Part 7 (1/2)
She pressed her arms about him more tightly, and there were tears in his eyes as he stooped to kiss her brow.
Beth thought of all his tenderness that night as she lay in bed, and then slept, with the rain beating on the roof overhead.
It was a bright suns.h.i.+ny Sabbath morning when she awoke. She remembered with pleasure how much she had liked Mr. Perth, the new minister, that Sunday. She had heard him before she went away. He had seemed such an energetic, wide-awake, inspiring man! Beth liked that stamp of people.
She meant to be a progressive girl. She meant to labor much and to have much success.
She was quite early at church that morning, and interested herself by looking at Mrs. Perth, whom she had never seen before. She was a fair, slender, girlish creature--very youthful indeed for a married woman. She had a great ma.s.s of light hair, drawn back plainly from a serenely fair forehead. The fas.h.i.+on became her well, for, in fact, the most striking thing about her face was its simplicity and purity. She was certainly plain-looking, but Beth fancied her face looked like the white cup of a lily. She had such beautiful blue eyes, too, and such a sweet smile.
”I think I shall love her. I believe we shall be great friends,” thought Beth, after she had had an introduction to Mrs. Perth; and they did become fast friends.
Beth had seldom been at Sunday-school since she left home, but an impulse seized her to go this afternoon. She was quite early, and she sat down in a seat by herself to muse awhile. She gazed at the lilies about the altar and the stained-gla.s.s windows above the organ. How long it seemed to look back to that Sunday of two months ago! She shuddered slightly, and tried to change her thoughts, but she could not help going back to it. It seemed as though years had since pa.s.sed. So it is always.
We go about our daily tasks, and the time pa.s.ses swiftly or slowly, according as our lives are active or monotonous. Then a crisis comes--an upheaval--a turn in the current. It lasts but a moment, perhaps, but when we look back, years seem to have intervened. Beth gave a half sigh, and concluded she was a little weary, as the people poured into the Bible-cla.s.s. Mrs. Perth came and sat beside Beth. Is it not strange how, in this world of formality and convention, we meet someone now and again, and there is but a look, a word, a, smile, and we feel that we have known them so long? There is something familiar in their face, and we seem to have walked beside them all along the way. It was just so with Beth and Mrs. Perth. Sweet May Perth! She soon learned to call her that.
Beth was never to forget that Sunday afternoon. Mr. Perth taught the Bible-cla.s.s. He was an enthusiastic man, reminding her somewhat of Arthur. They were studying, that day, the approach of the Israelites to Canaan, and as Mr. Perth grew more earnest, Beth's face wore a brighter look of interest. Soon he laid aside historical retrospect, and talked of the heavenly Canaan toward which Christ's people were journeying, a bright land s.h.i.+ning in the sunlight of G.o.d's love, joy in abundance, joy overflowing! He looked so happy as he talked of that Divine love, changeless throughout all time, throughout all eternity--a love that never forsakes, that lulls the weary like a cradle-song, a love that satisfies even the secret longings! Oh, that woman heart of hers, how it yearned, yea, hungered for a love like that love, that could tread the earth in humiliation, bearing the cross of others' guilt, dying there at Calvary! She knew that old, old story well, but she drank it in like a little wondering child to-day. What were those things He promised to those who would tread the s.h.i.+ning pathway? Life, peace, rest, hope, joy of earth, joy of heaven! Oh, how she longed to go with them! The tears were standing in her eyes, and her heart was beating faster. But this one thing she must do, or turn aside from the promised land of G.o.d's people. Down at the feet of Jesus she must lay her all. And what of that novel she had written? Could she carry that over into this heavenly Canaan? ”The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.” Hers would perish, she knew that well. Highly moral, highly refined and scholarly, but what of its doubts, its shadows, its sorrows without hope, its supernatural gloom? Beth was a master-artist in the field of gloom. She knew how to make her readers shudder, but would that story of hers bring more joy into the world? Would it sweeten life and warm human hearts? Ah, no! And yet, could she destroy it now, before its publication? Could she bear the thought of it? She loved it almost as a mother loves her child. A look of indecision crossed her face. But, just then, she seemed to hear the bells of heaven ringing forth their sweet Gospel call. The bright suns.h.i.+ne and the angel voices of a higher life seemed to break in on her soul. In a moment--she never knew how it was--she became willing to surrender all. It was hardly a year since she had said nay to Arthur, when he asked her to lay her life at the feet of that same Jesus of Nazareth. She refused then, and even one hour ago she would still have refused; but now she would have trudged the highways, poverty-stricken, unknown and obscure, for His dear sake. She would have gone forth, like St. Paul, to the uttermost ends of the earth, she felt she loved Him so! There were tears in her eyes, and a new joy seemed to throb in her heart. She felt so kindly to everyone about her. Was it an impulse or what? She laid her hand softly on May Perth's as she sat beside her, and May, looking into her eyes, seemed to read her heart. She held her hand with a warm, loving pressure, and they were friends from that hour.
