Monteagle

CHAPTER VI.

A LECTURE AND A SERMON.

WHAT Dilly saw growing before her astonished eyes was the picture of a little boy. Just a few dashes of the crayon, made quite at random it seemed to her, and there he was; as sweet and pure a boyish face as could have been imagined. Dilly, looking earnestly, suddenly turned and gave such a bewildered, yet delighted, gaze into the face of the young gentleman beside her, that he was seized with a desire to know her thought.

"What now? What does that handsome little chap say to you?"

"Why, it is your picture," whispered Dilly, "the one your mother has in the velvet case on her dressing-table. Don't you see how exactly it is like that? The pretty curls, and all; oh! I wish your mother could see this."

"Not lasting enough," said Hart, composedly. "It will fade away with one brush of the hand; see if it doesn't."

He would not have let the little girl know that he was strangely touched by her words, nor would he have admitted to her for anything, that he recognized the likeness, but the truth was, that there was something in the sweet mouth, and curly hair, and laughing eyes of the picture, which took him back to his early childhood, and made him almost ready to sigh over his own apparently thoughtless words, "Not lasting enough."

They were truer of the picture before him than he had supposed; even while he watched, the face began to change: the artist was talking and working. He printed on the board the word, "discontent." He told, in a most vivid way, of how this boy, surrounded as he was by all comforts and delights of life, yet let the wicked spirit of discontent come into his life. How he thought it was hidden in his heart, where no one could see, but how mistaken he was; for what grows in the heart paints its picture on the face. "I'll show you how," said the artist.

A quick dash of his skilled crayon, and, sure enough, the sweet mouth had lost its sweetness, was a trifle drawn at the corners, and a scowl had gathered on the forehead. Then the word "Envy," was printed; a large heart was made with a single sweep of the artist hand, an ugly serpent grinned within it, and from its mouth appeared to be hissing out those two words, "Discontent," "Envy." The brief story of the boy's desire for what was not his own, was told, and the marks which the thought made on his face all unconsciously to him, were plainly shown. Then, the serpent Vanity began to get possession of him; his dress was finer than others, his house was grander, his watch was more elegant; sure enough, with a touch, such as Dilly tried in vain to watch, to see in just what it consisted, and the face before her grew more and more unlovely; she would have been sure he was a vain and hateful boy.

As vanity and discontent grew on him, he became insolent; and the lines which this brought out about the once lovely lips, completely spoiled their beauty; Dilly remembered a boy who spoke great swelling words of pride and insolence, even to his mother, and the face on the board began to grow like his!

Vain and impudent and discontented boys were nearly always lazy, the speaker said; and while he told of one who was caught by this evil spirit, he disarranged the curly head on the board, hung the hair in sulky masses over the eyes, drooped the shoulders, and with several quick touches brought before them the picture of a lazy, repulsive boy. Then, "Did they need to be told," he asked, "that such a boy was always selfish? The evil spirit of selfishness was sure to get hold of him, and when it did, it made such lines as these."

It was the last demoralizing touch on the once sweet face, and poor Dilly almost held her breath in astonished sorrow as she gazed on the wreck which the artist's hand had wrought.

"You see how it is," he said, "I did not spoil the face; bless you, I wouldn't spoil a sweet child face for all the money there is in the world! But when all these evil spirits get hold of him they are as sure to make his face like that as he is to live. You can see their names if you spell the word which is formed by the first letter of these words. I know of no truer name for habits which will work such ruin as this on a face that God meant to be beautiful."

The children sat very still; they were solemnized by this wreck of a beautiful life, so plainly pictured before them. Some of the older children shaded their faces with their hands, and went back over their lives, and remembered, if one may judge by their faces, certain times when some of these evil spirits were allowed to come in and make havoc.

As for poor Dilly, she stole a half-frightened glance at Hart, and wondered if she did really see the drawn look about his mouth which marked lines of discontent; certainly his face had changed since the picture was taken which the mother kept in the velvet case, and Dilly had herself seen him do things which she instinctively felt he would not have done if the spirit of selfishness had not been admitted. Were there lines of that in his face? She could not be sure, but she was afraid there were. He looked steadily at the picture, and tried to smile, and appear perfectly indifferent; but there was a little drooping of the eyes which would have told one who understood human nature, that he was by no means so indifferent to the changes on that young face as he professed to be.

Meantime, the artist was again at work. He was making the picture of another boy; life-size, erect, handsome, well-dressed, bright-eyed; a very king among boys. Briefly, while he worked, the artist told his story; high-spirited, kind-hearted, winning, lovable, his mother's joy, the pride of his teachers. The artist had known him well; loved him, as every one loved the beautiful boy. Ten, twenty, thirty years passed. "And now," said the artist, "I will make him again as I saw him one day in my office in New York."

Oh! Poor, wretched wreck. Ragged, bloated, shaggy-haired, staggering, utterly repulsive! Could it possibly be that the two whose pictures appeared on the board side by side, were one and the same?

"It is true," said the artist, deep feeling in his voice; he saw the question on the faces of his startled audience; "it is too bitterly true. I wish it were not; I wish I had not known him; I wish I could blot his image from my memory; but he was the friend of my boyhood, and I loved him, and he came to me years afterwards, the wreck that you see him here. I tried hard to help him, even then, and failed. You know the name of the demon who had gotten hold of him, and changed his face, and his form, and wrought his ruin, body and soul.

