CHAPTER XXIII. A RATIONALIST OF THE OLD SCHOOL.
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“I KNEW you would come,” said Mrs. Dlimm, taking
both of Lottie's hands with utter absence
of all formality. “Husband said I needn't look for
you any more, but I felt it in my bones—no, my
heart—that you would come. When I feel a thing is
going to take place it always does. So you are here.
I am very glad to see your—Mr. Hemstead—
too. This is splendid.” And Mrs. Dlimm exultantly
ushered Lottie into the room that, when last seen,
was crowded with such a motley assembly. Hemstead
meanwhile drove the horse to an adjacent shed.
“But he isn't my Mr. Hemstead,” said Lottie,
laughing.
“Well, it seems as if he were related, or belonged
to you in some way. When I think of one, I can't
help thinking of the other.”
“O dear,” exclaimed Lottie, still laughing, blushing,
and affecting comic alarm, “being joined together
by a minister's wife is almost as bad as by the
minister himself.”
“Almost as good, you mean. You would have
my congratulation rather than sympathy if you
secured such a prince among men.”
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“How little you know about him, Mrs. Dlimm
He is going to be a poor, forlorn home missionary;
and your husband's increased salary will be royal
compared with his.”
“He will never be forlorn; and how long will he
be poor?”
“All his life possibly.”
“That's not very long. What will come after?
What kind of a master is he serving?”
“Do you know,” said Lottie, lowering her tone,
and giving her chair a little confidential hitch toward
the simple-hearted lady with whom formality and
circumlocution were impossible, “that I am beginning
to think about these things a great deal.”
“I don't wonder, my dear,” said Mrs. Dlimm,
with a little sigh of satisfaction; “no one could help
thinking about him who saw his manly courtesy and
tact the evening you were here.”
“Oh no,” said Lottie, blushing still more deeply,
“I did not mean that. Please understand me. Mr.
Hemstead is only a chance acquaintance that I have
met while visiting my aunt, Mrs. Marchmont. I
mean that when I was here last I was a very naughty
girl, but I have since been thinking how I could be
a better one. Indeed, I would like to be a Christian, as
you are.”
In a moment the little lady was all tender solicitude.
She was one who believed in conversion;
and to her, being converted was the greatest event
of life.
But just then Hemstead entered, and she had
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enough natural, womanly interest—not curiosity—to
note the unconscious welcome of Lottie's eyes, and
the quick color come and go in her face, as if a fire
were burning in her heart and throwing its flickering
light upon her fair features.
“Chance acquaintance, indeed,” she thought.
“Why, here is this city-bred girl blushing as I
once did about Mr. Dlimm. Whether she knows
it or not, her blushes must tell the same story as
mine.”
But though Mrs. Dlimm was so unconventional,
she had tact, and turned the conversation on the
subject of the donation party.
“See here,” she exclaimed exultantly, tugging a
bulky commentary, “this is one of the results of
your coming the other evening. Mr. Dlimm has
been wanting this book a long time, and now he
pores over it so much that I am getting jealous.”
“The opinions expressed in such a ponderous
volume ought to have great weight, surely,” said
Hemstead, smiling.
“And do you know,” she continued, in an aside
to Lottie, “that each of the children has had a new
warm winter suit, and, wonderful to tell, I have
bought myself a dress right from the store, instead
of making over something sent me by brother Abel's
wife from New York.”
Lottie's eyes moistened, and she said in half soliloquy,
“I didn't know it was so nice and easy to
make others happy.”
“Ah! depend upon it, you are learning lots of
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things,' said Mrs. Dlimm, significantly. “When God
begins to teach, then we do learn—and something
worth knowing, too.”
“I thought that God's lessons were very hard
and painful,” said Lottie to Hemstead, with a spice
of mischief in her manner.
“Mrs. Dlimm is a better authority than I was,”
he replied, with a quick flush. “Do you know,” he
continued, addressing their hostess, “that Miss
Marsden has done more to teach me how to preach
than all my years at the seminary.”
“Surely,” exclaimed Mrs. Dlimm, “that's a rather
strong statement. I can understand how Miss Marsden
can do a great deal for one. We have had very
nice experience in that direction; but just how
she should teach you more than all the grave
professors and learned text-books is not clear at
once.”
“Well, she has,” he maintained stoutly. “I
doubt whether your husband gets as much light upon
the Bible from that huge commentary there as Miss
Marsden gave me in one afternoon.”
Mrs. Dlimm turned her eyes inquiringly toward
Lottie, who said, laughingly:
“It would seem, last week, that I was a heathen
and Mr. Hemstead a heretic.”
“And what are you now?”
“Oh, he's all right now.”
“And not you?”
“I fear I always will be a little crooked; but I
hope I am not exactly a heathen any longer.”
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“Miss Marsden was a heathen as Nathaniel was
a shrewd and dishonest Jew,” said Hemstead.
“What kind of a Jew was Nathaniel?” asked
Lottie innocently.
