A. L. O. E.

“ But first I must tell you what I think of Harold’s father, though I have seen but little of him as yet. Mr. Hartley is tall, but stoops slightly, as if from weakness. He is pale and thin and somewhat wrinkled—less from age, I think, than from toil. Harold has certainly a likeness to his parent; but, oh! I trust that my noble-looking husband, whose form is so erect, whose step so elastic, may never have such a worn-out appearance, such a faint voice, as the veteran worker. ”

“ The once oppressed widow could not but see the difference between a religion of love and one of fear, the difference between loyalty to a Saviour and dread of a demon, between freedom and bondage, darkness and light. But those who, like the elder Hartley, have laboured long amongst those who have been from childhood brought up in superstition and error, know how strangely, it seems unaccountably, the heart clings to its idols. Spiritual work is not like a sum in arithmetic—given so much time, so much labour, so much prayer, and then a certain visible result. ”

“ There is the uncomfortable sensation of being like a drone in the hive. The remedy is study of the language; but Alicia felt too unsettled and impatient to sit down to grammar, and struggle with strange idioms and incomprehensible combinations of verbs. She sat fanning herself, glancing up at the clock every two minutes, and wishing for Harold’s return. The striking of that clock—for Robin had succeeded in setting it going—was the first thing to rouse Alicia from her dreamy, indolent mood. ”

“ I can go by myself,” said Alicia. She did not choose to set Robin smiling again at any weakness of hers.
When once in her doli, Alicia repented of the passing peevishness into which she feared that she had been betrayed. “It is a wrong, a mean thing,” thought the young wife, “to feel cross because others take small worries more patiently than I do. Robin is right: it is better to laugh than to cry over tiny troubles. A poor missionary I must be, indeed, if my fortitude cannot stand a hot room or the stinging of a musquito. ”

“ What a helper you are to Harold! You cheer him in trouble, you share his joys, you work amongst the wives and daughters of those whose worst hindrances are in their homes. You break away the thorns that would wound your husband, you strengthen his hands in the Lord, you sharpen his weapons for fight. You make Harold realize the truth of that word from Scripture—A prudent wife is a gift from the Lord.”
“May you also prove its truth one day, dear Robin,” said Alicia, with a smile of gratification. ”

“ Alicia, who had paused a little in her occupation, now resumed it with redoubled energy. She had not looked so fair in Robin’s eyes in her wedding-dress of white satin as she did now in her simple pink print, with her sleeves tucked up and her slender hands all whitened with flour. Robin watched his sister as she mixed and stirred and kneaded.
“Harold is very happy,” he said at last in a dreamy tone. “There is no doubt that ‘two pull together, when yoked twain and twain,’ far better than a solitary worker.” ”

“ All the way back to the bungalow Alicia could think of nothing but the incident which had occurred. She was so eager to tell of it that it was a real disappointment to her to find nobody in the veranda, and the bungalow empty. It is one of the trials of the first year of mission life to feel idle when others are busy, lonely because companions are out at work. ”

“ Alicia, thoroughly disgusted at the woman’s mean covetousness, shook her head and rose from the charpai on which she had been seated.
“Give the charm back!” cried Darobti, becoming suddenly aware that whilst she was quarrelling with Jai Dé the cause of the dispute might be carried away.
“Give the charm back!” echoed more than one voice.
Alicia grasped the locket more tightly. It was the property of her cousin, not theirs; she would never give it up except to its rightful owner. A cry for help from above burst from the Englishwoman’s heart as she made one step forward. ”

“ Alicia, under a playful manner, had deep religious convictions. She loved Harold chiefly because she thought him the highest type of a Christian whom she ever had met with. His sermons refreshed her soul, and seemed to lift her into a higher, purer atmosphere than that which she had hitherto breathed. Alicia was not a worldly girl. She felt that she would rather share the humblest lot with Harold than rank and wealth with any one else.
Mr. Hartley and Robin were not a little startled one day by a letter from Harold asking his fathers consent to his suing for the hand of Alicia Graham. ”

“ Both Harold and Robin accompanied the doli as far as the gate of the fort, and lingered near till at the summons of the rattled chain the door was opened by Kripá Dé. His fair, bright young face spoke welcome, and with native courtesy the Kashmiri youth relieved the lady of the weight of her bag. At Kripá’s sign the dogs ceased to bark, and the nervous buffaloes that were still in the court-yard showed stolid indifference to everything but their food. The cow was so quietly ruminating that Alicia was ashamed of having ever been afraid of so harmless a creature. ”

“ No sooner had my husband left me than I ordered a big bowl, or rather my basin, full of paste, and flew off to my work in my own little home. Foreseeing, like a prudent housewife, that nothing elegant could be procured at Talwandi, I have brought a quantity of the loveliest wall-paper that ever I saw—pale lilac ground, as smooth as satin, with a pattern of roses twining over a trellis of gold. Nothing can be more tasteful, or more suited to make ‘Paradise’ (as I have named our little bungalow) a sort of fairy bower. I had Nabi Bakhsh and Mangal to help me in the work of papering my room ”

“ You know that a missionary’s time is not his own;” and in another minute he was off.
“So I am not to have the society of my own husband, or have him always surrounded by natives!” murmured Alicia, as she sat down disconsolately to her solitary meal. “It is rather hard—but no! I must remember Harold’s words, that nothing is hard which is right. And missionaries should have submissive wills.”
Alicia gave a little sigh. Her eyes were opening to the fact that to be a good wife to a devoted worker like Harold would require some amount of self-denial. ”

