elsie graduated a few weeks ago, just a little past nineteen; but she preferred to spend the following months in the quiet of her own home, though Cousin Carrie eagerly urged the delights of the great city upon her.

The other occupant of an easy chair I presume you would also recognize, though he, I think, is more changed than Elsie; but you would like the change. I don't remember whether I told you that Freeman Vance was a handsome man. A year ago, if you are a careful student of human nature, you would have been a little troubled over the face. Handsome dark eyes, but with an unrest about them that made you not sure of his future. Handsome, quiet mouth, but with a look of strength about it, or of firmness; and to be firm in a wrong direction means obstinacy—means danger. And about the whole man there had been a certain something which told you that he thought himself master of himself; and when a man thinks that, wise people know that he is a slave.

But he was changed. What is the change which comes into these handsome, manly faces, when their owners give themselves over, body and soul, into the keeping of the King? Is it a stamp of the King's signet ring? Is it a hint of the coming fulfillment—"We shall be like Him when we shall see Him as He is"? Whatever it is, you saw it plainly on Freeman Vance's face.

"It is singular that it rains." This was what he was saying.

"Why?" The word mellowed into a happy little laugh. The laugh said: "Let it rain, and let the wind sigh and moan among the leafless branches; I don't care in the least; the night, and the darkness, and the sighing are as nothing to me; they are all 'without,' and I am hedged in, and sheltered, and safe, and happy."

"It rained, that night, you know. I remember just how the drops sounded on the window-pane, and how the wind moaned, and shook the trees angrily because it could not get in at you. It seemed to know that it would never be able to touch you, and to know, also, that in a few minutes I would have to come out to it in the darkness and be whirled whither it would."

"What a dreadful picture!" Still there was content in the voice. "I remember the night, and the rain, and the wind; but I did not think you noticed it, or cared whether it touched me or not. Carrie said I offended you that evening."

"Poor Carrie! It is difficult to conceive of a young lady making less of life than she is doing."

"How is it with Ben? He is getting on well, is he not?"

"Splendidly! The dear fellow! I saw him last night. Some memory of old times came over us, and he spoke of that very evening; said he should have reason to remember it forever; though it was words spoken on the first day of your coming, during the walk up from the depot, he said, which set him to thinking."

"No one ever acted less as though he were thinking! I was sure that he was simply amused with me, as a little country dunce. Many a time he helped to make it hard for me."

"I presume so; trying the temper of the steel. Ben is developing well. He is the chief dependence of the young men's meeting in his church; and he has a great deal of influence over the boys younger than himself. Fenton tells me that he has about broken up the card-parties which used to be so fashionable in that set; not by any aggressive measures, you know—just a steady, quiet influence.

"'Clean hands,' he said to me last night. 'That is my motto, Freem.' And there were tears in the dear fellow's eyes. You did good work in the field during that one week, little Elsie. Went into the enemy's ranks and captured right and left."

"I remember," said Elsie, when the laughter and the blushing over part of this sentence had subsided—"I remember I cried that night, because I felt that I had spent such a useless week, and, after all my resolutions, was coming home with soiled hands and stained heart. God was very good to own my feeble, blundering attempts. Poor Carrie thought I cried because I had offended you."

"Poor Carrie!" repeated Arr. Vance, laughing a little. Then both of them sighed. The year that was past had not improved Cousin Carrie.

"Does Ben know—" began Elsie, then stopped. Mr. Vance seemed able to understand half sentences.

"Ben does not know anything, except where I am gone for vacation; but I think he suspects a great deal and keeps his own counsel. I do not visit often at your uncle's, now, for reasons that you may possibly surmise."

Just a moment of silence, during which both watched the play of the firelight.

Then Freeman Vance bent toward the other easy chair, which was lower than his.

"I have something to show you, Elsie, and something to tell you. Will you let me see if this fits?"

Then the firelight flashed about a cluster of small, pure diamonds, quaintly set.

"It was my mother's ring, Elsie, and there is something to tell you about it—something strange, which will make you feel more than ever that God plans all our ways for us.

"When my mother gave it to me, a boy of twenty, she said: 'It is for your wife, Freeman, with a mother's blessing. And, my son, promise me this: the girl on whose finger you place it must have clean hands and a pure heart. Will you be careful of that, my boy?' I promised it on my knees, by my mother's dying bed.

"You may judge now something of the thrill it gave me to hear you quote those words.

"I have carried the ring on my watch-guard, hidden from sight, for five years.

"Now it has found its rightful owner, and, my darling, I know I have obeyed my mother's words."

CIRCULATING DECIMALS.

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