Part 7

Away she ran, leaving the outside door open, and the oven door shut. The express man had brought a number of parcels, some of them containing presents for Anna from friends in the city, and of course, Louisa had to stop "just a minute" to see them opened. Meantime a beggar woman with a large basket came through the side gate and into the kitchen. No one was there. Louis had deserted her post, and Mary, supposing that she was watching the cakes, was looking over the bean vines and gathering all the beans which were fit to pickle. It was the work of a moment for the woman to slip the cakes into her big basket and slip away herself. When Louisa and Mary came back, both at the same moment, the table was bare and the kitchen full of smoke.

"There now, Miss Louisa, that comes of trusting you!" said Mary, very much vexed. "I thought you promised to stay and see to my cakes?"

"I only went out just a minute," said Louisa.

"And what has become of all the other cakes?" exclaimed Mary, turning to the table.

Louisa could only say that she did not know. The cakes were safe when she went away.

"Who was that woman I saw going out just now?" asked Mrs. Winter, who had come into the kitchen.

Louisa did not know. She had not seen any woman.

"It was one of those gypsies who are camped over beyond Savin Hill, I'll be bound!" said Mary. "There is no use in running after her. I don't see but poor Miss Anna must go without her birthday cake unless we can send into town and buy some."

"You were very much to blame, Louisa," said Mrs. Winter.

"Why, mamma, I did not know that the woman was coming in."

"That makes no difference. You knew that you had promised to watch the cakes while Mary was away, and you ought to have kept your word. You have been guilty of a breach of trust!"

"But, mamma, I only meant to be gone a minute—" Louisa was beginning, when her mother checked her sharply.

"Hush, Louisa! Don't let me hear that odious excuse again. Suppose it was only for a minute. Have you any more right to do wrong for a minute than for a day? You are always saying—'only a minute,' 'just a minute,' but your minutes are very apt to lengthen into hours. It was your stopping 'just a minute' when you were sent on an important errand which almost cost the poor little baby its life, last summer. It is your stopping 'just a minute' to read or play or do something else to please yourself, which makes you late at breakfast, at school, and at church; which makes it impossible to trust you to do the least thing or to believe your most serious premises."

"Oh, mamma! I don't tell lies!" said Louisa, crying. "I am sure I never do that."

"I call breaking a promise telling a lie, Louisa. Did you not tell Mary you would stay in the kitchen till she came back?"

"Well, I meant to stay, mamma, only—" Louisa stopped.

She did not like to say again that she only went out a minute.

"Only you thought of something else you wanted to do, and so broke your promise. The consequence is that all poor Anna's birthday cake is stolen or burnt up. I shall have to leave my work, which is very inconvenient for me, to go into town and buy more; and I shall have to use for it the money I had set apart for another purpose. You can go to your own room and stay there till four o'clock. If it were not for grieving Anna still more, you should not come down again to-day; and you must not ask me for any more pocket-money till after Thanksgiving."

Louisa went to her room crying bitterly, and feeling as though she had been very hardly used.

"Why, Louisa, why are you sitting crying up here to-day, of all days in the year?" asked Aunt Wentworth, Louisa's godmother, who had come out to Anna's party, and had gone up to Louisa's room to arrange her dress and cap. "What has happened to cause so much grief?"

"Mamma sent me up here!" sobbed Louisa. "She won't let me come down till four o'clock, and she says I cannot have one bit of pocket-money till after Thanksgiving—all of three months—only just because I went to the door a minute to see what the expressman had brought for Anna."

"Are you sure that was all?" asked Aunt Wentworth, who, like all the family, had had experience of Louisa's fault. "Was there no more than that about it?"

"Well, I couldn't help it!" replied Louisa, blushing a little. "How could I know that the beggar woman would come into the kitchen and steal the cake, or that the other cakes would burn?"

"Oh!" said Aunt Wentworth. "I begin to understand. You were left in the kitchen to take care of the cake, which was stolen. Is that it?"

"Mary did not say anything about the cakes on the table," persisted Louisa, "she only told me to watch the cakes in the oven."

"Well, and what then?"

"I just went through to the front door a minute to see what the expressman had brought for Anna, and while I was gone the cakes in the oven burned up, and a woman came in and stole all the rest of them. I am sure I could not help that!"