"You need not think I have given you the whole story; I have shown you only two pictures; I could make dozens of the same face. Those changes did not come in the course of a few months; he did not spring from the handsome boy of whom all his friends were proud, into the bloated wreck I have shown you; it was the work of years. A glass of wine now and then, on special occasions; a little egg-nog with a friend; a few spoonfuls of brandy when he was not well; a hot sling after exposure to intense cold. Little by little the work was done; I could show you, if I had time, the slight changes which these little indulgences began to make in the handsome face; changes which he did not guess, and few people looked closely enough to see, and only his mother was sure of. Boys, I loved him; and I tried to save him and failed."

There was no mistaking the depth of feeling in the speaker's voice; it was a true story he had been telling. Those were photographs on which the people had been gazing.

Dilly drew a long, quivering sigh as the artist left the platform and the audience was dismissed and filed quietly out. She could not get away from the feeling that she had been present at the wrecking of a human life.

"There's a temperance lecture for you," said a gentleman passing out just in front of them. "Lecture and sermon all in one; I never heard a stronger appeal in my life. Talk about getting that man to 'amuse the young!' I would rather have had my boy hear him and see him this morning than to attend the best temperance lecture that ever was given."

"I think that is true," said Dilly, gravely, as soon as they were outside where she dared to talk; "I think what that man said about temperance lectures was true. I don't know how any boy could ever begin to drink anything which had alcohol in it, or to keep on drinking it, if he had begun, after hearing that, do you?"

Said Hart: "Whew! It is pretty warm here, I should say; it must be boiling in town. I wonder what time it is. Too late for the train, as sure as preaching! Well, I don't care; I heard her screeching when that fellow was making his picture, but I felt too lazy to start. You see the spirit of laziness got hold of me then; that was one of his little imps, wasn't it? He's sharp, that fellow is, as sharp as steel, and original too."

"And should you think," said Dilly earnestly, still pursuing the train of reasoning which the last picture had awakened, "that anybody who had brains would begin using stuff which might make such dreadful changes in them in just a little while? I know it does; there is an old man, old Jock, they call him—why, you know old Jock, don't you? He isn't so 'very old,' only he looks so; father used to know him in the North, and he says there wasn't a finer-looking boy in all the town than he; and now, who would imagine such a thing! I think it is the strangest thing anybody begins to use liquor!"

Hart gave her a sharp, searching look, but nothing more innocent and earnest than her quiet face could be imagined. "I wonder if his mother lived until he looked like that?" she said, her tone very mournful. "Poor mother! I hope she didn't."

"Perhaps she was a mother who did not care." Hart made an effort to speak in a gay and indifferent tone.

Dilly shook her head decidedly. "Oh! I don't think that can be; such a handsome boy as he was! He must have had a mother who cared, and who cried. It is dreadful to make mothers cry. Once," and now her voice was trembling,—"once I wanted to go to the woods with some girls, and my mother needed me at home, and I grumbled, and said I didn't see why I could never have any good times like other girls; that none of them had to help their mothers iron; and my mother looked so sad and tired; and when she went into her bedroom I saw the tears coming down her cheeks. I hated myself then, and I ironed all the afternoon as well as I could, and I told mother that night how sorry I was for being cross; but I never had a chance to iron for her again; it was only a few weeks before she died."

And now poor Dilly was crying. Quietly, attracting no attention, but shedding unmistakable tears.

Hart felt very sorry for her, and there was also a remorseful feeling knocking at his heart. He had, more than once, seen the tears in "his" mother's eyes, and knew that anxiety for him had brought them there.

CHAPTER VII.

A LITTLE LOGICIAN.

IT was Sunday afternoon—an August Sunday, bright and beautiful. "Very warm," the city papers said, in the next day's report, but on Monteagle a steady wind fluttered the branches of the many trees all day, and the birds were singing merrily. Under the shadow of one of the great old trees, Effie Hammond played about according to her own sweet will; Dilly, on the grass near at hand, an open book in her lap, keeping careful guard over the small feet of her charge, all unknown to them; they thought they were free to go where they pleased, therefore their owner was happy. Hart Hammond strolling about, uncertain what to do with himself, presently came that way, stopped for a minute to tease little Effie by tickling her nose with one of the long grasses, then came and threw himself on the grass, not far from Dilly.

"What a tiresomely slow day this is! Seems to me there have been twenty-seven hours since breakfast, each of them a hundred and eighty minutes long."

Dilly smiled faintly. There was a thoughtful look on her face; in fact, a slightly troubled look which gathered again, almost before the smile had faded. "It has not seemed so very long to me," she answered gravely.

"Hasn't? What have you been about?" And he gave her face a searching glance, and saw the shadow on it.

"I went to Sunday-school this morning, and since then I have taken care of Effie, and helped Jeannette with the rooms, and done a great many little things; none of them took much time, and yet all of them together took all the time there was."

"Just so; and didn't give you a chance to see how slow it was going; nor how stupid everything was; I'd give a dollar an hour if I had something regular and sensible to do."

