Chapter 26

SCRUPLES.

The next day was Christmas; but in the country of Shampuashuh, Christmas, though a holiday, was not held in so high regard as it receives in many other quarters of the earth. There was no service in the church; and after dinner Lois came as usual to draw in Mrs. Barclay's room.

"I did not understand some of your aunt's talk last evening," Mrs. Barclay remarked after a while.

"I am not surprised at that," said Lois.

"Did you?"

"O yes. I understand aunt Anne."

"Does she really think that _all_ the people who like pretty things, lead useless lives?"

"She does not care so much about pretty things as I do," said Lois slightly.

"But does she think all who belong to the 'great world' are evil? given up to wickedness?"

"Not so bad as that," Lois answered, smiling; "but naturally aunt Anne does not understand any world but this of Shampuashuh."

"I understood her to assume that under no circumstances could you marry one of the great world she was talking of?"

"Well," said Lois, "I suppose she thinks that one of them would not be a Christian."

"You mean, an enthusiast."

"No," said Lois; "but I mean, and she means, one who is in heart a true servant of Christ. He might, or he might not, be enthusiastic."

"And would you marry no one who was not a Christian, as you understand the word?"

"The Bible forbids it," said Lois, her colour rising a little.

"The Bible forbids it? I have not studied the Bible like you; but I have heard it read from the pulpit all my life; and I never heard, either from the pulpit or out of it, such an idea, as that one who is a Christian may not marry one who is not."

"I can show you the command--in more places than one," said Lois.

"I wish you would."

Lois left her drawing and fetched a Bible.

"It is forbidden in the Old Testament and in the New," she said; "but I will show you a place in the New. Here it is--in the second Epistle to the Corinthians--'Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers;' and it goes on to give the reason."

"Unbelievers! But those, in that day, were heathen."

"Yes," said Lois simply, going on with her drawing.

"There are no heathen now,--not here."

"I suppose that makes no difference. It is the party which will not obey and serve Christ; and which is working against him. In that day they worshipped idols of wood and stone; now they worship a different sort. They do not worship _him;_ and there are but two parties."

"No neutrals?"

"No. The Bible says not."

"But what is being 'yoked together'? what do you understand is forbidden by that? Marriage?"

"Any connection, I suppose," said Lois, looking up, "in which two people are forced to pull together. You know what a 'yoke' is?"

"And you can smile at that, you wicked girl?"

Lois laughed now. "Why not?" she said. "I have not much fancy for putting my head in a yoke at all; but a yoke where the two pull different ways must be very miserable!"

"You forget; you might draw somebody else to go the right way."

"That would depend upon who was the strongest."

"True," said Mrs. Barclay. "But, my dear Lois! you do not suppose that a man cannot belong to the world and yet be what you call a Christian? That would be very uncharitable."

"I do not want to be uncharitable," said Lois. "Mrs. Barclay, it is _extremely_ difficult to mark the foliage of different sorts of trees!"

"Yes, but you are making a very good beginning. Lois, do you know, you are fitting to be the wife of just one of that world you are condemning-cultivated, polished, full of accomplishments and graces, and fine and refined tastes."

"Then he would be very dangerous," said Lois, "if he were not a Christian. He might have all that, and yet be a Christian too."

"Suppose he were not; would you refuse him?"

"I hope I should," said Lois. But her questioner noticed that this answer was soberly given.

That evening she wrote a letter to Mr. Dillwyn.

"I am enjoying the most delightful rest," the letter said, "that I have known for a very long time; yet I have a doubt whether I ought to confess it; whether I ought not to declare myself tired of Shampuashuh, and throw up my cards. I feel a little like an honest swindler, using your money, not on false pretences, but on a foregone case. I should _never_ get tired of the place or the people. Everyone of them, indeed almost every one that I see, is a character; and here, where there is less varnish, the grain of the wood shows more plainly. I have had a most original carpenter here to measure for my book-shelves, only yesterday; for my room is running over with books. Not only everybody is a character, but nearly everybody has a good mixture of what is admirable in his composition; and as for these two girls--well, I am even more in love than you are, Philip. The elder is the handsomer, perhaps; she is very handsome; but your favourite is my favourite. Lois is lovely. There is a strange, fresh, simple, undefinable charm about the girl that makes one her captive. Even me, a woman. She wins upon me daily with her sweet unconscious ways. But nevertheless I am uneasy when I remember what I am here for, and what you are expecting. I fear I am acting the part of an innocent swindler, as I said; little better.