“Christ said, when he first saw him,” replied
Mrs. Dlimm, smiling, “`Behold an Israelite indeed,
in whom is no guile.'”
Then both were puzzled at Lottie's sudden and
painful flush, but they ascribed it to her modesty;
and Hemstead, to give her time to recover herself,
gave a brief sketch of his sermon, and how, in the
afternoon, while reading, at Lottie's suggestion, the
complete story of Lazarus, they both had seen the
unspeakable sympathy of Christ for those He sought
to save.
“Oh, dear,” thought Lottie, “when shall I escape
the consequences of my foolish jest? `Without
guile,' indeed!”
Mr. Dlimm now appeared, and he and Hemstead
were soon discussing the rendering of an obscure
passage, upon which the big commentary gave the
conflicting opinions of a dozen learned doctors.
Mrs. Dlimm carried Lottie off to her sanctum, the
nursery—the fruitful source of questions and mysteries
the learned doctors would find still more difficult
to solve.
“And you are contented with this narrow round
of life?” asked Lottie, curiously, as Mrs. Dlimm finished
the narration of what seemed to her very tame
experience.
“Narrow!” said Mrs. Dlimm reproachfully, “my
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life and work are not narrow. I have six little immortals
to train. A million years hence they will
either bless or reproach me. What consideration in
fashionable life is equal to that? Besides, my husband
is engaged in the same kind of work that
brought the Son of God from heaven to earth. It is
my privilege to help him. Scrub Oaks is as much of
a place as many of the villages in which He preached
and I am grateful that I can take part in so royal a
calling.”
“Mrs. Dlimm,” said Lottie, with sudden animation,
“I wouldn't wonder if you and your husband
were very great people in heaven.”
“Oh!” cried the little lady laughing. “We
never think of that. Why should we? But I know
there will be a nook there for us, and the thought
makes me very happy.”
“And you really and truly have been happy in all
your toil and privations.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Dlimm, with a strange, far-away
look coming into her large blue eyes; “when everything
on earth has been darkest I have been most
happy, and this has confirmed my faith. Little
children are sources of great joy, but they also cause
much pain and anxiety. Yet when I have been
suffering most—when the wardrobe has been scanty
and the larder almost bare, God has taken me to His
heart as I clasp this child here, and comforted by
assuring me, `Never fear, my child I will take care
care of you and yours. See how He keeps His word.
He sent you here, with your bright, sunny face. He
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sent Mr. Hemstead here; and between you both we
shall make a long stage of our homeward journey
most pleasantly.”
“I never heard any one talk like you before,” said
Lottie, musingly. “You seem to believe all the
Bible says, as if it were actually right before you.”
“Believe! Why not? The idea of God not
keeping his word!”
“And is faith just the certainty that God will
keep His word?”
“That is just faith; and though this great world—
for little bits of which people lose their souls—shall
pass away, God's word shall stand until His least
promise is fulfilled.”
“That is not our creed on Fifth Avenue,” said
Lottie sadly. “The world first, God last. But you
sometimes, surely, wish that Mr. Dlimm was rich,
and that you could have for him and the children
and yourself all that heart could wish?”
“I used to feel so occasionally, but I have got
past that now. God loves my husband and children
better than I do, and He will provide what is best for
us all. I simply try to rest in His arms as this child
does in mine.”
“How strange it all is,” said Lottie thoughtfully.
“Why strange? Your earthly father provides for
you the best he can; and if our Heavenly Father
provides for us in the same way, surely will not His
be the better provision? What an absurd, unnatural
thing it is to suppose there is anything better than
what God will give his own dear children. Are not
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both earth and heaven His? and He has promised
the best of both to us.”
“I can scarcely realize it all yet,” said Lottie, with
tears in her eyes. “I suppose it is because you are
so natural and true that you seem so odd to me, who
have been brought up among those that I fear look
at things in false lights.”
“I think I understand you, my dear,” said Mrs.
Dlimm, hopefully. “A child's penny toy will hide a
great mountain if held too near the eyes. It is thus
the eyes of the worldly are blinded by trifles till I
fear some will never see God or heaven. But He
is teaching you better. As long as you follow His
gentle leadings, and the pure impulses of your own
heart, all will be well. But as soon as you begin to
take counsel of the world and its self-seeking spirit,
you will find yourself in trouble. If we wish to prosper
and be happy in God's world, we must do His
will. This is good, sound, common sense, which the
experience of every age has borne out. It often
seems hard at first, my dear, as you will find out. The
scourging was very hard to bear; but Paul and Silas,
singing in prison, with their feet made fast in the
stocks, were better off than their jailor, who was about
to kill himself and the magistrates, who, no doubt,
were in mortal fear because of the earthquake. We,
too, can sing, whatever happens, as long as God and
conscience are upon our side.”
It will thus be seen that Mrs. Dlimm was a
rationalist as well as a believer, though not of the
new school.
