CHAPTER X.

"BLESSED ARE THE MEEK."

"HERE is a letter—a letter from India, I do believe!" exclaimed Milly one morning, as she came into the breakfast room, and took up the thin light letter, with its strange foreign postmarks.

She was all impatience for the doctor to make his appearance now. And when she heard him descending the stairs, she ran to meet him with it in her hand.

"A letter!—A letter!" she shouted, dancing through the hall. "A letter from India, I'm sure."

The doctor took it from her hand, and looked at it with eagerness.

"It is from Edgar," he exclaimed, as he reached the breakfast room; "he lives, then!" And overpowered with emotion, he sunk into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

After a short time, he recovered himself sufficiently to read his letter, but that part of it in which was communicated the loss of their little girl when on her way to England with her nurse, affected him even more deeply than the knowledge that his cousin was still living had done.

He started as he read the name "Milly," and glanced across the table to the little girl now sitting before him. Could it be possible that she was his cousin's child? He had learned to look upon her and love her as his own, and now to think of another claiming her as a parent, claiming the first place in her affections, caused him a sharp thrill of pain.

"Is it a nice letter?" asked Milly, pausing in her work of eating bread and butter to look across at the doctor.

"Come here, Milly," said the gentleman.

The little girl came around to his side, lifting her eyes wonderingly to his face. Something in them, and the light clustering curls, brought another face to his memory,—a young, boyish face—and instead of kissing the upturned face, the doctor moved aside. Yes, it must be; this was Edgar's child, his long-lost Milly. And then the doctor recalled the strange impression he had felt, when she was first brought to him, of having seen the child before.

Milly looked and felt hurt at the half-repulse she had received, and her eyes were full of tears when she went back to her seat, but the doctor was too disturbed to notice this just now.

He did remark, however, that instead of running into the garden as usual after breakfast, she went up stairs to her own room, and the incident somewhat puzzled him, more especially as it was some time before she came down again.

When at length she came into the room again, she was looking somewhat pale and saddened, and with the traces of tears still on her face.

"What is the matter?" asked Dr. Mansfield, looking up from the book he was trying to read.

Milly colored, and her lips trembled a little as she said, "I was afraid—" and there she stopped.

"What were you afraid of, Milly?" asked the doctor, drawing her to him.

"I thought perhaps you were going to love your cousin in India better than me," said Milly slowly, and coloring as she spoke.

The doctor stooped and kissed the little troubled face. "Suppose I should do so?" he said, a smile parting his lips.

"I don't think I should mind much—at least, not very much now," she added.

"Why not?" asked the doctor. "Are you going to leave off loving me?" And a sharp pain shot through his heart as he uttered the light words.

For answer, she threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him. "O no, no!" she exclaimed. "I shall always love you."

"God bless you, my darling," murmured the doctor fervently. "You have been a blessing to me, Milly, and the thought of parting with you makes me very sad. But now tell me why you would not mind it so very much?" he added, when he had soothed her.

"I've been asking Jesus to help me learn my text better, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,'" said Milly.

"But you learned that long ago, Milly," said the doctor; "learned to practise it, too, in subduing your temper."

"Yes, but 'meek' means so much," said Milly. "We used to talk about it when Bob and Jack were out fishing."

"The widow, do you mean?" said the doctor.

Milly nodded. "Mother told me that 'meek' meant something like this—that we must not mind when other people are liked better than we are; that we ought to esteem others better than ourselves, and not feel grieved when they did the same."

The doctor sighed. "That is not very easy to do, Milly," he said.

"It's very hard, I think," said Milly, "especially when you love somebody very much—" (and she laid her head on the doctor's shoulder), "and are afraid they'll love somebody else better than they do you," and the little girl heaved a deep sigh as she spoke.

"Suppose I should love this cousin in India better than you, Milly, what should you do?"

The little girl lifted her eyes at the question. "I think Jesus would help me not to mind about it, because he is your cousin, and you ought to love him," she said.

"Do you think you could be glad too, Milly," asked the doctor, "when I seemed pleased to meet my cousin?"

"It wouldn't be easy, but I think Jesus would help me to feel glad by and by, if I asked Him, and then you would always love me a little, wouldn't you?" she added.

"Yes, my darling, I shall always love you—love you as dearly as though you were my own little girl. But now, Milly, suppose you could prevent my loving this cousin—suppose you could make him stay In India and not come to England at all, should you not do it if you were afraid I would love him better than you?"

