Emmie

“ Emmie arose with an earnest resolution on her mind—a resolution born of repentance, and gathering strength from prayer. She would no longer be the weak, selfish, useless being, whom every shadow could turn from the path of duty. ”

“ Dyke, we must face the fact,” Emmie was saying. “He is not happy. It is all pretence. Ever since he came home he has been trying hard not to let me see what he feels. But I can see always—knowing him as I do. He wants to go back there once more.”
“Go back there!” And she saw the sun-warmed hands begin to shake upon the shrunken knees. “Not—not to the Antarctic?”
Emmie nodded her head. “Yes, he can’t deceive me. It is more than a wish—he feels that it is a duty.” ”

“ True, most true, little Emmie. A place where mistakes are made and never rectified; a place where a joyous meeting is too often replaced by a sad good-bye; where hearts that cleave together are sundered; where the best loved is the soonest taken; where under the sunshine lie the shadows, and the shadows lengthen the farther we walk.
Such a tiring place! since we must work and weep, and live out the life that seems to us so imperfect; since sweet blossoms fail to bring fruit, and thorns lurk underneath the roses. ”

“ Emmie felt like one who has made a pleasant discovery when a means of reaching her father’s tenants, without trying her own courage, suggested itself to her mind.
“Yes, that will do—that will do!” exclaimed the maiden, as with a brightening countenance she rose from her seat, and then crossed the room with light step to ring the small bell by which she was accustomed to summon her maid. “Christmas-time is at hand,—that blessed time when all who have the power should seek to make those around them happy. My father and Bruce will, I am sure, approve of my little plan.” ”

“ The snow-flakes were falling faster and thicker; grassy lawn and gravel path were now covered with a sheet of spotless white, which hid every roughness and smoothed away every blemish. Emmie was no longer troubling herself with thoughts of her follies and failings. With the eagerness natural to youth, she was preparing for the pleasant task which she had set herself to perform, a task which would at the same time employ her fingers, [201] amuse her mind, and quiet her conscience. ”

“ Emmie, had she not been paralyzed with fear, would have had time to start back, spring down the stairs, and rouse the family by her loud call for assistance. But in the extremity of her terror the timid girl neither stirred foot nor uttered cry. She stood, as it were, spell-bound. In a few seconds her opportunity for flight was lost. Jael, seeing Harper’s look, turned round, beheld Emmie behind her, and instantly closed and bolted the door. The poor maiden found herself a helpless prisoner in one of the rooms of her father’s house. ”

“ Emmie drew in her breath, and sighed.
Mildred told the tale of how she had fallen desperately in love with a man; how her parents forbade her to love him, forbade her to meet him, forbade her to think of him; how Mr. Parker threatened her, bullied her, vowing he would take steps to separate her irrevocably from her beloved; and how, in consequence, that once comfortable house in Ennismore Gardens had become a place of torment and pain. ”

“ Emmie. “I might meet with rudeness, or drunkenness, or infectious cases. I cannot think how you could ever wish me to undertake such a work! Wait till I am forty or fifty years old before you ask me to visit these poor.”
“And in the meantime,” said Bruce, “children are growing up ignorant of the very first truths of religion; wretched women, who know no joy in this world, see no prospect of peace in another; the sick lack medicine, the hungry, food; the widow has no one to comfort her, and the dying—die without hope!”
Emmie clasped her hands, and looked pleadingly into the face of her brother. ”

“ Emmie, you will certainly make one of the party; we all know your taste for the beautiful and sublime.”
“My girl must be well wrapped up if she venture out in the snow,” observed Mr. Trevor.
“We’ll case her in fur like a squirrel!” cried Vibert. “Come, Emmie, or we shall be late.”
Emmie rose from her seat at table; her life at Myst Court afforded so little variety, that the sight of an eclipse on a clear wintry night was not one that she would willingly miss. [211]
“I suppose that you, Bruce, will go too,” said his father. ”