Even the sunlight looked more golden when Beth stepped out into it that afternoon. Everything had caught a tint from the pearly gates, for that hour had been a turning-point in her life. She had found the secret of life--the secret of putting self utterly into the background and living for others' happiness; and they who find that secret have the key to their own happiness. The old tinge of gloom in her grey eyes pa.s.sed away, and, instead, there came into them the warmth and light of a new life. They seemed to reach out over the whole world with tender sympathy, like a deep, placid sea, with the sunlight gilding, its depths.
”Beth, you are growing beautiful,” her father said to her one day; and there were something so reverential in his look that it touched her too deeply to make her vain.
The four weeks that remained before the first of October, when she was to return to college, pa.s.sed quickly. Clarence did not return, and she heard that he had gone to England, intending to take his degree at Cambridge. The Ashleys, too, had left Briarsfield, as Mr. Ashley had secured a princ.i.p.als.h.i.+p east of Toronto. Beth heard nothing more of Marie, though she would so gladly have forgiven her now!
Beth soon became quite absorbed in her new friend, May Perth. She told her one day of her fancy that her face looked like a lily-cup. Mrs.
Perth only laughed and kissed her, in her sweet, unconscious way. Beth always loved to kiss May Perth's brow; it was so calm and fair, it reminded her of the white breast of a dove.
Just three or four days before Beth was to go away, Aunt Prudence came into her room at a time when she was alone.
”Did you ever see this picture that Arthur left in his room when he went away last fall?” she asked. ”I don't know whether he did it himself or not.”
She placed it in the light and left the room. Beth recognized it almost instantly.
”Why, it's that poem of mine that Arthur liked best of all!” she thought.
Yes, it was the very same--the grey rocks rising one above another, the broad white sh.o.r.e, and the lonely cottage, with the dark storm-clouds lowering above it, and the fisherman's bride at the window, pale and anxious, her sunny hair falling about her shoulders as she peered far out across the sea--the black, storm-tossed sea--and far out among the billows the tiny speck of sail that never reached the sh.o.r.e. Beth was no connoisseur of art, but she knew the picture before her was intensely beautiful, even sublime. There was something in it that made her _feel_.
It moved her to tears even as Arthur's music had done. No need to tell her both came from the same hand. Besides, no one else had seen that poem but Arthur. And Arthur could paint like this, and yet she had said he had not an artist soul. She sighed faintly. Poor Arthur! Perhaps, after all, she had been mistaken. And she laid the picture carefully away among her treasures.
Her last evening at home soon came. It was a clear, chilly night, and they had a fire in the drawing-room grate. It was so cosy to sit there with her father, resting her head on his shoulders, and watching the coals glowing in the twilight.
”Beth, my child, you look so much happier lately. Are you really so happy?” he said, after they had been talking for a while.
”Oh, I think life is so very happy!” said Beth, in a buoyant tone. ”And when you love Jesus it is so much sweeter, and somehow I like everyone so much and everybody is so kind. Oh, I think life is grand!”
Dr. Woodburn was a G.o.dly man, and his daughter's words thrilled him sweetly. He brushed away a tear she did not see, and stooped to kiss the young cheek resting on his coat-sleeve. They were silent for a few moments.
”Beth, my dear,” he said in a softer tone, ”Do you know, I thought that trouble last summer--over Clarence--was going to hurt you more. How is it, Beth?”
She hesitated a moment.