CHAPTER IV.

NEW FRIENDS.

Oh, world unknown! How charming is thy view, Thy pleasures many, and each pleasure new. Oh, world experienced! What of thee is told? How few thy pleasures, and these few how old!

"AN invitation, Nora," said her aunt, soon after the Christmas holidays had come to a close, "and for you."

"For me, aunt! Oh, who is it from? And may I accept it?"

Her aunt smiled. "One question at a time, dear. The invitation is from Mrs. Forbes, asking you and Eric to spend to-morrow at Craiglora, to meet Clara Ross and her brother from Edinburgh, who, it seems, have been spending the holidays with the Forbeses. I believe Clara is just about a year or so older than you, and Alick nearly as old as Ronald. You know, dear, they are related to you by your father's side."

"And may we go?" repeated the child.

Her aunt hesitated, but replied slowly—

"Yes, I suppose so, dear; that is, if your uncle can conveniently send you to-morrow; you know Craiglora is nearly ten miles off."

But Nora's shout of delight drowned any more words.

"Oh, how delightful! A day at the Forbeses, and two new companions! Eric, Eric! do you hear?"

"Yes," he said, bounding, as he spoke, to his aunts side; "it's splendid. I only wonder what sort of a fellow Alick is. Come off, Nora; let's run and tell Minnie."

The children ran off; and Mrs. Macleod stood a few moments lost in thought. The children had mingled so little with companions, and now she felt she would have liked to know a little more about those strange cousins: for she felt that the becoming acquainted with them involved more than Nora knew; for already it had been mooted by the Rosses that, if the cousins liked each other, Nora should be asked to spend some months in Edinburgh with Clara.

"O uncle, how lovely everything looks to-day!" said Nora, as she, accompanied by Eric, sat in the dog-cart beside Mr. Macleod, on their way to Craiglora.

And, indeed, it was a lovely scene which met their eyes as they drove along; fields, woods, and mountains wearing a slight robe of pure white snow, which sparkled under the rays of the winter sun.

"Why, uncle," said Eric, "a few more days of frost and we shall have skating; shall we not? Only fancy how Ronald will envy us when he hears of it."

"The frost will need to be much stronger than this, Eric, ere the loch bears; so, remember, no venturing on the ice to-day on any account.—But see, Nora, yonder is Craiglora in the distance. I will just drive you to the door, then go on to Castle Bellmore, where I am to spend the day, and call for you on my way home. I hope you youngsters will have a pleasant visit."

As they approached the door, Nora became both excited and shy; she had mixed so little with other girls, that pain was mingled with her pleasure. She expected to see her cousin a child like herself, only, perhaps, a little taller; so she, as well as her uncle, was much annoyed when Mrs. Forbes met them at the door, accompanied by a tall, over-dressed, languishing young lady, as Nora thought, whom she introduced to them as Clara Ross. Nora shrank back abashed. Was this the girl with whom she had come to play, as she had thought?

Mr. Macleod was the first to break the silence.

"Why, Miss Clara, how you have grown since I saw you last! My little puss here will be altogether alarmed at your grown-up appearance."

Clara smiled. "Oh, we'll get on nicely, Mr. Macleod," she said in an affected way; "though I hardly thought that Cousin Nora would be such a little girl."

In the meantime, Eric and Alick had introduced themselves, and set off to visit the stables.

Clara Ross was dressed in the height of the then prevailing fashion, and the number of flounces on her dress struck Nora with surprise, and, for the moment, made her ashamed of her own neat though plain plaid frock. The girls soon became friends, Clara chatting away about Edinburgh and all its attractions.

"Do you go to many parties?" she questioned Nora.

The child smiled.

"Parties, Clara? How could we? There are so few people live here, and the distance from one house to another is too great for any but grown-up people to go in the evening. Oh, no, we never go to what you call parties. But we don't miss them a bit. We have plenty of fun at home, and we play all sorts of games; and sometimes in the evening, aunt plays and sings to us; and in summer, we have out-of-door games, and picnics, and drives. Oh, I assure you, we are never dull, never."

Clara shrugged her shoulders. "Ah well, you see, you know no other kind of life; but as for me, I would die, if I lived here. Why, Laura and Jane, my elder sisters, say life here is not life at all, only vegetation. The poor people can have no ideas, nothing to take them out of themselves."

"Vegetation!" repeated Nora. "Why, Clara, I'm sure you don't know what you are talking about. If you visited in the cottages, you would see how clever and thoughtful the people are; fond of their country, I grant you, as who would not be?" said the girl with the enthusiasm of a young Highlander. "And fond of their Bibles, too. But they have plenty of interests that carry their thoughts to other places and other lands, as well as their own. I know aunt would tell you so. Why, there's hardly a family in the village near us but some of them are abroad, or, at all events, away in town—some in Perth, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, London, and in America as well. Oh! Life here is not vegetation, I assure you;" and Nora's shyness vanished as she stood up for her people and her country.

"Indeed, Nora, you are right," said Mrs. Forbes, who, unknown to the girls, had entered and heard their conversation. "It is only foolish people who talk that way. Believe me, Clara, that life lived truly in such a place as this, is as full, as noble, as great as that lived elsewhere. Nay, I question if those who speak of such lives as vegetation know anything at all of what real life is, or value it as God's great gift. True, many of our people have not many books; but the few they have are well read and thoroughly understood. And though they know nothing of life as spent in towns, that does not prove that their minds are narrow. The truly narrow minds, Clara, are those which have no resources within themselves which can enable them to spend time profitably and pleasantly, without the constant excitement of society.—But there, now, we must not waste all the day in talking; suppose you join the boys in their game of battledoor and shuttlecock in the library?"

