Margaret M. Robertson

“ Katie thought of her as she had seen her often, sitting in the church, or in the garden among her flowers, or under the trees in the village street, looking so fair and sweet, so different from any one else, so very different from Katie herself, and a momentary overpowering discontent seized her—discontent with herself, her home, her manner of life, with the constant daily work which seemed to come to nothing but just a bare living. ”

“ She could only pray that whatever the end of their doubt for Marian might be, the elder sister might be made the better and the wiser for the fear that had come to her to-day.
There are some sorrows which the heart refuses to realise or acknowledge, even in knowing them to be drawing near. Possible danger or death to one beloved is one of these; and as Graeme sat in the shadow of the pines shuddering with the pain and terror which Janet’s words had stirred, she was saying it was impossible—it could not be true—it could never, never be true, that her sister was going to die. ”

“ They went home to Glen Elder in May. Three years passed, and May came again, and Glen Elder and Kirklands, and all the hills and dales between, were looking their loveliest in their changing robes of brown and purple and green. The air was sweet with the scent of hawthorn-blossoms, and vocal with the song of birds and the hum of bees. There was not a fleck of cloud on all the sky, nor of mist on all the hills. The day was perfect, warm, bright, and still; such a day as does not come many times in all the Scottish year. ”

“ So it was no wonder that Stephen turned towards home with a sad face and a heavy heart, knowing all this. He had not been so downcast for a long time. It broke his heart to think of poor Morely. Even the misery and destitution that seemed to lie before the poor wife and children were nothing to this; and, as he dragged himself through the heavy snow, panting and breathless, he was praying, as even good men cannot always pray, with an urgency that would take no denial, that this poor soul might have space for repentance,—that he might not be suffered to go down into endless death. ”

“ What an influence for good in a man’s life must be the love of such a girl as Marion Calderwood. Had bonny Elsie been one like her? Remembering the sweet, calm eyes of the girl so long dead and gone, the gentle strength, the patient firmness by which she withstood not him alone, but her own mother whom she loved, rather than break her promise to the lad who loved her, he could not but doubt whether he had judged wisely then, and whether he had afterward dealt wisely with his son.
Ah, well! That was all past now, and good had come out of it to George. ”

“ Christie never quite forgot the remedy tried for the first time beneath the boughs of the birch-tree by the brook. There were hours when it seemed to her now, as it seemed to her then, a cure for all the ills of life, a help in every time of need. There were times when, having nowhere else to go, she carried her burden to Effie’s chief Friend, and strove to cast it from her at His feet. She did not always succeed. Many a time she lay down in the dark, beside little Harry, altogether uncomforted. It seemed to her that nothing could help her but going home again. ”

“ Frederica looked at her in astonishment, not quite free from anger.
“I do not understand you, Miss Agnace,” said Selina gently.
“It would soothe and comfort you, would it not, to feel that you might still do something for your dear mama?”
“We do what we think would please her by loving one another, and caring for our brothers and Tessie. We can do nothing more,” said Selina.
“Ah! who knows?” said Miss Agnace. “It is dark beyond the grave.”
“The grave is dark, but beyond the grave is heaven. Do you know what is said of it, Miss Agnace? ”

“ It is, with God’s help, to be of use to souls. Don’t you care for that, Shenac? Do you think a year or two of life in the world—common life—could be to you what these months by your brother’s death-bed have been, as a preparation for real life-work—yours and mine? Do you think that any school could do for you what all these years of forgetting yourself and caring for others have done—all your loving patience with your afflicted mother, all your care of your sister and the little lads, all your forbearance with Dan, all your late joy in him? ”

“ When they came out into the kirkyard, where, one by one, at first, and afterward by twos and threes, the folk who had known her all her life came up to greet her, there were neither tears nor smiles on her face, but a look at once gentle, and firm, and grave—the look of a strong, patient, self-respecting woman, who had passed through the darkness of suffering and sorrow into the light at last. ”

“ Etta was enchanted.
“I am afraid my resolutions about being good, and helping mamma, and teaching the little ones, would have fallen through, for I know I am a foolish girl. But with Rose to help me, just at first, I shall succeed I know.”
“Don’t be silly, Etta,” said Rose. “You are a great deal wiser and better, and of a great deal more use in the world, than ever I was, or am like to be. All my wisdom is lip-wisdom, and my goodness lip-goodness. If they will help you, you shall have the benefit of them; but pray don’t make me blush before Graeme and Fanny, who know me so well.” ”

“ For Miss Jean troubled her with few words; but sat silent, seeing without seeming to see, that all was not well with her niece.
It was a rest for Jean to sit there in the quiet room, and it is not to be wondered at that there were times when she forgot to keep guard over her face, as even before her aunt she had done of late. At such times her aunt regarded her anxiously. She had become thin and white, and her eyes had grown large and wistful; as her mother’s eyes had been, before she had resigned herself to the knowledge that she must leave them all. ”

“ She longed to say just the right word to him, but hitherto her words had fallen like water on the rock, which, in the first gleam of sunshine, disappears. He always listened, grave or smiling, as the occasion seemed to demand. He listened with eagerness, pleased at her interest in him, pleased to be treated like one of the children, to be praised or chidden, and, for all that she could see, as well pleased with the one as with the other. As she sat watching him in silence, Mrs Inglis thought of Violet’s complaint against him. “He is not in earnest. He cares only for his own pleasure.” ”

“ I think almost any place would have been pleasant with Mrs Nesbitt going about so gently and lovingly in it. Some thought of this came into Christie’s mind, as she lay musing there that Sabbath afternoon. The fading light fell on the soft grey hair that showed beneath the widow’s snowy cap, and on the placid face beneath, with a strangely beautifying power. The sweet gravity that was on her silent lips was better worth seeing, Christie thought, than other people’s smiles. Her eyes had no beauty, in the common acceptation of the term. They seemed like eyes that had been washed with many tears. ”

