The Project Gutenberg eBook of Just in time
Title: Just in time
Author: Catharine Shaw
Release date: October 11, 2025 [eBook #77024]
Language: English
Original publication: London: John F. Shaw and Co., Ltd, 1895
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
Pollie had all the cooking to do and the bread to make.
Just in Time.
BY
CATHARINE SHAW
AUTHOR OF
"DICKIE'S ATTIC," "DICKIE'S SECRET," "ALICK'S HERO,"
ETC. ETC.
NEW EDITION
JOHN F. SHAW AND CO., LTD.
Publishers
3, PILGRIM STREET, LONDON, E.C.
CONTENTS.
AT THE MILL
LAURA'S SECRET
A NEW FRIEND
POLLIE KEEPS HER PROMISE
THE PICNIC
APOLLYON MEETS POLLIE
POLLIE'S BATTLE-FIELD
HARD THINGS
SUBMISSION
TELLING FATHER
HOPE
OFF TO LONDON
POLLIE RECOGNISES A FRIEND
"I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT!"
VISITORS AT SHANKLIN
MISSIONARIES AT HOME
JUST IN TIME.
CHAPTER I.
AT THE MILL.
"POLLIE, why have you not cleared up those weeds?" asked Pollie's mother from the mill door.
Pollie was sitting in the fork of the old apple-tree, with her head bending over a book.
She raised it a little, and allowed her voice just to go round the corner of her sun-bonnet and no more, "I forgot, mother."
"I wish you did not forget so often, my dear," said her mother. "Your life is a string of forgets."
Pollie's head went down again, but a frown settled on her pretty face.
She did wish that her mother would let her be, and not always be finding out things she had not done. Her Aunt Elizabeth did not find so much amiss with Laura or Clara; nor, for the matter of that, did her own mother seem to rebuke her brother Jim half as much as she did her.
She wished she could live with Aunt Elizabeth, then she would be able to do just as she liked. Aunt Elizabeth would say, "Pollie, my dear, would you get so-and-so for me?" or, "Pollie, my dear, I want you and Laura to go for a message, will you?"
It was much pleasanter than "Pollie, put on your hat and go down to your Uncle Brown's!"
"I say," called Jim, breaking in on this reverie, "where's the hoe? Father's been looking for it for ever so long, and I said I knew you had had it last."
"I forgot to put it away," said Pollie. "It is by the waterbutt. Just get it for him, Jim."
"Not I," said Jim, walking away down the steep path. "You must go and get it for him."
Pollie got down quickly. If ever she did anything willingly, it was for her father!
"Eh, my little girl," he said, "this is like you. To think you should have wasted ten minutes of my time, and there it was behind the butt all the while!"
He drew it out from its hiding-place with some difficulty; it would stick against the brick wall.
"How did it get here?" he asked patiently.
"It fell down behind, and I didn't stay to pull it out," said Pollie.
"Did you never stop to think that whatsoever your hand findeth to do should be done with your might, eh, Pollie?"
"No, father."
"I have, many's the time," said the miller, "and those sort of hindrances aren't hindrances at all. They bring you into contact with your Lord, and I know nothing better than that for helping you along with your work!"
Pollie did not answer. She did not mind hearing her father talk so, at least, not much. But if it had been her mother, she would have flown off and not have heard half of it.
So she went back to her apple-tree and opened her book once more, but she was not to be left in peace.
"Pollie!" came from the mill door. "Pollie!"
"Yes, mother."
"Come right in and set the tea. I told you that when you heard the wheels of your father's cart you were to come right in, and I was out at the back and didn't notice. Your father's been home this quarter, I do believe, and the tea isn't ready."
"I forgot, mother," said Pollie ungraciously. "I'd have come if you had called me."
Her mother went back to her work, and Pollie hastened in. That her father should be made uncomfortable did not suit her at all. But though she knew her tiresomeness made her mother uncomfortable, she told herself that she certainly could not help that.
She set about getting the tea with a will, however. And as she was a very capable girl, it did not take long before she was standing at the mill door again, clapping her hands as a sign that her father and brother were to come in.
Jim and she were not always the best of friends. Her faults lay in one direction, Jim's in another.
If Pollie forgot too often, Jim did not forget often enough. He was always reminding people of things which were not done, and especially remembered all his sister's delinquencies, and pointed them out ruthlessly.
"How late tea is!" he remarked as they sat down.