Clara tossed her head a little at the proposal, muttering something about childish; but seeing Nora's delight at the idea, she yielded, and soon the house resounded with the laughter of young voices, in which Clara's was loudest. With none of her foolish companions to laugh at her, the girl was good-natured and childlike; but long ere they parted, Nora got a vivid account of town pleasures, parties, and dress, which certainly gave her a great longing for a peep at them all; and when she told Clara about her beautiful diadem, her companion's interest was much excited.

"A diadem, Nora! How lovely! They are quite the fashion just now. You must come to visit us soon, and learn town ways and manners; and then in a few years, when you are come out, you will wear the diadem at parties. How I wish I had one! Do you know, when I look at you I see you have a head and brow just suited for a crown."

What had she said that brought a cloud across the girl's face? A very momentary one, no doubt, for it soon passed. Yet long after, when Nora was outwardly engaged at a game with her cousins and Eric, she seemed to feel the touch of a hand on her head and brow, and to hear the old nurse's voice as she said:

"I was wonderin', my lambie, what kind o' a crown is to sit on your bonnie brow. Is it to be the crown o' a vain world's folly, or the everlasting ane your mother prayed might rest there? Ye canna hae baith, I'm thinkin', missie."

Why not? She was asking herself, when Eric spoke impatiently:—

"Nora, it is your turn now. What are you dreaming about? I declare you just looked like Ronald in a dreamy fit just now."

Nora started. "All right; I forgot it was my turn."

And then the game went on.

The girls became great friends. Clara was much attracted by her bright young cousin, and determined to ask her parents, on her return home, to invite her to come and live with them for a while. There was much that was amiable and lovable in Clara's nature; but the crust which a worldly upbringing causes to grow over the heart and affections was beginning to grow on hers. An ardent nature, which in her early days sought eagerly for love, for love's own sweet sake, was now seeking rather for admiration, with its deadening influences. No one had spoken to her of that which is "better than gold, and above rubies."

The drive home in the evening light was a quiet one. Even Eric's spirits were subdued by the day's frolic, and Nora was more than usually thoughtful. Clara's words, unwilling as she was to allow it, had done their work: the visions of a town life, and plenty of companions and amusements, were strangely blended in her young mind with thoughts of sparkling rubies and an unfading crown.

At last she broke the silence by the question—

"Uncle, do you and aunt never mean to go to Edinburgh for the winter, even after Minnie and Charlie are old enough for school?"

Mr. Macintosh smiled. "'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,' Nora," he said; "and an evil indeed it would seem to me, to be obliged to live even a few months of each year in any town. But as yet we need hardly think on the subject, so far as Minnie and Charlie are concerned; and no doubt, if it be found advisable for us to go when they are old enough, the way will be made plain, and duty must come before pleasure. Would you like to live in Edinburgh, Nora?"

The child flushed up. "No," and "yes, uncle. I would be sorry, of course, to leave Benvourd; but I do think it would be pleasant to live in a town for a while."

"That it would," chimed in Eric. "Alick says they have splendid fun in their house, and parties every week."

Their uncle gave a low whistle. "Ha, ha!" he said. "Is this the effect of the day's pleasure?" Then he added more gravely—"Do you think, children, that your cousins have a happier home than you have?"

Nora's impulsive throw of her arms round his neck at that speech was rather embarrassing, as he was the driver. And her indignant declaration of "No, no! They could not have a happier home than we have!" All but started the horse with its vehemence.

Whilst Eric, too, said indignantly, "That wasn't what we meant; only—"

But what was to follow the "only" was not disclosed; for at that moment, they stopped at the door of their home, and both children ran off eagerly to rehearse to their aunt the story of the day.

That visit, as Mrs. Macleod had anticipated, resulted in an invitation for both children to spend the winter in Edinburgh with their cousins the Rosses, and have the advantage of schools there.

"I have been fearing this," said Mrs. Macleod, as she handed the letter to her husband. "How shall we answer it? There are advantages, we must own; and yet, without being uncharitable, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the Rosses bring up their children only for this world, and God is shut out from their house."

Mr. Macleod laid his hand gently on his wife's shoulder. "Mary," he said, "the Lord can find his own way into homes from which he is apparently shut out. We must not decide this matter hastily, nor without asking counsel of him. If we could always keep those children guarded from evil, gladly would I do so; but I question if already a spirit of discontent has not arisen in the hearts of both of them, as regards the quiet life we lead here. If we let them go, it may be God's way of showing them in what real happiness consists. Remember, as their father's nearest relations, the Rosses have a right to have them visit them for a while. But we must take time to consider such a proposal."

Three days after that morning, the children were told of the invitation, and of the arrangement that their uncle and aunt had made regarding it.

Eric was to go first, starting almost immediately, and remaining till the end of the school season. Then next year, when Nora was a little older, she should go, God willing, for some months also.

Few words were spoken by either of the children as this announcement was made; though, boylike, Eric was delighted to go, and Nora, for the while disappointed that her turn would be so long deferred. Still, we must own that her loving heart shrank from the thought of leaving those she loved so dearly. There were tears in her eyes on the morning that Eric set off from the home-nest, leaving her the only one of the orphans remaining there; but she only threw herself into Mrs. Macleod's arms, and said quietly—"Oh, I am so glad that I have you and uncle to love me still!"

Many anxious thoughts followed Eric as he left his home. There was no evidence that any thoughts of heavenly things were in his heart; and yet, though his friends failed to realize it, the seed sown was not in vain. The day-by-day power of a good example, the blessed influence of a Christian home, are never wholly without effect; though it was no hand in that happy home that was commissioned from on high to lead Eric to seek what is better than gold.