Twilight Stories, by Catharine Shaw

"COME along, Auntie! The tea will not be in for a few minutes, and the fire is bright and the curtains are drawn. Just sit down and give us a twilight talk. It is New Year's day, and of course we want something to help us on our way."

Their Aunt smiled. She had come to stay with them for a long visit. The four gathered round her knew that she had passed through deep trials, and they also knew that she had come out of them nearer to the Celestial City, like "Christian" from "The Slough of Despond."

"Well!" she said, brightly, "I was thinking this morning about God's promises, and I made up my mind to take one each day this year to live upon!"

"Every morning to take some distinct promise, or assurance, out of the Bible, and think about it whenever I could, and remind God of it whenever I was in any difficulty. I'm going to call it my ticket!"

"Your 'ticket,' Auntie?" said Oswald, affectionately. "I do not believe you want a ticket to get into God's presence. Is that what you mean?"

"Well—it's just as well to have a ticket! The other day, do you remember? I went to a large concert. Inside was light and music, and friends; outside was cold, dull weather, and policemen and hall-keepers jealously guarding the way.

"I was glad to have a ticket then, I can tell you; and it struck me this morning that there is nothing Satan likes better than to say, as those hall-keepers did: 'This is not the way! Where's your ticket?'"

"Like this. In God's presence is light and warmth and music. Satan would keep us outside; but when we can say to him 'God said so,' he has not a word to answer, and is obliged to let us pass!"

"Let us all try this year to have a promise, or an assurance, every morning. I am sure it will bring happiness."

"That's a ticket to a very good seat!" said Oswald, with his eyes shining. "I think your 'tickets' are a good idea, Auntie. We'll each see if we can't get some for ourselves."

"I think I may say I have always found them so," said Aunt Ruth, "for when by a promise we get into God's presence, it is wonderful what a feast He spreads for us, 'enough and to spare'; worth all the trouble of getting in."

"Is it easy to find promises?" asked Tom, "For I should never know where to look."

"You would soon get used to it, especially as there are quite 30,000 promises in the Bible."

"Yes. Did you never hear the story of the old woman who put T.P. on pretty nearly every page of her Bible? Some one asked her what T. P. meant, and she said, with great satisfaction—'T. P., Tried and Proved. I've tried and proved every one of those promises, and found God faithful!'"

"How would you like to have the same as mine?" said Aunt Ruth, "And to-morrow you can each get a fresh one for yourselves?"

This met with great approval, and Jean wrote on a strip of paper and slipped it into her Bible—

CHAPTER II.

WHAT THE SHEPHERD KNOWS.

AUNT RUTH sat in the chimney corner. It was a cold, snowy day, and the children had come in from a walk, and said it was bitter.

They gathered close to the fire, and all seemed inclined to stop there, rather than seek for employment or amusement.

"The fields looked so bleak," said Rose, warming her hands for the twentieth time. "We saw a shepherd leading home his sheep, Auntie!" said Jean.

"No, that was what I noticed and I thought you'd perhaps have a twilight talk over that?"

"I like that sort of lesson," said Jean, "so much better than geography and history!"

"Ah! But we cannot properly learn the spiritual, unless we are in touch with Christ in the everyday things!"

She shook her head. "Well," she said, "directly Jean told me she had seen a shepherd leading his sheep, I thought of one of my favourite texts."

"'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.'"

"Children! The sheep hear; and He knows them, each one; and they follow; and He gives. There is a world of meaning in every one of those short sentences. Many children and grown-up people, too, hear, and follow, and forget the clause that comes between. Do you remember what that is?"

"'I know them,'" said Rose, gently. She had been learning the whole verse, and could repeat it perfectly.

"They miss assurance. The first clause and the third belong to themselves, 'they hear, they follow'; but the second clause is all Christ's, 'I know them.' Here is safety and peace."

"Once there was a revival in a large school that I knew of, and one of the naughtiest girls was brought to Christ. Most of the mistresses thought it impossible that Lizzie could be really converted, and laughed much at a younger teacher, who believed that there really was a change in the girl. This young teacher at last was driven into a corner in defending Lizzie's conversion, and said, in desperation, 'Well—Christ knows.' Very soon after the holidays came, and the young mistress left the school."

"But at the end of a year, she paid her friends there a visit; and when she was hearing all the news, one of them said, 'You remember Lizzie, who was such a naughty girl? Well, she is totally changed. Instead of being the most tiresome, she is the brightest of all the little Christians!"

"Then the mistress took heart, and remembered how she had said, 'Christ knows'?"

"Yes, dears, He knows His sheep, and they follow Him. And in proportion to our realising that He knows, so shall we be strong to follow Him closely!"

They looked up gratefully. They did want to learn more of Christ, and this dear Aunt Ruth had learned in His School, and could help them because she had been close to Him herself.

CHAPTER III.

FOLLOWING.

"WHAT are you looking at, Auntie?" The children crowded out of the French window, and stood on the verandah by her side, the stars and the deep twilight sky sending a sort of thrill to their hearts.

"I was watching that old woman and her grandson on their way home. What do you think I heard the boy say as he passed the hedge?"

"'I can't see the way, grannie, it's so dark!' he complained; and then a gentle voice came out of the gloom, and I heard these words: 'If you keep close behind, and follow me, we shall soon get into the light!'"

"And I thought, children, that here was our promised twilight talk about 'following' all ready to our hand!"

"There are often places in our everyday lives which are dark and mysterious to us ignorant ones; sorrows, or trials, misunderstandings, difficulties, sins, temptations—you can all put your own special difficulty into the story, and call it 'darkness.' The question often comes to each of us, how are we to get out of this dilemma, or this difficulty, or this bad temper, or temptation?"

"I know well that it seems very real and large and overwhelming to us. But the Lord Jesus bids us follow Him closely, assuring us with tenderness that is wonderful, 'He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life!'"

"But," said Oswald, pressing closer to her side, "there are so many things that are so small, Auntie, and yet they worry you no end! Perhaps you've had a lesson to learn, and you've had a headache, or somebody has thrown you over, and made it ache, and so your lesson isn't half prepared, and you get up in the morning feeling that the world is dark and you cannot see any way out of the bother. Oh, there are heaps of things! That's only one! What can we do in such a case?"

There was a pause for an instant. Aunt Ruth was trying to put herself into Oswald's circumstances, and thinking how to bring her great Remedy down to his need. To make him understand that Jesus Christ is a remedy for all ills.

"I think," she said, slowly, "the best plan would be to go to God, our Father, and tell Him just how the difficulty came, and then ask Him definitely 'in the name of Jesus,' to make some way out of it—"

"Then I should do the next most obvious thing. Either look over the unfinished lesson if there is time, or go quietly into class if there isn't, and wait to see how God will help you. The answer may come in some very simple way, but if you look for it, it will surely come, and you must thank Him."

"Every one of us has our own special difficulty, and what is 'darkness' to Oswald may not appear at all bad to Tom!"

"The timid child who hates to go upstairs after dusk, feels itself quite safe if father is in front! So little Ted Jones could not see the way to go, and he felt afraid in the dark lanes lest he was not going right. But grannie knew! She had been that way before too many times to mistake, and if little Ted would only keep close to her, and trust her, she would lead him safely home. Presently the cottage door would open, there would be a flood of light, and little Ted would be at home!"

But Aunt Ruth was speaking again. "Jesus says 'He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me, and whither I am, there shall My servant be!"

There was a moment's pause, and the children were looking up to the starlit sky.

"But, sometimes," said Tom, in a low voice, "the path seems difficult, and we lose sight of the Guide, perhaps, and cannot be sure He is there—"

"Yes," said Aunt Ruth, "I know that; but I think then the best way is to speak to our Guide. Tell Him we find the way rough and lonely, and ask Him by his Spirit to reveal His presence to us. As surely as we do, we shall get a comforting assurance that He is there; that He knows the way, that He has been through all our temptations, and that He is safely leading us Home! Oh, the rest of being sure that Jesus knows the way, children!"

"I suppose," said Rose, "that if we were more sure about Jesus we should not be half so afraid!"

"I mean," hesitated Rose, "that if we had more confidence in the way He was leading us we should be more satisfied with our circumstances—"

Rose had touched upon one of the great problems of life. The others did not know it, but Aunt Ruth did.

"When people want to make an ascent of a difficult mountain, the first thing they do is to secure the services of a guide."

"This guide must be thoroughly qualified, strong and reliable, have climbed that particular mountain many times before, and must be ready to undertake the charge of the traveller—"

"And then, when the traveller and the guide have made the compact, the traveller gives himself over to do exactly as the guide says, doesn't he?"

"And they start together, and the guide goes before in all the difficult places. He cares for the traveller; he holds him up; he assures him that he knows the way. As they mount higher, the guide cuts each step in the ice, and the traveller must put his foot where his guide's have been, with unquestioning faith: herein is his only safety."

"Will he grudge his confidence when the summit is reached, and they stand beneath the vault of heaven with nothing between?"

"So we, children, shall thank and praise our great Guide for His faithfulness, and shall know those words true by and bye—'He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life'!"

CHAPTER IV.

KEPT AT HOME.

TWO girls sat at a window in a cosy bedroom overlooking the snowy prospect; a bright fire burned in the grate, and a little table was spread with afternoon tea.

"I wish you could go out and skate, Mary!" said the elder of the two, laying a gentle hand on the other's white one, and looking in her face.

"I suppose I ought not to have said so," Dorothy went on, "for I expect it only makes you long the more—"

"No, it doesn't," said Mary. "You see, Dorothy, I'm willing, and that makes it so much easier."

"Easier to sit up there and mope, instead of going to parties, or skating, or even church? And then in front of you, perhaps, an operation in which you may lose your foot—"

And as she said the words, Dorothy buried her face on Mary's lap and gave a sob.

Mary's little hand stroked her hair tenderly. "Yes—all that," she said, "and yet I love God's will better than my own, and am sure He will allow nothing that He will not give me strength to bear."

Still Dorothy sobbed, and Mary went on in the same tender, even tone, which had come to her because her heart was at rest in the heart and will of God.

"I'll tell you what comforts me, Dorothy, most of all. I've two texts that I live on just now; would you care to hear them?"

Dorothy nodded, and sat up, drying her eyes. "I've no business to depress you!" she exclaimed. "Only I am so sorry!"

"I know," answered Mary, "but now listen to my texts and get comforted. One is the down-hearted text, and the other is the triumphant one. Listen! This is the down-hearted text—I mean when Satan tries to make me down-hearted:—'What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee!'"

"And the triumphant one is this,—'I will trust, and not be afraid!' Which will you have, Dorothy?"

Dorothy smiled at her tone, and Mary said, "Will you take the comfort that Jesus wants to give you about me, and be sure He is doing His best for me? I'm at the triumphant text to-night, you see!"

