CHAPTER XVIII.

FLINT AND STEEL.

That Christmas dinner remained a point of delight in Rotha's memory for ever. The company was small, several of the young ladies having accepted invitations to dine with some friend or acquaintance. It was most agreeably small, to Rotha's apprehension, for she could see more of Mrs. Mowbray and more informally. Everybody was in gala dress and gala humour, nobody more than the mistress of the house; and she had done everything in her power to make the Christmas dinner a gala meal. Flowers and lights were in plenty; the roast turkey was followed by ices, confections and fruits, all of delicious quality; and Mrs. Mowbray's own kind and gracious ministry made everything doubly sweet. Rotha had besides such joy in her heart, that turkey and ices had never seemed so good in her life. The whole day had been rich, full, sweet, blessed; the girl had entered a new sphere where every want of her nature was met and contented; under such conditions the growth of a plant is rapid; and in a plant of humanity it is not only rapid but blissful.

Christmas joys were not done when the dinner was over. The girls who were present, and the one or two under teachers, repaired to the library, Mrs. Mowbray's special domain; and there she exerted herself unweariedly to give them a pleasant evening. Two of them sat down to a game of chess; two of them were allowed to look over some very rare and splendid books of engravings; one or two were deep in fancy work, and one or two amused themselves with a fine microscope. Rotha received her first introduction to the stereoscope. This was no novelty to the rest, and she was left in undisturbed enjoyment; free to look as long as she liked at any view that excited her interest. Which of them did not! At Rotha's age, with her mind just opening rapidly and her intellectual hunger great for all sorts of food, what were not the revelations of the stereoscope to her! Delight and wonder went beyond all power of words to describe them. And with delight and wonder started curiosity. Rotha's first view was a gorge in the Alps.

"Where is it?" she asked. And Mrs. Mowbray told her.

"How high are those hills?"

"Really, I don't know," said her friend laughing. "I will give you a guide book to study."

Rotha thought she would like a guide book. Anything so majestic as the sweep of those mountain lines and the lift of their snowy heads, she had never imagined; nor anything so lovely as the peace of that narrow, meadowy valley at the foot of them.

"Is it as good really, Mrs. Mowbray, as it looks here?" she asked.

"It is better. Don't you think colour goes for anything? and the sound of a cowbell, and the rush of the torrents that come from the mountains?"

"I can hear cowbells and the rush of brooks here," said Rotha.

"It sounds different there."

Slowly and unwillingly and after long looking at it, Rotha laid the Swiss valley away. Her next view happened to be the ruins of the Church at Fountain's Abbey; and with that a new nerve of pleasure seemed to be stirred. This was something in an entirely new department, of knowledge and interest both. "How came people to let such a beautiful church go to ruin?"

Mrs. Mowbray went back to the Reformation, and Henry the Eighth, and the monkish orders; and the historical discussion grew into length. Then a very noble view of the Fountain's Abbey cloisters opened a new field of inquiry; and Rotha's eye gazed along the beautiful arches with an awed apprehension of the life that once was lived under them; gazed and marvelled and queried.

"That was an ugly sort of life," she said at last; "why do I like to look at these cloisters, Mrs. Mowbray?"

Mrs. Mowbray laughed. "I suppose your eye finds beauty in the lines of the architecture."

"Are they beautiful?"

"People say so, my dear."

"But do you think they are?"

"My dear, I must confess to you, I never paid much attention to architecture. I never asked myself the question."

"I do not think there is any _beauty_ about them," said Rotha; "but somehow I like to look at them. I like to look at them _very_ much."

"Here is another cloister," said Mrs. Mowbray; "of Salisbury cathedral. The arches and lines here are less severe. How do you like that?"

"Not half so well," Rotha answered, after making the comparison. "I think Fountain's Abbey _is_ beautiful, compared with this."