"But, Louisa, don't you see that if you had done your duty in watching the cakes in the oven, the cakes on the table would not have been stolen?"

Louisa did not know. She only knew it was very hard to be punished just for running to the front door a minute.

"Louisa, you are very much in fault," said Aunt Wentworth, gravely. "You know that you have done wrong, and yet, instead of being sorry, you are trying to justify yourself and throw all the blame on somebody else. Now, tell me, did you not promise to watch the cakes in the oven? Answer yes or no. Don't begin 'I only.' Did you not promise?"

"Yes, I did, then," said Louisa, sullenly.

"And is it not wrong to break a promise."

"I didn't mean to break it."

"But you did break it," interrupted Aunt Wentworth; "so how can you say you did not mean to? You did not certainly go away out of the kitchen without meaning it. That is impossible. You promised to watch, and you did not watch—that is, you broke a promise. Was not that wrong? Is not breaking a promise without reason the same thing as telling a lie?"

Louisa writhed and fidgetted. "I only meant to be gone a minute. It was not as if I had gone away to stay."

"That makes no difference, Louisa. You have no more right to sin for a minute than you have to sin for an hour, or a day. Besides your minutes never are minutes. I know how it was with your music when you used to come to our house to practise. You would take up a story-book for just a minute, and half your practise hour would be gone before you had touched the piano. The fact is that you cannot wilfully do wrong for 'just a minute.' You might just as well set the house on fire and expect it to burn 'just a minute.' What would you think of a sentinel in war time who should admit the enemy into the camp to stay 'just a minute.' When you commit a wilful sin, you make yourself the servant of sin."

"I don't see any great sin in just going to the door a minute!" said Louisa.

"The sin was not in going to the door, but in breaking your promise, as you know perfectly well," said Aunt Wentworth. "I do not at all wonder that your mother is angry with you, Louisa. You not only do not try to get the better of your fault, but you justify yourself in it: and I tell you, in all seriousness, that it is a fault which will ruin your character if you do not try to break yourself of it."

"It has come to that now that nobody can trust you to do the least thing. If you are sent on an errand, there is no certainty of your being in time. If you are set about any piece of work, however necessary, you are more likely than not to neglect it and to disappoint those who depend on you. You are losing your standing in school, instead of gaining, and you are a perpetual worry and discomfort to all around you: and all because of this miserable habit of indulging yourself 'just a minute' in doing what you know to be wrong. As I said, I do not wonder that your mother is displeased, or that she punishes you. The matter is growing very serious, and I tell you, my child, unless you repent and amend in time, your life will be a miserable failure, not only in this world but in that which is to come."

Aunt Wentworth was a very old lady, and one to whom all the family looked up with great respect. She very seldom reproved the children of her nieces, for she was one who understood to perfection the difficult art of minding her own business, and she was very indulgent and kind to young people.

Louisa had been cherishing a secret hope that Aunt Wentworth would intercede with her mother, and, as she said, "beg her off." But Aunt Wentworth had no intention of doing anything of the kind. She knew how serious Louisa's fault was, and that her mother would never have treated her so severely for one single instance of forgetfulness.

For some time after the birthday party, Louisa was more careful. She found it very unpleasant to be without spending money week after week, especially as Aunt Wentworth did not fill up her purse, as sometimes happened, when she went to visit the old lady.

There was another thing which annoyed her even more, and that was the fact that nobody asked her to do anything or accepted her services when offered. She felt that she was not trusted, and this was a worse punishment even than the loss of her pocket-money. She really tried hard to overcome her faults, and she succeeded so well that by-and-by she found herself once more trusted to do errands and other services by her mother and sisters.

But just here it was that Louisa made a great mistake. She thought because she had gained a few victories over her enemy that she was safe, and might relax her guard. She left off watching and praying against her faults, and presently she began to indulge in those "just a minute" readings of story-books and magazines when she ought to have been dressing, or reading her Bible, or learning her lessons—those "just a minute" loiterings, which made her late for school, and those "just a minute" longer morning naps which left her no time to ask God's blessing upon the duties and events of the day.

This was the state of the case when Louisa went to make a little visit to her mother's cousin, Mrs. James Perceval. It was always a treat to go and visit Cousin Frances, not only because she was a very lovely woman, but because she lived in a beautiful old place in the country, only a mile from a famous bathing beach. The house was, in fact, Aunt Wentworth's country-house, but the old lady only went out there for a few weeks in summer, and Cousin Frances kept the house open and in order the rest of the year.

