CHAPTER V.

EVERYBODY knows that holidays at schools are not usually very interesting or lively affairs. Mrs. Pomeroy had always been accustomed to do a good deal to make them pass pleasantly to those who stayed, and when some dozen girls remained together, they often found the time fly quite quickly enough.

It happened this year that nearly all the girls went home, and Emily was left with no companions but Alice Parker and Janet Graves, who had already graduated, and was staying at the seminary another year, in order to perfect herself in music and painting. Passionately fond of both pursuits, and rejoicing in the fact of having the best light in the painting room, and the best piano in the house all to herself, Janet kept herself busy from morning till night, and Emily scarcely saw her except at meals. And Alice was at no time a very enlivening companion.

Thus Emily was thrown very much upon her own resources. She had no lessons, except that she read a little with Mr. Fletcher. She had plenty of books to be sure, but she could not read all the time; she hated the very idea of fancy work, and plain sewing did not furnish sufficient employment for her thoughts to keep them from dwelling upon all sorts of disagreeable things. Indeed, she was in a manner obliged to think, whether she would or no.

None of the teachers remained at the seminary except Mr. Fletcher, who never went away, except to take a long journey on foot or on horseback, during the summer vacation. Mr. Fletcher had been with Mrs. Pomeroy a great many years, and had taught mathematics to a dozen generations of girls, yet he never seemed to grow any older, nor could any one remember that he had ever looked younger. He was small and slight of stature, with very black hair and whiskers, with eyes which were grey when he was quiet, black when he was excited, and the color of burning coals when he was angry, an event which did not occur very often, for he was unusually even-tempered. His manners were remarkably kind and gentle, and his voice, though deep, was the softest in the world. Yet no one in the establishment, not even Mrs. Pomeroy herself, was regarded with so much respect, and even awe. Though he often jested with the girls and was particularly fond of playing with children, there was that about him which effectually repressed anything like taking a liberty. Bold indeed was the rebel who dared confront him, and the boldest never tried the experiment a second time.

Mr. Fletcher taught the Bible classes, which all the boarders were obliged to join, so that the whole family of girls came more or less under his influence. He was eminently calculated for the post of religious instructor to the young, not only because his own piety was so deep and fervent, but also because he never employed a false or weak argument to support a just cause—an example which all religious teachers of the young would do well to follow. His knowledge, especially of the manners and customs of Biblical nations, was something wonderful. He had himself travelled in Palestine, in Egypt, and in Assyria, and it was a common remark, that in narrating events and transactions recorded in Sacred History, he spoke almost as if he himself had been an eye witness of the scenes he described, so vivid were the pictures he presented to the minds of his auditors.

Emily had entered one of Mr. Fletcher's classes immediately on her arrival in the school, and for a time had shown much interest in her lessons, taking great pains in preparing them, and often going to Mr. Fletcher during the week for the answer to a difficult question. As we have before remarked, she had been carefully brought up in this respect, and her religious feelings, if not her principles, were very strong, so that she found great pleasure in listening to Mr. Fletcher's earnest and practical lessons; and he had begun to think her one of his most hopeful scholars, when Delia Mason arrived.

It was not long before the influence Delia gained over her room-mate showed itself very perceptibly. She ceased to ask instructions out of the class, lost her interest in her lessons, and contented herself with spending only as much time upon them as would save her from downright disgrace in the class. Mr. Fletcher was not slow in perceiving the change, or in attributing it to the right cause. He soon saw through Delia, and made up his mind as to her true character, but he was habitually reserved and cautious in his speech, and never expressed an opinion of a scholar, unless he was particularly requested to do so by Mrs. Pomeroy herself. So he said nothing, but contented himself with watching the course of events, hoping that a time might come when he should be able to interfere to advantage.

On the Sunday afternoon after Christmas, Emily was in the sitting room, rather listlessly turning over the book she had taken from the library. Mrs. Pomeroy was with Kitty, who, though better, was not yet able to leave her room. Alice Parker had gone to bed with a head-ache, and Janet, wrapped in furs, was walking up and down the long path in the garden, enjoying the fine mild air and the lovely prospect, sometimes reading in the Bible she carried, sometimes looking above and around her.