“ To watch her blind darling’s bright absorbed face, and to see her sisters’ tender affection, and their desire to give her a part in the pleasure from which her affliction tended to debar her, was happiness to the mother, who had grieved so much over her in the past.
Mrs Vane was not a very wise mother, nor indeed a very wise woman in any relation of life, and she wished nothing more for herself nor for her children than a continuation of just such days as these. She felt so safe and at rest in the sunshine of the dear old garden, shut in from the world, where trouble was, and danger. ”

“ Not if you are the good man that I have ay believed you to be. You would be wretched, John; and seeing it, could I be happy, even if my conscience slumbered?”
“Allison, do you love me, ever so little? Whatever else is to be said, look once into my face and say, ‘John, I love you.’”
She looked into his face as he bade her, and her own changed, as she met his eyes. But she did meet them bravely.
“I think I might have learned to love you—as you said—but I will not do you that wrong. You may suffer for a while, but your life will not be lost. God be with you, and fare ye well.” ”

“ Your wish must bring good to one like me. Bid me God-speed.”
“God speed you!” said Lilias, reverently, and wondering much. “And God avert the evil that you dread!”
She watched while he continued in sight, forgetting, for the time, her own troubles in pity for his.
“There are so many troubles in life,” she thought; “and each one’s own seems worst to bear. When will it all end?”
Poor, drooping Lily! She had sat so long in the shadow of care that she was in danger of forgetting that there were lightsome places on the earth; and “When will it end?” came often to her lips now. ”

“ And when James Fleming died, and the old man fell into his enemy’s hand, as he thought, his whole life was made bitter to him.
It was not that he grudged to Jacob anything either of wealth or consideration that he had won for himself. But with every thought of him was joined the thought of the son who, in his father’s eyes, had been as much above him as one human being could well be above another, in goodness, in cleverness, in beauty, in all that makes a man worthy of love and honour from his fellows, and he grew sick sometimes with the thought of it all. ”

“ To Samuel Muir it was a day never to be forgotten. Montreal is not a very great city. An hour’s walk from the heart of it, in any direction, will bring one either to the river or to fields where wild flowers grow. But his life had been town life—and a very busy one; and to sit in the mild air, amid the sweet sounds and sweeter silence of the spring time, among all these happy children, was something wonderful to him. His constant anxious care for Morely all the winter had done much to make a man of him. ”

“ And Janet never knew, till long years afterwards, how that night, and many a night, Sandy woke from the sound sleep of childhood to find his grandmother praying and weeping, to think of the parting that was drawing near. Each could be strong to help the other, but alone, in silence and darkness, the poor shrinking heart had no power to cheat itself into the belief that bitter suffering did not lie before it. ”

“ Sick and sorrowful and alone lay the other, her life silently ebbing away, her hold on the world and all it has to give slowly but surely loosening. Yet, in the new light which was beginning to dawn upon him, Mr Sherwood caught a glimpse of a contrast more striking still. On the couch before him lay a little suffering form, wasted and weary, soon to be hidden from the light, little to be mourned, quickly to be forgotten. ”

“ Marion said nothing, but turned her eyes seaward with a grave face. Jean went on.
“Yes, many things will happen, but it will be just the same thing over again. The ships will sail away, and there will be long waiting, and some of them will come home, and some will never come, and the pain will be as hard to bear as if it had never come to many a sore heart before. And some folk will be glad, and some will be at least content, and some will make mistakes and spoil their lives and then just wait on to the end. Marion, what are you thinking about?” ”

“ He had much to hear and much to tell, and after a while he had much to do too; and through all the sayings and doings, the comings and goings,—of the first few weeks, both Hamish and Shenac watched their brother closely and curiously. Apart from their interest in him as their brother whom they loved, and in whose hands the future of all the rest seemed to lie, they could not but watch him curiously. He was so exactly like the merry, gentle, truthful Allister of old times, and yet so different! He had grown so strong and firm and manly. ”

“ Not a leaf is to be seen or a blade of grass, but great snowdrifts on the hill-sides, and icicles hanging from the bare boughs of the trees.
The skaters are out on the ice, and the snow-shoe clubs are beginning to think of long tramps over the fields. Hundreds of sleighs are gliding along the city streets, and over the country roads, and the air is full of the music of sleigh-bells, and the merry voices of people enjoying the holidays.
And Jack and Jill used to be out with the rest, with a sleighful of happy children behind them. ”

“ For Miss Betsey had been young at a time when there was little danger that indolence or self-indulgence could injure the full development of healthful beauty, and as yet Miss Elizabeth had fallen on easy days, and was languid at times, and delicate, and if the truth must be told, a little discontented with what life had as yet brought her, and a little afraid of what might lie before her, and there was a shadow of this on her fair face to-day. ”

“ She thought of Janet’s long years of self-denial, her toils, her disappointments; and how she had always accepted her lot as no uncommon one, but as appointed to her by God. She thought of her father—how, even in the most tranquil times of his life—the time she could remember best, the peaceful years in Merleville, he had given himself no rest, but watched for souls as one who must give account. Yes, life was a warfare. Not always with outward foes. The struggle need not be one that a looker-on could measure or see, but the warfare must be maintained—the struggle must only cease with life. ”

“ We shrink from the thought that the old pleasures will charm us again, that daily cares will occupy our minds to the exclusion of to-day’s sadness, that time will heal the wounds that smart so bitterly now.
But it does; and as it passes, we find ourselves going the old rounds, enjoying the old pleasures, doing the duties which the day brings; and the great healer does his kindly office, to the soothing of our pain. It is not that our bereavement is no longer felt, or that we have forgotten the friend we loved. ”