His mother looked up and said, "Yes it is; Pollie forgot to come in."
Pollie crimsoned, for she had bustled about so heartily that it was but little after the usual time.
Her father's words, however, brought sudden tears into her eyes, which she would have given something to stop.
"Say instead, Jim, 'how nicely somebody has got our tea for us!'"
"It's Poll's duty," persisted Jim. "I don't see that she deserves any praise."
"How did a son of mine feel just now, when I told him that he had put that hay away very cleverly?"
Jim's eyes went down, and there was silence for a moment.
"I could do all Poll's duties and my own too, if she were not here," he remarked presently.
"Perhaps you'll have to," said his mother a little dryly, though there was a smile in her eyes.
"How?" asked Jim, too astounded to say more.
"You will find that you cannot do quite all. But as the holidays are coming, I am going to spare Pollie to visit her aunt Elizabeth. You will be at home all day to help me, and a change will do Pollie good."
Pollie turned hot and cold. Did her mother really mean it? But her mother was not apt to say things which she did not mean. And if she meant it, why had she not told her quietly by herself, instead of announcing such a piece of news to Jim.
She felt very bitter, and said to herself that the pleasure of going was quite spoilt by the way in which she had been told.
"Should you like it, Mary?" her mother said kindly.
"Yes, mother, very much, if—"
"If what, my dear?"
"If—if you do not want me, and if—" then she burst into tears and sobbing out something about Jim being so unkind, burst from the room.
"What is this, Jim?" asked their mother.
"Nothing at all," said Jim. "I haven't said a word to her but what you heard. She's a stupid cry-baby!"
Their mother could not suppose that Pollie could take to heart the chance words of her brother, quite two years her junior, and looking after her daughter rather soberly, she met her husband's eyes.
"She'll be better for a little change," he said, with that tenderness which all their lives had been 'just father' to the children. "My poor little Pollie wants one thing, and until she has that, her heart cannot be at rest."
"What's that, father?" asked Jim curiously. "I think Pollie has the best of everything—"
"She needs Jesus," he said softly, as he rose and pushed back his chair, "and I am praying every day that she may find Him."
CHAPTER II.
LAURA'S SECRET.
POLLIE was fifteen, and life had flowed along peacefully as to outward circumstances. But beneath the surface, there were currents and rocks and hidden difficulties which no one guessed but herself.
From her earliest days, her strong will had set itself up in opposition to her mother, and though at times her sweetness of disposition conquered, life with her was indeed a hard struggle.
Her father, tender and wise as he was, pleaded with her in vain; or if he succeeded in shewing her her duty for a little while, some difficulty was sure shortly to arise, and then all her good intentions flew to the winds, and Pollie was as far from heartfelt submission as ever.
So she set out to visit her aunt Elizabeth with a clouded heart. Her mother's preparations, kind and thoughtful as they were, gave her but little pleasure, for her heart was sore and hard. If only she could been have taken to her mother's heart with a forgiving hug, she thought she could have gone in rags willingly!
So her father drove to the market-town and put her into the train under care of the guard, to be set down at her aunt's station, nearly a hundred miles off and halfway between her home and Exeter.
"Remember there's always the blessed Lord and Saviour, everywhere," were his last words, whispered as he kissed her in the train.
And Pollie set forth on her journey, and in due time arrived at her destination.
It was three years since she had visited at her aunt's, and she did not know the tall cousin who was standing on the platform waiting for her.
Laura, a pretty girl of eighteen, soon spied her, however, for Pollie had not altered much since she had last seen her. She and Clara stepped forward and claimed their country cousin, who looked quite shy when she saw what fashionable young ladies were come to meet her.
"Here is the trap," said Clara. "Where is your box, Mary?"
Pollie did not know that her uncle had a trap. She began to be afraid they would have got too grand for her.
"How you have grown, Mary," said her aunt as they sat at tea, "but you have the same face. I should know you anywhere. When the girls have smartened you up a bit, you will look quite as old as Clara."
Pollie bit her lips. She had thought her mother had done all that was necessary for her, and in the remembrance of her thoughtful care, she felt more tender towards her than she had ever done. She said to herself that her mother would never have said such a thing as that to a newly-come visitor.
A wave of home-sickness seized her, and she had much ado to keep back her tears.
Tea was over at last, and Pollie made her escape.