Cousin Frances had been very unfortunate with her children. Three or four of them had died before reaching their third year, and one had been killed by a terrible accident. She had now only two remaining—a delicate, sweet little girl of four years old, and a baby not quite two. Louisa was fond of all children and especially of Milly, and as she was always ready to play with and amuse the little one in her own fashion—to play with the dolls, give tea-parties, and "make believe," to any extent, it is no wonder that both Milly and Milly's mamma loved her dearly.

It happened one day that Captain Perceval came with a carriage to ask his wife to ride with him.

"I should like to go very much," said Cousin Frances, "but nurse has gone into town for the day, and the other servants are busy, so I have no one with whom to leave the children."

"You can take Frank with you," said her husband; "and I am sure Louisa will take care of Milly."

"Of course I will!" said Louisa. "Do go, Cousin Frances; the ride will do you so much good."

Cousin Frances still looked rather doubtful.

"I don't wonder that you are anxious about your children, my dear," said her husband; "but surely Louisa can take care of Milly for an hour. Louisa is almost a woman now, and if she cannot be trusted for so long a time as that, what will she ever be good for?"

At last Cousin Frances consented to go, but the gave Louisa many charges about Milly.

"Be sure you keep her in sight all the time, and do not let her run about the grounds. It rained hard last night and the grass is very wet."

Louisa promised, and Cousin Frances went away. For the first half hour Milly played contentedly upon the veranda with her dolls and books and her pet rabbits, while Louisa worked at the sofa cushion she was making for Aunt Wentworth's birthday. Presently Louisa found she had mislaid some of her wool.

"What have I done with those shades of gray? Oh, I know! I left them in the summer-house last night. I hope they have not got wet. Now, Milly, you stay here and play, and I will be back in a minute."

"Why can't I go?" asked Milly.

"Because it is too wet for you. Just stay here and I will be back before you can count twenty."

Milly sat down very obediently and counted twenty two or three times, and still Louisa did not come back. Then the rabbit escaped from her and ran into the grass. Picture-book in hand, Milly pursued him, and after quite a chase, in which her shoes and stockings were wet through, she succeeded in capturing him. Then finding herself in a shady place among the trees, she sat down on the ground, and began to turn over the leaves of her picture-book, the rabbit sitting contentedly in her lap.

Meantime Louisa reached the pretty little Swiss cottage called the summer-house, where she found her worsted uninjured. Unluckily she also found something else—namely, a new book of travels with beautiful wood-cuts, which had been left there the night before.

"There now!" said Louisa, in a tone of triumph. "If I had done that, what a fuss there would have been! I mean to leave it here just to see what a hunt there will be for it. I just want to look at that picture of the leaf-butterfly a minute."

In looking for the leaf-butterfly, Louisa found many other wonderful things, and she lingered, looking at picture after picture, till the ringing of the noon-bell roused her. She hastened back to the house, but Milly was nowhere to be seen. She was not in the house nor yet in the garden. Louisa had not found her when Cousin Frances drove up.

"Where is Milly?" was of course the first question, and Louisa was obliged to confess that she did not know.

She had left her safely seated on the steps while she went for some worsted, and when she came back the child was gone.

"You were away more than a minute, Miss Louisa," said the housemaid, "for I came out here twice and did not see you. I supposed you had taken Milly up-stairs."

"I went to the summer-house for my wool," said Louisa. "I did not mean to be gone more than a minute."

"But you were gone all of half an hour," said the housemaid.

"Surely it did not take all that time to find your worsted!" said Cousin Frances.

"I took up a book just a minute," said Louisa, reluctantly.

"O yes, there it is!" said Cousin Frances. "But I cannot stop to talk now. I must go and find Milly. I might have known better than to trust your word, Louisa, but I was led to think you had improved."

After a long search, Milly was found where we left her. She had been sitting on the damp grass for about an hour, with her shoes and stockings wringing wet. She told her story very artlessly of how Cousin Louisa did not come back, and she got tired of waiting, "and then the rabbit ran away, and I ran after him, and when I caught him, I was tired and sat down to rest. I did not mean to be naughty, mamma," said the little girl, with a grieved face. "Mamma did not tell Milly not to run after the rabbit."