The house was so still that the ticking of the old clock in the hall below was distinctly heard. Even the animals seemed to feel the quiet influence of the hour, and Grip, Mr. Fletcher's dog,—short for Cornelius Agrippa,—and Posey, Mrs. Pomeroy's cat, intermitted their usual feud, and lay quietly sleeping together on one side of the grate, while Grip's master occupied the other, seated in a luxurious chair, and apparently absorbed in the contents of a great old-fashioned volume with brass clasps and corners, which, from its size and venerable appearance, might have passed for a book of magic, if such things were supposed to exist now-a-days.

Emily turned over her book and tried to read, and then looked out of the window at Janet studying her Bible, and wondered how she could be interested in a book that she must know by heart, and a prospect that she had seen almost every day for two years. Then she thought of Delia, and wondered whether she were enjoying her holidays, and how she got on with her step-mother; and then she remembered her dead aunt, and the thought came into her mind how she was passing these same holidays.

Last Christmas she had been in her own house, dispensing quiet hospitalities to her neighbors, especially the poorer ones among them, happy herself in her silent and subdued way, and making all happy about her, with every prospect of a long continuance in the same sphere. Now she was in heaven—Emily could not doubt that, remembering Mrs. Arlington's consistent Christian life and humble trust in her Redeemer—enjoying the society of angels and of friends gone before, and rejoicing in the visible presence of her God and Saviour.

The time had been when Emily would have delighted in following out the train of thought, or rather of reverie, and in picturing to herself the condition of the blessed in that glorious invisible world. Now she turned hastily from these ideas, perhaps because they suggested too vividly to her mind the contrast between her own spiritual condition a year ago, and the state in which she now found herself. With a deep sigh she turned again to her book, and as she did so, she became aware that Mr. Fletcher was observing her.

[Illustration: Emily turned over her book.]

"You do not seem very much interested in your book," he remarked kindly. "Perhaps you would like to return it, and try something else."

"I don't care about it," she replied, pettishly enough. "The Sunday books are all stupid alike, I think. Perhaps the limit is in me," she added, rather frightened after she had spoken, as she remembered hearing that Mr. Fletcher had selected most of the books himself.

"Possibly," returned Mr. Fletcher, a little drily.

"Perhaps if I could read your book, I might be interested in that," continued Emily. "You seem to find it so very entertaining."

"You can look at it if you please," said Mr. Fletcher, spreading it on the table, which it pretty nearly covered. "Can you read black letter?"

"A little," replied Emily.

He turned to the curiously illuminated title page, with its quaint illuminated border of angels, and palm trees, and Scripture characters, all very much mixed up with each other, and Emily saw with surprise that the book was neither more nor less than a Bible!

"What a curious Bible," said she. "It must be very old."

"It is one of the oldest specimens of the printed English Scriptures," replied Mr. Fletcher, pointing to the date, which showed that the volume was printed in the reign of King Edward the Sixth. "I suppose this may have been a church Bible, in the days when the parish was obliged to have a copy of the sacred Scriptures chained to the church desk, to be read to the people at proper times. We can imagine the bluff country gentleman, and the gentle dames, with their maids and children, and a few of the common people, gathered round to hear the reading of the Holy Word, of which most of them had hitherto known only by report, and by the brief snatches read in the church service. Perhaps some of the martyrs who suffered for the truth in the next unhappy reign, may have gathered strength and patience from these very pages."

"How interesting it must have been to them," said Emily, roused from her listlessness, and turning over the pages with a feeling almost of reverence for a book which had outlived so many changes. "It seems strange to think of thus hearing, for the first time, of Joseph and his brothers, and Moses in the ark of bulrushes, and all those stories that one has known ever since one can remember."

"And the baby in the manger at Bethlehem, and the appearance of the angels to the shepherd, and all the wonderful history," continued Mr. Fletcher. "Some unhappy sinner straying in, and shrinking into a corner away from the noble and virtuous dames who sat near the chancel, may have first wept and then repented at hearing of her who anointed Jesus's feet, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and those very ladies may have felt more inclined to stretch out a helping hand to their erring fellow creature, as they listened to his declaration. 'Her sins, which are many, are forgiven for she loved much.'

"Or some old father and mother, whose gallant and goodly son, who should have been the stay of their declining years, had gone down in the Mary Rose, King Henry's great ship which was sunk at Plymouth with hundreds of sailors and gentlemen of England's best blood on board,—such a father and mother may have listened with tears which were not wholly sorrowful to that story of the grave at Bethany which was a cave, and of which Jesus said, 'Take ye away the stone.'"