“ Emmie's look of delighted surprise when she heard the plan was worth seeing, her rapturous hug of gratitude not altogether disagreeable, provided it were not too frequently repeated; and Herbert grasped my hand more fervently than usual when I asked for his approval.
"Then, when can you be ready? Sir Percival Pylle said start this week, if possible; but I am willing to wait over Sunday for you, Emmie. Take as little luggage, as you can, and meet me at Charing Cross on Tuesday morning. Will that do?" ”

“ Emmie started at the sound of the rustle. The tall bushes in their shrouds of snow began to her excited imagination to assume the form of spectres; Emmie almost fancied that they began to move towards her! And now—it is not imagination—a dark figure is slowly moving along the gravel-path, whitened by snow, which divides the lawn on which Emmie is standing from that back part of Myst Court to which her gaze is directed! Emmie’s first [217] emotion is that of terror, her next is that of relief. She recognizes the sound of a short dry cough, which has nothing unearthly about it ”

“ Thoughtlessness is my besetting sin!”
“My difficulty would be to single out one amongst my many faults,” said Emmie.
“Now that is humbug; you know that it is!” exclaimed her youngest brother. “You have no fault at all, except the fault of being a great deal too good. I should like you better if you were as lively and larky as Alice!”
“Saucy boy!” said Emmie, and she smiled.
“But, captain,” continued Vibert, addressing himself to his uncle, “though we are willing enough to read what you write, we won’t be driven to anything in the shape of confession. ”

“ Even Emmie loves him, and follows him about like a dog everywhere. I am not a bit ashamed of my affection for him. I would rather live lonely, as I shall live, and care about him in the way I do, receiving little daily kindnesses at his hand, than marry any other man. ”

“ Do you know, Luce, I think there's something to be said for the sheltered life? We had a little taste of it, just that week or two after the Pigs bolted. That's the life Emmie has, always—no anxieties; just time to be jolly and enjoy herself. ”

“ Inclined to admire all that was foreign, the smooth, shining hair parted on Emmie's forehead looked to me now "so dreadfully English." I had always thought Miriam a sensible woman for forbidding her girls to disfigure themselves with fringes—idiot fringes, I had called them, when in my ignorance I aided and abetted her decision. Ah, well! one's mind grows broader with more varied experience, and mine now widened fast, until I positively longed to see some wandering tendrils straying across my niece's brow, if a row of bright wavy locks was impossible for her. ”

“ There are duties which I know to be duties, and yet from the performance of which I am always shrinking, making excuses for my neglect such as conscience tells me are weak and false. Truly mine is a very faulty character, yet am I given to self-deception; the kindness and partiality of every one round me help to blind me to my own faults, and perhaps to draw me into a little hypocrisy, to make each ‘black spot’ more black.”
It will be observed that Emmie was no stranger to self-examination; it was to the maiden no new thing to commune with her heart and be still. ”

“ The maiden was not kept long in doubt. It was her own father that she saw in the chaise, a few seconds afterwards, urging on the pony to a frantic pace, plunging through the drifted snow as if life or death hung on its speed! Joe sat behind, while his master drove as Emmie had never seen her father drive before.
“What can be the matter?” exclaimed Emmie; “papa has forgotten even his greatcoat, and the [270] weather is so cold, and it looks as if a storm would come on!” She watched the chaise till it disappeared behind intervening trees and brushwood. ”

“ And nobly dares the danger nature shrinks from.”
Mr. Trevor and his daughter met the travellers at the iron gate which has been repeatedly mentioned as opening into the grounds of Myst Court. Emmie’s face, radiant with smiles of welcome, and blooming with happiness and health, did indeed rival the soft beauty of the apple-blossom. Captain Arrows and his nephews quitted the chaise; and [338] while Vibert on foot led the pony, the whole party sauntered at an easy pace along the carriage-drive, Emmie keeping close to the side of her newly-restored brother. ”

“ Strangers began to comment on the tall, graceful girl who drove out her little sister day after day in the pony-carriage, or, as Emmie's strength failed, walked by the side of the Bath chair, where the little frail figure seemed to be lost and hidden. ”

