CHAPTER X. "I don't see what we are to do about Evadne!" and Mrs. Hildreth sighed

CHAPTER X.

"I don't see what we are to do about Evadne!" and Mrs. Hildreth sighed disconsolately. "She looks like a walking shadow. I should not be surprised if she had inherited her father's disease, and they say now that consumption is as contagious as diphtheria."

"Horrors!" cried Isabelle. "Do quarantine her somewhere, Mamma, until you are quite sure there is no danger. I haven't the faintest aspirations to martyrdom."

"It is a great care," sighed Mrs. Hildreth. "All of you children have always been so healthy. I don't believe Doctor Russe will listen to her going to the seaside, and the mountains are so monotonous! Other people's children are a great responsibility."

Suddenly Isabelle clapped her hands. "I have it!" she cried. "Send her up to Aunt Marthe, and then we can tease Papa to let us go to Newport. Marion is going to spend the summer with Christine Drayton, you know, and Papa does not intend to leave the city, so we can persuade him that it is our duty to seize such a golden opportunity of doing things economically. I am sure I don't know what people must think of us, never going to any of the fashionable places. For my part I think we owe it to Papa's position to keep up with the world."

"I believe it might be managed," said Mrs. Hildreth after some consideration. "It was very clever of you to think of it, Isabelle. You ought to be a diplomat, my dear," and she smiled approvingly on her daughter.

* * * * *

The train swept along through the picturesque Vermont scenery and Evadne looked out of her window with never ending delight.

"I am like a poor, lonely bird," she said to herself, "who flits from shore to shore, seeking rest and finding none. Another journey in the dark! I wonder what will be at the end of this one? Well, I'll hope for the best. Aunt Marthe's letter was kind, and her name sounds as cheery as Aunt Kate's sounds cold."

Mr. Everidge came to meet her as the train steamed into the little station, and Evadne soon found herself seated in a comfortable carriage behind a handsome chestnut mare, bowling along a fragrant country road, catching glimpses at every turn of the verdure-clad hills.

She found her new uncle very pleasant. There was a silver-tongued suavity about him in striking contrast to the growing preoccupation of Judge Hildreth, and a sort of airy self complaisance which took it for granted that he should be well treated by the world.

"I am very glad you have come, my dear niece," he said, "to relieve the tedium of our uneventful existence. You must let our Vermont air kiss the roses into bloom again in your pale cheeks. It has a world-wide reputation as a tonic. I hope you left our Marlborough relatives in a pleasant attitude of mind? It is one of the evidences of this progressive age that you should woo 'tired Nature's sweet restorer' one night under the roof of my respected brother-in-law, the next under my own. The ancients, with their primitive modes of laborious transit, were only half alive. We of to-day, thanks to the melodious tea-kettle and inventive cerebral tissue of the youthful Watt, live in a perpetual hand-clasp, so to speak, and, by means of the flashing chain of light which girdles the globe are kept in touch with the world. It is food for reflection that the thought which is evolved from the shadowy recesses of our brain to-day, should be, by the mysterious camera of electricity, photographed upon the retina of the Australian public to-morrow, and we need to have the archives of our memory enlarged to hold the voluminous correspondence of the century.

"Ah, Squire Higgins, good-evening. My niece by marriage, Miss Hildreth of Barbadoes."

The Squire lifted his hat, there was a little desultory conversation, then the carriages went on their separate ways, and soon Evadne found herself at her destination.

She looked eagerly at the pretty house with its _entourage_ of flowers and lawns, grand old trees and distance-purpled hills, then Aunt Marthe appeared in the doorway and she saw nothing else.

She was of medium height with a crown of soft, brown hair, and eyes whose first glance of welcome caught Evadne's heart and held her captive. There was a wonderful sweetness about the smiling mouth, and the face, although not classically beautiful, possessed a subtle spiritual charm more fascinating than mere physical perfection of color and form. She moved lightly with a buoyant youthfulness strangely at variance with the stately dignity of Mrs. Hildreth and the studied repose of Isabelle.

"You dear child!" The soft arms held her close, the sweet lips caught hers in a kiss, and Evadne felt with a great throb of joy that the weary bird had found a resting-place at last.

She led her into a cool, tastefully furnished room, drew her down beside her on the couch and took off her hat and gloves, then she handed her a fan and went to make her a lemon soda.