"Then I should think you would find it right away; there are ever so many things that seem to want doing."

Hart laughed a little; a sort of superior air, as though he realized that he was talking with a person who knew very little about the things which belonged to his world.

"What are some of them?"

"Oh! I don't know; hundreds of things which would help other people, and make the world a great deal nicer place than it is. Seems to me if I were a man, I would do a great many nice things; but I don't know, I might not. I don't do all I could now, being a little girl, and that is a sign, I suppose, that I would not be any better if I were a man. Mr. Hart, why do you suppose it is that people don't go right straight to Jesus when they feel him drawing them, and begin work for him?"

Hart Hammond rolled over a little on the grass, changing his position so that he could look full into Dilly's face, then said, with astonished emphasis,—"What!"

"Why, you know the promise He made, that if He was lifted up, He would 'draw' everybody to Him, and of course He has kept His promise; and I say, why doesn't everybody go to Him?"

She was in very intense earnest. There was no mistaking the gravity, which was almost solemnity, on her face; she went after Effie, just then, brought her from a particularly dusty spot, and established her on the grass with a new flower, then came back to her seat, and her open book. Hart, glancing at it, saw it was the Bible.

"What put that into your head?" he asked carelessly, meaning the Bible verse.

"It has been in my head all day; it was the Sunday-school lesson, you know, for to-day."

"I'm sure I did not know it. What could they make out of such a lesson as that for little chicks?"

"They made wonderful things out of it, Mr. Hart; I went to the children's building where all the very wee-est ones were; I wanted to see what would be done with them all, they were so little and cunning. I didn't know people taught such very little dots from the Bible, but they did; a real lesson. First there was an arch for the promise; then there was a picture of the world, with the cross on it up in one corner, and rays of light reaching from it all over the world; then the teacher marked off one tiny spot for Monteagle, and made dots for the little folks in her class, and told them the light from the cross was shining right on them to-day; that Jesus was drawing them to come to him; and then she said how very, very sad it was that some of them would not come."

"And they understood what she was talking about as well, I suppose, as though she had addressed them in Greek," replied skeptical Hart, smiling.

"Oh! They understood. I don't make it plain to you, I suppose, because I don't know how; but that teacher knew. She made it just as plain to those little bits of children what it was to go to Jesus, as I should make plain to Effie what I wanted if I should ask her to run to mamma in her room at the hotel. That was what astonished me so much. I always thought," said Dilly, looking down at her Bible, her cheeks growing a rosy pink, "that being a Christian was something which belonged to older people—to men and women; and that girls so young as I needn't think about such things; but that teacher talked to those little bits of children as though they were hurting the Lord Jesus every day, when they refused to think about him or try to please him; and, after all, it seems sensible, for Effie, baby as she is, makes your mother look very much troubled when she puts on that determined little look and stands perfectly still, after she has called her to come. Why shouldn't Jesus care?"

"You are getting into very deep theological waters, my small woman, I am afraid," said Hart, trying to look wise and, at the same time, unconcerned. "What is 'going to Jesus?' That is a kind of 'cant' expression which one hears a good deal of in Sunday-school; but how many of those children, do you suppose, know what it means? Effie, there, understands perfectly well when mamma calls her, that she ought to go, but this is a very different matter."

"They understood," said Dilly, confidently. "She asked all who knew what it was to go to Jesus, to raise their hands, and ever so many little bits of children raised theirs; then she questioned some of the youngest; one boy said it was to 'want to please him.' Another said it was to 'do just as you thought he would do if he were here.' Another said it was to 'turn right square around and leave all your bads behind you,' and a little bit of a girl said 'it was to love him so much that you wouldn't do anything to make him feel bad, for the world.' Oh! 'They' knew.

"Then she got them to tell of ways in which they had been called, or 'drawn,' to Jesus, and it was just wonderful to hear the little things. Some told what their fathers had said, and some spoke of their teachers, and mothers, and two boys said their little sister had asked them to 'turn over a new leaf,' and one little girl said her mamma had asked her to meet her in Heaven. My mother asked me to be sure to do that." Dilly's voice had dropped lower and lower, and with this last sentence it trembled and her eyes filled with tears.

"Well," said Hart, kindly, wanting to comfort her, "you mean to, I suppose."

"I don't know; I haven't thought much about it, only when I was sick, and then I was too miserable to think of anything, much, but myself. Oh! I meant to, some day, but that teacher told those 'little' boys and girls that they were not one of them too young to begin, and that to-day was the only time they were sure of."

"I think it is very unwise to try to scare little folks in that way," said Hart, looking wise and reproving.

"Oh! They were not scared. She did not say it in that way, only she made it plain to them that it was true; and of course it is; because, when you stop to think about it, how can anybody be sure of being here to-morrow; and even if one were sure, what is the use in waiting?"

There really seemed to be but one sensible answer to make to this; Hart thought it over for some seconds, and at last said, with a good-natured laugh, "All right; what do you wait for, then?"

"That is just it!" Dilly did not laugh, but kept her troubled look. "Why don't I say right away that I am going, from this minute, to belong to Jesus, and serve him the best I know how? Why doesn't everybody say it, Mr. Hart?"