"Come upstairs and unpack your things," said Clara. "I do love seeing people's new things!"
Pollie murmured something of not having so very many things, but the girls did not seem to hear. And presently all her clothes were spread out on the bed, and her cousins were looking them over with such remarks as "That will be for mornings—with a nice ribbon for her neck." "That would be pretty fair for afternoons if that trimming were put on better—I daresay we could do that. Well, what else have you got?"
"That is my best dress," said Pollie, hesitating. "Isn't it good enough?"
"That," asked Laura, with an intonation of surprise that made Pollie's cheeks burn. "Oh, I thought perhaps you had another in the tray of your box."
"Never mind," said Clara presently, "they will do all right. Ma said she should get Mary a dress if necessary. You see, Pollie, we go out ever so much, and have to be nice. But these will do for common very well."
Laura had turned away towards the glass, and was putting on a very stylish hat.
"Is that yours?" asked Pollie, glad to leave the topic of her wardrobe for that of her cousins. She wished heartily that she were back at the mill, and could hear her mother's voice, saying in those quick tones, "There's your father, Pollie, run and open the door!"
Instead came Laura's complacent answer—"Yes, of course it is. Do you like it?"
"It is sweetly pretty," said Pollie admiringly, "only it looks almost like a fashion-book."
"Do you think so?" asked Laura, gratified; then added with a giggle to her sister, "That's what H. F. said yesterday."
"Who is H. F.?" asked Pollie.
"Oh, my dear, you don't know of course. H. F. is a new star that has dawned on our horizon. You will see him all in good time—from afar—if you keep your eyes open."
Pollie blushed, she hardly knew why. This seemed so different from the way anyone talked at home.
"Hush!" said Clara. "Here's ma."
"Well, my dears," said Mrs. Brown, "what are you doing?"
"I am going to the Cleavers, ma," said Laura, "and Clara is going to help Mary put away her things, and then they are going to take you out if you care to go."
"I do not know that I do to-night. Clara can come down and read to me while I finish that blouse for her."
"Oh, I don't want to read," said Clara, "it would be so dull. Besides, I am going out, ma, such a lovely evening. If you want to read so particularly, do not trouble about my blouse."
Mrs. Brown looked vexed. "Is that the way you do to your mother, Mary?" she asked, as she listlessly turned over Pollie's dresses.
"I don't know, auntie," hesitated Pollie, "because I haven't anywhere to go you know—"
"Not anywhere to go? Are you buried alive, child? You look rather like it!"
"Ma," said Clara, "don't say that. Come, Pollie, I'll turn up your hair for you, and see if I shan't smarten you up! That will be fun. And then you and I will go out, and ma can read that old novel in peace."
As she spoke, she drew out the bow that tied Pollie's long plait, and rapidly undid her beautiful shining braids.
"What a lot. Look, ma! Would you not give something if we girls had such a head of hair?"
Mrs. Brown did not answer. She gave half a glance at her niece, and then said suddenly, "I tell you what, if Clara is bent on going out, we will go to-night and get you a dress for best, or a couple of dresses. Then they can be made at once, and will be ready in a day or two."
"All right," said Clara, "I shan't be long over this. That is coming splendidly. Now, what dress will you put on to go shopping with ma? This best one is the only one that is fit."
Mrs. Brown had left the room, so had Laura.
"I say, Pollie, I'll tell you a secret, only you must keep as still as still about it. That I know you can do. But if ma were to guess, she would spoil all the fun."
Pollie was silent, debating whether she should receive the confidence or not, and half afraid that stormy times were in front of her. Before she could make any decision, Clara had gone on in a low tone—
"Laura is very much admired, as I daresay you can guess."
"She is very pretty—"
"And where we go they have a lot of folks round, and young men from the town. We are going to have a picnic next week, and then you will see some of them. But there is one above all the rest that Laura favours and there is a little mystery about him which makes him doubly interesting. He's been abroad a great deal, but he told Laura he had never seen anyone to compare with her—"
"Does he come here?" asked Pollie innocently.
"Oh no, my dear. How green you are! Even if ma were to allow it, pa is dreadfully strict, almost as bad as uncle at the mill, and he would think Laura a great deal too young. Oh, no, it's our secret at present. Time enough when—"
Clara paused, and Pollie looked up with an earnest gaze into her cousin's face.
"I'm afraid it isn't right," she said slowly. "I wish you hadn't told me—or, at least, I wish that Laura and you wouldn't do anything like that."
