Part 37 (1/2)
How is it?”
Matilda's eyes went back to the blue mountains. How much ought she to tell?
”I think--I suppose--I ought to be happy,” she said at last.
”I think you always try to do what you think you ought to do; isn't that so?”
”I _try_,” said Matilda in a low voice.
”How happens it, then, dear, that you do not succeed in being happy?”
”I don't know,” said Matilda. ”I suppose I should, if I were quite good.”
”If you were quite good. Have you so many things to make you happy?”
”I think I have.”
”Tell them to me,” said Mrs. Laval, pressing her cheek against Matilda's hair in caressing fas.h.i.+on; ”it is pleasant to talk of one's pleasant things, and I should like to hear of yours. What are they, love?”
What did the lady mean? Matilda hesitated, but Mrs. Laval was quietly waiting for her to speak. She had her arms wrapped round Matilda, and her face rested against her hair, and so she was waiting. It was plain that Matilda must speak. Still she waited, uncertain how to frame her words, uncertain how they would be understood; till at last the consciousness that she had waited a good while, drove her to speak suddenly.
”Why, ma'am,” she said, ”the first thing is, that I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The lady paused now in her turn, and her voice when she spoke was somewhat husky.
”What is the next thing, dear?”
”Then, I know that G.o.d is my Father.”
”Go on,” said the lady, as Matilda was silent.
”Well--that is it,” said Matilda. ”I belong to the Lord Jesus; and I love Him, and I know He loves me; and He takes care of me, and will take care of me; and whatever I want I ask Him for, and He hears me.”
”And does He give you whatever you ask for?” said the lady, in a tone again changed.
”If He don't, He will give me something better,” was the answer.
Maybe Mrs. Laval might have taken up the words from some lips. But the child on her lap spoke them so quietly, her face was in such a sweet rest of a.s.surance, and one little hand rose and fell on the window-sill with such an unconscious glad endors.e.m.e.nt of what she said, that the lady was mute.
”And this makes you happy?” she said, at length.
”Sometimes it does,” answered Matilda. ”I think it ought always.”
”But, my dear little creature, is there nothing else in all the world to make you feel happy?”
Matilda's words were not ready.
”I don't know,” she said. ”Sometimes I think there isn't. They're all away.”
The last sentence was given with an unconscious forlornness of intonation which went to her friend's heart. She clasped Matilda close at that, and covered her with kisses.