CHAPTER VII. "I am going for a long ride into the country, Evadne," said her uncle

CHAPTER VII.

"I am going for a long ride into the country, Evadne," said her uncle one morning, "would you like to come with me?"

Evadne gave a glad assent. After her beautiful tropical life, it seemed to her as if she should choke, shut away from the wide expanse of sky which she loved, among monotonous rows of houses and dingy streets.

As they left the city behind them and the road swept out into the open, she gave a long sigh of delight. Her uncle laughed.

"Well, Evadne, does it please you?"

"It is the first time I have felt as if I could breathe," she said.

"So you don't take kindly to Marlborough? Well, I suppose it is a rude awakening from your sunny land, but you will get used to it. We grow accustomed to all life's disagreeable surprises as time rolls on."

Evadne shivered. "I do not think I shall ever grow accustomed to it, Uncle Lawrence."

"Ah, you are young. We grow wiser as our hair turns grey."

"If that is wisdom, I do not care to grow wise."

"Not grow wise, Evadne!" said her uncle quizzically. "In this age, when women claim a surplusage of all the brain power bestowed upon the race! What will you do when you have to attend to business?"

"Business," echoed Evadne, "I have never thought about it, Uncle Lawrence."

"No turn for dollars and cents, eh? Did your father never consult you about his affairs?"

Evadne's lip quivered. "Oh, yes," she said, and her words were a cry of pain, "he consulted me about everything, but I do not think there was ever any mention of money. Does money constitute business, Uncle Lawrence?"

"Wealth gives power, Evadne. Money is one of the greatest things in the world. While we are on the subject I may as well tell you that your father wrote me concerning the disposition of his property. I shall look after your interests carefully, together with my own, and give you the same quarterly allowance that my own girls have. When you are older I will go more into detail, but it is not worth while now to worry your head over columns of uninteresting figures. I shall open an account for you at the National Bank and you can draw on that for your expenses. Your aunt will initiate you into the mysteries of shopping. By the way, you must have gone through that experience in Barbadoes. How did you manage there?"

Evadne turned her head away and clenched her hands tightly as the flood of bitter-sweet memories threatened to engulf her.

"Papa always went with me," she said slowly, "whatever he liked I chose."

Judge Hildreth gave a sigh of relief. He had extricated himself from a difficult position with diplomatic skill. It did not occur to him that a lie which is half the truth is the meanest kind of a lie. He had acquainted his niece with all that was necessary for her to know at present, and at the same time left himself a loophole of escape from the imputation of disregarding his brother's wishes. When she became old enough to assume the responsibility, and he got his affairs straightened out sufficiently to admit of transferring to her care the funds which were so absolutely essential to his present success, he would put Evadne in full possession of her inheritance. Results had proved the wisdom of his decision. By her own acknowledgment his niece had never given a thought to the subject. His brother's plan would be a height of imprudence from which he was bound to shield her.

In Evadne's mind also thought was busy. "Money is one of the greatest things in the world," her uncle had said, and she had read that morning, "tongues shall cease, and knowledge shall be done away, but love never faileth. Now abideth faith, hope, and love; the greatest of these is love." Was Louis right? Did Christians and the Bible not agree? And the business of _her_ life was to find Jesus Christ. Was there any money in that?

When they reached Hollywood, where Judge Hildreth had business with Mr. Hawthorne, Evadne was in an ecstasy of silent rapture. She had never dreamed what a New England farm might be. Its varied beauty, clad in the dazzling robes of early summer, came upon her with the suddenness of a revelation. She begged to be allowed to wait for her uncle out of doors, and wandered slowly on past the great barns to where the wide gate stretched across the green road. When she reached it she stopped and looked with keen delight at the beautiful creatures in the fields on either side. The sunshine fell upon her with loving warmth; in the distance she could hear the whirr of a mowing machine and the shouts of the men at work. A magnificent young horse thrust his head familiarly over the fence near by, and under the shade of a great tree Primrose, with her graceful calf beside her, was lazily chewing her cud.

Everything spoke of contentment and comfort and peace. An unutterable longing seized upon the lonely girl. Here at least she would have God's creatures to love, and his woods and the sky! She laid her head down upon the gate with a smothered cry.

"If I only belonged,--like the cows!"

"Pitty lady!"

Startled by the sweet, baby voice, Evadne looked up to find a pair of laughing blue eyes peeping sympathetically at her. The sun-bonnet had fallen back and the golden curls were tossed in luxurious confusion over the little head.