"Like what?" asked Clara, drawing back a little. "Don't be straight-laced, whatever you do, Pollie!"
"I didn't know I was," said Pollie.
"Of course you were! Would you have us bow to any young man we meet, and say we must not speak to him on any account?"
Pollie felt very foolish, and did not know what to answer, while still she felt that her favourite cousin had grown different since the year before, when they had had such a happy time together at the mill.
"There! Now you look lovely," said Clara. "Just peep in the glass. Put on this dress now, Mary, and I'll go and tell ma that we are nearly ready."
So Pollie was left alone.
Oh for her father to tell her what was right and wrong. She felt all mixed up, and so home-sick that she could willingly have packed her box again and set off home that very minute.
She sat down on a chair by the window and swiped away two or three scalding tears.
Why would not her dresses do, and why had her cousins glanced at each other, as they lifted out the hat her mother had trimmed for her with such care?
"Pollie, Pollie, where are you?" called Clara. "Ma is waiting, and she is quite vexed we have been so long."
Mrs. Brown had a cloud on her brow. "Put on your other hat, will you, Mary, my dear? As we are going shopping," she said, as Pollie ran down into the hall.
For a moment Pollie paused, utter refusal in her heart and in her eyes. Then courtesy to her aunt and hostess prevailed, and she turned upstairs again slowly, thinking that this was the very hardest thing she had ever had to do in all her life.
CHAPTER III.
A NEW FRIEND.
"THAT is better, my dear," remarked her aunt, when she re-appeared with her best hat on. "You must not mind, Mary, if I get you a few things: I told your mother I should do so. You see town ways are so different from country ways, and what will do for a village will not do for Chichester."
So two smarter dresses were purchased, and then Pollie was led into the millinery department, where her aunt chose a new hat for her, remarking that Clara had better retrim the one she had on, to make it look more fashionable.
Pollie tried to cheer up, but her heart felt like lead. Ten times better would it have been to bear the heaviest yoke that had ever been given her at home!
The dresses were to be made at the draper's at which they were purchased, and were promised for the next evening; the hat was to be sent home at once, and with a few ribbons and gloves the party returned home, Clara congratulating her cousin with bright smiles, on the pretty new things which she had received.
Thus, Pollie settled down to her visit. No more was said about her clothes, and so long as she put on what they suggested, she was now free to enjoy herself.
Clara was very kind to her, and to a certain extent she did enjoy herself. But the two sisters had a good many secrets from which she was excluded.
Laura was out a great deal, and seldom enlarged on what she had done, and where she had been, to her family circle. She attended classes at the School of Art, and went and came very much as she liked.
But Pollie, who saw a little more of what went on behind the scenes, fancied that her devotion to art was more assumed than real. She could not help noticing that she went early and returned late, and that Clara and she always had secrets when she returned from the lessons.
Flowers, which were put into vases in her bedroom, but never appeared downstairs, became more frequent as the days came and went. And once, meeting her cousin in the hall unexpectedly, Pollie saw her put her hand down by her side as if to conceal something. And when she next went into Laura's room, a glass of lovely fresh roses stood on her dressing-table, which had not been there half an hour before.
Polls felt very uneasy, and once or twice tried to hint a protest to Clara.
"Oh, my dear, what nonsense!" was her light answer. "All is fair in love and war, you know. Ma will know all in good time if there is anything to know, and if not, where is the good? All the girls of our acquaintance have somebody devoted to them, and why should not Laura?"
"I don't know," sighed Pollie. "I wish I knew. It can't be right to be secret over it. I'm not at all nice to mother at home, but I never keep anything from her!"
"That's your way, and this is ours," said Clara, comfortably. "There would be no fun in life if we came and told ma everything."
"I am afraid it isn't right," persisted Pollie, "and I don't believe Laura will be a bit the happier for it. She looks so restless now, and turns so red and white whenever anyone speaks to her."
"Nonsense!" said Clara, looking rather uneasy. "What a stupid little thing you are. We move in a perfectly different circle from you, and you can't judge. Pa's shop is ever so much better a position than your mill, and girls like us do differently of course to what you do. Why we keep two servants, and you haven't one!"
"It is not riches but right," said Pollie, stoutly, though she felt very hurt, and turned to her book resolutely, wishing once again that she were back at her mother's side, helping her with the housework, and doing even the little services which she particularly disliked.
