about an hour afterwards, when baby had been made over to his grandfather’s care, to give his mother leisure to prepare for her wedding-day feast, robin came in from village preaching. he had a very preoccupied look, as if he were looking either far back into the past or far forward into the future, and had no eyes for anything near him.
“what are you dreaming of, robin?” exclaimed alicia gaily. “you must not put your bag of books on the top of my dough.”
“i beg pardon,” said robin in an absent manner, and he took a seat beside his sister.
alicia went on with her kneading, and rather wondered that robin, usually so obliging, made no offer to help her.
“are you composing a poem in honour of the day?” asked alicia; “or is marriage, after three years, too prosaic a subject?”
“it may be a life-long poem,” replied robin.
“i suppose that i might take that for a compliment,” said alicia, smiling, “but for the qualifying may. now tell me the truth, robin: did you not think three years ago that there was more of poetry than of wisdom in harold’s engagement—in short, that he had made a little mistake?”
robin smiled. “i am not bound to confess what i thought,” he replied.
“silence often tells as much as speech. you did not think that harold had made a little, but perhaps a great mistake,” suggested alicia.
“sister dear, i own that you looked to me too fine—too much of a delicate drawing-room belle to be suited for a mission mem,” was the candid reply; “but i only proved myself to be—a donkey.”
“no, robin; you were perfectly right,” said alicia frankly. “my harold did run a great risk, and i showed—well—presumption. i was far too ignorant, too weak, too self-willed, for a missionary’s wife. had i always remained as i was when my harold put this gold ring on my finger, i should have been utterly unfit for my position; i should have been a clog instead of a help. but i hope that i have learned something from our father’s wisdom, your plain speaking, and my dear husband’s patient love; i have also learned something from seeing my own mistakes.”
“most of all from the book which is our guide in every stage of our lives,” said robin.
“but i am still a long way from being a good mission mem,” said alicia. “i have now a much higher standard than was mine three years ago, and i feel how very far i fall short of it. miranda, who was then a poor, ignorant heathen, makes now a better worker than i do.”
“but do we not owe miranda to you?” cried robin, in his old impetuous manner. “you pitied her, you rescued her, you brought her amongst us, you have taught her all that she knows.”
“no, robin; the most precious knowledge of all was, by god’s grace, imparted through you.”
robin’s eyes glistened with inexpressible joy. he thought, but his lips were silent, that such a privilege might well repay the toil of a lifetime.
alicia, who had paused a little in her occupation, now resumed it with redoubled energy. she had not looked so fair in robin’s eyes in her wedding-dress of white satin as she did now in her simple pink print, with her sleeves tucked up and her slender hands all whitened with flour. robin watched his sister as she mixed and stirred and kneaded.
“harold is very happy,” he said at last in a dreamy tone. “there is no doubt that ‘two pull together, when yoked twain and twain,’ far better than a solitary worker.”
“that line was written for mission maidens,” observed alicia; “they are usually placed two and two in their stations.”
“not only for mission maidens,” said robin; “surely it holds good with mission couples. what a helper you are to harold! you cheer him in trouble, you share his joys, you work amongst the wives and daughters of those whose worst hindrances are in their homes. you break away the thorns that would wound your husband, you strengthen his hands in the lord, you sharpen his weapons for fight. you make harold realize the truth of that word from scripture—a prudent wife is a gift from the lord.”
“may you also prove its truth one day, dear robin,” said alicia, with a smile of gratification.
robin flushed till his very brow was suffused with crimson. had his sister guessed the secret which he thought that he had so carefully concealed from all?
“alicia, i can speak on one subject more freely to you than i can even to harold,” said robin with an effort. “you know that i can earn something now—enough, more than enough, for two with simple tastes, who live out of the world as we do, who care not for earthly show, who ask but for daily food and raiment, and a humble place in god’s vineyard. do you think, dare i hope, that i could make miranda happy?”
“you had better ask that question of herself,” said alicia, smiling. “i see that the kahars are setting down her doli in the veranda. suppose that you help her out, and leave me undisturbed to finish my wedding-day cake.”
robin went readily enough; and yet his heart beat faster than it ever had done in a moment of danger, and he experienced more of fear. he felt as if all his earthly happiness were staked on the issue of one brief interview with one around whom every fibre of his loving heart was twined. we will not record the conversation which passed in the veranda of “paradise.” before it was ended, mr. hartley and harold, with baby robin perched on his father’s shoulder, had come through the connecting doorway which had been made between the bungalows, and joined alicia, who had just completed her cake.
“where is our good brother?” asked harold. “is he at his composition at this holiday time?”
“robin is beginning his life-poem, i think,” observed the smiling alicia, glancing towards the veranda.
the words were yet on her lips when robin, his face beaming with happiness, came in, leading one who was indeed to him a gift from the lord.
and here we leave the hartleys, rich in the joy which is multiplied tenfold by having god’s blessing upon it.
robin’s playful words came true: he did marry a bride who went to church in good strong boots instead of in satin slippers. miranda proved a good and loving wife, an active, devoted worker for god. mr. hartley was a shrewd observer and a clever judge, but he never was able to decide the question which often presented itself to his mind: which was the better daughter, worker, and wife—the young convert from heathen darkness, or her fair sister,
harold’s bride.