"Well," said Hart, rolling himself over again, and settling it in his own mind that he would leave this part of the ground in a very few minutes, "the theory is, you know, that old Satan himself is at the bottom of all our wickednesses, this among the number."

"Do you suppose he is trying to manage me?" Dilly's tone was awe-stricken. "Do you really think it is Satan telling me that I don't understand enough about things to settle them; that, at least, I would better wait till I get home and see what father says?"

"Haven't a doubt but that the old fellow is interested in you, if all that is said of him is true."

"I hate to be managed by him!" said Dilly, intense scorn in her voice, and much emphasis laid on the pronoun him.

Hart was exceedingly amused. Dilly seemed to him to be the very oddest little girl in the world.

"On the whole, then," he said, rising, "perhaps, you would do well to give him the slip."

"Why, of course; everybody would, but it is so queer that we don't! Did you see the picture this morning, Mr. Hart?"

"Picture?" said Hart, sitting down again. "I saw nothing this morning, but the bed. What picture was there?"

"Why, that same man made a picture on the blackboard in the tabernacle; in the big Sunday-school, you know, after the other was over. He made the lesson all out in a picture, and a story. The story was about a desert where nothing grew, and it was very warm and very dreary; and one day an angel planted a seed, and a tree grew up, a lovely tree—the only beautiful thing in that desert world. And pilgrims came that way and rested under its shade; and it grew and grew; and these pilgrims told others about it, and more came, and at last great crowds of people were helped by that tree; and it grew on and on, and spread its branches everywhere, and its leaves cured sick people. And while he talked he made the tree larger and larger, and its branches reached out, and then suddenly, he made a cross out of it; reaching its arms out to save everybody! It was a beautiful story, Mr. Hart. I can't tell it as he did, but it just put the whole lesson into a picture; and it made me think again how strange it was that some people would not be cured. When I was sick, I 'wanted' to be cured so much; and when your mother came to say she would take me with her up here, and that it would cure me, I just cried for joy; and father cried, he was so glad. Suppose I had said I wasn't old enough to come?"

"You are quite a little logician," said Hart. And then he took himself up from the grass again, pinched Effie's cheek, pulled one of her curls and sauntered off, leaving Dilly to wonder what that last sentence meant.

CHAPTER VIII.

TRUE TO HER PLEDGE.

DILLY sat still with her book, a little sorrowful; it seemed to her that she needed some help, though she hardly knew what, and Mr. Hart did not seem to be the person to help her. Effie was very busy just then, gathering all the bright flowers within her reach and carefully pulling them to bits, so she gave no trouble beyond an occasional glance, and left Dilly to her own thoughts. What should she decide? It seemed to her that somebody stood near at hand, waiting for what she was going to say. For some reason which she did not understand, Mr. Hart had discouraged her; made her feel that the whole question was beyond her; that she was too young to busy her mind with it; he had not said so in words, but he had contrived to make her feel that he thought so. Dilly was sure this was very different from what the morning teacher of the children had tried to do.

"And if they are old enough," said Dilly, "then I was, years and years ago; and I've been 'called' a great many times; yet I can't seem to decide that I shall do any differently from what I have always been doing."

A step sounded near her, and glancing up, Dilly saw the artist almost at her side, looking down on her with a good-natured smile. "What kind of a growth is this, which I have found," he said, whimsically. "Is it a flower, or a weed?" and he dropped himself beside her.

Dilly looked around for the growth which he meant. There was no flower near her.

"Oh! I meant this one," he said, touching lightly the hand which lay on her open Bible.

"Oh!" said Dilly, flushing up to her temples. "I'm afraid it is a weed."

"You don't say! Not poisonous, I hope!" and he drew away his hand in pretended alarm.

Dilly laughed a little; she had never heard such queer talk.

She stole a shy glance at her visitor, but he seemed to have already forgotten her, and lay looking up at the pure blue sky. Something in his face made her think he could help her if he chose; but she felt afraid to speak. At last, her voice very soft and low, broke the quiet: "I saw your picture this morning."

"My picture? Did I make a picture this morning? When was it? In my dreams? I'm always making them, asleep or awake; so of course I can't remember them all."

"But I mean the one you made at the tabernacle for the Sunday-school."

"The Sunday-school lesson! Did I go to Sunday-school? Let me see. O yes! I remember; you saw my desert, and my tree that grew and grew, and blossomed at last into a cross which stretched out its arms to reach all the world. Yes; that is a wonderful Sunday-school lesson. You saw the picture; but the question is, did you stand close to it, right under the spreading branches of the tree, where those stand who have gone close enough to use its leaves for themselves?"

"I'm only a little girl," said Dilly, very softly. "I think maybe I'm too young to really 'belong,' yet awhile."

"Well, now, let us see about that. If you were a rosebud, and I was a wonderful fairy who could change you so that your leaves would never fade, and fit you to blossom in the palace of my king, and I wanted to do it, do you think I would like to have you wait until a little worm which had made its nest in your heart, had eaten a great many of your leaves, and curled some of them up, and torn one off here and there, and made you look yellow and ugly, before you came to me for help?"

"No, sir," said Dilly, promptly enough, but smiling again; "who ever heard so strange a story as this?"