"No, my darling," said Cousin Frances. "If I had told you, you would have minded me. Louisa, did you not promise me not to leave the child?"

For once Louisa had nothing to say for herself, and did not try, even in her own mind, to excuse her conduct.

Milly was undressed directly, but before she could be put into bed, she complained of being very cold, and was presently attacked with a severe chill and pains in her head and chest. Before night, it became plain that Milly had inflammation of the lungs, and the next day her life was despaired of.

Never was any one more wretched than Louisa. She went home the same day, for though Captain Perceval was a Christian man and tried to forgive as he would be forgiven, he could not bear the sight of one who had, as it seemed, been the cause of his child's death. Of course Louisa's father and mother had to hear the story—indeed Louisa herself told her mother all about the matter, with many bitter tears.

"I shall always feel as if I had killed little Milly!" said she. "Cousin James said my faithlessness had caused her death, and I believe it is true."

"I am afraid so!" said Mrs. Grey, sadly. "I have always feared that your besetting sin would lead to some terrible consequences. I hoped you had seen it in its true light and were trying to conquer it."

"I thought I had conquered it, mamma," said Louisa. "I thought I had got all over it!"

"And so you left off watching and praying against it, did you not?"

"Yes, mamma."

"Oh, Louisa, that was a great mistake! You ought never to leave off watching and praying against your faults, for you can never be sure you have quite conquered, especially when a bad habit has been indulged as long as yours has been."

"But what shall I do now, mamma?" sobbed Louisa. "There is no use in my trying any more, now that I have killed poor Milly. I am afraid God will never forgive me."

"You must not think so, my poor child. I hope dear Milly may be spared to our prayers, but even if she is not, you must not despair of God's forgiveness. 'Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow.'"

"But, mamma, I have been wicked so long! And I have done wrong on purpose. I have always known it was wrong to waste my time so, and to indulge myself in everything I wanted to do, excusing myself by saying that it was only for a minute. I knew all the time it was wrong to leave Milly alone so long, and yet I did it because I wanted to look at the book."

"That is what I have always told you, Louisa—that you were indulging in wilful sin. Now that you are sensible of your fault, I shall have more hopes of you than ever before. Do not distrust God's mercy, whatever you do, for that in itself is a great sin, but humbly ask His forgiveness for Jesus Christ's sake. Ask that your sins may be washed away in His blood, and that you may have the help of the Holy Spirit to keep you from sinning again!"

"Do you think He really will hear me, mamma?"

"My dear, I have no more doubt of it than I have that I am alive," said her mother.

"But even if He does, that will not bring poor Milly to life again!" said Louisa, despairingly.

"Milly is not dead yet, my dear, and it may be that God will spare her in answer to our prayers. But even if He does not see fit to do so, it is no less your duty to ask His forgiveness and to trust in His mercy for the future. You must not throw away the rest of your life, because you have failed so far."

"Good news, good news, mamma! Good news, Louisa!" cried Anna, coming in a few days after, with a beaming face. "Cousin James has just been at the office to say that Milly is out of danger. The doctor says she will get well. And oh, Louis, Milly begs to see you all the time, and Cousin James wants you to comp out to L— this afternoon. He will meet you at the station."

Louisa looked at her mother, and then rising, she went into her own room and shut the door. She did not come out for an hour, and when she did, her eyes were red with crying, but her face was calm and happy.

"Oh, mamma!" she whispered, as she was going away, "I have always heard that God was good, but I never really felt it before!"

"We will say nothing about the past, Louisa," said Cousin James that night, as Louisa, with trembling words, began to speak of the cause of Milly's illness. "Let by-gones be by-gones; but let what has happened be a lesson to you all your life. God has kindly spared us our little darling, and saved you especially from a great sorrow. Show by your actions that you are sensible of His goodness."

"Indeed, Cousin James, I hope I shall do so," said Louisa, with tears. "I said this morning that if Milly only lived, I would try never even for a moment to do what I knew to be wrong."

"That is an excellent resolution, Louisa. But you must remember that you can never keep it in your own strength. You must constantly pray for the help of the Holy Spirit, and you must constantly and faithfully watch against the first beginning of temptation. You will no doubt find the bad habit all the harder to break off because you have indulged it so long; but you have every encouragement to persevere, and if you do so, I have no doubt you will, in time, become a useful Christian woman."

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