Chapter 43

ABOUT WORK.

The sound of the opening door made her start up. She would not have even a servant surprise her so; kneeling on the floor with her face buried in her hands on the table. She started up hurriedly; and then was confounded to see entering--Mr. Dillwyn himself. She had heard no ring of the door-bell; that must have been when she was up-stairs getting her Bible. Lois found her feet, in the midst of a terrible confusion of thoughts; but the very inward confusion admonished her to be outwardly calm. She was not a woman of the world, and she had not had very much experience in the difficult art of hiding her feelings, or _acting_ in any way; nevertheless she was a true woman, and woman's blessed--or cursed?--instinct of self-command came to her aid. She met Mr. Dillwyn with a face and manner perfectly composed; she knew she did; and cried to herself privately some thing very like a sea captain's order to his helmsman--"Steady! keep her so." Mr. Dillwyn saw that her face was flushed; but he saw, too, that he had disturbed her and startled her; that must be the reason. She looked so far from being delighted, that he could draw no other conclusion. So they shook hands. She thought he did not look delighted either. Of course, she thought, Madge was not there. And Mr. Dillwyn, whatever his mood when he came, recognized immediately the decided reserve and coolness of Lois's manner, and, to use another nautical phrase, laid his course accordingly.

"How do you do, this evening?"

"I think, quite well. There is nobody at home but me, Mr. Dillwyn."

"So I have been told. But it is a great deal pleasanter here, even with only one-third of the family, than it is in my solitary rooms at the hotel."

At that Lois sat down, and so did he. She could not seem to bid him go away. However, she said--

"Mrs. Wishart has taken Madge to your sister's. It is the night of her music party."

"Why did not Mrs. Wishart take you?"

"I thought--it was better for me to stay at home," Lois answered, with a little hesitation.

"You are not afraid of an evening alone!"

"No, indeed; how could I be? Indeed, I think in New York it is rather a luxury."

Then she wished she had not said that. Would he think she meant to intimate that he was depriving her of a luxury? Lois was annoyed at herself; and hurried on to say something else, which she did not intend should be so much in the same line as it proved. Indeed, she was shocked the moment she had spoken.

"Don't you go to your sister's music parties, Mr. Dillwyn?"

"Not universally."

"I thought you were so fond of music"--Lois said apologetically.

"Yes," he said, smiling. "That keeps me away."

"I thought,"--said Lois,--"I thought they said the music was so good?"

"I have no doubt they say it. And they mean it honestly."

"And it is not?"

"I find it quite too severe a tax on my powers of simulation and dissimulation. Those are powers you never call in play?" he added, with a most pleasant smile and glance at her.

"Simulation and dissimulation?" repeated Lois, who had by no means got her usual balance of mind or manner yet. "Are those powers which ought to be called into play?"

"What are you going to do?"

"When?"

"When, for instance, you are in the mood for a grand theme of Handel, and somebody gives you a sentimental bit of Rossini. Or when Mendelssohn is played as if 'songs without words' were songs without meaning. Or when a singer simply displays to you a VOICE, and leaves music out of the question altogether."

"That is hard!" said Lois.

"What is one to do then?"

"It is hard," Lois said again. "But I suppose one ought always to be true."

"If I am true, I must say what I think."

"Yes. If you speak at all."

"What will _they_ think then?"

"Yes," said Lois. "But, after all, that is not the first question."

"What is the first question?"

"I think--to do right."

"But what _is_ right? What will people think of me, if I tell them their playing is abominable?"

"You need not say it just with those words," said Lois. "And perhaps, if anybody told them the truth, they would do better. At any rate, what they think is not the question, Mr. Dillwyn."

"What is the question?" he asked, smiling.

"What the Lord will think."

"Miss Lois, do you never use dissimulation?"

Lois could not help colouring, a little distressed.

"I try not," she answered. "I dare say I do, sometimes. I dare not say I do not. It is very difficult for a woman to help it."

"More difficult for a woman than for a man?"

"I do not know. I suppose it is."

"Why should that be?"

"I do not know--unless because she is the weaker, and it may be part of the defensive armour of a weak animal."

Mr. Dillwyn laughed a little.

"But that is _dis_simulation," said Lois. "One is not bound always to say all one thinks; only never to say what one does not think."

"You would always give a true answer to a question?"

"I would try."

"I believe it. And now, Miss Lois, in that trust, I am going to ask you a question. Do you recollect a certain walk in the rain?"

"Certainly!" she said, looking at him with some anxiety.

"And the conversation we held under the umbrella, without simulation or dissimulation?"

"Yes."

"You tacitly--perhaps more than tacitly--blamed me for having spent so much of my life in idleness; that is uselessly, to all but myself."

"Did I?"