One morning her uncle said to her at breakfast, "Mary, I am going to drive a little way out of town to-day. There's an old lady lives there that your father wished you to call on. I have not had an opportunity yet, but we will go to-day."
Pollie was delighted to go with her kind, genial uncle, especially as she would have him all to herself, and she enjoyed that drive more than anything she had done since she had been at Chichester.
Mr. Brown said he had business further on, and promised to call for her in half an hour. So Pollie entered the little rose-covered house, and was ushered by a smart little maid into the presence of her father's friend.
"Welcome, my dear," said the old lady. "I have been looking for you for a fortnight, but you've come now, and we will enjoy each other I hope. Sit down, my dear, and take that plate of strawberries, and help yourself to some cream. There! Such a hot day as this, they are acceptable. And while you eat them, I will have some too, to keep you company."
Pollie had been dreadfully shy, but the sweet old lady was so cosy that she felt at ease at once. And by the time she had helped her to some fruit and sugar, she thought it was impossible she could have been a perfect stranger only five minutes ago.
The old lady chatted away to her, and only seemed to play with her own strawberries. She told her stories of her dear father when he was a boy, and described his home so vividly that Pollie felt as if she had been to Exeter, and had sat in the farmhouse kitchen and shelled her grandmother's peas in the sunny window.
The half-hour slipped by all too fast, and Pollie had taken a low stool, and was holding her new friend's hand and looking in her face, when she said gently: "Little Pollie, is your father's Saviour your Saviour?"
The colour rushed to Pollie's cheeks. What would she have given to be able to have said "Yes" to that question?
The old lady saw the answer even before Pollie's lips framed the sorrowful little sentence, "I'm afraid not, ma'am."
"Poor little Pollie," she said softly, then added brightly, "There's no reason why He should not be this very day though. He says, 'Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.'"
Pollie did not answer. It seemed so hard and difficult to her.
"Ask him to draw you, dear! Will you?"
Again Pollie hesitated. Did she dare to give such a promise as that?
The old lady did not press it. "Has your uncle taken you to the Town Hall, where they are having such beautiful meetings?"
Pollie shook her head.
"Not? Well, I am surprised. There's a young man there that is drawing quite a crowd every night, and numbers are finding a blessed Saviour, and through Him eternal life. Will you go and hear him, Pollie?"
"I will if I can," said Pollie, looking up earnestly.
Then they heard her uncle's trap draw up at the gate, and Pollie jumped up and flung her arms round her father's friend.
"Oh, I'm so glad I came!" she said. "May I come again if uncle will bring me?"
"By all means," said Miss Loveday. "Good-bye, dear!"
"Good-bye," said Pollie, hastening to the door. Then, ere she opened it, she ran back and imprinted one more kiss on the white cheek. "I didn't answer you," she whispered. "I will do what you said!"
CHAPTER IV.
POLLIE KEEPS HER PROMISE.
POLLIE had made two promises, and as she drove along by her uncle's side, she was earnestly considering how she should set about keeping them.
She did not, however, guess the difficulties that would be raised when she got back, or she would have gained her uncle's permission at once.
When she asked at dinner if she could go to the meeting that evening at the Town Hall, her aunt and cousins made so many objections that Pollie did not know how to press the matter further.
She subsided with burning cheeks, and the more they told her she ought not to go, the more she longed to do so.
"What is it, Mary?" asked her uncle, coming in just as Laura was saying something about its not being respectable.
"I promised Miss Loveday to go to the Town Hall to-night if you and Aunt Elizabeth would allow me?" said Pollie, her eyes filling with tears at his kind look.
"Well?"
"But Aunt Elizabeth does not think I can go."
"I'll talk to your aunt, Mary. If you have promised an old friend, I should like you to go—I will take you myself."
Mrs. Brown shrugged her shoulders, and no more was said. But in the evening, her uncle told Pollie to bundle on her hat, and they went together.
She had another promise to keep, and as she sat in the packed audience, her heart beat fast when she remembered that now was a chance which might never come again, and what if she did not take it?
*****
"Some of you have come here to-night above all things to make a decision, and you almost dread that the evening should be over and you should go back to the old life just your old self.
"And well you may. You feel you cannot save yourselves; that is true, to be sure. You say you have no faith, and that is probably true too.
"But don't look for faith with your weary eyes; don't try to save yourselves with your weary hearts. The remedy is Jesus.