“ I can see nothing. Must I turn to the right or the left?” said the young lady, stretching out her hand to feel the brick wall.
“This way,” cried Kripá Dé in front; and Alicia could now dimly trace the steps before her. They were steep, narrow, and not in particularly good condition. Alicia had a vague consciousness of plenty of dust below and cobwebs above.
“How strange it is,” thought the lady, as she groped her upward way, “that people of high caste and easy means, living in a large, lofty house, should not care for comfort, cleanliness or light. ”

“ Harold was constrained to let the timid creature have her own way, and the furious horse had his; for while Alicia was with difficulty squeezing herself behind the piano, and Harold trying to arrange the luggage taken from the gári, the nat-kat and his companion were tearing away at the utmost speed that the weight of the gári permitted on their way back to Chuanwál station. Mightily amused was the fat munshi when he heard of the adventure, and with great satisfaction he stroked his beard and jingled his bag of rupees. ”

“ Robin’s playful words came true: he did marry a bride who went to church in good strong boots instead of in satin slippers. Miranda proved a good and loving wife, an active, devoted worker for God. Mr. Hartley was a shrewd observer and a clever judge, but he never was able to decide the question which often presented itself to his mind: which was the better daughter, worker, and wife—the young convert from heathen darkness, or her fair sister,
Harold’s Bride. ”

“ On that same tree wild bees have been making a kind of nest, larger than the head of a man. One of the pellets hits the nest, and brings down the vengeance of its warlike inmates, not on the boy who has disturbed them, but on the unoffending sais and horse. The air is full of buzzing, and half-a-dozen bees presume to attack the Commissioner Sahib himself. Maddened by the pain caused by a hundred stings, the poor horse, with bees clustering over his nostrils and eyes, rushes forward at speed, dashes the buggy against the stump of a tree, breaks the harness, and smashes the wheel. ”

“ She was resolved to show herself to be a capable, energetic missionary Mem. All her idle days were over: Alicia had grand designs in her head. She looked so bright, animated, and happy as she bade the travellers good-bye, that Robin, as he walked beside his father’s tattu, laughingly observed, “I think that our pretty exotic is taking root already, and promises to climb up bravely. To get so soon over the loss of a piano, the breaking of bottles, and the smashing of porcelain, shows a spirit worthy of Harold’s bride.” ”

“ I have often told you of Robin, the brother of my loved Harold, and his unfailing fund of good-humour and fun. During the last few months Robin has greatly altered: he is no longer the merry, boyish youth, but seems, almost suddenly, to have developed into the thoughtful man. ”

“ Every one made a rush in that direction. Alicia was free—released from the grasping hands which had held her as in a vice. She took advantage of the moment, and rushed to the door which opened on the stair without stopping to say salám. She would have forgotten to snatch up her umbrella had she not intuitively seized on it as a weapon of defence. Alicia rushed so hurriedly down the stair that she nearly fell in her haste. She could hear the bibis above quarrelling over the jewel which she had flung away, which all coveted, but only one could possess. ”

“ We must toil and pray and seek to persuade, but the work of grace is, like life which is its symbol, something beyond the ken and the wisdom of man. In missionary work we must reverently accept, as if addressed to ourselves, the Saviour’s answer to His apostles, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power.” We can see, even with our half-blind eyes, reasons why this should be. Our insufficiency to do anything of ourselves throws us on the power of Him who is all-sufficient. ”

“ The happiness of Alicia was undisturbed by the petty cares which, like musquitoes in the sunniest hours, occasionally buzzed about her husband. The very anxiety which Harold felt to shield his bride from the slightest annoyance or even inconvenience added considerably to his cares. It was he who had to think about ways and means. The young husband had believed that by economy on himself he had saved enough of rupees to supply every probable want ”

“ What is to be done?” she repeated more earnestly, as Robin gave no immediate reply.
“Kripá Dé must not go back to the fort,” replied Robin with decision. “If he go, he will assuredly be questioned; he may even be asked whether he has eaten with us and broken his caste. Caste is all nonsense to us; but to Hindus, and specially Brahmins, to eat with Christians is a far worse crime than slandering or stealing. If Kripá Dé be thus questioned, he will be tempted to lie; and if he do not lie—”
“He will be imprisoned, perhaps murdered,” cried Alicia. ”

“ The persecuted youth made no attempt to address the crowd—his voice would have been lost in the uproar; but he lifted up his heart in silent prayer. It was less a prayer for deliverance than for strength to keep faithful unto death. Kripá Dé knew that a terrible ordeal might be before him—that, once within the walls of the fort, he might have to suffer what nature shrank from, and he mistrusted his own power to endure; but the poor lad in his misery cast himself on a power greater than his own. ”

“ It is as water-drops spilt on the ground.” “These women have hearts, if one could but reach them,” thought Alicia, as she saw tears rise to the eyes of a bibi. “They feel that the world is fleeting and vain. Oh, when shall we persuade them to raise their eyes to another, whose joys will never pass away! ”

“ The Hindus looked surprised at the question, which betrayed such ignorance of what they thought that every one knew or ought to know.
“Premi is a widow: of course she fasts every fortnight,” said Chand Kor; and so, as if tired with conversation on so insignificant a subject, she asked Alicia to sing.
Alicia was in no mood for singing; she rose and made her excuses as well as she could for not lingering longer in the zenana. “The sun is hot; my head pains me,” she said, in reply to the women’s expostulations. ”