CHAPTER VIII.

_HARD THINGS._

TO go out was exactly what Pollie longed for, but to be sent off, and not to be wanted, was a different thing.

She put on her hat and hurried out of the house, dashing down the hill at hot speed, nor even stopped until she stood breathless outside her dear Miss Loveday's gate, where, bending over her flowers, her teacher stood all unconscious of her presence.

When she looked up, she saw something was wrong.

"Oh, Miss Loveday, may I come in?" pleaded Pollie.

Miss Loveday led the way into the back garden, and in a shady corner, where they were quite alone, Pollie poured out her tale of woe, of how angry she had been and was, of how hard her mother had seemed, and now that her mother was sick and did not want her to nurse her.

Miss Loveday listened very patiently and gently till it was all out. "Poor little girlie, Jesus is sorry for you," was almost all she said.

Pollie was very hard still, her grievances stood out large and bitter, and she thought she was quite right to be angry.

And then Miss Loveday drew her to her side, and smoothing the wind-blown hair with her hand she said softly—

"Pollie dear, the hardest thing to bear in life is getting ever so little away from Jesus. Sometimes it is a very small thing that comes between us and Him, and then it grows very quickly into a big thing! Let us go back to Him, and ask Him to forgive us and make us good."

Pollie hung her head.

"You don't have hard things, Miss Loveday, I expect," she murmured.

"Do I not, dearie? Did you think that the girl who belongs to the Lord Jesus, called Pollie Brown, is the only girl who has hard things to bear?"

"I don't see that anyone else can be so tiresome as I am, nor need so much scolding, nor have mother so cross!"

"Those are your trials just now, Pollie, but I have had hard things too—if you only knew."

Pollie did not know enough of the world to understand that each heart knows its own bitterness. That trials which seem trifles to one looking on may be heavy burdens to the weak strength which has to bear them.

But Miss Loveday understood, and that was why she could give out such true sympathy.

"Dear Miss Loveday—but you do not have anyone telling you to do what you do not like, do you?"

"I have even had that, in a harder way than you can understand. Would it help you to tell you, Pollie?"

"Please, dear Miss Loveday," she answered, still dwelling on her own grievance, and thinking nobody else's could be as great.

"Pollie, did you ever hear of any one having some one she loved more than all the world, taken away without a moment's warning, and told never, never to come back?"

Pollie looked up questioningly, but when her eyes met Miss Loveday's, she buried her head in her lap.

"And then I found out that I had loved him more than Jesus! Some of us love ourselves more than Jesus, and some of us—"

"I'll go home now and tell mother I'm sorry," whispered Pollie. "Oh, Miss Loveday, I wish I could comfort you!"

"You have, dearie. Let us both take heart. He is such a precious Saviour!"

Pollie knew her time must be nearly gone. Pressing a passionate kiss on her teacher's hand, she hurried homewards, the mill standing out dark and gaunt against the sunset sky. She had promised Miss Loveday to beg her mother's pardon for her temper at dinner, but though her heart was softened by the remembrance of a grief which was infinitely greater than her own, yet a hard task was in front of her. And the nearer she got to home, and the steeper the hill got, the harder became the struggle to confess herself in the wrong.

From intending to do it the moment she got in, she began to find reasons why it would not be a suitable time; and then came reasons for putting it off till to-morrow or next week, until the thought presented itself that really after all there was very little reason to do it at all, only she had promised Miss Loveday.

At length, she got to the mill door, and by this time she was too out of breath to say anything.

James was sitting at the tea-table, and looked round as she entered.

"Father's up with mother, and you are to put those clothes to soak after tea, and then mother wants you to mend those stockings."

"I shall take mother's tea up," said Pollie, feeling her heart die within her.

Never before had she received messages like that through her little brother; never before had she been anything but head and chief to do anything her mother wanted! Was her mother so angry with her that she would not even see her?

"Father has taken that up," pursued James, "and so we can begin. I thought you would be home to get the tea, Pollie."

"I was busy with Miss Loveday."

"You always are busy with Miss Loveday now; you think about nothing but her!"

"I'm sure I don't!"

"Ever since you began going to her class, you've taken to being fine in your ways, and disagreeable at home."

"That I'm sure is wrong!" exclaimed Pollie hotly. "What fine ways have I taken up, I should like to know?"

"Why, you brush your hair ever so many times a day, and wash your hands, too; and you are always wanting me to do the same."

Pollie tried to laugh, but the conversation was too much in earnest, and she went on—

"Well—there's no harm in that, I should hope."

Jim thought there was, but he pursued—

"Then you are cross to mother, and are always thinking of what you can do for Miss Loveday; in fact, you think of her before mother!"

Pollie crimsoned, for she felt that the indictment was true.

"Well, come to tea," she said abruptly.

She sat down at the table and filled the two cups, the only two which were there. Was father up with mother then, and was she so sick as not to be able to be left?

Pollie felt utterly miserable. She longed for her father to come downstairs; she longed for James to go to bed; she longed for anything which should give her relief from her heartache.