"Look how these Israelites got better of their deadly snakebites. Not by trying to save themselves from the fiery serpents; not by looking within themselves to see if they had faith; but they were saved simply by looking off to the appointed way of healing which God had provided—the serpent of brass raised high on a pole in their midst—and so looking, and so believing, the thing was done; they lived.
"That is how we believe in Jesus Christ. He says Himself, 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'"
*****
It was over. Pollie and her uncle walked slowly home in the June twilight.
"Wonderful!" said Mr. Brown, looking up into the deep blue vault above him. "Wonderful that I never saw that before."
Pollie was almost sorry that he had spoken, but she thought that she ought to answer, so she said:
"What, uncle?" thinking it was a bright star he meant.
"I've heard those words hundreds of times, but to-night God has opened my eyes, and I have seen His glory for the first time—"
Pollie squeezed his arm.
"I thought it was some great thing to do to be saved. I find it was only a look, eh, Pollie?"
"Yes," whispered Pollie very low.
"How long have 'you' known what that look meant?" he said, bending down to her.
Could Pollie speak? Her tongue seemed as if it were tied. Then she thought suddenly, "With the mouth confession is made," and she suddenly looked up with all her heart in her eyes.
"Oh, uncle, I've had father and mother all my life, but it's only just now that I—that I've had Jesus! I never knew before, but I do now."
"Mary! Mary! My little girl, how glad I am we came!"
They walked along in silence after that.
But when they reached home, her uncle went in straight to the drawing-room, and kissed his wife affectionately. "My dear," he said, "I'm glad I went, and so is Mary. We have learned what is worth the whole world. Thank God for it."
Thus Pollie began her new life, and she had reason to thank her uncle many times for linking her so kindly with himself in the change of which he spoke. But for that she sometimes felt as if she never could have got through the next fortnight.
Her aunt and cousins treated the whole matter as an absurd joke. The obnoxious meetings were now over, the young man who had conducted them had returned to his home before sailing (he had said) for a distant country, and now all thoughts were centred on the picnic to which they were invited, and, except for an occasional sarcastic allusion to "excitement" and "sensationalism," the subject was dropped.
Pollie was thus thrown back the more completely on the love and tenderness of her new-found Saviour. As she had no earthly helper, she went away by herself and told Him; and thus waiting upon the Lord her strength was renewed, and she learned to find her rest and satisfaction in Him, as perhaps she never would have done in brighter hours.
CHAPTER V.
THE PICNIC.
THE day of the picnic drew near at last, and Laura and Clara could talk of nothing else.
Pollie had a dress specially prepared for it, and her cousins said at least she would be no disgrace to them, which she considered high praise.
They, however, had so many secrets about the whole matter that Pollie often wished herself at home, in spite of the natural anticipation which such a day's pleasure was likely to create to one who had lived such a quiet life.
Her cousins were constantly whispering about H. F., and openly talked of the numbers to be there, the splendid arrangements made, and the picturesqueness of the woods to which they were to drive.
"Shall you introduce me to H. F.?" asked Pollie of Clara, as they were dressing on the eventful morning.
"Oh, don't fuss!" exclaimed Clara, hurrying with her tight dress, and despairing of being in time. "You just keep quiet, and you'll see! I do not suppose there will be any introducing. I expect he will come and make ma's acquaintance soon, for he is devoted to Laura, and I expect—"
But there she broke off, and then added hastily, "But don't fuss or stare, there's a dear, and you will see for yourself."
So they started, and Pollie's quiet eyes had plenty of time to note everything, as her cousins took but little notice of her. Had it not been that she made acquaintance with a little lame girl, she would have been utterly alone.
Hand in hand they wandered among the lovely woods, picking honeysuckle and wild roses, while from afar they could see the groups of young people flitting hither and thither, Laura and Clara in their bright pink dresses being conspicuous among the gay crowd.
By-and-by Pollie missed Laura from the rest, and was wondering where she could be, when two girls came strolling up and seated themselves on the blue bank of wild pansies, where she and her little new friend were sitting.
"They've gone up the hill to see the view," remarked one of them.
"I have not seen them at all," said the other.