"It must seem strange to read the Bible for the first time," said Emily, after a pause. She stopped again, and added rather timidly, "I don't see how it is Mr. Fletcher, that you who are such a scholar, and have studied so much, can take such pleasure in reading the Bible. I should think you must have learned it all by heart long ago."

"I suppose, Emily," said Mr. Fletcher, "that the very wisest man living could not read the Bible in the right spirit, without learning something from its pages. The most accomplished scholar I ever met,—a man who knew more languages than I can tell you, and who had read more deeply in the great book of nature than falls to the lot of most men—was never weary of studying the Holy Scriptures. It is a mine which can never be exhausted—a spring which will never run dry."

Emily sighed. "I used to like to read it when I lived at home," said she, "but it is different here."

"Why," asked her companion.

"I don't know exactly. I suppose it is because I have so much to do, and my head is so taken up with other studies."

"But for the first three or four weeks of school, you seemed very much interested in your Bible lessons," remarked Mr. Fletcher. "I think you found much more difficulty then than now in keeping up with your other classes; yet you always found time to study your Bible lesson during the week, and you often came to me with questions which I was very happy to answer. What is it that makes the difference?"

Emily was silent. She did not know exactly what to say.

"Is it not that you have allowed your head to be taken up with other things than your lessons—things which burden your conscience more than your mind?" continued Mr. Fletcher gravely but kindly. "Is it not that you have left off some things without which no reading of God's word is of much avail? I think when you first came here, you would hardly have been willing to spend the time of morning prayer in reading a story book, even if you had been quite certain of not being found out."

Emily's eye fell, and her color rose under the penetrating look which was fixed upon her. She well knew to what he alluded, and that it was not the only time she had sinned in the same way.

"I do not wish to press into your confidence, my child," continued Mr. Fletcher kindly, "but I feel a deep interest in you, as in all my scholars, and I very much fear that you are not walking in the way of wisdom which is the path of peace. Tell me, are you as happy now, as when you were more attentive to your religious duties?"

"I am not as happy as I was before I came to school," said Emily with bitterness, "and I wish with all my heart, that I had never been sent here."

"Yet you liked it very much at first!"

"I did not know much about it," returned Emily. "It was all new; and beside, things were different them."

"I admit that," said Mr. Fletcher. "There was a very different spirit in the school at that time from the one that prevails now. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

He seemed speaking more to himself than to her, and she dared not ask him what he meant.

"But however that may be," he continued, "it makes no difference to you. If you are living in habitual neglect of your religious duties—God not being in all your thoughts—you cannot be good or happy any where—no, not if you were in heaven itself, and the sooner you return to the right path, the better it will be to you, and the more easily you will find it. Be warned in time, my child! You may wander so far from that plain and narrow way, as never to find it again."

"Oh, if I dared tell him every thing!" thought Emily.

She looked up as this thought crossed her mind, and saw the Professor's dark eyes fastened upon her, as though he would read her very soul. She waited almost in terror for his next word, but he only repeated,—

"Be warned in time!" and returned to his reading.

If he had any idea of the true state of the case, he had evidently no idea of forcing her to the confession which she was almost ready to make of her own accord. Happy had it been for her if she had done so! But as she was deliberating, came Shame, and cowardly Fear, picturing to her mind the disgrace, the loss of her high position in school, the displeasure of her father and Mrs. Pomeroy's anger. She listened to the tempter, and locked her guilty secret in her heart again.

After a little silence she said—

"If I wanted to be like what I was before, I should not know how."

"Return to God and He will return to you," said Mr. Fletcher, briefly.

"That is just the very point," said Emily, impatiently. "I don't know how to go to work to return."

"The only way of going to God is in prayer," said Mr. Fletcher. "You know that as well as I do. If you have left off prayer, you must begin it again, and if you are indulging in sin, you must forsake it."

"I never feel like praying now," said Emily. "It was different when I was at home. Everything was so quiet and peaceful there."

"Pray whether you feel like it or not," was the answer. "Your feelings are not of so very much consequence. Act rightly, and you will soon feel rightly. The best, and indeed the only way to bring one's mind and heart to a proper state, is to perform one's known duty."

