Part 2 (2/2)
Donald ought to have kept his opinions to himself.”
”That is the hardest kind of work, Marion. I know, for I've been trying to do it ever since you were born. Yes, Marion, I have, and it is hard work to-day.”
”What makes you try it, Aunt?”
”The same reason as stirs Donald up.”
”Calvinism?”
”Just Calvinism.”
”But you are a Calvinist?”
”Not I! No, indeed! But when I came here to take care of Donald and yourself I promised Jessy Caird never to bring that subject to dispute.
I knew, if I did, I would have to leave you, and I thought more of you two children than of any creed in Christendom.”
”What creed do you like, Aunt?”
”I was christened and confirmed in the English Church and I love it with a great love; but I'm loving Donald and you far better--_and her that's gone_--and, if the Syrian was to be forgiven for wors.h.i.+ping out of his own temple for his Master's sake, I think Mother Church will forgive me for loving two motherless children more than her liturgy.”
”Did Father never ask you if you would like to go to St. Mary's and hear your own prayers? They are very fine prayers. I have heard them, for when I was at school Miss Lamont took us sometimes on Sunday afternoons to the English Church.”
”You are right, but I would not name Miss Lamont's freedom before your father. I never talk on this subject to him; if I did, we would be pa.s.sing disagreeable words in ten minutes. For your sakes, I go cheerfully to the Calvinistic kirk every Sabbath, and n.o.body but your father and myself has known that my soul was Armenian, and hated a Calvinist even in its most charitable hours.”
”What is an Armenian?”
”St. Paul was an Armenian, and St. Augustine, and Luther, and John Wesley, and all the millions that follow their teaching. I am not ashamed of my faith. I am going to heaven in the best of good company.
But what for are we talking this happy hour of Calvinism? We ought to let weary dogs lie, and there are few wearier ones than Calvinism.”
”I like to talk of it, Aunt. I want to know all about it.”
”Then talk to the Minister. Here are mountains and trees and flowers of every kind. Here are birds singing as if they never would grow old, and winds streaming out of the hills cool as living waters, and wafting into us scents that tell the soul they come from heaven. Oh, my dear Marion, let us enjoy G.o.d's good gifts and be thankful.”
”Are you going to unpack the trunks to-night, Aunt?”
”No. Aileen and Kitty would have a conscience ache if we did anything not necessary so near the Sabbath Day. We must respect their feelings.
Aileen is very strict in her religion. I am tired, and am going to lie down for an hour, and you can wander about and please yourself. Go into the garden. I wouldn't wonder if you had a few pleasant surprises.”
So Marion went into the garden, leaving the old house until she had a whole day to give it. She went among the rose trellises first. The roses were just budding--gold and pink and white. What a wonder of roses there would be in a week or two! The pansy beds were another marvel. Such pansies she had never before seen, for they represented all that the highest culture could do for size and coloring. Sweet old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers and flowering shrubs like lad's love were everywhere, and a little green carpet of camomile was spread in the center of the place for the fairies. Not far from it was a great bed of lavender and thyme, a special gift to the honeybees, who lived in the pretty antique straw skeps near it. Heavily laden with honey, hundreds of bees were flying slowly home to them, and the misty air was full of an odor from the hives that stirred something at the very roots of her being. She stood lost in thought before the skeps and the returning bees, and as she drew great breaths of the scented air she whispered to herself, ”Where and when have I seen this very picture before?”
Until the twilight deepened and a gray mist from the sea blended with it she sat thinking of many things. Life had been so vivid to her during the past week. She felt as if she had never lived before, and it was not until all was shadowy and indistinct that she remembered her aunt had warned her to come into the house before the dew fell and the sea mist rolled inland.
Turning hurriedly, she was about to obey this order when she heard footsteps on the flagged sidewalk running along the front of the house.
She stood still and listened. Perhaps it was Donald. No, the steps were not like Donald's, they were firmer and faster, and had a military ring in them. She was standing under a large silver-leafed birch tree, and not visible from the sidewalk, yet, by stepping a little further into its shadow, she thought she could satisfy her curiosity. However, she could see nothing but a tall figure, hastening through the gathering gloom and looking neither to the right nor to the left. But for the footsteps, the figure pa.s.sed silently and swiftly as a bird through the gray mist. Its sudden appearance and disappearance impressed her powerfully, and then there came again to her that singular sense of a past familiarity. ”I have stood in a garden watching that figure before.
Where was it? Who is he?”
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