"Very well; you are just a bud now, but there is a little worm named 'sin,' crawling about, longing to get a good hold on you. I don't see the use of waiting till he has spoiled your beauty. Do you?"

But now Dilly had no answer ready; something in the voice, or in the words, had sent a sudden rush of tears to her eyes, and a great longing into her heart to be shielded now and forever from the power of that destroying worm.

The artist said no more to her, but gave undivided attention to Effie for the next five minutes, then went away with a kind good-by.

Effie was tired of her flowers now, and missed her new friend whose attentions had been delightful; so she travelled over to Dilly and insisted on being noticed.

Dilly hurriedly dried her eyes, kissed Effie, picked up her Bible, and taking the child by the hand, started for the hotel; the supper bell was ringing. As she went, she said firmly to herself: "Now I have decided; I'm going to Him this very day. I shall not wait until I am an old spoiled flower, with the leaves dropping off!"

True to her pledge, the first moment she had to herself, she knelt down in the little curtained room by her cot bed, and said,—

   "Jesus Christ, I gave myself to thee, to do just what thou dost tell me."

She had not time for a word more, for Mrs. Hammond called her just then, and she hopped up quickly and ran away, feeling that she ought to go when called, but feeling sorry, nevertheless, that she could not say those other words which were in her heart. For the next hour or two she was kept quite busy, and it was not until Effie was asleep in her crib, with Mrs. Hammond sitting beside her, and the bells ringing for evening service, that Dilly's work for the day was done. Even then she lingered, looping the curtain a little differently and picking a bit of paper from the matting on the floor; Mrs. Hammond looked so very sad and desolate that Dilly could not feel willing to leave her alone, much as she wanted to be by herself for a little while.

She ventured a suggestion: "Mrs. Hammond, wouldn't you like to have me stay with Miss Effie and you go out to the meeting? It is such pretty moonlight, and the bell sounds so sweet."

"No," said Mrs. Hammond, with a long-drawn sigh; "I could not go alone, and besides, I have not the energy to go anywhere. I just want to stay by my baby; I want to enjoy her, Dilly, while she is a baby. Sometimes, when babies grow up, they give their mothers very sorrowful hearts, though I think you were always good to your mother, Dilly."

This last was added in a kind voice, because of a sudden remembrance the lady had, that Dilly's mother was gone.

"No, ma'am," said Dilly, her voice quivering a little; "sometimes I wasn't."

But Mrs. Hammond had already forgotten her. She sighed again, and looked out of the window, down the long moonlighted path.

"I suppose you haven't seen anything of Mr. Hart this afternoon?" she asked; not as though she expected any information, but as if she was thinking aloud.

"Yes, ma'am, I have; he was with Miss Effie and me out on the grass back of the tent for quite a long while."

Mrs. Hammond turned quickly toward her. "At what time, Dilly?"

"Why, it was after dinner, a good while after; Miss Effie slept late, you remember, and I had her dressed and out there, for a little while before he came along; I don't know just what time it was."

"Do you know whether it was after the three o'clock train had gone down?"

"Oh! Yes'm, it was; or it was just about that time when he came along. I remember just as he spoke to me I was thinking it was Sunday everywhere but down at the depot, and it was the whistle of the train which made me think of it; and the bell was ringing for the four o'clock meeting when you called me, Mrs. Hammond, and Mr. Hart had been gone only a little while; I remember all about it now."

"What took Mr. Hart in that direction, Dilly?" There was a wonderful softening of Mrs. Hammond's voice, and the lines on her forehead seemed to have smoothed a little.

"I don't know, ma'am; he played with Miss Effie a few minutes, then, when he asked me if the day wasn't long, I said it didn't seem so, and I began to tell him about the Sunday-school lesson, and he seemed to like to hear about it, and asked me questions, and I asked him some." Dilly stopped; she did not know how to give the conversation more plainly; she hoped Mrs. Hammond would not ask her.

"Do you know whether the evening train has gone up yet?"

"O no, ma'am! It doesn't go until after nine o'clock."

Mrs. Hammond sighed again; many of her troubles seemed to have to do with the trains.

"Well," she said gently, after a few moments of silence, "you can go now; I shall not want you any more to-night. And, Dilly?"

"Yes'm."

Silence again; Mrs. Hammond did not seem to know quite how to word her next remarks: "Dilly, whenever Mr. Hart wants you to go anywhere for him, or wants to take you with him to see or hear anything, I want you to be always ready at a moment's notice; never mind baby; bring her to me, or leave her with Jeannette; but do not at any time keep Mr. Hart waiting, or think that you cannot be spared to go with him. That is all."

The shrewd little girl as she went away, remembered that her chief duty in life had been supposed to be to keep Miss Effie out of mischief, and wondered if she were now to try to do something of that kind for Mr. Hart. How troubled his mother was about him! She felt very sorry. What could he be doing which worried her so? He was so kind and pleasant to her, she should think he would be just lovely to his mother.

Very thoughtfully she went to her curtained-in room, her mind full of Mr. Hart and his possible dangers. She was quite alone now, and had leisure; there was nothing to hinder her kneeling down and finishing that pledge which she had been so resolved to make, but, much to her surprise, and not a little to her dismay, she could not be interested in the words she had planned to say.