The little girl sat thoughtfully looking out of the window for a minute or two before she answered. But at length, she said slowly, "That wouldn't be right; he is your cousin, and you ought to love him, and I ought to be satisfied with a little bit of love, if you could not give me any more. Perhaps Jesus does not think it will be good for me to have the most any longer. Mother said that was another thing that being meek meant."

Milly generally spoke of the widow as her "mother," and this had sometimes caused some few jealous thoughts, for she had never given him any other title than that of "doctor."

"I think that poor widow was almost as good as a mother to you, was she not, Milly?" said the doctor, after a minute's silence.

"Yes, almost as good as you," said Milly, throwing her arms about his neck.

The doctor stroked the clustering curls from her forehead, and whispered, "Suppose, Milly, you were to hear that you had a real mother, like other little girls, such as you were talking about the other day?"

Her bright blue eyes opened with a sudden look of intelligence, or returning memory. "I had a mamma once, think," she said.

"Do you remember anything about her?" asked Dr. Mansfield.

The little girl shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I can remember a soldier carrying me to a big ship, and then going away."

"That must have been your papa, I think," said the doctor.

"My papa! How do you know that?" asked Milly.

"Because I have just heard something about it. Milly, would you be very glad to see your papa and mamma again?" asked the doctor slowly, almost sadly.

The little girl clapped her hands with delight. "O yes, yes!" she exclaimed. "I think my papa was a soldier, and my mamma a beautiful lady, that was always ill. But there were black people where we lived," she suddenly said.

The doctor had little doubt before but that this little waif the sea had cast up at his door was his cousin's long-lost daughter, and these sudden flashes of light on the all-but-forgotten past that came to Milly's mind did but confirm it. And he felt sure now that he should have to yield his place—the first place in the little girl's affection—to another.

It may seem strange to some that this should cause the doctor so much pain as it did, seeing Milly was but a child, and Dr. Mansfield a clever learned man. But it must be remembered that she was the only one in all the world that he loved, or that really loved him. She had come to him in his misery and depression, and instead of shrinking from him as all others did, she had soothed and comforted him, almost as an angel. And by her simple childish example, more than by her words, had led him to look to God for strength to do battle with his sin and sorrowful remorse.

This was the real secret of Milly's power with the doctor. She had herself learned the power of meekness from the example and teaching of Jesus, and, following in His footsteps, she had become His representative—His little messenger of mercy and love to her good friend the doctor.

She would not, could not, have been all this, had she not learned by experience, "blessed are meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

She had not learned this quickly or easily. Many a hard battle had been fought in the lowly fisherman's cottage before her proud passionate temper had been subdued; but it was conquered, and then she could and did, in her own simple childlike manner, teach the doctor what she herself had learned of the blessedness of the meek.

But she could not have taught him this lesson had she not learned it herself first—learned it by practice. For remember dear reader, we only learn and know a truth in such measure as we use and practise it in our daily life. Milly had so learned this, her favorite text. She had learned to be meek, and God had given her the promised inheritance. But for this, her stay at Dr. Mansfield's would probably have been a very short one, and she would have lost all the advantages such a home afforded her, and—what was to her far more precious than all the luxury and wealth of her adopted home—the fond and tender love of the doctor himself.

And now, God was going to add to all these blessings the restored one of parents' love. She might have been discovered if she had been sent to the workhouse at the widow's death; but the probabilities are, she would never have been heard of again.

The doctor tried to draw from Milly all that she remembered of her parents and her early home. But it was not much she could recall beyond the fact of being taken on board a large vessel, with a black woman, who nursed her, and cried over her when the soldier had left them. But this was enough to convince him of her identity. And the following day he sat down and wrote another letter to India, describing how a little girl had been saved, and what she remembered of her early years.

The thought that had suggested itself to his mind was, that he should take Milly and remove to a distant part of the country before his cousin could reach England and claim her. He tried to persuade himself that there would be no harm in this, as he was not sure it was his cousin's child, and he could not, therefore, be said to steal her, or unlawfully detain her from her parents. But Milly's simple talk of what she had been trying to do, when she feared another would claim the first place the doctor's affection, led him to abandon this plan, and, following her example, to try and be content with a lower place than he had hitherto held—content that others should share in that love that had hitherto been his own.

It was, perhaps, the hardest lesson of unselfishness he had had to learn. The others had brought with them the promised blessing—the promised inheritance in increase of happiness. But this could bring nothing but sorrow, he thought—sorrow and loneliness and desolation—for if Milly were taken from him, all that made life bright to him would be gone, so that the doctor may be excused for feeling sad and sorrowful about what gave his adopted little daughter so much joy as the anticipation of once more seeing her parents naturally did.