"It is called, I believe, one of the finest ruins in England. My dear, if you want to study architecture, I shall turn you over to Mr. Fergusson's book. It is in the corner stand in the breakfast room--two octavo volumes. There you can find all your questions answered."

Which Rotha did not however find to be the case, though Fergusson in after days was a good deal studied by her in her hours of leisure. For this evening it was enough, that she went to her room with the feeling that the world is very rich in things to be seen and things to be known; a vast treasure house of wonders and beauties and mysteries; which mysteries must yet have their hidden truth and solution, delightful to search for, delightful to find. Would she some day see the Alps? and what dreadful things cloisters and the life lived in them must have been! Her eye fell on her Russia leather bag, in which she had placed her Bible for safe keeping; and her thoughts went to the Bible. That told how people should live to serve God; and it was not by shutting themselves up in cloisters. How then? That question she deferred.

But took it up again the next day. It was a rainy day; low clouds and thick beat of the rain storm against the windows and upon the street. Rotha was well pleased. Good so; yesterday had held novelty and excitement enough for a week; to-day she could be quiet, study Fergusson on architecture, perhaps; and at all events study the life question in her beautiful Bible. She had the morning to herself after breakfast, and her room to herself; the patter and beat of the rain drops made her feel only more securely safe in her solitude and opportunity. Rotha took her Bible lovingly in her hands and slowly turned over the leaves to find the thirty sixth chapter of Ezekiel. And unquestionably, the great beauty of the book, of the paper and the limp covers and the type, did help her pleasure and did give an additional zest to the work she was about. Nevertheless, Rotha was in earnest, and it _was_ work. The chapter, when she found it, was an enigma to her. She read on and on, understanding but very dimly what might be meant under the words; till she came to the notable promise and prophecy beginning with the twenty fourth verse. Then her eyes opened, and lingered, slowly going over item after item of the help promised to humanity's wants, and then she read:--

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."----

It struck Rotha with a strange sort of surprise, the words meeting so exactly the thought and want of her own heart. Did He who gave that promise, long ago, know so well what she would be one day thinking and feeling? But that was the very help she needed; all she needed; if the heart of stone within her were gone, all the rest would fall into train. Rotha waited no longer, but poured out a longing, passionate prayer that this mighty change might be wrought in her. Even with tears she prayed her prayer. She had resolved to be a Christian; yet she was not one; could not be one; till a heart of flesh took the place of that impassive induration which was where a heart should be. As she rose from her knees, she thought she would follow out this subject of a hard heart, and see what else the Bible said of it. She applied to her "Treasury of Scripture Knowledge"; found the thirty sixth chapter of Ezekiel, and the twenty sixth verse. The first reference sent her to the eleventh chapter of the same book, where she found the promise already previously given.

"And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony-heart out of their flesh, and I will give them an heart of flesh; _that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them;_ and they shall be my people, and I will be their God."

That is it! thought Rotha. I knew I could not be a Christian while I felt so as I do. I could not keep the commandments either. If I had a new heart, I suppose I could forgive aunt Serena fast enough. God must be very willing to take people's stony heart away, or he would not promise it so twice over. O my dear "Scripture Treasury"! how good you are!

Following its indications, she came next to a word of the prophet Zechariah, accusing the people of obduracy:--"They refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets"--

Over this passage Rotha lingered, pondering. Could it be true that she herself was to blame for the very hardness of heart she wanted to get rid of? Had she "refused to hearken and pulled away the shoulder and stopped her ears"? What else had she done? when those "former prophets" to her, her mother, and Mr. Digby, had set duty and truth before her? They set it before her bodily, too; and how fair their example had been! and how immoveable she! Rotha lost herself for a while here, longing for her mother, and crying in spirit for her next friend, Mr. Digby; wondering at his silence, mourning his absence; and it was when a new gush of indignation at her aunt seemed to run through all her veins, that she caught herself up and remembered the work in hand, and slowly and sorrowfully came back to it. How angry she was at Mrs. Busby this minute! what a long way she was yet, with all her wishes and resolves, from the loving tenderness of heart which would forgive everything. She went on, hoping always for more light, and willing to take the sharpest charges home to herself. Yet the next reference startled her.

"Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth; and forthwith they sprang up because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched;"--

Was it possible, that she had been like that very bad ground? Yes, she knew the underlying rock too well. Then in her case there was special danger of a flash religion, taken up for the minute's sense of need or perception of advantage merely, and not rooted so that it would stand weather. Hers should not be so; no profession of being a Christian would she make, till it was thorough work; till at last she could forgive her aunt's treachery; it would be pretty thorough if she could do that! But how long first? At present Rotha thought of her aunt in terms that I will not stop to detail; in which there was bitter anger and contempt and no love at all. She knew it, poor child; she felt the difficulty; her only sole hope was in the power of that promise in Ezekiel, which she blessed in her heart, almost with tears. That way there was an outlook towards light; no other way in all her horizon. She would see what more the Bible had to say about it.

Going on in her researches, after another passage or two she came to those notable words, also in Ezekiel,--

"Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?"

Make herself a new heart? how could she? she could not; and yet, here the words were, and they must mean something. And to be sure, she thought, a man is said to build him a new house, who gets the carpenter to make it, and never himself puts hand to tool. But cast away her transgressions?-- _that_ she could do, and she would. From that day forth. The next passage was in the fifty first psalm; David's imploring cry that the Lord would "create" in him "a new heart"; and then the lovely words in Jeremiah:-- "After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people."

Rotha shut her book. That was the very thing wanted. When the law of God should be _in her heart_ so, then all would be right, and all would be easy too. It is easy to do what is in one's heart. What beautiful words! what exquisite promises! what tender meeting of the wants of weak and sinful men! Rotha saw all this, and felt it. Ay, and she felt that every vestige of excuse was gone for persistence in wrong; if God was so ready to put in his hand of love and power to make things right. And one more passage made this conclusively certain. It was the thirteenth verse of the eleventh chapter of Luke.

The morning's work was a good one for Rotha. She made up her mind. That, indeed, she had done before; now she took her stand with a clearer knowledge of the ground and of the way in which the difficulties were to be met. By a new heart, nothing less; a heart of flesh; which indeed she could not create, but which she could ask for and hope for; and in the mean time she must "cast away from her all her transgressions." No compromise, and no delay. As to this anger at her aunt,--well, it was there, and she could not put it out; but allow it and agree to it, or give it expression, that she would not do.

She cast about her then for things to be done, neglected duties. No studies neglected were on her conscience; there did occur to her some large holes in the heels of her stockings. Rotha did not like mending; however, here was duty. She got out the stockings and examined them. A long job, and to her a hateful one, for the stockings had been neglected. Rotha had but a little yarn to mend with; she sat down to the work and kept at it until she had used up her last thread. That finished the morning, for the stockings were fine, and the same feeling of duty which made her take up the mending made her do it conscientiously.

The evening was spent happily over the stereoscope and Fergusson on Architecture. Towards the end of it Mrs. Mowbray whispered to her,

"My dear, your aunt wishes you to spend a day with her; don't you think it would be a good plan to go to-morrow? A thing is always more graceful when it is done without much delay."

Rotha could but acquiesce.

"And make the best of it," Mrs. Mowbray went on kindly; "and make the best of _them_. There is a best side to everybody; it is good to try and get at it. The Bible says 'Overcome evil with good.'"

"Can one, always?" said Rotha.

"I think one can always--if one has the chance and time. At any rate, it is good to try."

"But don't you think, ma'am, one must feel pleasant, before one can act pleasant?"

"Feel pleasant, then," said Mrs. Mowbray smiling. "Can't you?"

"You do not know how difficult it is," said Rotha.

"Perhaps I do. Hearts are alike."

"O no, Mrs. Mowbray!" said Rotha in sudden protest.

