Pansy

“ Now, Marion, while I blame myself as no other person ever can, I still blame others. I was never taught as I should have been about the sacredness of human loves, and the awfulness of human vows and pledges. I was never taught that for girls to dally with such pledges, to flirt with them, before they knew anything about life or about their own hearts was a sin in the sight of God. ”

“ The spirit of unrest that pervaded the room grew into positive lawlessness as the day waned, and Marion's tone had taken even unusual sharpness; her self-command was giving way. Instead of helping, she had been positively an injury to Allie March; first by the sharpness of her reprimands, and then by sarcastic comments on her extreme dullness.
But the girl who had tried her the most during the entire day was the most brilliant, and, as a rule, the most studious scholar in her room. Every teacher knows that the good scholar who occasionally makes a failure is the one who exasperates the most ”

“ Whereupon Flossy called to mind the witty things she had heard, and the merry laughs which had rung around her at Chautauqua, given by the most intense of these fanatics; she even remembered that she had seen two of the most celebrated in that direction playing with a party of young men and boys on the croquet ground, and laughing most uproariously over their defeat. It was all nonsense to try to compass her brain with such an argument as that; she shook her head resolutely.
"They do no such thing; I know some of them very well; I don't know of any people who have nicer times. ”

“ Grace looked up quickly with a gleam of sunshine, through which shone a tear.
"It is a fit of the blues, I am almost afraid. I [404] am very much ashamed of myself; I don't feel so very often, Miss Wilbur. I think the feeling must be what the girls call blues; I am not sure."
"Do you feel in any degree sure what has caused such a remarkable disease to attack you?" Marion asked, in a low, tender, yet cheery and a half-amused tone.
The words made Gracie laugh, but the tenderness in the tone seemed to start another tear. ”

“ During all this time of trial Ruth's three friends were hovering around her, trying by every possible attention and thoughtfulness to help or comfort her, and yet feeling their powerlessness in such a way that it almost made them shrink from trying.
"Words are such a mockery," Marion said to her one evening, as they sat together. "Sometimes I almost hate myself for trying to speak to you at all. What can any human being say to one who is shrouded in an awful sorrow?" ”

“ Marion, you know, and I know, that there is simply nothing at all on which to build a hope of meeting in peace the man we buried last week. You think it almost shocking that I can speak of him in that way; I know you do. People are apt to hide behind the very flimsiest veil of fancied hopes when they talk of such things.
"Perhaps a merciful God permits some to hug a worthless hope when they think of their dead treasures, since it can do no harm to those who are gone; but I am not one of that class of people. ”

“ Whereupon Marion clapped her hands.
"Little Flossy among the logicians!" she said. "That is the point, Ruth Erskine. If the example is for us to follow, why don't we follow? Now, what do you honestly think about this question yourself?"
"Why," said Ruth, hesitatingly, "I have always played cards, in select circles, being careful, of course, with whom I played; just as I am careful with whom I associate, and, contrary to your supposition, I have always supposed those people who frowned on such amusements to be a set of narrow-minded fanatics. ”

“ And Marion, unsympathetic girl that she was, laughed much and long.
"What a creature you are!" she said, at last. "I declare, it is funny that people can live in the world and know so little about their fellow-mortals as you and Flossy do. She knows no more about them than a kitten does, and you know no more than the moon. You sail right above all their feelings and ideas. ”

“ Utter silence and surprise on Miss Erskine's part. At last she said:
"I hardly ever see my father; we are never alone except when we are on our way to dinner, or to pay formal calls on very formal people. Then we are always in a hurry. I cannot reach my father, Dr. Dennis; he is immersed in business, and has no time nor heart for such matters. I should not in the least know how to approach him if I had a chance; and, indeed, I am sure I could do no good, for he would esteem it an impertinence to be questioned by his daughter as to his thoughts on these matters." ”

“ These and a hundred other kindred trifles, so small that they are not noted among the qualifications for Sabbath-school teachers, so powerful for good, that they often turn the current of a human life, had been carefully regarded by Flossy, and to-night she was triumphant over her success. She had not only helped her boys to be true to their convictions of right and dignity, not only to take on true manliness of decision in regard to the all important question of personal religion, she had helped them to be gentlemen. ”

“ Now, Eurie Mitchell, you are too bright to make such a remark as that! If the Bible is for our help as well as for Paul's, we have surely the right to substitute the noun that fits our present needs. We have no idols nowadays; at least they are not made out of wood and stone; and the logic of the question is as clear as sunlight. We have only to understand that the matter of playing cards is a snare and a danger to some people, and we see our duty clearly enough, because, how are we ever to be sure that the very person who will be tempted is not within the reach of our influence. ”

“ To be sure, he was not Katie Flinn, but he would do his best to take the place of that personage if she would kindly let him go to the said meeting with her.
It was worth a dozen sittings even in prayer-meeting, Judge Erskine thought, to see the sudden clearing of that tearful face; the sudden radiant outlook from those wet eyes.
Would he go? Would he really go? Could anything be more splendid! ”

