CHAPTER X

HOW MUCH LONGER?

EUPHRASIA read slowly, for there was no need to hurry. She had nothing else to occupy her time. When she had reached the last verse, it took shape in the tones of Mrs. Landor, and she knew then where she had heard the words. She saw herself in Mrs. Landor's room, with Mrs. Landor by her side.

"My dear, try for yourself! Only try, and prove for yourself how kind and true a Master He is!" This also came back in Mrs. Landor's quiet voice.

"Is He so kind?" the girl asked dreamily. "So very very kind! I have always thought of Him as good and just and true—all that, of course. And angry, if one did wrong—only 'angry' never seems quite the right word. But KIND—'most wonderfully kind'—is that what God is really and truly like?" Another utterance sprang from her very heart,—"If He is, how I could love Him!"

"Why don't I?" came next.

"I suppose I haven't known before what He is really like—that He is so truly kind."

Recollections arose, unbidden, of the "old old story" of how the Son of God went to and fro on earth, ever with infinite kindness listening to all who spoke, answering all who petitioned, accompanying all who asked Him to go.

"He was kind—He is kind—and He was—is—God! He is just the same now as then. No difference at all. 'The heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind!' Doesn't that mean that He is kind still, even when He sends trouble, because He only sends it for our good? . . . I wonder how this can be for my good, except to make me do next time exactly what I think I ought. Yes, it may be that. But wouldn't my visit alone have been disappointing enough without the accident? I did expect so much from it; and it has all turned out to be worth nothing,—Letitia to be no real friend at all. Wouldn't that have been punishment enough, I wonder, without my having to be shut up here for a whole month or more, where nobody wants me? And I can do no good to anybody, and I am wanted at home! Is it just a punishment for being wilful? Well, I shan't soon forget it all!

"'There is no place where earth's sorrows Are more felt than up in heaven—'

"Is that true too? I never even thought of such a thing before. Are the angels sorry up There when any of us are in trouble?—sorry now because I am dull and alone! And most of all, is God Himself sorry, even though He has sent the trouble? Of course, I brought it on myself by being careless and in a hurry, and by coming here at all. But still I suppose God allowed it. And now, perhaps, all the while He really is sorry for me, because He is so wonderfully kind!"

Euphrasia was startled to find some quick drops falling.

"How do you do?" a voice said by her side, not an echo this time of past utterances. Mr. Wells took her hand as he spoke. "Did you not hear me ask leave to come in? The door was open, and I saw you lying here in full view."

"Oh, was the door open? I didn't know. I thought I was alone." Euphrasia spoke shamefacedly, conscious of huskiness and wet eyes.

"No bad news from home?"

"No letters at all—I hope my father is not ill. They don't generally leave me so long. But then I have not written either, till yesterday."

"I would not lie and conjure up imaginary ills. It is a waste of power. Whatever may or may not be the cause, you are pretty certain to picture to yourself worse than the reality. Some most commonplace reason may have prevented them from writing."

"If it were anything very bad, I should hear, of course; only my father was not well when I came away."

"And you have too much time for thinking. Rather solitary work, is it not? Three or four days would be all very well, or even a week, but you have some right to get tired of it now."

"It won't be much longer."

"I hope not. So you have been reading." Mr. Wells took up the hymnbook, glanced at its open page, and looked over the edge at Euphrasia. "Nothing else to read except this!"

"That is nice enough. Why should I have anything else?"

"Variety is sometimes good for people, the more so if they are in a mood to take melancholy views of things."

"And you think I am in a mood to do that?"

"Possibly, just in the last half-hour."

Euphrasia's look was one of protest. She could not explain. She could only feel that if the thoughts which had brought tears into her eyes were "melancholy," it was a melancholy which she would fain keep for life.

Mr. Wells read something unexpected in her face.

"I see I used the wrong word. Not melancholy, only perhaps a little sober—a little serious. And when one is laid by, and a good deal alone, it is just possible to dwell too long at a time upon the very serious side of things. I don't say that it has been so with you at this moment, but a change of ideas might be advantageous. I should certainly like you to have some variety in your reading; and I do not see much variety within reach." He glanced round critically.