"Not in everything. But fallen nature is fallen nature, my dear; one person's temptations may be different from another's, but in the longing to do our own pleasure and have our own way, we are all pretty much alike. None of us has anything to boast of. What you despise, is the yielding to a temptation which does not attack you."

Rotha's look at her friend was intelligent and candid. She said nothing.

"And if you can meet hatred with love, it is ten to one you can overcome it. Wouldn't that be a victory worth trying for?"

Rotha knew the victory over herself was the first one to be gained. But she silently acquiesced; and after breakfast next morning, with reluctant steps, she set forth to go to her aunt's in Twenty-third Street. She had been in a little doubt how to dress herself. Should she wear her old things? or subject the new ones to her aunt's criticism? But Antoinette had seen the pretty plaid school dress; it would be foolish to make any mystery of it. She dressed herself as usual.

Mrs. Busby and her daughter were in the sitting room up stairs. Rotha had knocked, modestly, and as she went in they both lifted up their heads and looked at her, with a long look of survey. Rotha had come quite up to them before her aunt spoke.

"Well, Rotha,--so it is you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Have you come to see me at last?"

"Yes, ma'am. Mrs. Mowbray said you wished it."

"What made you choose to-day particularly?"

"Nothing. Mrs. Mowbray said--"

"Well, go on. What did Mrs. Mowbray say?"

"She said you wanted to have me come, some day, and she thought I had better do it to-day."

"Yes. Did she give no reason?"

"No. At least--"

"At least what?"

Rotha had no skill whatever in prevarication, nor understood the art. Nothing occurred to her but to tell the truth.

"Mrs. Mowbray said a thing was more graceful that was done promptly."

The slightest possible change in the set of Mrs. Busby's lips, the least perceptible air of her head, expressed what another woman might have told by a snort of disdain. Mrs. Busby's manner was quite as striking, Rotha thought. Her own anger was rising fast.

"O, and I suppose she is teaching you to do things gracefully?" said Antoinette. "Mamma, the idea!"

"It did not occur to her or you that I might like to see my niece occasionally?" said Mrs. Busby.

Rotha bit her lips and succeeded in biting down the answer.

"We have not grown very graceful _yet_," Antoinette went on. "It is usually thought civilized to answer people."

"You had better take off your things," Mrs. Busby said. "You may lay them up stairs in your room."

"Is there any reason which makes this an inconvenient day for me to be here?" Rotha asked before moving to obey this command.

"It makes no difference. The proper time for putting such a question, if you want to do things _gracefully_, is before taking your action, while the answer can also be given gracefully, if unfavourable."

Rotha went slowly up stairs, feeling that or any other place in the house better than the room where her aunt was. She went to her little cold, cheerless, desolate-looking, old room. How she had suffered there! how thankful she was to be in it no more! how changed were her circumstances! Could she not be good and keep the peace, this one day? She had purposed to be very good, and calm, like Mr. Digby; and now already she felt as if a bunch of nettles had been drawn all over her. What an unmanageable thing was this temper of hers. She went down stairs slowly and lingeringly. The two looked at her again as she entered the room; now that her cloak was off, the new dress came into view.

"Where did you get that dress, Rotha?" was her aunt's question.

"Mrs. Mowbray got it for me."

"Does she propose to send me the bill by and by?"

"Of course not! Aunt Serena, Mrs. Mowbray never does mean things."

"H'm! What induced her then to go to such expense for a girl she never saw before?"

"I suppose she was sorry for me," said Rotha, with her heart swelling.

"Sorry for you! May I ask, why?"

"You know how I was dressed, aunt Serena; and you know how the other girls in school dress."

"I know a great many of them have foolish mothers, who make themselves ridiculous by the way they let their children appear. It is a training of vanity. I should not have thought Mrs. Mowbray would lend herself to such nonsense."