"You did. And I have thought about it since. And I quite agree with you that to be idle is to be neither wise nor dignified. But here rises a difficulty. I think I would like to be of some use in the world, if I could. But I do not know what to set about."

Lois waited, with silent attention.

"My question is this: How is a man to find his work in the world?"

Lois's eyes, which had been on his face, went away to the fire. His, which had been on the ground, rose to her face.

"I am in a fog," he said

"I believe every one has his work," Lois remarked.

"I think you said so."

"The Bible says so, at any rate."

"_Then_ how is a man to find his work?" Philip asked, half smiling; at the same time he drew up his chair a little nearer the fire, and began to put the same in order. Evidently he was not going away immediately, and had a mind to talk out the subject. But why with her? And was he not going to his sister's?--

"If each one has, not only his work but his peculiar work, it must be a very important matter to make sure he has found it. A wheel in a machine can do its own work, but it cannot take the part of another wheel. And your words suppose an exact adjustment of parts and powers."

"The Bible words," said Lois.

"Yes. Well, to my question. I do not know what I ought to do, Miss Lois. I do not see the work to my hand. How am I ever to be any wiser?"

"I am the last person you should ask. And besides,--I do not think anybody knows enough to set another his appointed task."

"How is he to find it, then?"

"He must ask the One who does know."

"Ask?--_Pray_, you mean?"

"Yes, pray. He must ask to be shown what he ought to do, and how to do it. God knows what place he is meant to fill in the world."

"And if he asks, will he be told?"

"Certainly. That is the promise. 'If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; _and it shall be given him_.'"

Lois's eyes came over to her questioner at the last words, as it were, setting a seal to them.

"How will he get the answer? Suppose, for instance, I want wisdom; and I kneel down and pray that I may know my work. I rise from my prayer,--there is no voice, nor writing, nor visible sign; how am I the wiser?"

"You think it will _not_ be given him?" Lois said, with a faint smile.

"I do not say that. I dare not. But how?"

"You must not think that, or the asking will be vain. You must believe the Lord's promise."

Lois was warming out of her reserve, and possibly Mr. Dillwyn had a purpose that she should; though I think he was quite earnest with his question. But certainly he was watching her, as well as listening to her.

"Go on," he said. "How will the answer come to me?"

"There is another condition, too. You must be quite willing to hear the answer."

"Why?"

"Else you will be likely to miss it. You know, Mr. Dillwyn,--you do _not_ know much about housekeeping things,--but I suppose you understand, that if you want to weigh anything truly, your balance must hang even."

He smiled.

"Well, then,--Miss Lois?"

"The answer? It comes different ways. But it is sure to come. I think one way is this,--You see distinctly one thing you ought to do; it is not life-work, but it is one thing. That is enough for one step. You do that; and then you find that that one step has brought you where you can see a little further, and another step is clear. That will do," Lois concluded, smiling; "step by step, you will get where you want to be."

Mr. Dillwyn smiled too, thoughtfully, as it were, to himself.

"Was it _so_ that you went to teach school at that unlucky place?--what do you call it?"

"It was not unlucky. Esterbrooke. Yes, I think I went so."

"Was not that a mistake?"

"No, I think not."

"But your work there was broken up?"

"O, but I expect to go back again."

"Back! There? It is too unhealthy."

"It will not be unhealthy, when the railroad is finished."

"I am afraid it will, for some time. And it is too rough a place for you."

"That is why they want me the more."

"Miss Lois, you are not strong enough."

"I am very strong!" she answered, with a delicious smile.

"But there is such a thing--don't you think so?--as fitness of means to ends. You would not take a silver spade to break ground with?"

"I am not at all a silver spade," said Lois. "But if I were; suppose I had no other?"

"Then surely the breaking ground must be left to a different instrument."

"That won't do," said Lois, shaking her head. "The instrument cannot choose, you know, where it will be employed. It does not know enough for that."

"But it made you ill, that work."

"I am recovering fast."

"You came to a good place for recovering," said Dillwyn, glancing round the room, and willing, perhaps, to leave the subject.

"Almost too good," said Lois. "It spoils one. You cannot imagine the contrast between what I came from--and _this_. I have been like one in dreamland. And there comes over me now and then a strange feeling of the inequality of things; almost a sense of wrong; the way I am cared for is so very different from the very best and utmost that could be done for the poor people at Esterbrooke. Think of my soups and creams and ices and oranges and grapes!--and there, very often I could not get a bit of fresh beef to make beef-tea; and what could I do without beef-tea? And what would I not have given for an orange sometimes! I do not mean, for myself. I could get hardly anything the sick people really wanted. And here--it is like rain from the clouds."

"Where does the 'sense of wrong' come in?"