There were bright tears glittering in her soft eyes for all that, and Dorothy kissed her almost reverently.

"Well—I'll take one of your texts, if I can't take the other!" she said, "At present!"

CHAPTER V.

ROBBIE'S CHRISTMAS EVE.

"WHY, Mother, it is almost as light as day!" said Robin, as the two came out from the shade of the trees close to the village church. "I was never out so late before. Look at the church clock, it's just upon a quarter past eleven."

"Yes," said his mother, trying to quicken her tired footsteps; "and we'll soon be home now, Robbie."

"I don't care," said Robin, a little sadly. "I was never so old as this before, and I thought Christmas was always a happy day to everybody, and I'm sure it won't be to us to-morrow, Mammie! We've got nothing to keep it with, and then there's father so ill, too."

"Yes, Robbie, I know that—" she assented, settling her great bundle of sticks more firmly in her arms, "but the Lord has been speaking to me while I've been picking up the sticks in the moonlight, and I feel less tired."

"Has He?" asked Robin in a voice of awe. He had been a very wretched little boy all that bright, crisp, Christmas Eve; like Christian and Hopeful, he had got into Doubting Castle, and Giant Despair had been beating him about cruelly! He had looked round on his circumstances, and had decided they were too hard to bear. There was mother with that tired face working for them all, and tidying up "for Christmas," as she said, waiting on their sick father, and washing and mending their threadbare clothes once again. He had looked in the cupboard and not a bit of fresh food for Christmas fare appeared to be there. He had peeped in the corners of the kitchen and shed, but no surprises lay anywhere that he could see.

"I did try to be a little Christian," he had murmured, "but what's the good? Other people have a good Christmas, but we haven't. God has forgotten all about father being ill, and mother and us not having enough to eat!"

So when his mother had called him softly to come out with her and gather sticks for a Christmas fire, he had come with sorrowful steps, being still fast held in Doubting Castle.

And now his mother was telling him that the Lord had been talking to her! and Robin felt almost afraid, for he had been turning his back on the Lord in his heart all that long Christmas Eve!

"Yes," his mother went on, squeezing his hand, "and what do you guess He said to me, Robbie? He said, 'Don't you think, little mother, that I love you, and know how tired you are? Don't you think that I know how father's groaning goes to your heart? Don't you think that I have looked into the cupboard in the kitchen and know there is only one loaf there to go round for all the children? Don't you think I see that there's but a bit of tea and a mite of sugar, and no meat nor pudding nor anything?'"

"And He said, 'Haven't I told you that I will make a way of escape that you shall be able to bear it?'"

"Then, Robbie, I began to think about the shepherds watching their flocks and the heavenly Host singing so long ago because Christ the Lord was born, and I raised my head and wiped away my tears, and I said to myself, 'I've got my Saviour still,' and He has said to you and to me, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.'"

Robbie's little heart gave a thrill of happiness, and straight away, he got out of Doubting Castle. The key of God's promise had opened the gate!

When they got to the cottage door, a great hamper lay in the moonlight on the white step.

Warm clothes, apples, oranges, beef and groceries, crackers and nuts for the children, and a great pudding.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FLOWER OF HOPE.

ALL is bare in the garden! The wind blows round in gusts; the snow lies thick wherever the wind has not lifted it; the cold seems to have taken possession.

Daisy looked out of the window on a dull February afternoon. The weather outside matched the chilled little heart. An arm came round her shoulders, and a gentle voice said, "Well, little one, what is that head of yours so busy over?"

"Oh, I don't know, Auntie! I was looking at the snow, and thinking—somehow—the winter seems never-ending!" There was great sadness in the young voice.

"And it is not only that mother is gone," said the girl, with a choke, "and that all the rooms are empty—it is not only that—"

"I see all that," whispered her aunt, "but I know well that it is not always the sorrows people can see that are the hardest."

"Jesus sees," proceeded her aunt, "what we can hardly explain to any one else, He understands."

Daisy squeezed her hand, and then, as if impelled to go on, she added, "I thought as I looked out on the wintry garden, as if my heart were something like that, and I don't see any help for it!"

"Still, Daisy, beneath the snow and the frost, the plants are alive! That is how the life of Christ is in your heart. Put on your shawl, and I will get mine. There is nothing like seeing—"

"Look!" she exclaimed. There, beneath a holly bush, peeped out of the white earth a little patch of exquisite snowdrops!

"Oh! Auntie!" said Daisy, and her eyes were full of tears, she did not know why.

"Didn't I tell you the life was there?" whispered her aunt. "Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance and my God!"

When her father came home that night, there was a different atmosphere somehow in the quiet room, and about his little girl. There was nothing that he could say was altered, except that a bunch of snowdrops stood in a vase beside his plate; but Daisy's eyes had the light of hope in them.

"The child has been talking to Jesus, I fancy," said his sister that night, "and any one who talks to Him finds the worst burden lifted!"

CHAPTER VII.

MILICENT'S MUSIC.

Milicent was too miserable to mind being caught crying, though generally she was so brave that she would have resented the sympathy.

"I'm cold, and I can't get on; and Miss Seymour told me I was to do nothing till I had played this exercise twenty times."

Her aunt went up to her and touched the little icy fingers, which with contact with the cold ivory keys, were numbed and almost useless.

"Miss Seymour will let you warm them, I am sure, if I explained," said her auntie. "Come here on my knee, and while you get warm we will have a little talk. Then I will help you with your exercise afterwards, and you shall see how quickly we will learn it."

Milicent came almost reluctantly. Her hands ached intolerably, and she felt wretched altogether. But the warm rays of the fire began to play upon her chilled little frame, and as she nestled her head in her aunt's neck, she felt comfort beginning to steal over her.

"Cold is very bad to bear," said her aunt, softly. "I heard from a soldier who came from South Africa that some of the poor fellows on duty at night would positively cry with the bitter cold."

"These are words said to you and to me, Milly, 'Endure hardness, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.'"

"No, dear; and do you know when I saw your pitiful little face, I remembered what I heard at a missionary meeting a week or two ago? The young clergyman had been working for seven years all among the snows of North-West Canada—"

"Trying to tell the Red Indians and Eskimos, and the trappers and hunters about Jesus, our Saviour, of whom they have never heard."

"The missionaries there only get letters three times in the year; they have to live almost entirely on dried meat and a little tea, and often go very short of that! They never see the sun for nine months in the year, and the snow is five feet thick on the ground!"

"When they travel from place to place to tell the good news of the love of Jesus, they often cannot get to a hut by night time, and have to camp in the snow. They scrape a big hole with their long snow-shoes, and then they put on every wrap they possess, and each gets into a long fur bag which covers them over head and all, and then they lie down in the snow hole, and men and dogs go to sleep as close together as they can for warmth."

"Indeed they do. The children are taught to read, and to sing hymns, and to repeat Scripture; and by and by little Mission stations spring up and a church is built; and those who used to be cannibals and at constant warfare with each other, learn to be kind and gentle and forgiving even as Christ is!"

Milicent's large eyes looked wistful. "I wish I could do something for them," she said, longingly.

"Milly, I felt that too, when I heard! But do you know what I thought? Every day I can pray that God would support and bless those brave missionaries in their hardships; and you can ask Him, too, that He may comfort them and give them food to eat and cheer their hearts with His presence."

"And you can learn to knit warm gloves and caps for them, perhaps? Or work to sell things and send them money."

"Now, childie, we must do the next duty that comes to our hand. Let us have a look at this tiresome music!"

Milly went at it with a good will, now, and soon conquered the difficulty; and then, set free, she went up into her bedroom and knelt down at her bedside for one moment.

"Lord Jesus," she said, "I want to love Thee and serve Thee all my life—teach me how!"

CHAPTER VIII.

"SERVES HIM RIGHT!"

"NOW, Aunt Ruth! See, the fire is blazing, and the wintry prospect is shut out, let us have a story or something!"

Their Aunt glanced on their eager faces, illumined by the firelight, and she smiled as she paused an instant.

"Serves him right!" she exclaimed, and the children looked round almost startled. They heard such words from each other occasionally, but certainly not from their gentle Aunt.

"'Serves him right,'" she repeated. "'He did it to me, and it's just as well he should feel the pinch himself!'"

"'When I went down in class the other day, you should have seen the look in George's eyes! As he took his place above me, he muttered beneath his breath, "You should have worked harder last night, then it wouldn't have happened!" He knew I had a frightful headache, and could barely see a line.'"

"'Well,' said his school-fellow, 'George has got his deserts this time, for Joey hid his book till the last minute, and then found it, as innocent as anything, and we knew he'd be bound to go down, for he hadn't a moment to prepare.'"

"Rollo turned away, but his heart was heavy. It was all very well to be glad that his overbearing school-fellow had gone down in class; but such a trick as that was beyond him."

"He raced off to his dinner at home, and his footmarks were the only ones across the snowy fields."

"When he got in, the dinner was not quite ready, and he went and sat down in front of the fire, by which his little crippled sister lay on her couch."

"'It's only that George Runton is such a cad, and I said it served him right to go down in his class—'"

"'By nobody but myself. I had a sort of feeling it wasn't nice of me: but I don't know why exactly. It did serve him right, and yet—'"

"'I know!' said Mary, very tenderly; 'it wasn't like "His compassions" was it?'"

"'His compassions?' asked Rollo, equally gently, for this little suffering sister was his pet and darling."

"'Don't you know it says, "His compassions fail not; they are new every morning." I'm often glad of that.'"

"'Because we're often hard in our thoughts on other people—at least I am. But I'm often glad to remember that God is sorry for our mistakes without being hard, and He makes even our mistakes work round for our good if we will trust Him.'"

"'We're always paying each other out at school, or wishing we could,' objected Rollo. 'I don't seem to be able to help it.'"

"'Yes, I know; but when we get very tired of trying to be kind and to pay back a kind action instead of a nasty word, it does help to say to one's self, "His compassions fail not."'"

"'Well—' said Rollo, with a long-drawn breath, 'I'll try it. And here's dinner!'"

"He retraced his steps over the snow, and he looked up at the sky and saw the little robin singing on the branches in spite of the cold, and he repeated to himself tenderly, thinking of Mary's face: 'His compassions fail not; they are new every morning.'"

"But he remembered that she had meant what she said, and there was nothing but truth from those gentle lips and eyes."

"When he got inside school he was almost late. In his hurry, he stumbled up against George Runton, and nearly knocked him over. He paused for one instant, then said, hastily, 'I'm sorry you lost your book, old fellow—it was awfully vexing.' And so passed on into school, with a wonderfully lightened heart."

There was silence for a minute round the bright fire, for Auntie had set the children thinking.

"Yes, I expect we are," said Aunt Ruth. "We all have our different ways of showing it, and the things that make us hard differ with each of our dispositions. But God seems to me to stand like 'a shadow of a great rock in a weary land,' with His everlasting love ready to enfold us and protect us and calm us."