Evadne caught the child in her arms.

"You little darling!"

"Yes, me is," said the child, resting contentedly within Evadne's embrace, as if, with the mysterious telepathy of childhood, she recognized a spiritual affinity which she was bound to help. "Me's very nice. Don says so."

"And who is Don?" asked Evadne.

"Don's my bootiful man. Me's doin' to marry Don when me gets big. Oh, dere he is!" and breaking from Evadne, she rolled herself between the bars of the gate and ran at the top of her speed towards John Randolph, who just then appeared around a bend in the road, one arm thrown lightly over the neck of the horse he had been training.

"Halloo, Nansie!" Evadne heard his cheery greeting, saw him stoop and lift the child on to the horse's back, and was so interested in the pretty scene that she forgot she was a stranger. When she came to herself with a start the little cavalcade had reached the gate and John Randolph stood before her with his hat in his hand.

Evadne bowed. "It is so beautiful!" she said. "I have been waiting for my uncle and lost myself among the harmonies of Nature."

John Randolph's eyes lightened. "It is God's world," he answered with a sweet reverence.

Evadne looked full into the shining face. "Do you know Jesus Christ?" she asked impulsively.

The face softened into a great tenderness. "He is my King."

"And do you love him?"

"With all there is of me."

A servant came just then to say the Judge was waiting.

"I will come at once," Evadne said courteously. Then she turned once more to John. "And what do _you_ think of life?" she cried softly.

"Life!" he said, and there was a strange, exultant ring in his voice. "Life is a beautiful possibility."

There was no time for more, but in the spirit realm of kinship no multitude of words is needed. Only a few moments had passed, yet in that little space two souls had met. What did it matter if the devious turnings of life should lead them far apart, or the barring gate of circumstance forever separate them? They had found each other!

"Pitty lady!--Nan loves oo, dear," and the child whom John held seated on the broad top rail of the gate, held up her rosy lips for a kiss.

Instinctively Evadne held out her hand to John. Spiritual ethics laugh at the conventionalities of time. "Good-bye," she said, "and thank you."

She looked back once to wave her hand to little Nan. John was standing as she had left him, one arm encircling the child who nestled close to him, while over his right shoulder the horse had thrust his handsome head. Always afterward she saw him so. It was a parable of what God had meant man to be.

* * * * *

Long after the sound of the carriage wheels had died away John stood motionless, beholding again as in a vision the earnest face and wonderful grey eyes. Then he stooped for his hat which had fallen to the ground when he had taken her hand in his. As he did so, he saw a dainty bit of lawn lying on the other side of the gate. He put his hand between the bars and caught it just as the breeze was about to blow it away. He looked at the name which was delicately traced in one corner with a strange sense of pleasure: Evadne.

"It fits her," he said to himself. "There's a sweet elusiveness about her. She makes me think of a bird. She'll let you come just so far, until she gets to trust you, and then you'll have all her sweetness."

He drew a long breath which was strangely like a sigh, and, folding the handkerchief carefully, put it in his pocket.

"Pitty lady," murmured little Nan drowsily, and John caught her up and kissed her,--he could not have told why.

* * * * *

"I do think Dorothy Bruce is the kindest creature!" exclaimed Marion one Saturday morning as they lingered with a pleasant sense of leisure over the breakfast table. "She offered to give up the whole of to-day to me. I thought it was lovely when she works so hard all the week."

"Give it up to you. Why, what do you mean, Marion? We never have anything to do with her in school. What could you possibly want of her here?"

"Oh, it is that doleful algebra," sighed Marion. "It is utterly impossible for me to get it into my head, and Dorothy takes to it like a duck to water, and she is a born teacher. Madame Castle says her aptitude for imparting knowledge amounts to genius. You must allow it was kind of her, Isabelle."

Isabelle shrugged her shoulders. "Self-interested, most likely. That sort of people would do anything to obtain a foothold."

"Oh, Isabelle!" cried Evadne. "Do have a little faith in your fellow-man! Why should you set yourself up on a pinnacle and despise everyone who is poor, when the father of us all hoed for a living?"

Louis looked up from the paper he was reading. "There are two things Isabelle has no faith in, Evadne. The Declaration of Independence and the book she loaned you. One says all men are free and equal,--the other that God has made of one blood all the nations of the earth. Her Serene Highness objects to this. She will have the blue blood come in somewhere, though where she gets it from heaven only knows!"

