Part 1 (2/2)
Minnie looked at her in astonishment. ”Why, Mabel, of course you never needed to feel such a thing--you have known about these things all your life!”
”Ah, yes!” replied Mabel, ”I have known _about_ them, as you say, but I have never _known_ them. You know one may know all about a thing or person, and yet never know it or him by direct experience.”
”That is true,” said Minnie, reflectively. ”But why did you always try to interest me in them, when you really felt no good effect from them yourself?”
”Please don't ask me that!” entreated Mabel, ”It would be worse than useless for me to try to explain it, but it is a fact that I have never known such a change as you talk about--as what we call conversion must surely imply--so I have never been converted, and that is the reason, I suppose, why all my efforts to interest you were always vain. How could I hope to lead you to a Saviour I could not see myself?”
Minnie was silent. She could not understand Mabel's difficulty, and therefore did not feel able to discuss it. She could not say anything to comfort or console her either, from her own short experience, because she felt, notwithstanding all that she had just heard, that Mabel was years and years before her on the road--further by a long way than all the years of her life. She felt this but could not say it; it seemed to hover through her mind like a shadow, and she could not grasp it in order to put it into words.
Mabel saw how puzzled she was, and realized how dangerous it might be to her peace to communicate difficulties of such a nature in her present impressionable state; she therefore endeavoured to divert her mind into a safer channel by getting her to talk about herself.
”It is very silly of me,” she said, ”to speak thus to you who have so newly begun the race. What should you know of such things? Come, we won't talk about them, and I daresay I shall grow out of such morbid notions in time; tell me about yourself, I am sure it will do me good; you were telling me about how different you felt. Please do go on.”
”But are you sure it won't affect you as it did before? I would like to tell you about it because of what it has led me to do, and because I would like you to feel as I do, if, as you say, you have never felt it.”
And Minnie looked at her with great tears in her eyes, and with a great pity in her warm generous heart, wis.h.i.+ng she could give half her happiness to her friend.
”Go on, dear,” said Mabel, ”you don't know how much good it will do me.”
”Well, but I must tell you, Mabel, that although I am very happy, it sometimes troubles me to think how little I am changed outwardly, and how n.o.body but yourself would believe anything of all I have told you. I am sure Mona Cameron wouldn't”--she stopped suddenly, half inclined to interrupt herself in order to retail to Mabel the incident of the previous day, but thinking better of it, she resumed--”It does trouble me more than a little, sometimes, but I'm not going to lot it. I know about the difference, and you know about it, and better than all, G.o.d who wrought it knows about it, so what can it matter whether the world knows about it or not?”
”But, Minnie,” interrupted Mabel, ”I don't see that you are quite right there; it must be of consequence that we show to the world what side we are on.”--”O, yes, of course,” replied Minnie hastily, ”I was just coming to that--I meant the school-girls particularly when I said the world just now, because I know it will take a long time to convince them of the reality of this--indeed I am inclined to think they won't be convinced, it won't suit their ideas--but there, I am again! judging them just in the very way I am condemning them for judging me. Oh, dear, what a long time it will take before I get out of my old way of speaking without thought, for which my new way of thinking rebukes me a thousand times a day!”
”Patience, dear,” recommended Mabel, knowing well what a hard recommendation it was to follow, but feeling she must say something.
”Yes, Mabel,” returned Minnie, ”I _am_ learning patience--even I, who never knew what restraint meant all my life, am learning what true freedom is for the first time.”
Mabel looked down at her wistfully, as if half inclined to say something, but remembering her danger she remained silent.
”And that just reminds me,” continued Minnie, after a moment's pause, ”that I have not yet told you the new idea I have been so longing to have your opinion upon, since ever it came into my head.”
”Well, you must make haste,” Mabel answered, ”you see its quite late already.
”O, it won't take long! I'll just tell you about it, and we can go into it some other time, its only a project, you know, and of course I wanted to have your opinion and advice first, and your help afterwards.”
”All of which you may count on,” said Mabel smiling.
”Well, then, I must ask you in the first place, if you know the row of houses down beside the pit which papa built for the miners?”
”Yes, I pa.s.s it every day coming to school.”
”Then you will probably have noticed how ill-kept and dirty the houses are, and how untidy the women and children are, who continually lounge and romp about the doors.”
”Indeed I have,” returned Mabel, ”and I have often thought what a pity it was that those houses which might be made so beautiful, should be kept in such a state.”
”That is just what papa was saying the other morning at breakfast. He said that he had had the houses built on the most approved principles, with every sort of convenience and facility for the promotion of health and order, and yet when he took a party of gentleman down to the pit last week, he was utterly ashamed to observe the squalor and misery of the place. He said that some of the worst slums of London could hardly be worse, except in the matter of light and air, and even these the people seemed to be doing their best to exclude, judging from the dust covered and tightly closed windows. It just occurred to me while he was speaking that perhaps I might be able to do something to remedy this terrible state of affairs. I am sure papa would be glad to do anything to help us. I have not said anything to him about it till I should hear your verdict, and because I haven't the least shadow of an idea what plan would be best to go upon. What do you think of it?”
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