This was new and not very acceptable doctrine to Emily, who had, been taught by her aunt's precepts, and perhaps a little by her example, to attach altogether too much importance to states of feeling and mental impressions. She would gladly have gone on talking about herself for an hour longer, but Mr. Fletcher gave her no encouragement to do so. He had returned to his book, and when Emily complained that her prayers now never seemed to have any wings, he only answered rather sternly, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."

Janet came in at this moment with her hands full of bright-colored rose berries and cedar leaves, which she had arranged into a bouquet for Kitty, and Emily slipped out and escaped to her own room. Her conscience troubled her more than ever, and again and again she wished she had had the courage to open her mind to Mr. Fletcher, whom she could not help suspecting of knowing already more of her affairs than he chose to tell. "If I had not been so foolish at first," she said to herself, "if I had kept on reading my Bible and praying, as I knew I ought to do, I should never have been drawn into the matter, and I don't believe but that Delia would have had more real regard for me. I believe she loves me well enough now, and she was certainly very kind in helping me about those bills; but I don't think she respects me as she does Lucy and Janet, or even Annette. I heard her say once, 'You all laugh at Annette, and yet she has more sense about some things than any of you. You will never see her laughed into doing anything wrong.'

"Those miserable bills! They were the beginning of all the trouble—no, the first trouble was in being afraid to say my prayers, for fear Delia would laugh at me. And now, here is this affair of hers with Mr. Hugo, and no one knows how it will end, and I dare not say a word for fear of her telling Mrs. Pomeroy of me. I am thankful for one thing—that she does not know anything about the money I found; if she did, I should be her slave in good earnest. But, oh dear, if I only knew what to do!"

Emily burst into tears and cried a long time. That night she read her Bible carefully, and tried to pray; but as she said, her prayers had no wings, and left her feeling more wretched and heavy laden than before, while the sentence with which Mr. Fletcher had concluded their conversation seemed to ring in her ears, and to be repeated again and again, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."

She knew the right way. She knew that she should find neither rest nor peace till she had confessed her sin, not only to God, but also to the fellow creature she had wronged, and made all the reparation in her power. But whenever she thought of this, the vivid image of the dreaded consequences of her faults rose up before her, and she dared not proceed.

Still she persevered in her devotions, though she found little or no benefit from them, unless might be the constantly increasing conviction that she could never be happy with such a load of concealed guilt upon her conscience.

It happened, that a day or two after the conversation we have recorded, she was invited by one of the day scholars to spend some time with her. Mrs. Pomeroy saw no objection to her accepting the invitation, and Emily was only too happy to snatch at anything which promised her some little diversion. Abby Carson was a lively, merry girl, of about her own age, and she expected a good deal of pleasure from her society. The day passed very pleasantly in various employments and diversions; but when the hours began to draw toward bed-time, a struggle arose in Emily's heart. She knew that she was to sleep with Abby—should she put her resolution to the test by kneeling down and saying her prayers, or should she act as she had done before in Delia's case? She knew what she ought to do well enough, but what she should do was another question.

Abby's frankness, however, removed her difficulties. She was delaying and fidgeting about undressing, when her companion said—

"If you want to read and say your prayers, Emily, don't let me hinder you. There is a Bible on the table."

"Thank you," said Emily, relieved, and blushing for herself. "Here I will do just as if I were in my own room."

She sat down and found her place as she spoke, and, at Abby's request, read her chapter aloud. She could not help feeling a little self-righteous, as she observed that Abby lay down without even the semblance of a prayer. "After all," she thought, "I am not the worst person in the world."

"Don't you say your prayers, Abby?" she asked, after they were both in bed and the light was put out.

"Not very often," replied Abby. "I used to say them when I slept in the nursery, but since I have had a room to myself, I have got out of the habit of it; and besides, to tell you the truth, I do so many wrong things, every day, I am ashamed to say them."

"That is not the way to be any better," said Emily. "It is only adding sin to sin."

"I know it, and I wish with all my heart that I were a Christian, but I am not, and there is the end of it. I mean to be different some day."

"Some day may never come," said Emily.

"Well, I know that too. I think about these things, Emily, though I am so wild and careless sometimes. But I am going to turn over a new leaf after holidays, and you will see how much better I shall be. There will be some comfort in saying my prayers, when I am not in a scrape every day of my life."

"Mr. Fletcher would say that was like curing one's self and then sending for the doctor," observed Emily. "How do you expect to get strength to do so much better if you do not pray for it?"