"I have said it," she told herself; "I put it into that little short prayer; why should I put these other words with it?"

She got down on her knees, however, but her thoughts were so full of Mr. Hart that the first words she said were:

   "Dear Jesus Christ, he worries his mother, and maybe he is in danger; if thou wouldst only draw him, so that he would decide not to let Satan manage him any more; he said it was Satan who managed. Oh! Dear Lord Jesus, please manage him thyself."

It was of no use to try to pray about herself, or to think of other words to say than those about Hart; her desires went instantly back to him whenever she tried to add to her pledge, made a few hours before. It was as though she had quite forgotten herself, and had wishes only for Hart Hammond.

The light burned late in Mrs. Hammond's room; Dilly could see it glimmer from her tent window. She herself went to bed, and to sleep, and wakened, and the light was still there. She heard the train whistle, and wondered if Mr. Hart was on it, and if it was the fear of his going, which troubled his mother. She reached up and peeped at the tent next to theirs, where Mr. Hart slept, so that she and Jeannette need not be afraid; but it was quite dark, and the door securely tied. Then Dilly sighed, and murmured the same little prayer,—

   "Oh! Dear Lord Jesus, please manage him—"

and fell asleep again.

And Hart Hammond's tent door remained tied all night.

CHAPTER IX.

SETTLING THE PUZZLE.

MRS. HAMMOND herself boarded at the hotel, but it suited her best to have little Ethel sit in her high chair at the table in the tent, and take her oatmeal and milk and other wholesome dainties, in company with Jeannette and Dilly. It also suited her to come often, before the meal was concluded, and sit beside Ethel and watch her pretty attempts to feed herself. It was when Ethel was eating one by one, great ripe blackberries, that her mother came, and drawing a chair to her side, watched the plump cheeks and pretty little mouth with a sigh of relief. Whatever might be said of her son, certainly her baby was thriving on Monteagle.

The mother had dark rings under her eyes, and traces of sleeplessness on her face. Dilly, looking at her compassionately, wanted to ask if she had seen Mr. Hart that morning, but, did not dare. While she studied over the trouble which she felt sure was making wrinkles in this beautiful mother's face, and wondered if there wasn't something she could do to help her, the tent curtains parted slightly and a familiar face looked in.

"Any room in here for me?" questioned Hart's pleasant voice, and his mother answered eagerly:

"O, Hart! Come in; I thought you were away down the mountain before this time. Weren't you very late last night?"

"On the contrary, I was early." He came in, and stopping beside his mother, bent and kissed her on each cheek. "That is to say I was 'inside the tent,' early; I stayed with a young man who runs a tent down near the tabernacle. I happened to call on him, and we became so engaged in a talk we were having, that it grew late before I knew it, and as I received a cordial invitation to spend the night with him, I decided to do so, rather than go prowling about the grounds after regulation hours. I hope I did not worry you, mother; I supposed you would think me safe in my tent."

"It is all right," the mother said, cheerily; "I noticed that your tent door was tied, early in the evening, and did not see you untie it; and I was a little afraid you had deserted us and run home."

"I would not do that without telling you, and saying good-by," he answered gently, and some way his voice seemed more tender than Dilly had ever noticed before. He lifted Effie, whose blackberries were gone, from her chair, and gave her such a frolic that she shouted for joy, then putting her on Dilly's shoulder, walked away with his mother's hand drawn through his arm, and a happy look on her face; a look which, while it lasted, nearly always hid the wrinkles which were gathering there.

"I wonder that boy can't see that he's killing his mother; he 'pears to think enough of her, when he thinks about her at all." It was Jeannette who said this. It was the first time she had made a remark to Dilly about any of the family.

Dilly was silent for a minute, struggling with a sense of honor which she had, about talking people over, when they were not present, but at last she ventured to ask one question she knew the object she had in view was good:

"Does she—I mean, does Mr. Hart do things which trouble her?"

"Oh! He doesn't do anything so very dreadful; not more than they all do; he's a little wild, most boys without fathers have their wild times; his father died when this baby wasn't but four days old; and he's got in with a set down in the city that don't do him much good. The fact is, he takes a drink of their wine, now and then, and that scares his mother. But then, she isn't half so scared as a body would think she would be; if she was, do you suppose she would go to hotels and stop for weeks at a time, where they had the stuff on the table at every meal? I've seen her do it; last summer she went to the Mountain House, and when they sat down to their stylish dinners, if I'd go past the room on my way to the piazza, the smell of all kinds of fancy liquors would almost take my breath away; I've got a kind of a natural liking for the stuff, and I could be a drunkard as well as not, if I had time and money; and Hart, he used to sit there and see gentlemen whom his mother rode and walked and talked with, and thought was fine, drinking their champagne and their claret and I dunno what other fancy names they've got for it, and why in the world shouldn't he think it was nice and manly, and that he was getting old enough to do so himself? I'm free to confess I ain't got much patience with mothers; s'posin' she took him every day where there was a mad dog or two, within easy reach of him, and s'posin' the bite of a mad dog felt kind of pleasant, at first; and then she whined around him and begged him not to get bitten; what kind of a way to manage would you think that was?"