"She looks sweetly pretty to-day," said the first, "and ever since he has been staying here, he's been devoted to her. But then he always is to the last pretty face he comes across. Then he goes away and forgets. At least that's what he has done where I live near Exeter. There are two or three girls whose hearts he has broken there—"
"I hope he will not treat Laura—"
"Oh, please!" said Pollie, starting up. "I did not know you were talking of anyone I knew. Please, I will go away."
She hurried from the spot with burning cheeks, her little lame friend hobbling after her as quickly as she could.
"Did you ever see so many wild flowers?" she said, when at length she caught her up.
"Yes," said Pollie absently.
"Are you very vexed?" asked the girl, looking up at her. "I don't like you to be vexed."
"Rather," said Pollie, "but it is a thing I can't do anything in. I did not mean to hear their secrets, and now I do not know whether I ought to tell Laura."
"Perhaps she knows," suggested the girl.
Pollie shook her head. "They've been carried away with the fun, but I am afraid it isn't right to keep it all from their mother. That's why I am vexed."
The lame girl put her hand into Pollie's with comforting little pressure, but her next words surprised her very much. "Did you notice that it was I who sat by you on that Thursday night?"
That Thursday night was to Pollie truly "a night to be much remembered." There could be no other in her calendar.
She turned and looked into the lame girl's face. "Were you?" she asked.
"Yes, close to you. I guessed what you felt by what I felt. And when I saw your face coming out, I knew you had 'come' as I had."
"Oh, Daisy! I was just going to tell you about it when those girls came and sat down by us."
"And I was just going to tell 'you,'" said Daisy smiling. "I thought—but I know so little—only when you looked worried just now I thought—"
How delicately the words were spoken! Pollie knew by the flush on Daisy's face that they were costing her a great deal.
"You thought, dear?"
"That it was so nice to carry our worries, whatever they are, to the Lord Jesus, and He would see to them."
"Yes," said Pollie, with a little sob, "I do. I've had so many worries since that Thursday; and yet—"
"Yet you would not go back, would you? That's just like me. I do believe since that Thursday I have minded more about my bad uncle than I did before, but then I've been more comforted than I ever was before."
"Oh, so have I!"
"And only this morning," Daisy went on softly, "when we got out of the brake, your cousin would have stayed to help me out. But he—that gentleman who was talking to her all the way—he said 'Don't stop for that lame child; she will be all day getting out!'"
"Oh!" said Pollie sorrowfully. "How could he?"
"That is why I said I thought she knew. She could not help knowing after that."
"Poor little Daisy!"
"It did not matter. That was just another time that my Lord Jesus comforted me. I just told Him that my heart was made heavy, and somehow it was like the look at the brazen serpent again—I mean when I spoke to Jesus—I was made whole. Isn't it wonderful?"
Thus the day passed away, and to those two at any rate it was a happy day. They kept near each other all the time, and drove back in the evening in the same brake.
Clara and Laura arrived home very tired and strangely dull. Very little could be got out of them by their mother, who expected to hear long histories of what they had done and whom they had seen.
But when Pollie was undressing, Clara came in and shut the door.
"Mary," she said in a low tone, "don't you let out a word to ma about H. F. I believe, after all, he's a dreadful flirt. He's going away by the first train to-morrow morning, and I do not believe we shall ever see him again."
"I don't think he can be very good or kind," said Pollie gently; "for if it is the one I once saw with Laura, who gave that poor dog such a kick—"
"Yes, that was he. He has wished us good-bye, and it is all over I do believe; for when I asked him if he were not going to fulfill his promise of calling on ma, he said laughing, 'I'll keep it ten years hence, Miss Clara, if I don't forget!' And then he jumped back into the brake and drove off."
"Does Laura mind much?" asked Pollie, hesitating.
"You don't know how much!" exclaimed Clara. "He's been with her almost all day long for a month, sometimes at one place and sometimes at another, and if ma knew about it, I don't know what she would say. Well it can't be helped, I suppose; and Laura will have to get over it as best she can."
Pollie had never seen Clara so dispirited before. She got up and put her arms round her lovingly.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered.
"It's very kind of you to say so," said Clara, wiping her eyes, "for I'm sure we have not deserved much pity, we've been so horrid to you all this fortnight. But if you'll not tell ma, we will never cease to thank you."
She raised herself hastily as she heard a step outside.
"I do not see that it is my business unless I am asked," said Pollie slowly, "but you'll be ever so much happier if you tell all yourselves. Do, do, Clara!"
But Clara only shook her head. "I couldn't," she murmured.