"In one way there is no disappointment to be looked for. These girls are both gifted with a great capacity and aptitude for mental growth. Lois especially, for she cares more to go into the depths of things; but both of them grow fast, and I can see the change almost from day to day. Tastes are waking up, and eager for gratification; there is no limit to the intellectual hunger or the power of assimilation; the winter is one of very great enjoyment to them (as to me!), and there is, and that has been from the first, a refinement of manner which surprised me, but that too is growing. And yet, with all this, which promises so much, there is another element which threatens discomfiture to our hopes. I must not conceal it from you. These people are regular Puritans. They think now, in this age of the world, to regulate their behaviour entirely by the Bible. You are of a different type; and I am persuaded that the whole family would regard an alliance with a man like you as an unlawful thing; ay, though he were a prince or a Rothschild, it would make no difference in their view of the thing. For here is independence, pure and absolute. The family is very poor; they are glad of the money I pay them; but they would not bend their heads before the prestige of wealth, or do what they think wrong to gain any human favour or any earthly advantage. And Lois is like the rest; quite as firm; in fact, some of these gentlewomen have a power of saying 'no' which is only a little less than fearful. I cannot tell what love would do; but I do not believe it would break down her principle. We had a talk lately on this very subject; she was very firm.

"I think I ought not to conceal from you that I have doubts on another question. We were at a family supper party last night at an aunt's house. She is a character too; a kind of a grenadier of a woman, in nature, not looks. The house and the entertainment were very interesting to me; the mingling of things was very striking, that one does not expect to find in connection. For instance, the appointments of the table were, as of course they would be, of no pretension to style or elegance; clumsily comfortable, was all you could say. And the cooking was delicately fine. Then, manners and language were somewhat lacking in polish, to put it mildly; and the tone of thought and the qualities of mind and character exhibited were very far above what I have heard often in circles of great pretension. Once the conversation got upon the contrasting ways of life in this society and in what is called the world; the latter, I confess to you, met with some hard treatment; and the idea was rejected with scorn that one of the girls should ever be tempted out of her own sphere into the other. All this is of no consequence; but what struck me was a hint or two that Lois _had been_ tempted; and a pretty plain assertion that this aunt, who it seems was at Appledore last summer nursing Mrs. Wishart, had received some sort of overture or advance on Lois's behalf, and had rejected it. This was evidently news to Lois; and she showed so much startled displeasure--in her face, for she said almost nothing--that the suspicion was forced upon me, there might have been more in the matter than the aunt knew. Who was at Appledore? a friend of yours, was it not? and are you _sure_ he did not gain some sort of lien upon this heart which you are so keen to win? I owe it to you to set you upon this inquiry; for if I know anything of the girl, she is as true and as unbending as steel. What she holds she will hold; what she loves she will love, I believe, to the end. So, before we go any further, let us find whether we have ground to go on. No, I would not have you come here at present. Not in any case; and certainly not in this uncertain'ty. You are too wise to wish it."

Whether Philip were too wise to wish it, he was too wise to give the rein to his wishes. He stayed in New York all winter, contenting himself with sending to Shampuashuh every imaginable thing that could make Mrs. Barclay's life there pleasant, or help her to make it useful to her two young friends. A fine Chickering piano arrived between Christmas and New Year's day, and was set up in the space left for it between the bookshelves. Books continued to flow in; books of all sorts--science and art, history and biography, poetry and general literature. And Lois would have developed into a bookworm, had not the piano exercised an almost equal charm upon her. Listening to Mrs. Barclay's music at first was an absorbing pleasure; then Mrs. Barclay asked casually one day "Shall I teach you?"