"Because—" she smiled archly, "I had heard those words, 'Serve him right,' eight times within the last two days!"

She jumped up and turned up the gas. "Who wants a game of dominoes till teatime?" she said brightly.

CHAPTER IX.

NELLIE'S HINDRANCE.

NELLIE had come out from home with rather a heavy heart. Her basket full of fresh eggs for the Vicarage had been taken safely there, and now she was returning. The twilight was deepening, and she stood still to hear a thrush's good-night song.

Yesterday a Missioner had come to their village, and Nellie had gone to the service, and she had been dissatisfied with herself ever since.

The subject had been hindrances to prayer, and as Nellie stood beneath the trees breathing in the soft spring air, she recalled almost every word the Missioner had said.

She felt they spoke home, and her face was very downcast as she remembered them.

"Where do you think your hindrances to prayer come?" he had asked. "I will tell you; it is not in your outside life, among your acquaintances, in the shop or the club, the market, the school, or the pleasure party! You can have a smiling face there, and people say how nice you are and how pleasant! But the real man, and the real woman, and the real boy and girl are not seen in those places."

"It is at home, by your fireside, in the family life that we are ourselves, and it is there the great temptation comes to us to have our prayers hindered by unworthy conduct."

Nellie remembered it all, and she remembered, too, that her conduct to-day had somehow "hindered her prayers."

Her mother had asked her to do several things in the morning that she thought most unnecessary. She felt sure that no other mother would have wanted such a thing on a Monday morning!

She was a dutiful girl, and she did not refuse to do them, but she did them with an inward groan, which made them twice as hard to do.

Then the children had seemed tiresome, and one of them had torn his clothes against some barbed wire; the clothes had to be mended before he could go back to school in the afternoon. And while she was mending them at the top of her speed, he would keep on jumping in and out of bed, where he was waiting, and hindered her more than she could say.

At last the mending was done, and the children raced off to school a little late.

But now, as she came under the quiet shade of the trees and tried to think, she sat down on a grassy bank and buried her face in her hands.

The Missioner said that the word "hindered" meant "that you cut yourselves adrift" from prayer.

He said that the mainland is like communication with God; and that if a person rowed out to a rock, and, after mooring his boat to return, cut it adrift, he would sever himself from returning to the mainland!

So if we went out on to the sea of our daily life, and let pleasure or worry, work or care, cut us adrift from communication with God, all our happiness and peace would go!

Yes, Nellie remembered every word, and sorrowfully she thought, "What is separating me from communion with God?"

At first she was not sure, but after a few moments of thinking it over, she confessed to herself that it was not "pleasure," for she thought she did not get much of that; it was not "work," though she had heaps of that; it was not "care," for as yet she felt but little of that; it was—she paused—she hated to acknowledge it to herself—it was worry! She had got into a kind of vexation with her life, and all that belonged to it. She could not alter it; the more she tried the worse it seemed to be. What was she to do?

She did love God; she did wish to please Jesus all the day, more than anything else in the world; and yet here she was vexed and irritated by the unalterable things in her lot, which (she told herself) her mother could alter, but did not, and which galled and fretted her almost past endurance.

Ah! With a start of joy, she raised her head. Rest? Then the words of her Saviour flashed upon her, "Come unto ME all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of ME."

Nellie saw it now, and the struggle was ended. She had been wanting her own will and her own way; she had been wanting to set the crooked things straight herself, but it was only God who could do it for her, after all.

The Missioner had said the yoke of Christ, under which he walked so patiently, was the Will of God. Was that the solution of all her home frets and worries? The Will of God! Yes, she would take it. She would do as Christ said, "Take the yoke upon her," and so find rest!

Such a peace stole over her that she could have cried her heart out; but she knew she would be missed; and with an inward thanksgiving too deep for words, she ran along the dark lane, and soon entered the lighted cottage.

She kissed her mother silently, and hastened upstairs, saying only, "I sha'n't be a minute," and when she came down, they wondered at her brightness, but did not know that in finding rest of heart in Jesus, her life had been "transfigured."

CHAPTER X.

THE EARWIG.

WHEN I was a little child of about five, I remember very well how we used to play in the garden all the long summer days, and how insects and toads, hedgehogs and beetles, were our playthings, besides the intense enjoyment of climbing trees, high swinging, and other delights.

One day, I thought I felt something crawl down my neck, and in an agony I asked my little brothers and sisters, and I daresay our busy nurse, to see if they could find it. Nobody took any heed of my distress, till, in some way, I suppose, I came across my father.

I never had any reason to doubt his tenderness, and whether he guessed there was something wrong, or whether I ran to him and explained, I cannot now remember.

He took me at once to his room, and while cheeringly assuring me that even if it were an earwig, it would do me no harm, he began with the utmost tenderness to take off my frock, and to peep about my little shoulders; and still not finding it, he took off garment by garment, till he satisfied himself and me that no earwig was there. Then he dressed me again, and with comforted heart we went downstairs together.

Shall I ever forget that little childish scene? Does it not rise before me every time I read those tender words in the 103rd Psalm, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him."

Now, what I want you all to remember, dear children, is this. Let this little picture of an earthly father's pity, help you to understand the Heavenly Father's pity.

We all have troubles and fears, difficulties and temptations. Some more, some less.

Let us take them to the pitying Heavenly Father. The difficulty or fear may be as unwarrantable as my dread of the earwig, or it may be a real danger or temptation which assails us. But whatever it is, trust the great Father's love. Tell Him all about it, ask Him to help you, as He knows best how; leave it in His Hands how to do it, and receive His assurance of peace when you have done all this.

Then at rest from your fears, and the worst of your difficulties, go hand in hand into the work of life, with a firmer trust than ever in your Father's love.

CHAPTER XI.

LOST ON THE COMMON.

"WHY, Bertha! I've been looking for you everywhere," exclaimed her cousin Norman, a little reproachfully, "Aunt Esther was quite in a fidget."

It was hot, and he had been sent out on the Common, and had been wandering about for an hour, calling and searching.

Bertha's eyes fell. She had not intended to set everybody hunting, she had only felt miserable, and had wanted to be alone.

She loved the Common, and was always allowed to go out at the back gate and wander about, so long as she kept in sight of home.

Norman threw himself on the grass in front of her; not that he felt particularly friendly, but because he was tired. So they sat in silence, till, a little rested, he raised his eyes to her woe-begone face.

"Ye-es—oh, yes, I am; but she's so sharp! She's always after me: 'do this,' and 'do that.' Mother never used to keep on so!"

"Of course not," said Norman, briefly. He hoped Bertha was not going to cry about her mother, because he hated people to cry.

"And then when Father comes home, I know Aunt Esther tells him tales about me, and that makes me mad—"

Bertha shook her head. "I know it isn't nice of me to be always thinking such things about her; but, indeed, Norman, I can't help it, and I do feel so miserable."

The tears came now, and Norman did not so much mind, as he expected. He was full of sympathy with his little cousin, but he did not see how to help her.

"I s'pose there's some way out of it," he said, consideringly, "there generally is—"

"Well," she said, "I was busy in the breakfast-room, making those toilet mats for the missionaries, and the room was rather—"

"Yes—well, it was no harm; it was Saturday, and I was free to do it. And I wanted to finish a set, because I thought if Aunt Helen came this afternoon, I would get her to buy them—for the missionaries, you know. But Aunt Esther said she could not have such a mess all over the place, and began gathering my things together, and I felt cross, and begged her to wait and let me put them up; and she went on, and my bottle of gum got spilled between us, and went over the pink satin, and spoilt ever such a lot."

"Yes, it was; but, oh, I flew in such a passion. I stamped about the room, and said all the nasty things I could think of; and when I hadn't any more words left, she just said, coldly, 'That is what you call working for Christ, do you? You will not show your things to Aunt Helen this afternoon, Bertha,' and left the room."

"And so I came out here," she said, sorrowfully. "It was quite true—that part of it—how dreadful it was of me to be in such a temper over His work, Norman! Now I don't know what to do. Shall I burn them all, and never do any more, if I can't be a better girl."

Norman's brown hand was stretched out and took hold of her little one. "Poor kiddie," he said, softly.

"Not burn the things!" he said, decidedly. "I think—I'm not much of a hand at good sort of talk, you know—but if we've done wrong—if we know we have—"

"Then mother always says we ought to ask God to forgive us, and—you won't like me to say it—and Aunt Esther. Mother says then we can begin again, you know. Only it's awfully hard—"

Bertha raised herself from the ground. "Yes, Norman," she said, solemnly, "I see. I'll do it. Ask God first, then Aunt Esther. I will."

CHAPTER XII.

BLACKBERRYING.

"I WONDER why it's been such a good year for fruit?" said a little boy, looking up in the face of an elder one who was resting against a stile, still keeping a crutch in his hand and leaning on it, while a basket of blackberries lay at his feet.

"I suppose there has been just enough rain and just enough sun to suit them, Tommy!"

The tone made Tommy look up, and then his eyes wandered to the crutch, and back again to the patient face wistfully.

"If the blackberry hedges had nothing but sun, they would be scorched up, Tommy, boy! And if my life had been all pleasure, perhaps there would have been no fruit on my bush!"

"Yes, don't you remember how the lesson in Sunday School, yesterday, was 'He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit?'"

"And if," pursued the elder boy, "there had been nothing but rain and storm and sorrow and pain, my little bush would have got mildewed and spoilt, and so no fruit would have come either."

"I like sunshine best!" said Tommy. "But—what sort of things do you mean would have scorched up your bush?"

He hesitated, for though several years younger than his companion, he had a thoughtful little heart, and he began to guess.

"Being captain of our football team, perhaps; and first in all the running games; and top of my Form—"

"But those weren't harm?" said Tommy. "No—o—oh no! But it was so pleasant; and I never thought it could be different, and I did not need God then, and so I brought no fruit to Him. That's what I call sunshine that scorches—"

"So then in love—yes, Tommy—in love, my Father sent the rain and the storm. He saw there would be no fruit on my little bush, and He knew I should be sorry; and so He—" Frank paused and looked down at the crutch, which said all there was to say. It needed no explanation. Tommy knew all about the long, painful illness which had resulted in the loss of Frank's right leg.

"Tommy!" said Frank, getting himself upright again to start for home. "There are sunshine and storms in your life as well as mine! We don't all of us have the same lot. You've got no mother, and—heaps of things that are hard—but every time you are brave and patient 'for Jesus' sake,' you are 'bearing fruit.' Think of that, Tommy! Doesn't it kind of feel nice?"

CHAPTER XIII.

THE STOPPED WATCH.

"THE sun's set, Jim," called Nellie, as she raked up the last bit of hay, "and we shall have a fine day to-morrow to finish it, by the looks of the sky."

"Yes," he answered, turning towards the ferry boat, "we've done for to-day, let's take a rest in the twilight till father's ready to go home."

