Part 7 (1/2)

said West, with a cunning smile. ”I was sure you would enjoy seeing the country before you get down to work, and I was not averse myself to a drive in such delightful company.”

”I would like to go back to the school-house at once, please,” said Margaret, decidedly, and there was that in her voice that caused the man to turn the horse around and head it toward the village.

”Why, yes, of course, if you prefer to see the school-house first, we can go back and look it over, and then, perhaps, you will like to ride a little farther,” he said. ”We have plenty of time. In fact, Mrs. Tanner told me she would not expect us home to dinner, and she put a very promising-looking basket of lunch under the seat for us in case we got hungry before we came back.”

”Thank you,” said Margaret, quite freezingly now. ”I really do not care to drive this morning. I would like to see the school-house, and then I must return to the house at once. I have a great many things to do this morning.”

Her manner at last penetrated even the thick skin of the self-centered man, and he realized that he had gone a step too far in his attentions.

He set himself to undo the mischief, hoping perhaps to melt her yet to take the all-day drive with him. But she sat silent during the return to the village, answering his volubility only by yes or no when absolutely necessary. She let him babble away about college life and tell incidents of his late pastorate, at some of which he laughed immoderately; but he could not even bring a smile to her dignified lips.

He hoped she would change her mind when they got to the school building, and he even stooped to praise it in a kind of contemptuous way as they drew up in front of the large adobe building.

”I suppose you will want to go through the building,” he said, affably, producing the key from his pocket and putting on a pleasant antic.i.p.atory smile, but Margaret shook her head. She simply would not go into the building with that man.

”It is not necessary,” she said again, coldly. ”I think I will go home now, please.” And he was forced to turn the horse toward the Tanner house, crestfallen, and wonder why this beautiful girl was so extremely hard to win. He flattered himself that he had always been able to interest any girl he chose. It was really quite a bewildering type. But he would win her yet.

He set her down silently at the Tanner door and drove off, lunch-basket and all, into the wilderness, vexed that she was so stubbornly unfriendly, and pondering how he might break down the dignity wherewith she had surrounded herself. There would be a way and he would find it.

There was a stubbornness about that weak chin of his, when one observed it, and an ugliness in his pale-blue eye; or perhaps you would call it a hardness.

CHAPTER IX

She watched him furtively from her bedroom window, whither she had fled from Mrs. Tanner's exclamations. He wore his stylish derby tilted down over his left eye and slightly to one side in a most unministerial manner, showing too much of his straw-colored back hair, which rose in a cowlick at the point of contact with the hat, and he looked a small, mean creature as he drove off into the vast beauty of the plain.

Margaret, in her indignation, could not help comparing him with the young man who had ridden away from the house two days before.

And he to set up to be a minister of Christ's gospel and talk like that about the Bible and Christ! Oh, what was the church of Christ coming to, to have ministers like that? How ever did he get into the ministry, anyway? Of course, she knew there were young men with honest doubts who sometimes slid through nowadays, but a mean little silly man like that?

How ever did he get in? What a lot of ridiculous things he had said! He was one of those described in the Bible who ”darken counsel with words.”

He was not worth noticing. And yet, what a lot of harm he could do in an unlearned community. Just see how Mrs. Tanner hung upon his words, as though they were law and gospel! How _could_ she?

Margaret found herself trembling yet over the words he had spoken about Christ, the atonement, and the faith. They meant so much to her and to her mother and father. They were not mere empty words of tradition that she believed because she had been taught. She had lived her faith and proved it; and she could not help feeling it like a personal insult to have him speak so of her Saviour. She turned away and took her Bible to try and get a bit of calmness.

She fluttered the leaves for something--she could not just tell what--and her eye caught some of the verses that her father had marked for her before she left home for college, in the days when he was troubled for her going forth into the world of unbelief.

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the G.o.dhead bodily....

How the verses crowded upon one another, standing out clearly from the pages as she turned them, marked with her father's own hand in clear ink underlinings. It almost seemed as if G.o.d had looked ahead to these times and set these words down just for the encouragement of his troubled servants who couldn't understand why faith was growing dim. G.o.d knew about it, had known it would be, all this doubt, and had put words here just for troubled hearts to be comforted thereby.

For I know whom I have believed [How her heart echoed to that statement!], and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

And on a little further:

Nevertheless the foundation of G.o.d standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.

There was a triumphant look to the words as she read them.

Then over in Ephesians her eye caught a verse that just seemed to fit that poor blind minister:

Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of G.o.d through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.