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For some reason, her philosophy was peculiarly
acceptable to Lottie, and though scarcely conscious
why, the exhortation to follow the impulses of her
own heart seemed especially natural and right; but
her fashionable mother would have been alarmed indeed,
if she had known that her beautiful daughter
was becoming the disciple of Mrs. Dlimm.
Though their call was by no means a short one, it
passed all too quickly. The memory of it would
never fade from Lottie's mind; and it became another
link in the chain by which God was seeking to bind
her to a better future than her friends could dream
of in their earthly ambition.
“I am very glad I made this visit,” Lottie said, as
they were hastening home lest they should be late to
dinner. “It was very kind of you to take me so far.”
He turned and lifted his eye-brows comically.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked.
“To hear you, one would think that I had been a
martyr for your sake, while, in truth, I never enjoyed
myself more.”
“Yes,” said she, “but you welcome afflictions and
trials of your patience.'
“Would that I might be ever thus afflicted!” he
exclaimed impulsively. Then, suddenly becoming
conscious of the natural suggestion of his words, he
blushed deeply; but not more so than Lottie, who
turned away her face to hide her flaming cheeks. He,
misinterpreting the act, thought that she meant a
hint that such remarks were not agreeable, and was
thinking how to remedy what he now regarded as a
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very foolish speech, when she, with woman's tact, led
the conversation to unembarrassing topics, and before
they were aware the horse stopped at Mrs. Marchmont's
door.
Lottie disarmed both suspicion and censure to a
considerable extent by saying, “I had promised Mrs.
Dlimm to come and see her again, and wished to
keep my word. I knew no one would care to go
there save Mr. Hemstead, so I took him to see
the parson while I visited the parson's wife. I enjoyed
my call very much, too; and as Mr. Hemstead
and Mr. Dlimm had a great argument over a knotty
theological point, I suppose he feels somewhat repaid
also.”
This put matters in quite another light. That
one should go to see a parson's wife, and the other to
discuss theology with the parson, was very different
from stealing off for an indefinite ride with the purpose
of being alone together. De Forrest was quite
comforted, and was even inclined to regard Lottie as
rather considerate in not asking him to accompany
her when visiting such undesirable people as the
Dlimms. Though why she should wish to visit them
herself was a mystery. But then, he thought, “Lottie
is odd and full of queer moods and whims. Let
her indulge them now, because, as my wife, they will
scarcely be the thing.”
He was still more comforted by noting that she
did not have a great deal to say to Hemstead—indeed,
that she rather avoided him.
“She has had enough, and too much, of his heavy
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stupid company,” he thought, “and finds that even
the carrying out of the practical joke is too hard
work. If I can only get another good opportunity,
I won't wait till she goes to sleep before bringing the
question to an issue.”
But Lottie give him no opportunity, and while
kind and gentle toward him, adroitly managed that
they should never be alone.
And Hemstead also, who had found their private
tête-á-têtes so delightful and productive of good results,
was equally unable to be alone with her—not
that Lottie was averse, but because she saw that
lynx-eyed Bel was watching her; and again for the
hundreth time she wished her cynical friend back in
the city.
Lottie's manner and apparent reserve were so
marked at one time, that Hemstead began to grow
troubled, though why he scarcely knew. There was
no cause, save the peculiar sensitiveness of one whose
sunshine is beginning to come, not from the skies,
but the changing features of a fellow mortal.
Lottie quickly saw his shadowed face, and surmised
the cause. Soon after, when his eyes were
questioningly seeking hers, she gave him such a
sunny genial smile as to assure him that whatever
might be the cause of her somewhat distant manner,
it did not result from any estrangement from him.
Heretofore when Lottie liked a gentleman, she
had been frank in showing that preference within the
limits of lady-like bearing. But, for some reason, she
began to grow excessively shy in manifesting any
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interest in Hemstead the others could note. The
reason, with which she satisfied herself, but partially
explained her feeling.
“They will think I am still trying to carry out
my wicked, foolish joke.”
But she did long for another unrestrained talk
with him, and watched keenly to secure it without
exciting remark. De Forrest did all he could to prevent
this, however, and Bel unconsciously became his
ally. With woman's quick perception, she saw that
Lottie was indulging in something more than a
“mood,” and felt that it was a duty she owed to her
friend to prevent mischief.
Thus Monday and Tuesday passed away, Lottie
being too circumspect to give Bel sufficient cause for
speaking plainly.
Dan and Mr. Dimmerly were the only ones of
the household who regarded the change in Lottie
with unmixed satisfaction. Not giving a thought
to the cause, they were pleased with the gentleness
and attention which resulted.
“Lottie,” said her brother Dan, as she kissed him
good-night, after telling a marvellously good story,
“what has come over you? You make me think of
Aunty Jane.”
“I must be growing good indeed, if I remind any
one of Auntie Jane,” thought Lottie exultantly.
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Roe, Edward Payson, 1838-1888 [1875], From jest to earnest. (Dodd & Mead, New York) [word count] [eaf668T].