"But they don't have such things at this hotel, do they?" Dilly's voice was shocked; if there was a thing in this world she had been brought up to fear and hate, it was alcohol; no matter by what name it was called.

"Here, inside the grounds? O, no! They don't allow nothing of the kind; but then he is as uneasy as a fish out of water up here; you can't take a boy where the air is poisoned, till he gets the poison into him, and then make things all straight by carrying him off to a mountain." Jeannette banged the breakfast dishes a little as she talked; she felt very much wrought up on this subject. The fact is, her home had been ruined by this same poison; and she knew what she was talking about.

Dilly sat still, and let Effie's busy fingers pull her neat ruffle all awry; she felt very much dismayed. If Hart really had some of this dreadful poison in his veins, how could she hope to help him in the least?

All day her mind was busy with these thoughts. I am afraid Effie found her a very grave companion. That young lady was not by any means neglected; her milk and her oatmeal and her fruit were ready at the moment as usual; and no insolent fly was allowed to walk over her pretty face while she slept out of doors in her borrowed cradle, with the birds and the flowers to keep her company. But for the rest, she was obliged to plan her own entertainments to a great extent, while Dilly hemmed a ruffle for her dress and thought and "thought." Was there any possible way in which she could help Mr. Hart, and so help Mr. Hart's mother?

Effie's early supper was nearly all disposed of before Dilly saw the young man again. Then he called to her pleasantly as he was passing the tent:

"Halloo, little woman, have you been to Table Rock yet, to see the sunset?"

"No, sir," said Dilly, smiling, and appearing in the tent door in her pretty white dress, a gift from Mrs. Hammond, and looking as fresh and bright as a little girl need. "I don't know where Table Rock is; and besides, I don't think Mrs. Hammond would like to have me take Miss Effie there, if there are very high places."

"I imagine not. 'Miss Effie' will do well to wait a few years before she climbs those rocks; but you ought to go. I'm just starting on a trip, and I'll show you the way."

Dilly hesitated; Jeannette was busy with some fine ironing, and it was nearly Mrs. Hammond's tea hour; she had an idea that it would be a very inconvenient time to leave her little charge; she opened her mouth to speak this thought, then closed it again, mindful of Mrs. Hammond's directions.

"Thank you," she said at last; "I'll take Effie to her mamma and ask if she can spare me." And she sped away before Hart could reply.

"I can take care of her as well as not," said Mrs. Hammond with her pleasantest smile. "I don't feel tired at all; and you have been busy with the little girlie all day; I'm glad to have you go and get rested."

What a pretty walk it was! Dozens of others were moving in the same direction; ladies in beautiful summer toilets, and fine-looking gentlemen who nodded pleasantly to Hart; and presently a party of merry girls and boys all older than herself, joined them, and chatted pleasantly with her, making Dilly feel as though she "belonged." It was all very delightful. When they reached the rocks, Hart gave his hand to Dilly and guided her carefully over the rough places, out to the very centre of the wonderful rocky table itself, and said:

"Now, turn to the right, and 'look.'"

Dilly up to this moment had been busy only with the thought of where she should step next, and whether she could take that leap across that yawning chasm to the next rock, and what would happen if Mr. Hart's foot should slip; but now, feeling more secure, she turned at his bidding and looked toward the glowing west. One little exclamation escaped her, then she was entirely still. That wonderful ball of fire surrounded by its train of red and gold and purple clouds! Who would try to describe it? Who that has not seen it on Table Rock itself can imagine it? Certainly Dilly had no words; there was a sudden rush of tears to her eyes; she could not have told why; and she put up her hand quickly and wiped them away; it would not do to have the view obscured by tears. Something in the scene had hushed other voices as well as hers; the group stood for the most part silent and watchful, with eager faces turned toward the vision of glory in the west, watchful until the glowing world dropped out of sight.

"The door is shut!" said Hart, breaking the hush and drawing a long breath.

One of the girls turned and looked at him curiously. "The door?" she said in an inquiring tone.

Hart laughed, and pointed toward the purple bank of clouds.

"Yes; didn't you see the angels troop out and throw open the castle door for the king of day, and then swing it slowly to again? I saw it."

Dilly flashed an appreciative glance at him. "I thought I saw it," she said in a low tone, while the others laughed and told him he was growing poetical.

On the way home, as they neared the grounds of the Association, the others dropped off into their own paths, and left the young man and the little girl alone.

"Have you settled that puzzle which you were having with yourself last night?" he asked her with a very bright look.

"Puzzle?" repeated Dilly.

"Yes; wasn't it a sort of puzzle as to who was keeping you from trying to settle something of importance?"

"Oh!" said Dilly. "Yes, I was puzzled a little; at least I wanted to make myself think I was; I guess I knew all the time it was Satan trying to manage me."

"And you don't like to be managed?"

"Not by Satan."

"O, well! Didn't I advise you to give him the slip?"

"Yes, sir," said Dilly, speaking very gravely. She did not know but Mr. Hart was making light of all her talk, nevertheless she resolved to stand up bravely for her colors. "Yes, sir, you did; and I mean to. I don't belong to him any more, Mr. Hart; I've gone over to the Other; and promised to belong to Him forever."

