CHAPTER V.

_EASTER TIDE._

_April 15._

THIS is Holy-week, and I have very little time to write in my journal. I am trying to pursue the course of devotions Lady Jemima gave me, and of which Mr. Penrose highly approves; and that, with my attendance on Lady Betty, takes all my time. Lady Betty has not been so well, and is rather fretful and exacting. I try to have patience with her, but it is hard work, sometimes.

I don't know what to do about receiving the Sacrament at Easter. I don't like to miss it, but Mr. Penrose and Lady Jemima say so much of the peril of unworthily receiving. Lady Jemima is very kind to me, and gives me much good advice. I told her that I felt very unhappy because I was no better, and she said that was right—that we ought constantly to contemplate our sins and short comings in order to make us humble and contrite, and that it became sinners, in a state of probation, and likely to be called to judgment at any time, to be grave and sad.

I have no time now to read the "Contemplations," and not much for the Scripture. To be sure, we hear it in chapel every day.

_April 17._

Betty said to me, this morning: "You are not my sunshiny Margaret, any more. You look so solemn all the time, just like Aunt Jemima!"

And with that she pulled a long face, and put on a look so exactly like her aunt that I could not forbear laughing; at which she laughed too. I don't look any more sober than I feel, however. Mr. Penrose's sermons have made me realize the things of eternity more than ever I did before, and they are dreadful to me. To be sure, there is heaven, but how am I to know it is to be my portion? How can I know that my repentance is sufficient—that my sorrow for sin is real and sincere? And I have been such a sinner! In looking back over my life, I can see nought but sin. Sin where I never suspected it before—and nothing good anywhere: and the harder I try to conquer myself, the worse I am.

Lady Betty's doll is finished. She is very much pleased with it, and we have had many games of play at "making believe": she being the mother, and I by turns doctor, nurse, and aunt.

"But if you are an aunt, you must be cross," said Betty, this morning: "aunts are always cross."

"O no!" I answered. "By no means. My dear Aunt Magdalen was not cross, nor aunt Willson."

"Aunt Jemima is—almost always, I mean," persisted Betty.

"Aunt Jemima is always what?" asked the lady, who had come in softly, in time to hear Betty's words—for the door being set open for the sake of air, and Lady Jemima always walking like a cat, we had not heard her approach.

"Aunt Jemima is always what?"

"Cross!" answered Lady Betty, simply. "But I suppose you can't help it, can you, Aunt Jemima?"

Lady Jemima colored, but she did not answer Betty directly. Presently she said, "Who made you that great doll?"

"Margaret," answered Betty. "She has just finished it." And she began to display all the perfections of the rag baby.

Lady Jemima looked at the clothes, and said that they were neatly made.

"But, Margaret," said she, "I have come to sit with Betty while you go down to the chapel."

"It is not chapel time," objected Betty; "and I don't want Margaret to go away."

"But Margaret wants to say her prayers, if it is not chapel time," returned Lady Jemima. "You would not be so selfish as to keep her from them, would you? It would be much better for you to be saying your own, than to be playing with your doll at such a time."

"Well, she may go, if she wants to," said Betty, rather sadly.

So I went down and said my prayers in the empty chapel, out of the book Lady Jemima gave me, but I cannot say I found any great comfort therein. Lady Betty's sad, grieved face haunted me all the time, and I could think of nothing but getting back to her.

When I finally returned, I found Lady Betty sitting looking out of the window, with her elbow on the sill, and her chin on her hand. Lady Jemima was reading to her out of the Bible, but I don't think she paid any attention.

When Lady Jemima saw I had come back, she ceased her reading, and rose, but Lady Betty did not look round nor move.

"Good-by, Betty," said Lady Jemima.

"Good-by," said Betty.

When her aunt left the room, she said, sorrowfully enough, "Don't you love me any more, Margaret?"

"Of course I do!" said I, sitting down by her. "Why should you ask me such a question?"

"Aunt Jemima says you don't," replied the child. "She says I am so selfish."

"Selfish about what?" I asked.

"She said it was selfish in me to let you work so hard at the doll just to please me, when there are so many poor people that need clothes, and that—that—"

"Nonsense!" said I. I could not help it, so vexed was I at Lady Jemima. "I was very glad to make the doll, and shall be always glad to do anything for you."

She brightened a little on this, but I could see all the afternoon that she was cast down, and I was sorry enough that I had left her to her aunt, who, good as she is, never seems to come near Betty without hurting her in some way. After all, my work here is to take care of Betty, and I don't believe God means I should let her suffer for the sake of saying my prayers, more than anything else.

_April 18._

I have had a sharp dispute with Mr. Penrose. I had been walking as far as the Abbey ruin in the park, when he joined me: and after some discourse, began to ask me what I was reading. I told him that I was reading the Bishop's "Contemplations;" whereat, he spoke slightingly of the book, and said he would give me something better. Now, when I have learned to love a book as I have this one, 'tis all the same to me as a friend, and I cannot bear to hear it spoken against. So I answered something quickly that I wanted nothing better, and beside that, I had promised to read it.

"But, Mistress Merton," said Mr. Penrose, "are you sure that you are the best judge? Am not I, your pastor, best fitted to direct your reading? And if I tell you that any book is unfit for you, are you to sit in judgment on what I say?"

"Why not?" I answered, hotly enough. "Since you yourself, as it seems, presume to sit in judgment on your Bishop?"

He was silent a moment, and did seem somewhat taken aback. Then he said, "You are something sharp. What is the Bishop to you, that you defend him so earnestly?"

"He has been a good friend to me and mine," I answered; "and he is a good man, and a good preacher. He preached the best sermon in our parish church that ever I heard in all my life."

I saw he was touched at this, and I was wicked enough to be glad I had given him a pinch, though no such thing was in my thought when I spoke.

"Then," said he, "I am to conclude that my preaching does not please you?"

"I don't sit in judgment on it," I said, demurely. Then willing to turn the conversation, I said, looking up to the great window which is still almost entire: "What a splendid pile this must have been in its day!"

"Ah, yes!" he answered. "There was piety and zeal in England in those days."

"And is there none now?" I asked.

"Nay!" said he. "Where do we hear now of bodies of men and women retiring to devote themselves to God and His service, as in those days? Now every priest must have his house and his wife and children. The service of His Maker is not enough for him."

"You can hardly expect me to quarrel with that, since I am a priest's daughter," said I, laughing. "And does not St. Paul himself say both of bishops and deacons that they should be the husband of one wife? Besides," I added, more soberly, "I see no need of people retiring into convents and abbeys to serve God. Why should we not serve him in the daily work He has given us to do?"

"'Tis a good thought, at least," he said, and so we parted good friends at last.

_April 20._

Well, Easter is passed and gone. I know not whether I spent it well or