"O, you could not!" was Lois's answer, given with a breath and a flush of excitement.

"Let us try," said Mrs. Barclay, smiling. "You might learn at least enough to accompany yourself. I have never heard your voice. Have you a voice?"

"I do not know what you would call a voice," said Lois, smiling.

"But you sing?"

"Hymns. Nothing else."

"Have you a hymn-book? with music, I mean?"

Lois brought one. Mrs. Barclay played the accompaniment of a familiar hymn, and Lois sang.

"My dear," exclaimed the former when she had done, "that is delicious!"

"Is it?"

"Your voice is very fine; it has a peculiar and uncommon richness. You must let me train that voice."

"I should like to sing hymns as well as I _can_," Lois answered, flushing somewhat.

"You would like to sing other things, too."

"Songs?"

"Yes. Some songs are beautiful."

"I never liked much those I have heard."

"Why not?"

"They seemed rather foolish."

"Did they! The choice must have been unfortunate. Where did you hear them?"

"In New York. In company there. The voices were sometimes delightful; but the words--"

"Well, the words?"

"I wondered how they could like to sing them. There was nothing in them but nonsense."

"You are a very severe critic!"

"No," said Lois deprecatingly; "but I think hymns are so much better."

"Well, we will see. Songs are not the first thing; your voice must be trained."

So a new element came into the busy life of that winter; and music now made demands on time and attention which Lois found it a little difficult to meet, without abridging the long reading hours and diligent studies to which she had hitherto been giving all her spare time. But the piano was so alluring! And every morsel of real music that Mrs. Barclay touched was so entrancing to Lois. To Lois; Madge did not care about it, except for the wonder of seeing Mrs. Barclay's fingers fly over the keys; and Charity took quite a different view again.

"Mother," she said one evening to the old lady, whom they often called so, "don't it seem to you that Lois is gettin' turned round?"

"How, my dear?"

"Well, it ain't like the Lois we used to have. She's rushin' at books from morning to night, or scritch-scratching on a slate; and the rest o' the time she's like nothin' but the girl in the song, that had 'bells on her fingers and rings on her toes.' I hear that piano-forty going at all hours; it's tinkle, tinkle, every other thing. What's the good of all that?"

"What's the _harm?_" said Lois.

"What's she doin' it for, that woman? One 'ud think she had come here just on purpose to teach Madge and you; for she don't do anything else. What's it all for? that's what I'd like to be told."

"I'm sure she's very kind," said Madge.

"Mother, do you like it?"

"What is the harm in what we are doing, Charity?" asked her younger sister.

"If a thing ain't good it's always harm!"

"But these things are good."

"Maybe good for some folks; they ain't good for you."

"I wish you would say 'are not,'" said Lois.

"There!" said Charity. "There it is! You're pilin' one thing on top of another, till your head won't stand it; and the house won't be high enough for you by and by. All these ridiculous ways, of people that think themselves too nice for common things! and you've lived all your life among common things, and are going to live all your life among them. And, mother, all this French and music will just make Lois discontented. You see if it don't."

"Do I act discontented?" Lois asked, with a pleasant smile.

"Does she leave any of her work for you to do, Charity?" said Madge.

"Wait till the spring opens and garden must be made," said Charity.

"I should never think of leaving _that_ to you to do, Charity," said Lois, laughing. "We should have a poor chance of a garden."

"Mother, I wish you'd stop it."

Mrs. Armadale said, however, nothing at the time. But the next chance she had when she and her youngest granddaughter were alone, she said,

"Lois, are you in danger of lettin' your pleasure make you forget your duty?"

"I hope not, grandmother. I do not think it. I take these things to be duty. I think one ought always to learn anything one has an opportunity of learning."

"One thing is needful," said the old lady doubtfully.

"Yes, grandmother. I do not forget that."

"You don't want to learn the ways of the world, Lois?"

"No, grandmother."