Nellie was nothing loth. She and her favourite brother were a great deal together, and worked on the same farm on which their father had lived all his life.

"It's gone wrong again!" he said, "I set it all right this morning, and I thought I'd done it this time. I doubt I must have it seen to. The man in the village isn't no hand at it, no more than I am myself. I've tinkered it, and I've altered it, and I've shaken it—"

"It strikes me I must take it to the man as made it," he remarked gravely, and Nellie looked up at his tone.

"Yes, a man in Windsor. But, funny enough, Nell, when I was shaking it this morning, thinks I to myself, 'Here's a help for you, Jim, in Heavenly things!'"

"Because your watch had gone wrong?" said Nell, her eyes questioning with interest. She and Jim wanted to get on in Heavenly things, and they often helped each other.

"Yes," he said, raising his head, and looking at the golden sky; while the ripple of the water lapping against the boat as the river flowed on, made soft, soothing music.

"Yes, Nell. Somehow, lately, I've felt that my works were rather out of order! Things haven't been so very comfortable at home—as you know—and I've had all that bother with mother and father about Meg Marston; and somehow I've tried my hardest to be patient and kind, and to wait willingly till they saw things different; and it's all been no use. I've not been patient inwardly, nor outwardly either, for that matter. I've tossed and fumed and fretted. I've tried to set the outside of the watch right, and I've poked at the inside, and I've shaken myself—"

Again Nell smiled. But this time there were tears in her gentle, dark eyes. She knew better than any one what Jim had had to bear.

"And this morning, as I was trying to set my watch right, it suddenly darted into my mind, 'Take it to the man as made it, Jim!' And all at once I thought, perhaps, that was what my Saviour wanted me to do with my 'works,' as I call my heart and my difficulties. So I just slipped down on to my knees, Nell, with my watch in my hand, just as I was, and I said, 'Dear Lord, I am yours! You made me, you understand me. I've been trying to make myself go for months and I've failed. The 'works' have stopped, and they want seeing to! Take me in hand; make me clean, set me right, keep me going, make me true to You, whatever else I am!'"

Nell's tender face bent down, and she looked into the flowing, crimson water for a minute in silence.

"Then I came downstairs, and found mother in the kitchen; and instead of passing by, and coming out without a word, I managed to say, 'It's going to be lovely for the hay,' and gave her a kiss, and so started to my work."

"Yes, so am I. So all day, when I have thought how hard it is of mother and father about Meg, I've tried to think, too, that the Lord is setting my 'works' right, and He has them in hand, and I've got no call to be so anxious about everything. He'll set them right, and me, too! But here's father!"

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MIDNIGHT A, B, C

"I HATE learning Scripture! At least—I don't like it—or see the good of it," said Robbie, his eager tone diminishing as he got through his sentence, and his eyes met those of his father's, a patient invalid, sitting by the fire.

If there was one person Robbie was devoted to, it was his father. So while he was speaking, his eyes turned naturally to those quiet grey ones, which had looked out on the world so tenderly for so many years.

He pushed his school Bible away, and went over and stroked the cramped thin hand, looking inquiringly into the dear face.

"Yes, Robbie, I understand that. I mean, that I remember the days when I thought it a great task to learn Scripture."

"Well—is there any good?" asked Robbie, hesitating, "I don't mean in reading it, of course, but in learning it by heart—just like a parrot?"

"You have given me a good many questions to answer in that one sentence," said his father, fondly, "but I'll answer one first. It is good; I only wish I had learned more."

"Sometimes I try to see how many Psalms and chapters, or portions, I can say through, but I am always sorry there are not more—"

"Sometimes—but there are twilight hours, and the long dark night, and then I can't read; and it is an inexpressible comfort to be able to repeat to myself."

"Not as easily as I used, and with great pains, too. Over and over. We don't learn so quickly when we are older."

"So learn your daily verse cheerfully, my boy, and say, 'It will be a comfort to me by and by.'"

"He only repeats without thinking; we have a better reason than that, 'Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.'"

Robbie stroked the loved hand again; a touch of love which his father perfectly understood.

"I take the old game, 'I love my love with an A,' and turn it into a help to bring me nearer my God!"

"I say to myself, when I am weary or wakeful, 'I adore my God with an A, because He is "Abundantly able to save."'"

"'I adore my God with a B, because He says, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."'"

"Something like; but my way gives more scope. I never get tired of it. If I can't think of a verse beginning with C, for instance, I say, 'I adore my God with a C, because He has said, "I will not leave you Comfortless,"' and so to the end of the alphabet."

"Enough to give me a feast. 'Zacchaeus, come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house,' or 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord.' There, Robbie!"

"Ah! Yes; I use the verses where there are 'Excepts,' and call them—like this—'I will not let Thee go 'Xcept Thou bless me.'"

"Now, let me hear you say your verses for this week, and we'll soon learn them together—you will, faster than I shall."

Robbie went back to fetch his Bible, and soon, as his father said, the six verses which he had learnt separately every day came into one whole, and he could say them off.

He gave a great sigh, and then with a kiss on his father's forehead, he bounded off to play.

CHAPTER XV.

VERA'S CONTENT.

"I COULD be perfectly happy if I could live always in a cottage like that, and look-out on such a view!" sighed Vera, as she and her mother sat one evening on a stile, and looked over into a peaceful field, covered with daisies, and with a pond in front whose deep shadows were now and then broken by snowy ducks swimming across them.

"I get so tired of the houses opposite us!" Vera went on, "And our holiday seems so soon over, and we have to go back to the dull streets and noisy trams. Don't you, mother?"

"Yes, dear, a little, sometimes; but I am sure we ought not to encourage such a feeling—"

"Well, then—I don't know how to help it!" pursued Vera. "I perfectly love pretty scenery, and country flowers, and blue skies, and—and—"

"Oh, stop, Vera! So do I; but now let us look at the other side. Think of the hundreds and thousands who have to live in the towns, and who have not the great treat which you and I have been given, of spending a whole fortnight in this sweet place."

"That doesn't make me more contented, it only makes me so sorry for them that I can't enjoy myself one bit."

Vera dashed two or three tears from her eyes, and looked over the pretty prospect.

"Well, dear, let us think of it like this. God, our loving Father, sees what we need. He knows all about us; all about our delight in pretty, refined things; all about how tired and weary we have been, you with your examinations, and I with the cares of home, and so He has sent us what will rest us, and help us to go on again."

"When I look at this holiday as His gift, and thank Him for it, it makes every fresh beauty more beautiful; it helps me to pray for the weary ones who have not got one, and to plan how, in our little way, we may shed brightness and pleasure round on those we do know—"

"As to happiness being found in a country cottage," said her mother, "if we do not make happiness in our everyday life for each other, by being loving and unselfish, we should not get it, though we might live in the most beautiful scenery in the world!"

Vera put her hand in her mother's. "I'll try," she said, impulsively; and her mother, with a bright smile, added some lines of George Herbert's, she often repeated to herself:

"Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days;
But such a heart—whose pulse should be
Thy praise!"

CHAPTER XVI.

A SEARCH FOR VIOLETS.

"WHERE have you been all the afternoon, Aunt Ruth?" asked Oswald, as they assembled after school hours. "We could not find you!"

"Well, if I didn't think I smelled violets," exclaimed Rose; "and I could not believe it! Where—if it is not a secret, Auntie?"

The four gathered round her little vase, and took turns in smelling, till Jean said there would be no scent left.

"I knew long ago a certain bank under a hedge, where, sheltered from the winds and storms, and warmed by the sun, the violets grew and flourished. So this afternoon as I wanted a walk, I made my way to the old spot, and, presently, as I went along, something delicious seemed to surround me, and without thinking, I exclaimed, 'Violets!' And then laughed at myself, for what else was I searching for? So when I had found a few I sat down on the warm, sunny bank, and thought—"

"You always have 'thoughts,' I do believe, Auntie," said Oswald. "Let's have them, then!"

"And they fulfil their Maker's purpose," said Oswald, slowly, as if considering; "yes—they certainly do that—"

"And when the great Gardener goes round His kingdom to seek them, there they are, ready to look up into His face and greet Him with joy," said Aunt Ruth.

"And He sent them rain and showers and sunshine to help them to grow!" said Oswald.

Aunt Ruth's eyes gave a little flash. "Yes!" she answered earnestly; "and He planted them just where He knew they would grow best; where He wished them to grow."

"That's nice," said Jean, "for sometimes I'm discontented when things don't happen right, and I almost wish I were growing somewhere else!"

"Well," said Aunt Ruth, "I fancy we all do. We think that any other cross but the one we have to carry would be more bearable. 'If we were in So-and-So's shoes, we could be much more contented!'"

"Yes," said Rose; "I often think if I were in my friend Gertrude's place, I should not have half so many hindrances to being good!" Her eyes filled as she turned away.

"Well," said Aunt Ruth, "if we are really wishing to please God in the circumstances in which He has put us, what I took as my violet-text may be a help to us; for though it speaks of humbleness, I think it is one of the most wonderfully exalting texts that can be!"

"Let's have it, Auntie," said Oswald. "I like your plan of making the Bible into a book to live on!"

"Here it is, then," she said; "'For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.'"

CHAPTER XVII.

SUMMER DAYS.

"WHERE did you spend your summer holiday?" asked Aunt Ruth, in a smiling but significant tone.

The fact was, the four children had got into rather a hot dispute one day at tea over a trifling difference of opinion, and Aunt Ruth had interrupted with a quick, bright question, which had made them all turn their eyes towards her.

"That is what we used to say at home when we wanted to change the subject," said Aunt Ruth.

"Did you want to change the subject?" asked Oswald. Then pausing, "Oh, I see," with a conscious laugh. "Well, I suppose it would be as well to talk of something else, as we are never likely to agree over it."

"Oh, oh!" said Tom, "That is beginning again! Well—Auntie—as you know very well where we spent our summer holiday, let's hear where you did."

"I'm quite willing. Come along to the summer-house, and when I hear the bees humming among the pear blossoms, I shall get taken back in imagination to last year, and shall be able to tell you where I did spend mine."

She led the way out of doors, and the children scampered after her, carrying certain camp stools and chairs, which were kept in the passage leading to the garden. Aunt Ruth had caught up her writing case, which Jean wondered at, but when they were settled in their usual places, this was explained by her producing from it a sketch, which she handed round.

"This is where I spent my summer holiday," she said lovingly, as if the place were dear to her.

"Oh!" said Rose. "That is why you said you must come out near the pear blossoms. I see now. Were there bees there?"

"It was an ideal place. I was in urgent need of rest and refreshment and quiet (as you know), and I heard of this little cottage on the borders of the Downs. This clematis-covered porch was my entrance, and the other door was the good woman's. I could go out on the Downs with my camp chair, and sit and look at the sea, and feel the breezes blow round me, or I could bask in the sunshine to my heart's content, sheltered by the cottage from the cold winds."