"That is good." There was no laughter in the young man's tones now; they were hearty and pleasant.

Dilly stole a glance at his eyes, which helped her; they were kind eyes; not full of sparkles of mischief, as she had feared.

"You have quite settled the question as to being old enough?"

"O, yes, indeed! I believe I knew all the time that I was; but something seemed trying to make me give that excuse to myself. I don't want any excuses now, Mr. Hart; I 'like' to belong to the Lord Jesus."

"Yes," he said heartily; "I can well understand that. And what next, Dilly?"

CHAPTER X.

SILENT FORCES.

"WHAT next?" she repeated, a little smile on her face. Dilly had a curious way of repeating Mr. Hart's words, and thereby expressing that she did not quite understand what he meant.

"Yes; I mean, having settled this question, how is it going to influence your life in any way? What is there about you that will be changed in any sense because of this decision?"

Dilly looked puzzled. "I don't know how to 'tell' the difference," she said, speaking slowly, as though she was carefully choosing each word, "but I can feel that there will be a difference."

"I hardly understand how, in you," Hart said, smiling on her very gently. "It would make a tremendous change in some people I know, but you have always done about right, haven't you?"

"O, Mr. Hart!" Dilly was genuinely shocked. "That isn't true at all; there are chances enough for change, only I don't know how to tell them."

"What chances?" he said, amused. "Haven't you always been a pretty good little girl?"

"I've fretted inside," said Dilly, gravely; "I've fretted a great deal, and thought it was mean for father to be so poor, and for me to be sick and make him more trouble; and even for mother to die." Her voice, which had been growing more and more tremulous, broke with that sentence, and she could not have said another word just then.

"Well," said Hart, not amused now, but speaking very gently indeed, "those do not seem to me to be very immense sins, in a little girl. Do you mean that you now understand why such things were allowed?"

Dilly shook her head: "No, sir; I don't understand them, only now I know that they must be right, and best, because I know that the Lord Jesus truly loves me, and loves father, and everybody, and of course he will do the best for us all. I needn't 'have' to understand it."

"And you mean to stop fretting inside, now?" The amused look had already returned to Hart's face. "So that's one difference; and what else?"

"First, I'll write to father; that will be one thing." Dilly's face was bright over this thought.

"Not a 'different' thing, surely; haven't I mailed two nice little letters to father, for you, since we have been up here?"

"O yes, sir! But this will be a different letter, very different from any I ever wrote; I have such news to tell him, about how I have decided and about what a difference it makes in everything."

"Are you going to write to him about it?"

"O yes, sir! I wouldn't keep father waiting until I got home."

"Do you write about it because you want to do so, or because you think you ought?"

"Why, I like to write it; father will be so glad! And then, I think I ought, besides."

"But suppose he wouldn't be glad; I mean, suppose he did not understand about such things and would hardly know what you meant? Would you tell him then?"

"O yes," said Dilly with quiet assurance, "because you know I should want him to understand, and have it for himself just as quick as he could; and besides, fathers and mothers ought to know all about us, of course; and anyhow, there's a bigger reason, I suppose, than that. Jesus said we were to shine. I read that verse this morning, Mr. Hart. I wanted a verse to help me begin to live right, and the Bible is such a big book I wondered how I should find it, and I opened straight to that verse. Wasn't it strange?"

"Very. And then and there you made up your mind to 'shine,' did you? I suppose that is the way to do. But won't you have a busy life if you adopt all the Bible verses and measure your doings by them? I heard a young man last night quote a verse which seems to me reaches so far that it wouldn't give one much time for anything else. 'Whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' Do you think you can manage that?"

"'Whatever' you do;" Dilly repeated the words in a startled tone, as though she had never heard them before. "Why, that means everything!"

"It appears to."

"But how 'could' people?"

"That is the question I asked."

"But it is in the Bible?"

"Aye, it is there, in exactly those words; I took the trouble to look it up and see if he said it right."

"Then there is some way to do it, of course; but I don't understand how."

Just at that moment they were joined by a young man, evidently a friend of Hart's, and the two talked together, leaving Dilly to her perplexed thoughts. At a corner where two streets crossed, Hart turned to her:

"Now, little woman, I will take the left-hand road, and you may take the right one; it will bring you home by a pleasanter route; you are almost there now; I want to do some errands down town."

So Dilly was left to herself. She was not sorry; she had a great deal to think about; this new idea Mr. Hart had given her was very large. How was it possible that her quiet, every-day life should be to God's glory?

From out a vine-wreathed cottage door came a pretty little girl, watering pot hung on her fingers, a small garden hoe tucked under her arm, the handle grasped by both chubby hands.

Dilly smiled on her; she recognized in her one of the little girls who had listened to that Sunday-school lesson about Jesus "drawing" people to himself, and who had watched afterward, the making of that wonderful picture of the tree that filled the whole earth, and reached out its arms to save. She wondered if the little girl had understood, and had been drawn to Jesus? Also, she wondered how it was possible that such a little bit of a girl who probably had no work except to hoe a little among the flowers, could do things for God's glory? How could hoeing, for instance, have anything whatever to do with God? And yet flowers ought to be hoed.