"It seems as if things _need_ not be so unequal."

"And what does your silver spade expect to do there?"

"Don't say that! I have no silver spade. But just so far as I could help to introduce better ways and a knowledge of better things, the inequality would be made up--or on the way to be made up."

"What refining measures are you thinking of?--beside your own presence and example."

"I was certainly not thinking of _that_. Why, Mr. Dillwyn, knowledge itself is refining; and then, so is comfort; and I could help them to more comfort, in their houses, and in their meals. I began to teach them singing, which has a great effect; and I carried all the pictures I had with me. Most of all, though, to bring them to a knowledge of Bible truth is the principal thing and the surest way. The rest is really in order to that."

"Wasn't it very hard work?"

"No," said Lois. "Some things were hard; but not the work."

"Because you like it."

"Yes. O, Mr. Dillwyn, there is nothing pleasanter than to do one's work, if it is work one is sure God has given."

"That must be because you love him," said Philip gravely. "Yet I understand, that in the universal adjustment of things, the instrument and its proper work must agree." He was silent a minute, and Lois did not break the pause. If he would think, let him think, was her meaning. Then he began again.

"There are different ways. What would you think of a man who spent his whole life in painting?"

"I should not think that could be anybody's proper life-work."

"I think it was truly his, and he served God in it."

"Who was he?"

"A Catholic monk, in the fifteenth century."

"What did he paint? What was his name?"

"His name was Fra Angelico--by reason of the angelic character which belonged to him and to his paintings; otherwise Fra Giovanni; he was a monk in a Dominican cloister. He entered the convent when he was twenty years old; and from that time, till he was sixty-eight, he served God and his generation by painting."

Lois looked somewhat incredulous. Mr. Dillwyn here took from one of his pockets a small case, opened it and put it in her hands. It was an excellent copy of a bit of Fra Angelico's work.

"That," he said as he gave it her, "is the head of one of Fra Angelico's angels, from a group in a large picture. I had this copy made for myself some years ago--at a time when I only dimly felt what now I am beginning to understand."

Lois scarce heard what he said. From the time she received the picture in her hands she lost all thought of everything else. The unearthly beauty and purity, the heavenly devotion and joy, seized her heart as with a spell. The delicate lines of the face, the sweet colouring, the finished, perfect handling, were most admirable; but it was the marvellous spiritual love and purity which so took possession of Lois. Her eyes filled and her cheeks flushed. It was, so far as painting could give it, the truth of heaven; and that goes to the heart of the human creature who perceives it. Mr. Dillwyn was watching her, meanwhile, and could look safely, secure that Lois was in no danger of finding it out; and while she, very likely, was thinking of the distance between that angel face and her own, Philip, on the other hand, was following the line of his sister's thought, and tracing the fancied likeness. Like one of Fra Angelico's angels! Yes, there was the same sort of grave purity, of unworldly if not unearthly spiritual beauty. Truly the rapt joy was not there, nor the unshadowed triumph; but love,--and innocence,--and humility,--and truth; and not a stain of the world upon it. Lois said not one word, but looked and looked, till at last she tendered the picture back to its owner.

"Perhaps you would like to keep it," said he, "and show it to your sister."

He brought it to have Madge see it! thought Lois. Aloud--

"No--she would enjoy it a great deal more if you showed it to her;--then you could tell her about it."

"I think you could explain it better."

As he made no motion to take back the picture, Lois drew in her hand again and took a further view. How beautiful was the fair, bright, rapt, blissful face of the angel!--as if, indeed, he were looking at heaven's glories.

"Did he--did the painter--always paint like this?"

"Always, I believe. He improved in his manner as he went on; he painted better and better; but from youth to age he was incessantly doing the one thing, serving God with his pencil. He never painted for money; that is, not for himself; the money went into the church's treasury. He did not work for fame; much of his best work is upon the walls of the monks' cells, where few would see it. He would not receive office. He lived upon the Old and New Testaments, and prayer; and the one business of his life was to show forth to the world what he believed, in such beautiful wise that they might be won to believe it too."

"That is exactly the work we have to do,--everybody," said Lois, lifting her eyes with a bright light in them. "I mean, everybody that is a Christian. That is it;--to show forth Christ, and in such wise that men may see and believe in him too. That is the word in Philippians--'shining as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.' I did not know it was possible to do it in painting--but I see it is. O, thank you for showing me this!--it has done me good."

Her eyes were glistening as she gave him the picture again. Philip put it in security, in silence, and rose up.

"Well," said he, "now I will go and hear somebody play the 'Carnival of Venice,' as if it were all rattle and no fun."

"Is that the way they play it?"

"It is the way some people play it. Good night."

The door closed after him, and Lois sat down alone before the fire again.