"I don't know!" said Abby, sighing. "I only know that I hav'nt got it now. But, Emily, I should not think that your ways and Delia's would suit very well. She seems to be anything but a religious character."

"Delia is not so much worse than any body else," said Emily. "I know she is not what she ought to be about such things, but she has a great deal of sense and feeling, and I cannot help thinking that she will come round after a while. One thing is, that her step-mother professes to be very pious, and Delia dislikes her so much, that I think it sets her against the whole subject."

"I wonder at that, too," said Abby. "Mother has known Mrs. Mason from a child, and she thinks all the world of her. I was telling her one day, what Delia said about her step-mother, and she said if Delia had any trouble, it must be all her own fault, for there was never a better temper, or better principles than hers."

"Delia thinks it is all artfulness and hypocrisy in her," observed Emily, "but I don't believe any one else would have suited her any better. She was angry at having a step-mother at all, just as I should be. I believe I should hate the best woman that ever lived, if she was my father's second wife."

"Then I think you would do very wrong," said Abby with spirit; "I don't believe any girl ever loved her mother better than I did mine, and she had only been dead a year and a half, when my father married again. But as soon as I heard of it, I made up my mind to make the very best of her, however she might turn out, and to do every thing in my power to make her comfortable in the house. So the day she was coming, I put her room in the neatest order I could, and arranged flowers in the vases, although I could not help crying every now and then, when I thought how my dear mother had used these very things. It did seem hard thus to have a stranger come into her place so soon, but as I said, I had determined to make the very best of it, and the minute she came into the house, though it seemed as though I should choke, I went and kissed her, and called her mother."

"What did she say?" asked Emily, much interested.

"She did not say much, only kissed me and called me her dear child, but I heard her tell father afterwards that she felt as though a thousand pounds was lifted off her mind when I called her mother. So, you see, I had my reward that time. If one has a difficult thing before one, it is so much easier to do it the very minute one has a chance, than it is if one puts it off, and then while you are delaying very likely something happens which makes it almost impossible for you to do it at all."

Emily thought of the money, and gave an unqualified assent. "But how have you got on since?" she asked.

"Oh, nicely!" replied Abby. "She takes such good care of the children, and makes father so happy, that I could not help liking her, though we do not agree about some things exactly. But then I know, of course, it is my place to give way, and as it takes two to make a dispute, we never have any. She is really very kind to me, too, so that it is no great matter if she is a little fussy sometimes. But if I had begun by quarreling, or even by crying and fretting, I dare say I should have ended by disliking her as much as Delia does Mrs. Mason."

"You don't do Delia justice, Abby. It is harder for her than it would be for many people, she has such strong feelings."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" said Abby, not very elegantly. "What is the use of strong feelings, or deep feelings, if they don't make people act rightly? If feeling was all, I could be as good a Christian as any body, but it is when it comes to action that I find the trouble. I am no believer in that sort of Christianity. However, as far as Delia is concerned, I don't mean to judge her. She may be quite different from what I have thought her—indeed, I think she must be, or you and she would not agree so well."

Emily sighed and blushed, as she remembered how little opportunity she had given Delia of commenting upon her religion, either in principle or in practice. She was somewhat uplifted in her own esteem, however, by what had passed that evening, forgetting how near she had come to yielding, and that she had been saved from it more by Abby's frankness than by any courage of her own; and she resolved that on the very first evening of Delia's return, she would show her that she did not fear her ridicule, when the cause of religion was concerned.

She spent several days very pleasantly at Mrs. Carson's, becoming more and more attached to Abby, as she saw how much she did to render home happy. With a great many excellent and lovable qualities, and a sincere desire to do her duty, Mrs. Carson was, as Abby said, a little fussy, and she sometimes interfered unnecessarily in Abby's plans and projects, in a way which would have been very vexatious to most girls of her age, but Abby took every thing pleasantly, contriving to avoid collisions, and giving up when it was irresistible with a perfect good grace.

"She is better than I am," thought Emily upon one of these occasions, "though she does not make any pretensions to piety, but I am resolved that I will turn over a new leaf. Delia shall see that I am determined to do right in the future, whatever I may have done in the past. I have been very wicked, I know, but I hope I have repented, and, as to making restitution, that is just impossible, and no one is called upon to do what is impossible."

So did Emily reason, and so did she resolve. What her reasonings and resolutions amounted to, we shall perhaps see in future.