"But you do not think Antoinette has a foolish mother?" Rotha could not help saying. Mrs. Busby's daughter was quite as much dressed as the other girls. That she ought not to have made that speech, Rotha knew; but she made it. So much satisfaction she must have. It remained however completely ignored.

"Who made your dress?" Mrs. Busby went on.

"A dress-maker. One of the ladies went with me to have it cut."

"What did you do Christmas?" Antoinette inquired. In reply to which, Rotha gave an account of her visit to the Old Coloured Home.

"Just like Mrs. Mowbray!" was Mrs. Busby's comment. "She has no discretion."

"Why do you say that, aunt Serena?"

"Such an expenditure of money for nothing. What good would a little tea and a little tobacco do those people? It would not last more than a week or two; and then they are just where they were before."

"But it did not cost so very much," objected Rotha.

"Have you reckoned it up? Fifty or sixty half-pounds of tea, fifty or sixty pounds of sugar,--why, the sugar alone would be five or six dollars; and the tobacco, and the carriage hire; and I don't know what beside. All for nothing. That woman does not know what to do with money."

"But is it not something, to make so many poor people happy, if even only for a little while?"

"It would be a great deal better to give them something to do them good; a flannel petticoat, now, or a pair of warm socks. That would last. Or putting the money in the funds of the Institution, where it would go to their daily needs. I always think of that."

"_Would_ it go to their daily needs? Some ladies got a cow for them once; and it just gave the matron cream for her tea, and they got no good of it."

"I don't believe that at all!" exclaimed Mrs. Busby. "I know the matron; Mrs. Bothers; I know her, for I recommended her myself. I have no idea she would be guilty of any such impropriety. It is just the gossip in the house, that Mrs. Mowbray has taken up in her haste and swallowed."

Rotha tried to hold her tongue. It was hard.

"Did Mrs. Mowbray give _you_ anything Christmas?" Antoinette asked, pushing her inquiries. Rotha hesitated, but could find no way to answer without admitting the affirmative.

"What?" was the immediate next question; and even Mrs. Busby looked with ill-pleased eyes to hear Rotha's next words. It seemed like making her precious things common, to tell of them to these unkind ears. Yet there was no help for it.

"She gave me a travelling hand-bag."

"What sort?"

"Russia leather."

"There, mamma!" Antoinette exclaimed. "Isn't that Mrs. Mowbray all over? When a morocco one, or a canvas one, would have done just as well."

"As I said," returned Mrs. Busby. "Mrs. Mowbray does not know what to do with money. When are you going travelling, Rotha?"

"I do not know. Some time in my life, I suppose."

"What a ridiculous thing to give her!" pursued Antoinette.

"Yes, I think so," her mother echoed. "Do not let yourself be deluded, Rotha, by presents of travelling bags or anything else. Your future life is not likely to be spent in pleasuring. What I can do for you in the way of giving you an education, will be all I can do; then you will have to make a living and a home for, yourself; and the easiest way you can do it will be by teaching. I shall tell Mrs. Mowbray to educate you for some post in which perhaps she can put you by and by; she or somebody else. So pack up your expectations; you will not need to do much of other sorts of packing."

"You forget there is another person to be consulted, aunt Serena."

"What other person?" said Mrs. Busby raising her head and fixing her observant eyes upon Rotha.

"Mr. Southwode."

"Mr. Southwode!" repeated the lady coldly. "I am ignorant what a stranger like him has to say about our family affairs."

"He is not a stranger," said Rotha hotly. "He is the person I know best in the world, and love best. He is the person to whom I belong; that mother left me to; and it is for him, not for you, to say what I shall do, or what I shall be."

Imprudent Rotha! But passion is always imprudent.

"Very improper language!" said Mrs. Busby coldly. "When a young lady speaks so of a young gentleman, what are we to think?"

"I am not a young lady," said Rotha; "and he is not a young gentleman; at least, not very young; and you may think the truth, which is what I say."