Evadne looked round the room with its soft curtains swaying in the breeze, the cool matting on the floor with a rug or two, the light bookcases with their wealth of thought, the comfortable wicker rockers, the bamboo tables holding several half cut magazines, an open work-basket, a vase with a single rose, while on the low mantel a cluster of graceful lilies were reflected in the mirror. "Why, this is home!" she cried and she laid her head against the cushions with a delightful sense of freedom.

The early supper was soon announced and Evadne found herself in a cozy dining-room seated near a window which opened into a bewildering vista of summer beauty. There were flowers beside each plate as well as in the quaintly carved bowl in the centre of the table. Evadne caught herself smiling. That had always been a conceit of hers in Barbadoes.

Everything was simple but delicious. The tender, juicy chicken, the delicate pink ham, the muffins browned to a turn, the Jersey butter moulded into a sheaf of wheat, and moist brown bread of Aunt Marthe's own making, the blocks of golden sponge cake, the crisp lettuce, the fragrant strawberries, the cool jelly frosted with snow. Evadne drank her tea out of a chocolate tinted cup, fluted like the bell of a flower, and felt as if she were feasting on the nectar of the gods, while Mr. Everidge's silvery tones kept up a constant stream of talk and Aunt Marthe's beautiful hospitality made her feel perfectly at home.

"Tea, my dear Evadne," he said, as he passed her cup to be refilled, "is an infusion of poison which is slowly but surely destroying the coatings of the gastronomical organ of the female portion of society. I tremble to think of the amount of tannin which analysis would show deposited in the systems of the votaries of the deadly Five o'clock, and the unhealthy nervous tension of the age is largely traceable to the excessive consumption of the pernicious liquid. Chocolate, on the contrary, taken as I always drink it, is simple and nutritive, with no unpleasant after effects to be apprehended, but this decoction of bitter herbs, steeped to death in water far past its proper temperature, is concentrated lye, my dear Evadne, nothing but concentrated lye. By the way, Marthe, I wish you would give your personal supervision to the preparation of my hot water in the future. Nothing comparable to hot water, Evadne, just before retiring. It aids digestion and induces sleep, and sleep you know is a gift of the gods. The Chinese mode of punishing criminals has always seemed to me exquisite in its barbarity. They simply make it impossible for the unhappy wretches to obtain a wink of sleep, until at length the torture grows unbearable and they find refuge in the long sleep which no mortal has power to prevent. So, my dear Marthe, see to it if you please in future that my slumber tonic is served just on the boil. The worthy Joanna does not understand the mysteries of the boiling process. Water, after it has passed the initiatory stage becomes flat, absolutely flat and tasteless. What I had to drink last night was so repugnant to my palate that I found it impossible to sink into repose with that calm attitude of mind which is so essential to perfect slumber.

"See to it also, my dear, that I am not disturbed at such an unearthly hour again as I was this morning. Tesla, the great electrician, has put himself on record as intimating that the want of sleep is a potent factor in the deplorably heavy death rate of the present day. He thinks sleep and longevity are synonymous, therefore it becomes us to bend every effort to attain that desirable consummation."

Involuntarily Evadne looked at Mrs. Everidge. Her face was slightly turned towards the open window and there was a half smile upon her lips, as if, like Joan of Arc, she was listening to voices of sweeter tone than those of earth. She came back to the present again on the instant and met her niece's eyes with a smile, but in the subtle realm of intuition we learn by lightning flashes, and Evadne needed no further telling to know that the saddest loneliness which can fall to the lot of a woman was the fate of her aunt.

Immediately after supper Mrs. Everidge persuaded Evadne to go to her room. The long journey had been a great strain upon her strength and she was very tired.

"I wish you a good night, Uncle Horace," she said as she passed him in the doorway.

"And you a pleasant one," he rejoined with a gallant bow. "'We are such stuff as dreams are made of--and our little life is rounded with a sleep.'"

She lay for a long time wakeful, revelling in the strange sense of peace which seemed to enfold her, while the evening breeze blew through the room and the twilight threw weird shadows among the dainty draperies. At length there came a low knock and Mrs. Everidge opened the door.

Evadne stretched out her hands impulsively. "Oh, this beautiful stillness!" she exclaimed. "In Marlborough there is the clang of the car gongs and the rumble of cabs and the tramp of feet upon the pavement until it seems as if the weary world were never to be at rest, but this house is so quiet I could almost hear a pin drop."