“ He is evidently much attached to Emmie, and I believe will make her truly happy. So, by and by, we shall have another wedding, and then I know exactly how it will be in the future. History, they say, repeats itself. So somebody's marriage will inconvenience me; I shall lose my head housekeeper in Emmie. There will be bad times for the garden again next spring, I know there will, and I shall be worried and out of sorts, and shall suffer from bunions, or something else, and then Hunter will send me to Sir Percival Pylle for good advice. ”

“ Emmie had heard him. Softly she called from her cot to the next, "He says I shall never live through it; O Annie, what shall I do?" Annie considered. "If I," said the wise little Annie, "was you, I should cry to the dear Lord Jesus to help me, for, Emmie, you see, It's all in the picture there: 'Little children should come to Me.'"— (Meaning the print that you gave us, I find that it always can please Our children, the dear Lord Jesus with children about His knees.) "Yes, and I will," said Emmie, "but then if I call to the Lord, How should He know that it's me? such a lot of beds in the ward?" ”

“ Emily.—“O mama, what must poor Clara have felt when she heard all this! And did she not run into the room and kneel to her papa and mama, and entreat them not to send her away from them, and promise to be the very best little girl in all the world if they would but let her stay; and did she not keep her promise, and were not she and her mama happy ever afterwards? But O the black frock!”
“You shall hear, my Emmie. Clara did [Pg 49] nothing of all that you suppose. She saw that her papa would not believe her promises, and her conscience told her that he was right. ”

“ Bell,” said Emmie gratefully.
“I am not even going to ask you what has happened.”
Miss Verinder thanked her again.
[226]
“I shall not ask a single question; and I want you to know that you will be welcomed in this house precisely as before—at all times and seasons, do you understand? If any of my friends object, then,” said Mrs. Bell firmly and grandly, “they can stay outside. Yes, they shall soon find I will not stand anything of that sort. You see, I am perfectly frank with you, Emmeline. I should be less than a friend if I attempted to conceal the truth from you. ”

“ The world seems so full of dead and living people somehow."
"Talking of churchyards always makes me shiver," returned Cathy, exchanging a meaning glance with her friend. Emmie was not always quite canny, she thought. "I would rather talk about Queenie's new cottage, and all the fun we mean to have there. I shall come to tea nearly every night, and in the winter you and I will toast muffins, Emmie, and roast chestnuts. I think I must give you one of my Persian kittens, since you have left yours at Carlisle; no cottage is complete without a cat on the hearth." ”

“ To help effectually those who require help, to sow a blessing and reap a blessing, we need to receive, we need to ask for the wisdom that cometh down from above.
“I wish that I had flung that unlucky half-crown into the brook, instead of throwing it away on those Blunts!” thought Emmie. “It was my nervous timidity that made me do so foolish a thing.”
There was no difficulty in finding the cottage of Widow Brant; nor had Emmie even to knock, for the poor woman stood at her open door, only too [180] glad to welcome the lady in. The widow was dressed neatly, but very poorly ”

“ They thought that it no more demeaned them to enter a cottage than to enter a church; the rich and the poor meet together in both.”
“Miss Emmie is too good to be proud,” observed John; “but, take my word for it, she’ll never muster up courage to go within ten yards of a cottage. Kind things she’ll say, ay, and do; for she has the kindest heart in the world. But she’ll send you, Susan, with her baskets of groceries and bundles of cast-off clothes; she’ll not hunt up cases herself. Miss would shrink from bad smells ”

“ Emmie has shared [14] their interests, and joined them in their amusements, without ever brushing away that feminine softness which, as the down to the peach, is to woman one of the greatest of charms. Bruce would have disliked having “a fast girl” for his sister almost as much as Mr. Trevor would have disapproved of his daughter earning that title. The slang in which some modern ladies (?) indulge would have sounded from the lips of Emmie as startling as the blare of a child’s trumpet toy breaking in on a melody of Beethoven.
Vibert Trevor in appearance resembles his sister ”