CHAPTER I.

HOW IT CAME.

"I SUPPOSE you must go?" asked her cousin, reading the letter for the third time. "There is no choice, is there?"

"None whatever," said Lucia, thinking it all over with a very sober face.

That letter had come as a very unpleasant break in a most happy visit.

It was not often that Lucia could get away from her home, where a little flock of step-brothers and sisters kept her busy from morning till night.

But this time she had got away! Her mother had long planned for her to visit some cousins of her own in the North, and Lucia had been with them for a month already.

She had begun to feel that her home in London was a very long way off, and that her step-father, and even her own mother, had grown of less absorbing interest than formerly. Life seemed to centre in that charming country house, her cousins with their affairs began to fill her horizon, and when the letters came from her mother speaking of her step-father having been ill with the dreaded influenza, and being better again, she dismissed the matter with the comfortable hope that no one else would take it, and that mother would not be over-tired.

Then she did not hear for a week, but was too happy to be nervous, when one evening, just as she and her cousins were settling down for a cosy time, the second post brought her that news which overturned all her plans, and spoke of changes which might alter the aspect of her life for years to come. Her step-father had had a relapse; a dormant delicacy of the chest had suddenly developed, and he was ordered to take a sea voyage if his life were to be saved.

"I have had to choose between him and our children, and he needs me the most; so I am going with him," wrote her mother. "You, my darling, will act a mother's part, I know, while I am gone. Come home at once, that I may give it all into your hands, for we start directly."

There was no choice, as Emmie had said; but while Lucia sat silently in her corner, she confessed to herself that never in her life before had any news been so unwelcome.

She loved her mother devotedly, and so she did her little brothers and sisters. Her step-father had always been most kind and generous to her, and she loved him too. But for all that, she blamed herself bitterly that she thought almost more of her own disappointment in being called home, than of the great anxiety and grief which had fallen upon it.

Early the next morning Lucia woke up to the knowledge of something which seemed like a heavy weight on her spirit. Then it all flashed upon her.

She rose hastily, for a busy time was before her. On the previous night she had not done any packing, and very soon after breakfast she was to start on her homeward journey.

When she left her room, only the maids were astir. So she crept downstairs to the quiet rooms, and began to collect her possessions, which in a month's visit had become scattered about—her music, her work-basket, her easel and paint-box.

She carried an armful into the dining room and began to sort the music out, till, unconscious of time, she fell into a reverie over the words of one of the songs, and started violently when she heard herself addressed in an astonished tone by her aunt's housekeeper—

"Why, Miss Lucia, to be sure, miss, I thought something must have happened to see you sitting there all alone at this time of day! I was passing along the garden, going to feed my chickens, when I caught sight of your head, and heard your pretty voice singing more like the angels than anything else, to be sure!"

"Oh, Mrs. Brown, something has happened," exclaimed Lucia ruefully; "I am going home!"

"Deary miss, I heard something of it last night," responded the housekeeper in her cheery way; "and I was so very sorry for the cause of it, I'm sure." "Yes—," said Lucia slowly, "so am I, awfully sorry; but I cannot help wishing it had come at any other time—"

Mrs. Brown paused a moment, and then she said gently, "The Lord's time is always the right time, dear Miss Lucia—"

Lucia raised her eyes and looked into the placid face.

"I was so happy here," she murmured.

She turned over the songs, and as the words caught her eyes, they filled with tears.

"Your mother is in sore trouble, Miss Lucia, and she will be very glad to have a sight of your sweet face."

Lucia shook her head while she wiped her eyes. "I wish I were thinking about her instead of myself," she said.

Mrs. Brown was silent. She and Lucia had been very good friends when they had met, and had established a mutual confidence.

"You think I am a horrid selfish creature, don't you, Mrs. Brown?" she burst out at length.

"I think you only want one thing to make you the sweetest, dearest young lady—"

"And that is an unselfish spirit—?"

"No—o, miss, it isn't that—"

"Then what is it?"

"It's to look at things in the light of His countenance, Miss Lucia—not by our own dull lanterns, but in His pure light!"

"Look at things?" questioned Lucia. "How do you mean?"

"When we know that what happens comes from our Lord, it takes away the sting of troubles."

"I don't see that it can take away the sting of this," said Lucia. "Here I am, enjoying myself as much as I possibly can, and not going home for a fortnight more; and then father falls ill, and they are ordered abroad, and I have to go home to slave with the little ones, and all my pleasure is stopped. And, worst of all, I am just a horrid, selfish creature for thinking so, much less saying so! I can't see that in the light of His countenance!"

"Ah, dear Miss Lucia, that's just it! Everything looks dull and gloomy by the light of our own dark thoughts. Shall I tell you how I see the matter? You will not be hurt at me, because I've seen a great many troubles, and I've come out of the Slough of Despond on the side of the Celestial City!"

Lucia clasped the kind hand affectionately as she said, "Tell me, then; I shall not mind anything you say—"

"In the light of His will, this is what I see," said the housekeeper tenderly. "You have had a month to enjoy a nice change; and then the Lord says to you He has a lovely opportunity for you to do something for Him! You can be a real comfort to your step-father, who—you told me, didn't you, miss?—has been very good to you; a comfort to your mother, who has to bear a heavy trial; and you have five darling children given into your care to train for Him for ever so many months; and to get back in return their whole love and His gracious approval. Oh, Miss Lucia, isn't that sunshine enough for one day? And don't the clouds go chasing away in the light of His most blessed will?"