And all the while the relief was close to her, had she but turned to it! "He is such a precious Saviour," Miss Loveday had told her, from the depths of such a sorrowful heart as Pollie could not even dream of. And yet the girl nursed her own grievance, and forgot to look to Him in whom is comfort and relief for every care, be it large or small.

What a long time it seemed before James had finished his lessons!

Pollie washed the teacups, and put the washing in to soak; she soaped all the clothes in the way her mother liked, and did her work with a will, so that long before she wished it, there was nothing left to do.

While she was busy in the scullery, her father came down the little staircase into the kitchen, and went out to do something about the mill, and she did not hear him come in again, for the splashing water drowned all other sounds.

At last, too uneasy to bear it any longer, she took off her shoes, and passing through the kitchen, she ascended the few steps to her mother's room, and stood trembling outside her door, but she could not pluck up her courage to enter. All was still, except that she thought she could hear the occasional turning of the leaves of a book.

So she crept down again. Surely she had not deserved such punishment at this!

"Jim, why won't mother let me go and wait on her?" she asked, as she entered the kitchen.

"I don't know, unless it's your black face," said Jim, with a very superior feeling of having his chance now to pay off a few old scores.

"Black face?" asked Pollie, glancing in the little glass which hung by the window, "I don't see—"

"Of course you don't! But I did, at dinner, and so did mother. When people's hearts are bad, they don't want black faces about 'em. I heard mother say so!"

Pollie crimsoned, first with shame and then with anger. She clenched her hands together with a pressure which positively hurt her. And then, after a moment's bitter struggle, she proudly took her candle and went to her little room next to the kitchen where she could be alone, to see no one again that night, if she were wanted so little as that.

Suddenly a thought struck her. If her mother would not see her, she would write her a letter.

That would be a great deal easier than saying it, and it would do just as well.

She hurriedly seized a piece of paper, and tossed off a few words. Then, having by this given some vent to her feelings, she sat down dejectedly as before, listening for an opportunity to ask her father to carry the note for her. She was sure he would do that!

And then she looked out on the quiet moonlight, and as she did so, she saw the spire of the church glittering in the soft beams, and she could picture Miss Loveday's eyes resting on the same sight, and could even hear again her soft thrilling tones, "He is such a precious Saviour."

She thought it was all very well for a girl like the Vicar's niece to be able to get on.

Pollie thought of her own cousins at Chichester, and even wished herself back with them, and in her discontent even began to envy them.

She liked smooth things; and now, just as she had come home with the new-found joy of her new-found Saviour, to have every day such hard things to face seemed to her inexplicable. She suddenly thought of what her father had said about Apollyon meeting her in her-every day life, but she put the thought away with a shudder.

No, Pollie's heart was hard yet. She only looked at the moon, and thought of her friend down in the valley, but as yet she refused to hear the voice of her best Friend, One who sticketh closer than a brother, who would surely have aided her if she had turned to Him.

The old-fashioned clock which stood in the kitchen struck the hours one after another, and the candle burned down to half its size. So Pollie put it out and got into bed by the moonlight.

After some time, she heard James go up to his little cupboard of a room over hers; she heard her father go round with his swinging lantern to shut up the mill for the night. She heard him rake open the fire, and then clink a cup and saucer; she heard him stir something for ever so long, and then go up to her mother with the cup and saucer. She heard him talking in a low tone, and then he came down again and shut the kitchen door, and all was still.

What could have happened? Surely that was ten o'clock striking, and her hard-working father was invariably in bed by that time.

The sense of desolation grew unbearable. Several times she had determined to speak to her father, but now she could stand it no longer. Hastily lighting her candle, and taking her letter in her hand, she stepped noiselessly to the door opening into the kitchen, and peeped into the dim fire-lighted room with beating heart.

There sat her father, fast asleep, with his arm resting on the large Bible.

Pollie did not know what to do. All at once, she felt ashamed of that hasty, passionate apology which she had written.

Would her father think it worth taking to her mother? "Was" it worth taking?

She hurriedly put it on the glowing embers, and then stood waiting and trembling till her father should stir.

At length the candle flickered in its socket, and he woke with a start to find his little daughter crouching by the fire wrapped in a big shawl.

"Why, Pollie," he said, "I thought you were in bed."

"So I was, father, but I could not sleep. How is mother now?"

"She's a bit easier, I hope."

"Why are you sitting up then, father?"

"I was waiting to give her her medicine at eleven o'clock. I was afraid if I got to bed, I might oversleep myself."

"Father, why did not mother want me to wait on her?" asked Pollie, hesitating, while her cheeks burned.

"Mother was too poorly to be worried, Pollie. I've been very anxious about her. I saw that you hadn't come round to be a right down good girl, and so thought you'd better keep out of her room."

Pollie was silent. Was she "a right down good girl" now? She hardly knew.

"Go to bed now, my dear, and ask God to help you. He can soften hard hearts when we can't ourselves."

Pollie hurriedly kissed him, and went back to her room. She thought she would kneel down and do as her father advised, but how cold she was, and of how little use it could be to be sorry if she might not go to her mother even if she were.

So she crept into bed, sad at heart, and only longed for the morning, when the bright sunshine should perhaps help to banish the clouds of vexation which hovered over her spirit.

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