"Yes, the bees seem to link themselves with the restful thoughts of those days, for when I was near the cottage, with its flowers, their song seemed to tell me over and over again what I think I shall never forget—"

All the children knew that Aunt Ruth had had some great trial, but they had never been told what it was.

"The lesson I learned in that peaceful time was, 'The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.'"

"I learned, dears, that God wishes to be to us all a Sun and a Shield. As a Sun, He warms and cheers us with the light of His countenance; as a Shield, He shelters us from that which would hurt us and do us harm."

"Just as those hives were put in the sunniest place, so they were also put in a sheltered place. 'A Sun and Shield.' God is near us for both; and when the cold winds of trouble, or sorrow, or temptation blow, we must hide in Him, for He is our Shield."

"Heaps of things! But I did not learn all, nor should I have time to tell you, either."

"They worked steadily and patiently; they went about their tasks with a will, and they gathered—what?"

"Poison?" she asked. "Unkindness, quarrelling, selfishness, self-will? No, no! What did they gather as they hovered over the pretty flowers?"

"They gathered 'sweetness,' enough and to spare. They brought it home for those who did not go out; they stored it up for the rainy and dark days, when the flowers might not be there. God had been their Sun and Shield, and they had done their part in gathering the sweetness which He had provided, so that others might be blessed and cheered and comforted."

"Oh, Aunt Ruth, I shall always think of that when there is honey on the table!" said Oswald.

"I sat out in the sunshine and sketched most of the time, or watched the bees and thought of what God could be to me if I would let Him."

"Yes, and a good many more. See, I have written underneath this one a few lines I often say to myself from 'A Song in the day of the East Wind,' written nearly three hundred years ago by Tersteegen; and it often reminds me of those sunny days:"

"'My heart in joy upleapeth;
    Grief cannot linger there;
  She singeth high in glory,
    Amid the sunshine fair.
  The sun that shines upon me
    Is Jesus and His love,
  And the fountain of my singing
    Is deep in heaven above!'"

CHAPTER XVIII.

BECAUSE.

"I WANT to love God and do what pleases Him," sighed Norman to himself; "but I make such a poor hand at it. Here I'm at school all day, and my head is cram full of lessons, and when I get to bed I'm so tired, and so dissatisfied with myself, that I feel quite disheartened."

He was on his way to spend the week-end with one of his school-fellows, who lived among the mountains in Cumberland.

He had left the station some hours ago, and his friend's house was still a long way off, and the evening shadows were falling over the land.

He knew his way pretty well, and was not anxious about his destination, so that he had plenty of time to think.

He was an earnest boy, and really wished to do right, but somehow he had got into rather a muddle lately, and did not know how to extricate himself.

"I don't doubt my love to Him," he pursued, "but it's so cold and lifeless—such a poor return, that sometimes—"

Then he glanced up at the sunset clouds, and his troubled thoughts took the form of a prayer—a very simple, child-like one—"O God, show me some one who will help me where I am going!"

With a lightened heart, he made his way across the bridge, and now could take in the glory and refreshment of the scene.

When he reached his school-fellow's house he was, however, dismayed to find that Jack had set out an hour ago to meet him, and they must have missed.

He was asked into the library to wait, and there, seated by a fire, was an invalid gentleman who glanced up from his book to welcome him.

After the first civilities had passed, the invalid asked Norman if he would help him by turning over some leaves for him, as with his crippled hands he found it difficult.

"I am searching for the 'Becauses,'" he said, looking up with his genial smile; "and I want to find this one, 'We love Him "because" He first loved us!'"

Norman's face flushed as he turned over the pages as directed to the First Epistle of John, and the fourth chapter, and the nineteenth verse. Was this an answer to his questionings?

"I have been thinking a great deal about that one," Jack's father went on; "and it has comforted me to remember that though my love is often cold and faint, yet my salvation does not depend on that, for it is because He loved me that I am His at all!"

Norman's eyes flashed an answering look of joyful acquiescence, and something prompted him to say: "That's just what I wanted, sir. I'd got all mixed up!"

"Ah!" said the invalid, "We do! The more earnest we are in wishing to please God, the more, I think, Satan tries to discourage us and make us doubt that we are serving Him at all. And this is where my 'because' comes in; not my love, but His, being my safety."

The invalid smiled happily; and then they heard Jack's step come bounding through the house, and his "Hullo, Norman, have you come?" sounded with a hearty, cheery welcome.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE HAUNTED ROOM.

"You will be disappointed if you expect too much," said Agnes, holding the door in her hand and looking into five eager faces congregated on the landing.

"Let us in, then, and we'll tell you!" answered Hugh, a tall boy of about fifteen. "You are as bad as the 'penny-a-liners,' who pile up the interest to the end of the chapter, and then leave you in the lurch!"

Agnes laughed a little at that, as she threw open the door of the chamber in their uncle's old house, which, for many a day, had had the repute of being haunted.

She and her two sisters, with her brothers John and Hugh, had come to spend a fortnight of their Christmas holidays in this old-fashioned abode, where every corner seemed to have a history, if not a mystery; and Agnes Headley, ever on the look-out to do a little work for her Heavenly Master, found that she could carry out, in her present weird surroundings, a thought she had long had in her mind.

"Come here, Florence," she said, holding out her hand to a little cousin, who, like themselves, had come for a visit; "if you are at all nervous, we will got the lamp—only—"

Florence disdained to acknowledge herself nervous, and was sure she should not be frightened; so, taking her cousin Minnie's little soft hand, she entered the moonlit room with the rest, wondering what Agnes would have to show them so very particular.

"Though this is uncle's haunted room, I must explain to you that we have nothing to do with it for that reason; but, as what I have to show you is kept here, I thought we could not have a better place in which to have our little talk."

"But we can't see anything," said Minnie, squeezing Florence's hand very hard. "I wish you would strike a match, Agnes."

"All in good time, Minnie. Here, John, light the lantern, and let us see what there is to be seen."

John, the eldest brother, though not in the secret, knew from experience that Agnes generally had something pleasant in her little preparations, and took the lantern from her hand to do as she desired.

When its fitful gleams shone out in the haunted chamber, the young people looked round curiously, not without a certain creepiness in their hair and a shiver down their backs.

The room was not very large, but was gloomy and dark; the corners were unlighted, and the moonlight shining along the floor was almost brighter than the rays of the shaded light in John's hand.

At one end some garments hung against the wall, and, as their eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, they could see dimly the shapes of old-fashioned armour, swords, and spears, arranged in set patterns, against the oak panelling.

In one corner a knight, with a coat of mail, stood up gaunt and still, his visor down, his hand clasping his sword, his foot advanced, as if ready to step forward to the fight.

"I don't like it much, Agnes," whispered Minnie, clinging to her side. "I wish you would not make it so dark."

"There is nothing in the world to be afraid of," said her sister, "and, if you will come here between me and Alice, you will feel all right, shall you not? But, if you are afraid, I will take you downstairs again, only I did want you to hear about it, too, Minnie."

The little girl was reassured by the loving arms wrapped round her, and by the warm kisses pressed on her flushed cheeks.

"That knight in armour, who looks so terrible there," explained Agnes, "is not a real man, though he has on real armour, which was used in real warfare, long ago. So, before I tell you my story, Minnie and Florence shall have a good look at him to make sure that it is only a wooden man, and not a hero of bygone ages come to life again."

Florence laughed a little nervously as she advanced to where John's light shone brightly, but she was sufficiently courageous to touch the steel-clad foot with her hand, and to peep up earnestly to see if there might be any face behind those iron bars.

But no eyes looked out from the dark cavity, and no movement came from those rigid arms. Florence stepped back to Minnie's side with a whispered:

"Now for the story!" said Hugh, who had been impatient all this time, if not to get it over, at any rate to find out what it was.

"Come, then," answered Agnes, turning towards the window, and pointing to an old-fashioned settle covered with a warm rug. "Sit down here, opposite to the old knight, and I will tell you what I have been thinking about."

They quickly obeyed, and now Minnie could feel her two sisters on either side of her, and could gaze up at the familiar face of the clear moon, she began to feel enough at home to enjoy herself.

"You remember," began Agnes, "that when Uncle Hugh came home from India, he bought this old house, furniture, pictures, and all, with that money which had been unexpectedly left him?"

"The first day after we came, he called me into his library, and said that he intended to make me a present of one of the old curiosities it contained, and wished me to say what I would like best, reserving to himself the right of altering my choice should it fall upon something he could not part with."

"I was greatly at a loss, as you may suppose; but ever since I had seen those knights standing in the hall downstairs, I had had an idea which, if he were willing, could now carry out; so I told him, if it were not too much to ask, to make me a present of one of his armed knights!"

"You may guess that he had a good laugh at my request, but all the same, he granted it."

Hugh and John felt as if they would have been very delighted to have had the chance themselves of such a gift, but before they could say anything beyond a low exclamation of surprise, Agnes went on—

"I asked him if he would be hurt if I did just as I liked with my knight; but very soon I found I had to take him into my confidence: so he knows all about it, and approves."

"My thought was this, as I stood and looked that first morning on those motionless figures, dressed in armour, that had been used, now only shadows, as it were, of what once had been—that each one of us living and breathing, and enjoying life had a set of armour which we ought to put on, but which often lay hidden away, rusty and useless, because we disregarded the message our great Captain had sent us—sent to each one who loves and serves Him—'Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.'"

"You do not see all," answered Agnes, gently. "That old knight in the corner is not my knight, for I have pulled mine to pieces."

"Yes," said Agnes. "Here is his armour, hanging up against the wall. I asked Uncle if I might divide his armour between us six, and he willingly gave me leave. Now, what I want to know is this—which of us is willing, earnestly and faithfully, to take his or her share of this invisible armour, and begin this very day to clasp on one piece at any rate, that so we may make the first step towards 'taking unto us the whole armour of God.'"

"But, Agnes," objected John, "many of us—all, I hope—have taken the great step of enlisting under the Captain; you do not mean that?"

"Oh no," answered Agnes quickly, "we are all soldiers; but we fail to put on the armour God has appointed in order that we may be able to stand! We walk along satisfied in our own strength, far too often."

"Oh, that's all right," answered John earnestly. "I was only afraid lest for the sake of an illustration, and a very nice idea, Agnes, any one might forget for a moment that, ere we can be soldiers, we must be redeemed by precious blood."

"I did not mean that," said Agnes, "but was thinking of ourselves, because I hope we all home been washed in that precious blood."

"Then what is it you want us to undertake so seriously?" asked Hugh from his dark corner.

"I want us all to choose a piece of this spiritual armour—not because one piece will do, but because one piece is better than none; when we have got used to our one piece, we shall begin to think of trying another!"

"I don't mind having that," said John. Agnes got up and crossed the room, taking from the wall the sword which hung there.