Mrs. Everidge smiled. "You have quick ears, little one. But we are quieter than usual to-night; Joanna is sitting up with a sick neighbor, your uncle went to his room early, and I have been reading in mine."

She drew a low chair up beside the bed. "Now we must begin to get acquainted," she said.

"Dear Aunt Marthe!" cried Evadne, "I feel as if I had known you all my life."

She gave her a swift caress. "You dear child! Then tell me about your father."

Evadne looked at her gratefully. No one had ever cared to know about her father before. Forgetting her weariness in the absorbing interest of her subject, she talked on and on, and Mrs. Everidge with the wisdom of true sympathy, made no attempt to check her, knowing full well that the relief of the tried heart was helping her more than any physical rest could do.

"And now, oh, Aunt Marthe, life is so desperately lonely!" she said at last with a sobbing sigh.

Mrs. Everidge leaned over and kissed the trembling lips. "I think sometimes the earthly fatherhood is taken from us, dear child, that we may learn to know the beautiful Fatherliness of God. We can never find true happiness until our restless hearts are folded close in the hush of his love. Human love--however lovely--does not satisfy us. Nothing can,--but God!"

"The Fatherliness of God," repeated Evadne. "That sounds lovely, but people do not think of him so. God is someone very terrible and far away."

"'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' Does that sound as if he were far away, little one? 'As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.' Why, God is father and mother both to us, dear child. Can you think of anyone nearer than that?"

Evadne caught her breath in a great gladness. "I believe you are his angel of consolation," she said in a hushed voice.

"'Even unto them will I give ... a place and a name better than of sons and daughters,'" quoted Aunt Marthe softly. "That means a location and an identity. Here, sometimes, it seems as if we had neither the one nor the other. Christ follows out the same idea in his picture of the abiding place which is being prepared for you and me. Everything on earth is so transitory, and the human heart has such a hunger for something that will last."

"Have you felt this too?" cried Evadne. "I thought I was the only one."

Mrs. Everidge laughed. "The only one in all the world to puzzle over its problems! Oh, yes, the older we grow, the more we find that the great majority have the same feelings and perplexities as ourselves, although some may not understand their thought clearly enough to put it into words."

"What is your favorite verse in all the Bible?" asked Evadne after a pause.

Mrs. Everidge laughed again, and Evadne thought she had never heard a laugh at once so merry and so sweet.

"You send me into a rose garden, dear child, and tell me to select the choicest bloom out of its wilderness of beauty. How can I when every one has a different coloring and a fragrance all its own? Two of my special favorites are in the Revelation,--'To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.' 'And they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.'

"That means a possession and a belonging. It is the spiritual symbol which binds us to our heavenly lover for eternity just as the wedding ring is a pledge of fidelity for our earth time. It is only as we see it so, that we get the full beauty of the religion of Jesus. His church--the inner circle of his chosen 'hidden ones'--is his bride, and what can be more glorious than to be the bride of the King of kings? The dear souls who only serve him with fear do not get the sweetness out of it at all. How can they, when their lives are all duty? 'Perfect love casteth out fear' and there is no duty about it, for when we love, it is a joy to serve and give. It hurts the Christ to have us content to be simply servants when he would lift us up to the higher plane of friendship, when he has put upon us the high honor of the dearest friend of all! Earthly brides spend a vast deal of time and thought over their trousseau, so I think Christ's bride should walk among men with a sweet aloofness while the spiritual garments are being fashioned in which she is to dwell with him. The Bible says a great deal about dressing. 'Let thy garments be always white'--the sunshine color, the joy color--for bye and bye we are to walk with him in white, you know. Our spiritual wardrobe must be fitted and worn down here. It is a terrible mistake to put off donning the wedding robes until we come to the feast. And the wardrobe is very ample. Christ would have his bride luxuriously appareled. 'Be clothed with humility.' That is a fine, close-fitting suit for every day, but over it we are to wear the garment of praise and the warm, shining robe of charity. Can you fancy anything more beautiful than a life clothed in such garments as these? And to me the loveliest of all is charity. The highest praise I ever heard given to a woman was that 'she had such a tender way of making excuses for everybody.'

"Very fair must be the bride in the eyes of her royal lover, clothed in the garments which he has selected,--all light and joy and tenderness, for, the King's daughter is all glorious within."

"Aunt Marthe," said Evadne, after a long silence, in which they had been tasting the sweetness of it, "I do not need to ask if you know Jesus Christ?"

The lovely face took on an added beauty. "He is my life," she said.

“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”