"I could have asked for a book, of course."

"Letitia ought not to have waited to be asked."

"Oh, she was busy. There was the wedding. Please don't say anything to her."

Mr. Wells gave his attention to the lame knee, and presently remarked, "Yes, it is getting on fairly well, perhaps as fast as we ought to expect. But you are too much run down yourself."

"I shall be all right as soon as I get home. When may I go?"

"By-and-by. You must get into another room first."

"I shall like that. I mean, if I may walk. I would rather not do it at all, if it means giving extra trouble."

"Is that the chief bugbear of your existence?" asked Mr. Wells smiling.

"I wonder how much longer this is to go on?" sighed Mrs. Johnston, next morning.

"This!" echoed her eldest son. The younger brother was a mere boy, away at school.

"Nonsense, Howard. As if you didn't understand! Euphrasia Mackenzie, of course. Here has she been nearly a fortnight in the house, and the servants are run off their legs—or, at all events, they think so, which comes to the same thing. I am sure, I did feel that we had done as much as could be expected of us. And now Robert must needs make all this stir about nothing."

"What stir?"

"Oh, he declares we leave her a great deal too much alone, and let her feel dull, and don't attend to her as we ought. He fairly scolded Letitia. Poor dear, I do pity her, having to go and sit in that stuffy little room for an hour at a time!"

"Something must be wrong with our household arrangements if we put our guests into stuffy little rooms."

"You know what I mean. Not exactly stuffy, but one doesn't want to sit there half the day. And poor Letitia was so bent on going to Bath with the Fearings. Of course I made her give that up, but it was rather hard on the child. And she says Euphrasia is quite changed from what she used to be, so stiff and cold."

"I wonder whether Letitia ever does sit with Miss Mackenzie for anything like half-a-day—or even for an hour at a time?"

"I'm sure I can't tell. I only know I am perpetually at her about it. And I shall be thankful when it is all over. Euphrasia is not an interesting invalid. And she hardly ever says a word of apology for the trouble she gives."

"Does she not? Robert speaks of her as excruciatingly anxious not to be a bother."

"Oh, as to that—I suppose she doesn't make more work than she can help. I don't complain of the girl. Some people in her position would be much more thoughtless. But, of course, there are no end of things to be done. And now Robert wants us to have her wheeled every day into Letitia's boudoir—"

"Where is that?"

"The little room that used to be her nursery. Letitia turned it into a sitting-room when she came home from school, but she never sits there now by any chance. And Robert wants us to contrive not to leave Euphrasia so much alone. That is the worst of having a near relative for one's doctor. He feels free to say whatever he happens to think. It seems he found her crying with nothing to read. So absurd not to ask for what she wanted, if she had not a book! Robert does not commonly make such a fuss about his patients, and why he should with Euphrasia Mackenzie, I can't imagine. I never in my life saw a more unattractive girl; did you?"

"That wasn't precisely my impression, I confess. I thought she looked sensible."

"Oh, sensible—if you think so much of being just sensible! Yes, I dare say she is sensible—any amount! But not attractive—not pretty, or clever, or anything." Then, reverting to her former subject, "As likely as not, if I tell Horris that he is to wheel the sofa in and out of that room every day, he will say he hasn't time, and can't do it. That man gives himself such airs! I believe he will want to go the next thing."

"Let him go, by all means. If he does not want it, I shall, so soon as I find him indulging in airs. Plenty more men in the kingdom."

"You always talk like that. I can't bear the worry of change."

"A man who will not do his duty is a much worse worry, to my mind. Never mind; I'll see to replacing Horris if he goes. Meantime, if he is too grand or too lazy to wheel Miss Mackenzie's chair—no, sofa—a few paces, I am neither. Let me know when it wants doing."

"Oh, Horris must do it, of course, if he is told. But as for somebody to sit in the room—Letitia never does a single thing she doesn't wish. And as for dragging myself up those stairs more than once in twenty-four hours, I really could not undertake the exertion!"

"Pray don't think of it," her son answered politely.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]