"For my own, or lent to me?" he asked. "For your own. Now, Hugh, you may choose, there are five more things."

"I'll have the breastplate of righteousness, then; for I suppose you mean to take the Scripture list?"

"That's the coat of mail, 'loins girt about with truth.' Florence, what would you like?"

"I don't remember the meanings exactly," answered Florence shyly, "but I like the helmet. What is it, Agnes?"

A very soft little "That will do for me!" came up from a very faithful little heart.

"Might I have the shield? 'The shield of Faith.' But there'll be nothing nice left for you, Aggie!"

"Her 'feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.' Agnes is a thorough peacemaker, and she loves to tell people about the Gospel of peace, too."

"So I do; but not half as I ought," answered Agnes, lifting down the pieces of armour and handing each to the various possessors.

"They will serve as reminders, 'with a vengeance,'" said Hugh. "Where shall we put them?"

"I mean to hang mine up at home over my mantelshelf," said Agnes. "It will be quite an ornament, and if—"

"Yes," said John, taking up the word. "If we think of them, and by and by take unto us the whole armour of God—"

"Agnes' kindness and thought for us will not be in vain," added Alice, kissing her warmly.

"To-morrow," said Agnes, "we will have some more talk about our different pieces of armour, for it will be easier to us to use what God has provided, if we can understand the sorts of weapons which will be used against us."

"Not to-night; let us go downstairs now, and try to make the evening bright to uncle Hugh."

The young people carried their armour to their respective rooms, placing it in full view on chests of drawers, bureaus, &c., each touched with Agnes' unselfishness, which had caused her, in that house full of treasures to choose something which she meant but to receive and then to give away.

When they reached the drawing-room, their uncle met them at the door with an unusually bright look on his face.

"Agnes," he said, leading her up to an easel, which stood under the chandelier in the middle of the room, "I have looked out another little treasure for you, in remembrance of your knight! I felt, after what we talked about yesterday, that it ought to belong to no one else."

When Agnes reached the easel, what was her surprise to see a beautiful oil painting of a soldier, clad in armour, kneeling before his sovereign, receiving from his hands the victor's laurels and rewards!

His face, patient with many a hardship, holy with many a self-denial, earnest with many a purpose, radiant with many a victory, his face touched the hearts of the lookers on, all fresh from Agnes' earnest words, and a silent sort of awe fell upon them, as they thought of what they had undertaken, and of what the end would be.

"'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.'"

"I cannot attempt to thank you," said Agnes in a low voice, putting her hand in her uncle's, "but—"

"Don't try to, my dear. Rather would I thank you for having turned my haunted chamber into an armoury of light!"

That night as Hugh, the last of the party, crossed the hall on his way to bed, he paused by the marble pillars and looked round.

The moon had left the windows of the haunted chamber, and had come round to the front, where it streamed along the pavement, touching the feet of the gaunt knights, and casting fairy shadows from the ferns and palms between which they stood.

"'The whole armour of God,'" he murmured softly, "I wonder how long I shall be before I have strength to buckle it all on? But I'm glad there are those words: 'I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me!'"

"Agnes, the best thing you can do is to come into the haunted room and tell us what you promised," said Hugh one evening soon after the giving out of the armour. "We could not have a better place to sit, and we shall be uninterrupted."

"I do not mind, if you all like it best," answered Agnes. "When shall we begin?"

"No time like the present," said John, laughing, and taking his sister round the waist; "we will lead the way, Agnes, and face the haunted room altogether, if need be!"

The rest soon followed; and before long all were seated by the window, where the first rays of the moon were peeping in, instead of leaving it, as they had been a few days before.

"I daresay some of you have thought of your pieces of armour since we had our other talk?" asked Agnes.

"So have I," pursued Agnes, "and I think we had better begin in the order in which we find the list in Ephesians. Who is it who has the coat of Mail—Truth? 'Loins girt about with truth'?"

"That is my piece of armour," answered Alice. "What have you to tell us about that, Agnes?"

"It seems to me that truth is a sort of strengthening of our minds; as in the East they would gird up their encumbering robes, so as to walk along more bravely in a difficult path. Do you think of it like that, Alice?"

"Yes," answered her sister. "I was reading these words on Sunday: 'Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.' I suppose that has something to do with my piece of armour."

"Of course it has!" exclaimed Agnes eagerly. "And it is so difficult to combine those two things in the same person—grace and truth. People can be truthful, but they find it very hard to be gracious also; or they are so gracious that they fail to be truthful."

"In this sort of way," answered Agnes. "One day lately, I heard a girl say something like this: Oh, you know, she asked me how I liked her drawing, and I said it was sweetly pretty; but really, you know, it was not a bit nice, nor a quarter as well done as so-and-so's.'"

"No, not you; but every day we hear this sort of compromise. If that girl I spoke of, had been taxed with not speaking the truth, she would have answered: Well, it was very pretty, or, if I didn't think so, she did, and that made it quite true.'"

"I am sure you would not; but I find, for myself, that these difficulties meet one at every step, and that our being 'girt about with truth' is an everyday necessity."

"I'm sure it is," said John, "in a hundred ways. If we look-out for them, they will come to us fast enough, and we shall get used to watching ourselves."

"Not half enough, but you must think it out for yourselves; we shall not have time to-night for more than a few suggestions. We must now proceed to the 'Breastplate of Righteousness.'"

"All of us need it," answered Agnes, "for I think it is one of our best weapons against Satan."

"Don't you see that it is only as we carry the 'Breastplate of Righteousness' we can face Satan boldly, without fear?"

"But," said Hugh, very soberly, "I don't always feel bold when I meet Satan, for he often accuses me, and I have nothing to say!"

"Yes," answered Agnes, "and that is the very reason, I believe, why our God has provided the Breastplate of Righteousness—not ours but His—the perfect righteousness of Christ, in which we may face all our foes with calm confidence. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?'"

"That is a nice thought," said Hugh heartily; and Agnes, glancing up at the moment, saw the moonbeams resting on a very bright, earnest face, in which a look of peace had taken up its abode.

"It strikes me, we shall find all we need, every piece as we come to them," said John.

Agnes smiled to herself, and then Minnie, who was looking up in her eyes, said, "Shall we, Aggie?"

"'Shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace,'" said John. "That belongs to Agnes, and it suits her."

"I wish it did," she answered; "but I have thought of it like this. To have feet always ready to do our Lord's bidding; to go everywhere, not with our own poor, bare, tired feet, but shod with His Gospel of peace; a covering which will make us welcome wherever we go."

"Here we come across another reference to the power of Satan," said Agnes, "and you see there is no disgrace in taking refuge under the Shield. Satan hurls darts at those who are bearing God's name, and carrying His armour, and he hopes by their terrible fiery nature to beat down the combatant. But our Captain, who has not sent us out to battle unarmed, has provided a shield, which not only protects us from the fiery darts, but actually quenches them! The Shield of Faith. Minnie, whatever people say as you go on in life, whatever Satan may say, take your Shield of Faith and answer, 'If God be for us, who can be against us?' 'He that believeth shall not make haste.'"

"If you think it over, you will find that Jesus is your Shield in more ways than you can count; but I must leave you to find these out for yourselves. I think the other thought is the main one in our present subject."

"Yes—the crowning of all—the hope which lifts the head proudly before every foe. Salvation! Victory at last; no defeat or dismay for those who trust Him. 'Take the Helmet of Salvation,' and the joy of the Lord shall be your strength!"

"And then," pursued Agnes, "the last equipment must be taken in hand, and never put down till the fight is fought. 'Take ... the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.'"

"I often think how our Lord conquered Satan when He was on earth. Don't you remember that at every attack, He answered him by the Word of God? Satan hates to have Scripture quoted to him. He knows its power, and would by every device urge the soldier to lay down this powerful weapon. But let us all be too wary for this. Let us brighten our Sword ere we go to bed; let us grasp it afresh when we rise in the morning; let us wield it in our hearts and in our lives all day, that so the Word of Christ may dwell in us richly, and we may be able to fight the good fight of faith."

"Agnes, there's one thing I've learned from what you have been saying (besides many other things). As you went along, I came to this conclusion—"

"That, though our one piece of armour will be a first-rate reminder all through this New Year, the upshot saying is this—we must take unto us the whole armour, or we shall not be able to stand!"

"Rather," corrected Agnes, earnestly, "that we may be able to stand! You are quite right, John, it is the whole armour of God which we need."

CHAPTER XX.

AGATHA'S STORY.

ON Christmas Day, three children were walking down the lighted streets of a dark city, and were all, from different directions, wending their way to the same place.

Even though it was Christmas night, there were a few people who preferred the warm mission-room to their own homes, and these children were some of them.

The second was a little girl, who wandered in for the sake of the warm stove, for she was perished with cold.

The third was the clergyman's son, who came because his father came, and because on this night, he could not bear him to come alone.

The ragged boy, cold to the bones, with a body wasted by disease and want, crouched down in a corner, intending to go to sleep till a cup of coffee, which he knew would be given, should be offered him.

The girl put her feet as near the stove as she could, but she knew nothing about the coffee, and only prepared herself to wait till she was warm, and then intended to slip out and go away.

And the clergyman's son was longing to get home to his Christmas presents and the bright party he had left for his father's sake.

But every one of them received a Gift which they little expected, and which altered their whole lives from that day forth.

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in and sup with him, and he with Me."

By the time the clergyman had impressed this verse and its meaning on the attention of his hearers, the poor little girl was warm, and shrinkingly giving a glance behind her, for fear she should be chidden, she slipped out into the cold, windy, winter air.

Drawing her thin little shawl closer around her, she ran as fast as she could to the court in which was her home. She found her way up the dark stairs, and soon stood within her mother's attic.

There was a glimmer of fire in the grate, but it was too small to shed any light in the room.

"How long you've been!" exclaimed her mother's voice from a corner, sounding near the floor, for bedstead there was none.

"No, I ain't," answered the little girl, remembering, as she said the words, that she must have stayed full half an hour by that warm stove.

"I know it don't take you all this time to get that candle and a bit of bread; and there's yer brother been whining the whole time you've been gone."

The voice was sharp with pain and suffering, and at the same moment little Bill began his whining again.

The poor little girl lighted the farthing candle and cut her brother a piece of bread, then placed another by her mother's side, and lastly seized, rather than took, a piece herself, and sat down by the tiny fire to eat it.

But as she ate the first food she had tasted that day, before her eyes came up a picture, living as it were, and she saw over again a Kingly Stranger knocking for admittance, and promising to enter and sup with those who opened to Him.

The little girl glanced round the wretched room: no loving hand had been there to put it tidy, no hope had entered it to make it bright, no relief had come to cheer and comfort.

All that dreary Christmas Day, her mother had lain moaning on her miserable straw, and her little crippled brother had cried for food since early dawn, when the Christmas bells had sounded on the frosty air.