“ A vision of herself toiling wearily from house to house in all weathers, and at all hours of the day, as she had seen music teachers do, hovered over Ruth Erskine's brain, and so utterly improbable and absurd did the picture seem, when she imagined it as having any reference to her, that she laughed outright.
"I don't believe I shall ever teach music," she said, positively. ”

“ I like to live a great deal better than I ever did before; I think the world is twice as nice, and everything a great deal pleasanter; but when I was coming home from Chautauqua I would waken in the night in the sleeping-car, and I found to my surprise that, although I thought of the same thing, the possibility that there might be an accident that would cost me my life, yet I felt that horrible sense of fear and dread was utterly gone. ”

“ Marion had helped Gracie she had not helped herself, except that in a tired sort of way she realized that it was a great pleasure to be able to help anybody—most of all, this favorite pupil. Still the dreariness did not lessen. It went home with her to her dingy boarding-house, followed her to the gloomy dining-room and the uninviting supper-table.
The most that was the trouble with Marion Wilbur was, that she was tired in body and brain. If people only realized it, a great many mental troubles and trials result from overworked bodies and nerves. ”

“ So he sat still; but as one and another of those young ladies arose quietly, with true dignity and sweet composure testifying to their love for the Lord, John Warden's earnest soul was moved to shame at his own shrinking, and from his obscure seat, back under the gallery, he rose up, and Satan, foiled that time, shrunk away.
As for our girls, they held no parley with their consciences, or with the tempter; they did not even think of it. On the contrary, they were glad, every one, that the way was made so plain and so easy to them. ”

“ I know dozens of such young ladies; I have them as my pupils; my heart trembles for them; they are just intoxicated with dancing; and they quote you, Ruth Erskine, as an example when I try to talk with them; I have heard them. Whether it is wrong for other people or not, as true as I sit here I can tell you this: I have two girls in my class who are killing themselves with this amusement, carried to its least damaging extreme, for they still think they are very careful with whom they dance ”

“ Marion said, eagerly. "Now I have heard people talk, who led you to infer that it was the easiest thing in life to mold these young teachers into the required shape and form; that you had only to sweetly suggest and advise and direct, and they sweetly succumbed. Now, don't their mothers know that young ladies naturally do no such thing? It is very difficult for them to yield their opinions to one whose authority they do not recognize; and they are not fond of admitting authority even where family life sanctions it. ”

“ Of course it seems so to me; we always like our own ways. The truth is, Dr. Dennis, I like nurseries, and think they ought to be maintained; but I don't like the idea of too many mothers there."
"Just what, in plain English, would you do, my friend, if you were commander-in-chief of the whole matter, and all we had to do was to obey you?"
"It isn't at all modest to tell," Marion said, laughing, "but it is true. I would banish every one of those twenty teachers, and reign alone in my glory. ”

“ Marion said. "It is considered unladylike, I believe, for people to talk about love and marriage. I never could see why; I'm sure neither of them is wicked. But I suppose each of us occasionally thinks of the possibility of having a friend as dear even as a husband. How would you like it, girls, to have him spend his evenings dancing with first one young lady and then another, offering them attentions that, under any other circumstances, would stamp him as a libertine? ”

“ Marion looked from one to the other of the flushed and eager faces, and then at the sweet drooping face of their little Flossy.
"We have spent our strength vainly," she said, at last. "It is our privilege to get up higher; to look at all these things from the mount whereon God will let us stand if we want to climb. I think little Flossy has got there."
"After all," Eurie said, "that verse would cut off a great many things that are considered harmless." ”

“ Ruth Erskine, in the corner of her father's pew, attired, as she had often been before, in the most delicate and exquisite of summer silks, with exactly the right shade of necktie, gloves and [9] sash, to set off the beauty of the dress, with the soft and delicate laces about her white throat, for which she was especially noted, looked not one whit different from the lady who sat there three weeks before. You wouldn't have known that her heart was singing for joy. ”

“ Dennis," she said, with sudden energy, and showing a touch of annoyance at the turn which the talk was taking, "my trouble is not an inability to employ my time; I do not belong to the class of young ladies who are afflicted with ennui." And a sarcastic curve of her handsome lip made Ruth look very like the Miss Erskine that Dr. Dennis had always known. She despised people who had no resources within themselves. "I can find plenty to do, and I enjoy doing it; but the point is, I seem to be living only for myself, and that doesn't seem right. I want Christian work." ”

“ Eurie laughed.
"Oh, I can get Nell to go," she said. "He nearly always does what I want him to. But I was thinking how many you have to work among."
"Six people are as good to work among as sixty, until you get them all," Marion answered, quickly.
As for Ruth, it was only the darkness that hid her curling lip. She someway could not help disliking people who, like Nellis Mitchell, always did what they were asked to do, just to oblige. ”