Part 22 (2/2)
”Yes, Grace, I shall be delighted.”
”And when can it be? You always have so many around you, dear; and no wonder, this is the centre of the house, this chair, which is your throne.”
”Well, let me see,” said Mrs. Wainwright, considering. ”After dinner the children go to Sunday-school, and papa has always a few Sunday patients whom he must visit. Between two and four I am always alone on Sunday and we can have a chat then. Mildred and Frances will probably walk home with Miriam and want to carry you off to the Manse to tea.”
”Not on my first home Sunday, mamma,” said Grace. ”I must have every littlest bit of that here, though I do expect to have good times with the Manse girls. Is Mrs. Raeburn as sweet as ever? I remember her standing at the station and waving me good-bye when I went away with auntie, and Amy, the dearest wee fairy, was by her side.”
”Amy is full of plans,” said Mrs. Wainwright. ”She is going to the League to study art if her mother can spare her. Mildred and Frances want to go on with their French, and one of the little boys, I forget which, has musical talent; but there is no one in Highland who can teach the piano. The Raeburn children are all clever and bright.”
”They could hardly help being that, mamma, with such a father and mother, and the atmosphere of such a home.”
All this time there was the hurry and bustle of Sunday morning in a large family where every one goes to church, and the time between breakfast and half-past ten is a scramble. Grace kept quietly on with the work she had that morning a.s.sumed, straightening the quilts on the invalid's chair, bringing her a new book, and setting a little vase with a few late flowers on the table by her side. Out of Grace's trunks there had been produced gifts for the whole household, and many pretty things, pictures and curios, which lent attractiveness to the parlor, grown shabby and faded with use and poverty, but still a pretty and homelike parlor, as a room which is lived in by well-bred people must always be.
”Well, when the rest have gone to Sunday-school, and papa has started on his afternoon rounds, I'll come here and take my seat, where I used to when I was a wee tot, and we'll have an old-fas.h.i.+oned confab. Now, if the girls have finished dressing, I'll run and get ready for church. I'm so glad all through that I can again hear one of Dr. Raeburn's helpful sermons.”
Mrs. Wainwright smiled.
”To hear Frances' and Amy's chatter, one would not think that so great a privilege, Grace.”
”Oh, that amounts to nothing, mamma! Let somebody else criticise their father and you'd hear another story. Ministers' families are apt to be a little less appreciative than outsiders, they are so used to the minister in all his moods. But Dr. Raeburn's ”Every Morning” has been my companion book to the Bible ever since I was old enough to like and need such books, and though I was so small when I went that I remember only the music of his voice, I want to hear him preach again.”
”Grace,” came a call from the floor above, ”you can have your turn at the basin and the looking-gla.s.s if you'll come this minute. Hurry, dear, I'm keeping Eva off by strategy. You have your hair to do and I want you to hook my collar. You must have finished in mother's room, and it's my belief you two are just chattering. Hurry, please, dear!”
”Yes, Miriam, I'm coming. But let Eva go on. It takes only a second for me to slip into my jacket. I never dress for church,” she explained to her mother. ”This little black gown is what I always wear on Sundays.”
”I wish you could have a room of your own, daughter. It's hard after you've had independence so long to be sandwiched in between Miriam and Eva. But we could not manage another room just now.” The mother looked wistful.
”I'm doing very well, mamma. Never give it a thought. Why, it's fun being with my sisters as I always used to be. Miriam is the one ent.i.tled to a separate room, if anybody could have it.”
Yet she stifled a sigh as she ran up to the large, ill-appointed chamber which the three sisters used in common.
When you have had your own separate, individual room for years, with every dainty belonging that is possible for a luxurious taste to provide, it is a bit of a trial to give it up and be satisfied with a cot at one end of a long, barnlike place, with no chance for solitude, and only one mirror and one pitcher and basin to serve the needs of three persons. It can be borne, however, as every small trial in this world may, if there is a cheerful spirit and a strong, loving heart to fall back on. Besides, most things may be improved if you know how to go about the task. The chief thing is first to accept the situation, and then bravely to undertake the changing it for the better.
”Doctor,” said the mother, as her husband brushed his thin gray hair in front of his chiffonier, while the merry sound of their children's voices came floating down to them through open doors, ”thank the dear Lord for me in my stead when you sit in the pew to-day. I'll be with you in my thoughts. It's such a blessed thing that our little middle girl is at home with us.”
The doctor sighed. That bill in his pocket was burning like fire in his soul. He was not a cent nearer meeting it than he had been on Friday, and to-morrow was but twenty-four hours off. Yesterday he had tried to borrow from a cousin, but in vain.
”I fail to see a blessing anywhere, Charlotte,” he said. ”Things couldn't well be worse. This is a dark bit of the road.” He checked himself. Why had he saddened her? It was not his custom.
”When things are at the very worst, Jack, I've always noticed that they take a turn for the better. 'It may not be my way; it may not be thy way; but yet in His own way the Lord will provide.'” Mrs. Wainwright spoke steadily and cheerfully. Her thin cheeks flushed with feeling. Her tones were strong. Her smile was like a sunbeam. Doctor Wainwright's courage rose.
”Anyway, darling wife, you are the best blessing a man ever had.” He stooped and kissed her like a lover.
Presently the whole family, Grace walking proudly at her father's side, took their way across the fields to church.
Perhaps you may have seen lovely Sunday mornings, but I don't think there is a place in the whole world where Sunday suns.h.i.+ne is as clear, Sunday stillness as full of rest, Sunday flowers as fragrant, as in our hamlet among the hills, our own dear Highland. Far and near the roads wind past farms and fields, with simple, happy homes nestling under the shadow of the mountains. You hear the church bells, and their sound is soft and clear as they break the golden silence. Groups of people, rosy-cheeked children, and st.u.r.dy boys and pleasant looking men and women pa.s.s you walking to church, exchanging greetings. Carriage loads of old and young drive on, all going the same way. It makes me think of a verse in the Psalm which my old Scottish mother loved:
”I joyed when to the house of G.o.d 'Go up,' they said to me, 'Jerusalem, within thy gates Our feet shall standing be.'”
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