"Do you mean that you have arranged to marry Mr. Southwode?" said the lady, fixing her keen little eyes upon Rotha's face.

Rotha's face flamed, with mingled indignation and shame; she deigned no answer.

"She doesn't speak, mamma," said Antoinette mischievously. "You may depend, that's the plan. Rotha and Mr. Southwode! I declare, that's too good! So that's the arrangement!"

"I am so ashamed that I cannot speak to you," said Rotha in her passion and humiliation. "How can you say such wicked things! I wish Mr. Southwode was here to give you a proper answer."

"What, you think he would take your part?" said her aunt.

"He always did. He would now. He will yet, aunt Serena."

"That is enough!" said Mrs. Busby, becoming excited a little on her part. "Hush, Antoinette; I will have no more of this very unedifying conversation. But you, Rotha, may as well know that you will never see Mr. Southwode again. He is engaged in England with the affairs of his father's business; he will probably soon marry; and then there is no chance whatever that he will ever return to America. So you had best consider whether it is worth while to offend the friends you have left, for the sake of one who is nothing to you any more."

"I know Mr. Southwode better than that," was Rotha's answer. But the girl's face was purple with honest shame.

"You expect he will come back and make you his wife?" said Mrs. Busby scornfully.

"I expect he will come back and take care of me. You might as well talk of his making that pussy cat his wife. I am just a poor girl, and no more. But he will take care of me. I know he will, if I have to wait ten years first."

"How old are you now?"

"Sixteen, almost."

"Then in ten years you will be twenty six. My dear, there is only one way in which Mr. Southwode could take care of you then; he must make you his wife, or leave it to somebody else to take care of you. He knows that as well as I do; and so he put you in my hands. Now let us make an end of this disgraceful scene. Before ten years are past, you will probably be the wife of somebody else. All this talk is very foolish."

Rotha thought it _was_, but also thought the fault was not in her part of it. She sat glowing with confusion; she felt as if the blood would verily start through her skin; and angry in proportion. Still she was silent, though Antoinette laughed.

"What a farce, mamma! To think of Rotha being in love with Mr. Southwode!"

"Hold your tongue, Nettie."

"To love, and to be in love, are two things," said Rotha hotly. "I do not know what being in love means; I _do_ know the other."

"O mamma!--she doesn't know what it means!"

"I told you to be quiet, Antoinette."

"I didn't hear it, mamma. But I think you might reprove Rotha for saying what is not true."

"That is what I never do," said Rotha.

Mrs. Busby here interfered, and ordered Rotha to go up stairs to her room and stay there till she could command herself. Rotha went.

"Mamma," said Antoinette then, "I do believe it is earnest about her and Mr. Southwode. In her mind, I mean. Did you see how she coloured?"

"I should not be at all surprised," said, Mrs. Busby.

"When is he coming back, mamma?"

"I cannot say. I think he does not know himself. He writes that he is very busy at present."

"But he will come back, you think?"

"He says so. Antoinette, say nothing--not a word more--about him to Rotha. She has got her head turned, and it is best she should hear nothing whatever about him. I shall take good care that she never sees him again."

"Mamma, _he_ don't care for her?"

"Of course not. He is too much a man of the world."

There was silence.

"Mamma," Antoinette began after a pause, "do you think Rotha is handsome?"

"She is very well," said Mrs. Busby in an indifferent tone.

"They think at school, that is, the teachers do, that she is a beauty."

"I dare say they have told her so."

"And you see how Mrs. Mowbray has dressed her up."

"I would not have sent her there, if I had known how it would be. However, I could not arrange for her so cheaply anywhere else."

"What would you do, mamma, if Mr. Southwode were coming back?"

"I should know, in that case. He will not come yet a while. Now Antoinette, let this subject alone."

"Yes, mamma. You are a clever woman. I don't believe even Mr. Southwode could manage you."

"I can manage Mr. Southwode!" said Mrs. Busby contentedly.