An hour before, a neighbour, pitying the wretchedness of the poor starving family, had made her way up the dark stairs.

"It ain't much I've got to give," she said abruptly, "but on Christmas night, I don't like to feel as you've not had a bit in your mouths all day; so here's sixpence, and you're kindly welcome."

With that she laid down the little coin, and without waiting for thanks or to inquire how the invalid was, she hastened back to her room.

And so it was to her kindness, they were indebted for that bit of candle and loaf of bread.

"He said it was our hearts," she murmured to herself, looking still at the picture in the fire.

"The gen'lman said as He was askin' to come in, and if He came in, He'd make the place as beautiful as a palace—that He would!"

"We don't want no one in here," gasped her mother; "leastways, unless they bring some'ut with 'em!"

"It's our hearts," said the girl, musingly, "and I daren't open the door for such as Him to come in; it ain't fit."

The sick woman threw herself back impatiently, but after a long, long silence she said more softly:

"Say them words over again, Meg; I've heard 'em afore, and I believe it's the Saviour as is knocking and wants to come in."

"Yes, mother," answered Meg, eagerly; "I couldn't call it to mind afore. It's the Saviour as sez He's a-coming in, if we'll have Him!"

"He's waited a long time for me to open the door," said the sick woman, "but—if He'll forgive—"

And the clergyman's son heard the message, as he had so often heard it before, and he turned away from it as he had so often turned before.

But when he reached his own chamber that night, after the pleasant family party was over, his mind went back to what he had witnessed in that mission-room.

The little starving, emaciated, ragged boy had sat with his hungry eyes waiting for the coffee; but, though the child had intended to go to sleep, he did not do it, for the clergyman made it so plain that the Saviour was knocking at his heart that he could not forget it, and he listened with deep attention to every word.

"That's me," he said; "I'm anyone, anyhow. But I'm so 'ungry and so cold and so wretched, I don't see as 'ow He can care to come into my heart."

So he listened again; and again, he heard the words, "He wants every one of you to be happy and blessed."

"He's a kind 'un, then," said the boy to himself, as the rare tears filled his sunken eyes. And then the cup of steaming coffee had come, and he had swallowed it quickly enough, and the kind clergyman had said a few words to him about the love of Jesus, and then the boy had crouched down again in the same corner as before, too ill and miserable to move.

"My poor boy," said the minister, "I am afraid you must leave here, we are going to shut it up."

"What, sir?" asked the boy, rousing a little, while a deathly pallor overspread his face.

The sentence was repeated even more gently, but the child did not take it in. He started up and stretched out his arms, calling, in a voice in which love, and yearning, and joy were all expressed, "Oh, come in, come in; I've opened the door for yer!"

With that his arms fell, and then they saw that he needed no more earthly care, for he had gone in to supper with the King of kings.

This was what the clergyman's son had seen, and as he stood in his room alone that night he thought that the knock had come to him too, and woe be to him, if he disregarded it!

"So sinful," he whispered, "so forgetful, so full of selfishness and self-seeking—if Thou comest in, Thou King of Glory, it is Thou who must make it fit, for I cannot. Nevertheless, if Thou dost knock—and Thou dost, I hear Thee—Thou shalt not knock in vain; for this very night I will echo those dying words, 'Come in, come in!'"

"Children," said Agatha, "He knocks at your hearts to-night. He wants you to let Him in, that He may bless you and dwell with you all this coming year. You will not keep Him waiting, you will not hold the door fast! Surely you will say too, 'Saviour, come in, come in.'"

So the moonlight city faded away, the little guests bade their entertainers good-night, and each one went home with new thoughts, and some of them with new hopes for the New Year.

CHAPTER XXI.

UNDER THE STARS.

AUNT RUTH had been out all the evening, and when she came home the children were walking up and down the gravel path, waiting for her.

The darkness had fallen, and the young moon had set, so that there was nothing now but the blue vault of heaven studded with twinkling, sparkling stars.

"I've been to the prayer-meeting," she said. "I want to tell you about the old woman who went to the prayer-meeting last week! It's a lovely story. I have wanted to get home quickly so that I might repeat it to you—"

"No; she told a neighbour the next morning, and the neighbour told me, with tears in her eyes, just now."

Aunt Ruth spoke in an unusually eager voice, and all the while she seemed gazing up into the sky.

"This is what the neighbour told me. There is a dear old woman who comes to the prayer-meeting very often. She is very poor, and is thankful for any little bits of work that are put in her way."

"Last week, as she was coming home from the meeting, and looking up at the stars, as we are, she suddenly thought, 'God is my Father! I'll tell Him!'"

"So she said very simply and gently, 'Lord, you know we're very hungry, and there's nothing in the cupboard at home. Please, dear Father, send us something, because you know we are hungry.'"

"'Look here, wife,' called her invalid husband, 'here's a great basket that somebody's sent us!'"

"The old woman cast her eyes upon the hamper, and then, instead of opening it, she sank on her knees by the table."

"'Dear Lord,' she said, 'I knew you'd not forget your hungry children! Thank you, dear, heavenly Father!'"

"As she took out the things one by one, she told her neighbour 'it was just like the Lord,' for there was bread, and butter, tea and sugar, and a piece of bacon! 'And didn't we have a good supper!' she concluded."

"Really happened here!" said Aunt Ruth. "The Lord is the same Lord always, 'rich unto all that call upon Him.'"

"But sometimes we ask for things and don't get an answer?" ventured Tom, in his downright fashion. "Why do you think that is, Auntie?"

"I think it may be this," said Aunt Ruth, slowly, "'your Heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of.' Sometimes we ask for things we think we have need of, and God sees that to have them would have been the very worst thing for us."

Tom looked thoughtful for a minute, and the others were thinking of instances when they had asked and not received.

"Ask for the thing you want, simply and trustfully, and say from your heart, 'If it is best for me, if it is according to Thy will—Thou knowest best,' and then leave it."

There was a pause. Then, emboldened by the darkness and the tenderness of the conversation, Jean said softly:

"I did so want something the other day, and I prayed for it; I daresay you'll think it nonsense, but I thought my tennis shoes were too shabby to go to that party in. But God did not send them, and I did not think I ought to ask mother for them—"

"When I found mother said nothing about them, I felt bad for a little while; then I prayed again, and asked Jesus not to let me mind so much—"

"That is just the way I find the Lord Jesus does help," exclaimed Aunt Ruth. "To the old woman who is hungry, He sends bread and all she wants, and to the little girl who is worried about her shoes, He sends the best thing for her in His wisdom and love—an acquiescence in His provision, and then forgetfulness of what she thought would spoil her day!"

They turned indoors now, and Jean with tear-filled eyes ran up to her bedroom, and knelt down for one instant.

"Dear Lord Jesus," she whispered, "I know you know best; help me to trust you always!"

CHAPTER XXII.

KINDLED.

"AUNT RUTH," exclaimed Jean, "do come and sit down by this fire. See! I've blown it into such a lovely blaze, because I know you love blazes."

Aunt Ruth laughed. "Where did you find that nice pair of bellows?" she asked. "I never saw them before."

"I should think you hadn't!" said Jean. "I was searching in the garret this afternoon for something mother wanted in that old chest of hers, and I came upon them, wrapped up in a sheet of old-fashioned paper, as yellow as yellow."

"Yes; she would hardly let me use them, they were such a treasure! But I told her they did nobody any good up there, hidden away, and if I left them there they would be forgotten for another twenty years—"

With which words she began blowing up the wood fire with fresh energy, enjoying the effect to the full, as who does not?

"Yes, just ready for a nice twilight story," said Rose. "They are getting the tea, and there is just time."

Aunt Ruth was always willing, though she seldom suggested a talk unless they did. Often she seized upon a little lesson from what was passing at the moment, which the children were grateful for, and did not forget.

"Well, come along, settle yourselves quickly," she said, "for if Rose is right about the tea, there will not be much time."

"Well," she responded, "it struck me as if by a flash when I saw Jean fanning the fire into that beautiful flame, how the dull fire was typical of our dull hearts, cold and dead, the spark of love and faith nearly extinguished by adverse circumstances—"

"Then comes a force outside ourselves, and with the breath of living power, He fans the little sparks till they brighten and grow warm, fanned by the love of God, and the breath of the Holy Spirit."

"I don't understand much about the Holy Spirit," said Oswald, in a low tone, "it always seems too high a subject for me."

"Yes, I can understand that, but if we think of the Holy Spirit as 'He,' not 'it,' we shall better understand that He is a Person; not only an influence, but Someone we may speak to and love."

"I am sure it does. We can pray to Him, if He is a Person—unseen, indeed, but very near and very real. When we pray to Him, the first effect I think that we shall find, will be that the little spark of love which we had to Jesus will brighten and glow."

"And then as the Holy Spirit becomes more to us—more of a living reality—the spark of our love to Jesus will grow and glow, and at length burst into a bright flame, so that others will see in our faces a beam of His holy love and holy life!"

"Well," said Oswald, hesitating a little, "that's too difficult a subject for me."

"I don't think it is, when you think it over," said Aunt Ruth, looking up. "I heard a celebrated preacher once speak on this very subject. He pressed his hearers very earnestly to make a decision then and there; to say 'Yes' to the Holy Spirit, and let Him enter their hearts. In the solemn pause which ensued, the little girl next me seemed very earnest, but it was not till afterwards that I knew about the great transaction that had taken place in her life in that quiet church."

"As we were sitting in the train going home, her hand lovingly within my arm, and her face close to my shoulder, I whispered, 'What answer did you give, darling?' And she squeezed my arm earnestly, as she whispered back, 'I said yes.'"

"Since then, children, that girl has been a devoted servant of Christ, and has done much for Him."

CHAPTER XXIII.

TOM'S PERSUASIONS.

"WE are going home to-morrow!" said Jean, with a sigh. "Auntie, are you not very sorry? Now, confess!"

"Have mother and father asked you? Don't answer if you'd rather not, auntie," he said, his cheeks burning, as he still looked in her face, "but mother is better and back again now, and she said in her letter this morning—"

"It was not curiosity," apologised Rose, "but because we did so hope you might be able."

Aunt Ruth's eyes filled. "It makes me very happy to think you want me," she said in a low tone; "but I have not been able to decide yet."

"I am afraid I ought not to have asked," said Tom, earnestly; "but as Rose said, we were so hoping you would, as mother told us before we came away, she hoped it would be settled so—"

Aunt Ruth did not gainsay it. She was looking earnestly at the quiet river and the golden trees, lighted up just now by the setting sun.

"I do not mind your having asked me in the least, dears. I have been thinking about telling you about my— about the blow that came upon me last year."

"You know I lost my dear father then, and when everything was settled up, instead of my having an income sufficient to keep me, through no fault of his, but because some investments had gone down, it was found there was not nearly enough to keep me—"

Jean showered kisses on the hand she was holding, and Oswald opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again, and was silent.

