CHAPTER IV

FOR ONE'S GOOD

THE question came abruptly, though uttered in gentle tones. It took Euphrasia by surprise. A wave of colour crimsoned her face to the hair-roots, and then fled, leaving her white. Mrs. Landor watched with quiet attention. She could do so, since the downcast eyes were not raised.

"I see. He has been talking things over with you. No; you need not answer. I am asking no questions. Perhaps, a little mistake on your father's part. The best of men make occasional mistakes. He does not quite realise what a child you are."

"I don't feel like a child."

"Children seldom do. You will feel younger when you are really older . . . But of course he does not realise—how should he? And he has not been the same man since last winter. A sort of nervous disorganisation about him. He ought to go abroad for a few weeks, and get shaken out of it . . . He has been telling you of some little business worry or other; and in his present state, it has grown to Brobdingnagian proportions. The mole-hill is to your mind a veritable mountain."

"I must not repeat—"

"Not a word. I wouldn't have you do so, on any account. Confidence is sacred, from anyone—from a father or mother especially so, if there can be any 'especial' in connection with what is absolute. 'I' shall not repeat even my own conjecture to any human being. Be sure of that! . . . But I do not wish Little Eyebright to leave home with so sad a face. It's not needful, child. Things will come right."

"Will they?" Euphrasia looked with unbelieving eyes at her friend. "How can you tell? Things don't always come right."

"Not with everybody. That may be. It depends—"

"Does it?" Euphrasia seemed to take the rest of the unspoken sentence for granted. "If people are good enough, you mean. But nobody can be more good than my father. And that does not mean that everything must always come right with him."

"I think it does. 'We "know" that all things work together for good to them that love God.' We 'know' so much, with a certain knowledge. If he loves God, then all things must and will work together for his good. Whether that is exactly what you mean by 'things coming right,' I cannot say. It is what I mean."

A certain girlish resistance was in the other's face.

"Not easy to grasp, at your age, perhaps."

"I don't see how that would make trouble any the less hard to bear."

"Trouble is meant to be trouble; and you must not expect it to be aught else. The knowledge that it is to work utterly and absolutely for our good, ought to make it less hard to bear."

"It wouldn't, with me. I should want the trouble taken away,—just the same. I hate things going all crooked. It's so miserable. I suppose I ought not to talk so—but—I'd rather be without the trouble, and without the good of it too."

"You may say what you think to me. Probably many of us feel so at times, in our ignorance of what we wish. To be 'without the good' 'might' imply such awful loss in the future,—yet of course we don't understand. And God knows that we don't. Mercifully He doesn't punish us by taking us at our word, and treating us according to our folly. After all, it is just Father and child over again, as we see the relationship daily. The father, knowing best and loving most, bent on the child's happiness, and willing at any cost to himself, to give present pain for future good. The child bent on present ease and enjoyment, not able to understand the discipline it has to bear, or to look ahead . . . What do you say? Yes, cost to the child, no doubt, but greater cost to Himself: because the pain of giving pain is more severe to a loving nature than that of receiving pain! . . . There is nothing for it but trust, where we cannot see. HE deals with us commonly according to the measure of our trust, responding more when we expect more, and less when we expect less."

Euphrasia seemed to be lost in thought. When she spoke, it was to put a question.

"Do you mean that if—if I saw a trouble coming—and if I prayed that it might not come, and felt quite sure it would not—do you mean that that would keep it off?"

A rather odd expression crossed Mrs. Landor's face. "You couldn't do it, child."

Euphrasia's look fell.

"Such a prayer in itself would be presumptuous, unless prayed in submission, and then, of course, the mode of answer would be doubtful. If you resolved wilfully to pray that the trouble might at all hazards be kept off, you could not make yourself believe that it inevitably 'would' be kept off."

"I thought, sometimes, people were so sure about getting an answer."

"People may be absolutely sure, always, about getting an answer, but not about getting the particular answer which they would choose for themselves . . . I don't say there are no exceptional cases. Sometimes a trouble threatens to come, and the child turns to his Father for help; and an instant assurance is whispered to him that the trial shall not come. Then it does not come . . . But I doubt if such assurance is ever given to one wilfully insisting in prayer on having—'Not Thy will but mine.' It is not for us to dictate to God: only to ask."

"Then I don't see the good of praying," Euphrasia broke out passionately. "One might just as well let it alone."

She gazed again with rebellious eyes, expecting to see signs of indignation, but she could detect nothing beyond pity.

"Poor child!" the elder lady said softly. "Wait a little while, till you know Him better! Then you will find the difference between bearing your own burden and putting it off into His hands."

Something of the same thought came to Euphrasia that had come to her mother. "If Mrs. Landor expected to lose everything, would she feel so, 'then?'" The question found half-expression in a murmured, "It is easy to talk—"

"For people who have not the trouble themselves. Yes, I dare say it seems so. It must, naturally. You know your own troubles, and you don't know mine. Perhaps you would even say that I had none. If it were so, my dear, remember that the highest honour God can put upon one of His children is, perhaps, to 'leave' that child in the dark, that he may trust without being able to see."

Euphrasia's glance was uncomprehending.

"Try at least to think what a splendid thing it is to have such a Friend as Christ to hold one's hand, and to shape one's life. If He includes some pain in the shaping, it is because we need the pain. Better to accept what He brings, bravely and without murmuring. I don't mean for a moment that we may not pray against coming trouble. We ought to pray, and to be confident of an answer. Only we may not dictate the manner of answer."

"I can't see the good of praying if the trouble is to come just the same."

"It does not come 'just the same.' If it comes, it comes differently, or we are made able to meet it differently. My dear, try for yourself," urged Mrs. Landor, her slender hand resting on the girl's sunburnt fingers. "Only try, and prove for yourself how kind and true a Master He is. He will not be dictated to, but He does love to be appealed to. Only put your worries straight off into His Hands, and ask Him to arrange everything for the best. If your experience in life is to be at all the same as mine has been, you will constantly be amazed at the manner of answer that comes, so simple and direct. Very often so exactly the thing that you have asked and wished for. I don't say it 'will' be the same. God does not treat us as patients were treated in olden hospitals—laid us in rows, to receive the same doses of medicine all round. Each case needs its own treatment, and each case gets it. But one thing I do know, that you will never turn to Him in vain."

"Some people don't seem to get such answers."

"Do they expect such answers, Euphrasia?"

Mrs. Landor had no reply to her question. Half to herself, yet distinctly, she quoted,—

"'If our love were but more simple, We should take Him at His Word: And our lives would be all sunshine In the sweetness of our Lord.'

"All sunshine doesn't mean no clouds, but it does mean sunlight between and through the clouds . . . Still, answers are sometimes long delayed. That again may be the higher honour put upon us. We test a rope more or less severely, according to our belief in the strength of the rope."

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