"Louis, I do wish you would not be so radical!" Isabelle said, peevishly. "You must admit there is such a thing as culture and refinement."

"Certainly I admit it. The only thing I object to is that you talk as if you possessed a monopoly of the article, whereas I hold that it is just a question of environment. It is no thanks to you that you were not born a Hottentot or a Choctaw. Give yourself the same ancestors and surroundings as your chimney-sweep and wherein would you be superior to him? And when it comes to ancestry, by the way, probably Miss Bruce can trace back to some of the grand old Highland chiefs who covered themselves with glory long before the lineage of Hildreth had emerged from obscurity."

"I don't know anyone who likes to choose his company better than you!" observed Isabelle sarcastically.

"Certainly I do. Similarity of environment presupposes similarity of tastes. Probably my idea of enjoyment would not accord with the chimney-sweep's, but at the same time I don't look down on the poor beggar because he hasn't been as fortunate as I in getting his bread well buttered. There is a law of cultivation for humanity as well as plants. Surround a succession of generations with all the advantages of wealth, education and travel, and you produce the aristocrat; just as you get the delicate Solanum Wendlandi from the humble potato blossom. Set your aristocrat in the wilderness to earn his living by the sweat of his brow,--let the rain and wind beat upon his delicate skin,--shut him away from all the elevating influences to which he has been accustomed, and, in course of time, what have you? His descendants have retrograded. The Solanum has become a potato again."

"That is all very well," said Isabelle, "but I believe the instinct of culture will be dormant somewhere."

"Then why do you not recognize it in your chimney-sweep? For all you know he may be the descendant of some impecunious sire of a lordly house. Probably plenty of them are."

Louis rose and tossed the paper carelessly to his mother, who had been an amused listener to the discussion. It never occurred to him to do so before. What did women want to know about politics or the turf?

"Jesus Christ never seemed to care about externals," said Evadne softly. "He chose his friends among the common people."

"For pity's sake, Evadne!" cried Isabelle. "When will you learn that the Bible is not to be taken literally?"

"Not to be taken literally!" echoed Evadne in wonderment. "How is it to be taken then?"

"Isabelle means that we have to make allowances," said her aunt. "Christ could do a great many things that you cannot."

Evadne was silent, while the words of Jesus kept ringing in her ears: "For I have given you an example, that ye also should do as I have done to you." If only she could understand!

"By the way, Evadne," said Mrs. Hildreth, "I beg you will not repeat your mistake of yesterday."

"What do you mean, Aunt Kate?"

"Bringing such a disreputable character into the house. When I came in and found her sitting in the hall and you talking to her I was perfectly paralyzed. Horrible! Why her rags were abominable, and her feet were bare!"

"But she had no shoes, Aunt Kate, and she was just my height. I was so glad that my clothes would fit her."

"A pretty thing to have your clothes paraded through the streets by such a creature! Most likely she would pawn them for gin. I am sure she was an improper character."

"But, Aunt Kate," pleaded Evadne, "Jesus Christ says we must clothe the naked and feed the hungry if we would be his followers. I must do as he tells me for I am going to follow him."

"Your uncle does enough of that for the family," said her aunt coldly. "I do not wish you to try any such experiments again."

Puzzled and chilled, Evadne left the room. Was obeying the commands of Christ only an "experiment" after all?

She crept up to her favorite retreat and threw herself upon her gayly covered couch. "Oh, Jesus Christ!" she cried passionately, "I am _glad_ I did not live in Galilee when you were there! Aunt Kate and Isabelle would have thought it bad form for me to follow you in the crowd where the sinners were. But they can't keep me from doing so now!

"Oh, I wish I were dead! No one would care. Yes, Pompey would be sorry. Louis would call it 'a sable attachment,' but Pompey loved my father. Oh, dearest! dearest!"

She buried her head in her hands while wave after wave of desolation broke over the lonely soul. "A beautiful possibility" her knight of the gate had said. Could life become that to her?

Downstairs Pompey began to sing,--

"Shall we meet beyond the river, Where the surges cease to roll, Where in all the bright forever Sorrow ne'er shall press the soul?"

The rich vibrations rolled up and trembled about her. She held out her arms and her voice broke in a cry of triumphant faith, "Yes, we _shall_ meet, Lord Jesus, face to face!"

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