Tom was the first to venture a remark, and his gentle, grave tone was full of sympathy.

"There were many days when I could not; when I felt as if the waves went over my head. You would not understand how many things hinged on that insufficient income of mine; how hopes that had long been cherished were blighted—"

"Several homes have been offered to me, and I have been waiting to see where God would let me go."

"Your father and mother have been most kind, and not least in allowing me time to decide, so as to do nothing in a hurry."

"Mother is far from strong," said Rose. "I know she would be very glad if you were never to leave us—"

"But you and Jean will be able to help her in a year or two," said Aunt Ruth, "what then?"

"Time enough for that," said downright Tom, "and if you're right in coming to us now, when the next step comes, you'll be able to see it! Eh, auntie?"

She smiled happily, and bent forward to kiss his forehead, as he knelt before her.

"I've got hopes that in a year or two, there may be several things altered," he said, decidedly.

"I mean that there are 'promises' for you, auntie, just as much as there are for us."

"'Promises?'" she asked, stroking his hair, and thinking that, for a boy of fifteen, he had been a wonderful comfort to her all this year.

"Yes," he answered, not guessing her thoughts; "there's one that I've had on my mind all the week, 'Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you!'"

"Yes—" she answered, with a long-drawn breath, as if some heavy care were rolling off as she spoke, "yes—I must not forget that."

"And you'll come and settle down with us till some other home wants you more than we do?" asked Tom, with a gravity and sweetness which she wondered at.

"You seem to think there are a great many homes likely to want me!" she said, hesitating, with a questioning, shy look in her eyes.

"I did not say a great many," said Tom, gravely. "I know of one that isn't ready yet—and in America—and till then we want you!"

Aunt Ruth pointed to the sunset, and rose to go in; but as Tom struggled to his feet, she said softly: "Tom, I don't think there is any home in America getting ready—"

"But I know there is," said Tom, bluntly; "meanwhile, and always, 'He careth for you,' auntie!"

They went in at last, and as they were wishing good-night, Aunt Ruth said: "Children, as you all seem to want me to live with you, I am only too happy to come."

"I think it was God's assurance did it," said Tom. "I told her that she as well as we had His promise, 'He careth for you.'"

CHAPTER XXIV.

A MESSAGE FROM AMERICA.

SO the summer and the holidays had come to an end, and Aunt Ruth had "settled down," as Tom called it, and filled her own quiet little niche very happily.

After their last evening's talk at the seaside, the others were very curious to know whether Tom knew, really, of a home which was getting ready for Aunt Ruth.

Tom only shook his head whenever they asked him. "I know what I know," he said gravely, "and I have my own conclusions. It is not for me to say to everybody what I think. I'm glad Aunt Ruth is going to be with us for the present! That's all I have to do with, and you won't get more out of me if you ask me for a year!"

But all the same for that, when he got a letter one morning from America, he never mentioned the contents to anyone but his mother, and they did not know of that. It was not his own secret he was keeping.

"What makes you so bright, Tom?" asked his aunt wistfully one wintry day, as they sat over the fire together.

"Whenever I look at you, I say to myself, 'He careth for you,' auntie, and that does me good."

"But why, dear—I am very happy," she added. "You are all so loving, and I have such a much easier life than if I had to turn out on the world."

"Yes, 'He careth for you,'" said the boy, smiling. "You came and taught us to trust Him more than we ever did before, and now God lets me pass it back to you, so that you take courage to keep on!"

Tom read and re-read that letter from America, and could not make up his mind about it.

"You cannot think how you have comforted me about your Aunt Ruth! Tom! If you see any cause to tell her, or if you think it will add to her happiness, show her this letter. No one knows what it cost me to leave her without a word—but I seemed to have no right—at least, I thought so then. But sometimes I have thought—Tom, I am getting on nicely. Your text has been a great comfort, 'Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.'"

"God has cared for me wonderfully, and if you think that she whom I love would be happier to know there is some one working for her, then—then tell her, Tom, or show her this letter, and ask her if I may write the next to her."

Tom had gone up to fetch his books. As he stood in the cold, reading over these words, he felt perplexed. It seemed such a great responsibility.

Then he thought of his text, and knelt down for an instant. "Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you."

For a minute he looked soberly at the letter, then with brightening cheeks, and ran downstairs. How thankful he was that the others were out!

"Aunt Ruth," he said, hesitating a little, "I have a letter here which I was to give you or not, as I considered best. It was a great honour to be charged with so much, but I think if I were in your place, I should like to see it."

He held out his hand, and it trembled. Aunt Ruth looked up earnestly. "Who is it from, Tom?"

"Some one you knew before your grand-papa died—some one who went abroad because—"

Tom choked. "You'll see what he says; it can't do any harm, and it may be a Christmas present for you, auntie!"

Presently—it seemed a good while to Tom in the cold—Aunt Ruth came to his door.

"Tom, dear," she said, with averted face, "how can I tell you how glad I am that you told me! God has been very good to me, and, indeed, His assurance which I trusted has come abundantly true, 'He careth for you.'"

CHAPTER XXV.

HOW TO FIND.

"I've been looking and peeping about for this twenty minutes, and I can't find it!"

"Why, a shilling! I was putting some change into my purse, and it rolled from under my very fingers!"

"No; but I'm sure I haven't. I have only half-a-crown in the world, and that was in three sixpences and a shilling; and the shilling is gone! Besides, I heard it drop and roll away."

But Nancy was not satisfied with that, and went on groping about in all the likely corners, almost ready to cry at her brother's lack of sympathy, and at her own want of success.

Mary was preparing the tea busily, and did not seem to be taking much notice; but presently she said in her gentle voice, "Perhaps you have not light enough?" and while Nancy looked up with relief at someone being interested in her trouble, Mary quietly slipped out of the room.

Poor little Nancy sat down on the hearth-rug, and almost gave up her shilling; she had looked everywhere, she was certain.

Then a light came in at the door, and there was Mary with a small lamp in her hand.

"Try this," she said, holding it out so that its light sent a beam into the dark recesses round the fireplace.

Tom looked up in his sister's face. "A spiritual lesson, Moll?" he asked, with a smile at her tone.

"I thought so," she answered, "for, do you know, it exactly matched a very curious experience I had a day or so ago. I was in darkness about something, and could not at all find out what God meant me to do. I searched in the corner of experience, and in the corner of expediency, and in another of wishes, and in another of obstacles; when suddenly it flashed across me that light was what I wanted—not so much searching!"

"And then I thought of fetching the Lamp of God's Word; and as I turned over the pages, the Light shone on my difficulty, and I could see the way out of it, shining as bright as Nancy's shilling in the dark corner!"

"And that was?" asked Tom, while Nancy still held her recovered shilling in her hand, and looked earnestly at her sister.

"'Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass,'" quoted Mary.

"So I took the lesson to my heart, dears," added Mary gently, "that when we are in a difficulty, it is very often because we have not enough light; and that light is to be found in the Word of God, which is there for anyone who seeks!"

CHAPTER XXVI.

WORTH WHILE.

MARY, Cecil, Tom and Nancy were together in the cosy room where there always seemed a bright bit of fire, and a tidy table and a warm welcome.

Mary, for once, sat muffled in a shawl in the arm-chair, and the rest gathered round her, glad to make her welcome to their circle, after her enforced absence of two days in bed with a bad cold.

"Yes; I would not have believed that one person being away would make such a difference," said Cecil, looking round the room reflectively.

Tom did not add his quota of praise, but he looked very contented, and after a few moments said, smiling, "I expect you've had some thoughts up there, Moll, that would do us good! It's been mighty dry down here!"

"To have as 'a possession,'" said Mary. "You can't think how the Psalms I can say, and the hymns I have committed to memory, freshen me up if I am ill, and are so comforting to repeat to people in trouble."

"Just this," she answered earnestly, "that if in every circumstance of life, in every difficulty, danger or fear, we can claim all that is stored up for us in that wonderful name Jesus, we have solace, strength, victory assured to us. I know it, dears, and so will you, if you will believe it."

The room got darker, and the silence was unbroken for some time. Mary's voice had almost startled them with its fervour.

"When morning gilds the skies,
My heart awaking cries,
May Jesus Christ be praised
Alike in work or prayer,
To Jesus I repair,
Let Jesus Christ be praised!"

"The night becomes as day,
When from the heart we say,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The powers of darkness fear,
When this sweet chant they hear,
May Jesus Christ be praised!"

"I'll learn it," said Nancy, and perhaps the others thought the same, for Tom said gently, as he smoothed his sister's hand, "I should think it was almost worth while being ill!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

MID-WINTER.

"HERE is the first Sunday in December, Mary!" said Tom, as he went to draw the curtains. "We may as well sit in the firelight till the tea comes in."

"Yes, do let us!" said Nancy with a contented sort of sigh, as she nestled up close to her sister and laid her head on her shoulder.

"It will soon be the shortest day," remarked Mary. "I do love the shortest day!"

"Yes. When the shortest day comes, I say to myself, 'My summer has begun.' You cannot think how, to rejoice in the lengthening days, seems to shorten the winter!"

"Every bit of hopefulness does one good, you know," Mary went on softly. "You laugh at me for quoting 'Pa Gladden' so often, but he says 'Human nature air always huntin' for the cheerful,' and I have noticed that cheery people bring sunshine."

"Well, there is no better way of being cheerful than to have a firm hope in God," said Mary. "I was reading the other day one verse with a whole list of names, that David, in exulting thankfulness, calls the Lord his God. Just listen to them, and see if your heart does not grow stronger and braver and more hopeful as I repeat them—"

Mary's little Bible was tucked into her workbasket close handy, and she leant down toward the blaze of the fire to read the very words.

"'The Lord is my Rock, and my Fortress, and my Deliverer;
my God, my Strength, in whom I will trust;
my Buckler, and the horn of my Salvation, and my High Tower.'"

"All in one verse! That is a verse for those who are out in the world, fighting the everyday battles; and there is another for the weak and tired ones, that is just as wonderful—"

"Well, let's have it," said Tom in his blunt hearty fashion, "then we can take our choice."

Mary turned over the leaves rapidly, and her gentle face glowed in the firelight as she read from the 32nd of Isaiah:

"'And a man shall be as an Hiding-place from the wind;
  and a Covert from the tempest;
  as Rivers of Water in a dry place;
  as the Shadow of a Great Rock in a weary land.'"

The little head that rested on Mary's shoulder nestled closer, as Nancy murmured, "That's a nice one for the shortest day; and the other one will do for the New Year!"

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Twilight stories

Twilight

Stories.

By CATHARINE SHAW

Author of "Sunday Sunshine," "The Strange House," "At Last," etc.

John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd.,

3, Pilgrim Street,

London, E. C.

CONTENTS.