The Wide, Wide World

"Suppose, Ellie," she said at length, "that you and I were taking a journey together – a troublesome, dangerous journey – and that I had a way of getting at once safe to the end of it; would you be willing to let me go, and you do without me for the rest of the way?"

"I would rather you should take me with you," said Ellen, in a kind of maze of wonder and fear; "why, where are you going, Alice?"

"I think I am going home, Ellie, before you."

"Home?" said Ellen.

"Yes, home I feel it to be; it is not a strange land; I thank God it is my home I am going to."

Ellen sat looking at her, stupefied.

"It is your home too, love, I trust and believe," said Alice, tenderly; "we shall be together at last. I am not sorry for myself; I only grieve to leave you alone, and others, but God knows best. We must both look to Him."

"Why, Alice," said Ellen, starting up suddenly, "what do you mean? what do you mean? I don't understand you; what do you mean?"

"Do you not understand me, Ellie?"

"But Alice! but Alice, dear Alice, what makes you say so? is there anything the matter, with you?"

"Do I look well, Ellie?"

With an eye sharpened to painful keenness, Ellen sought in Alice's face for the tokens of what she wished and what she feared. It had once or twice lately flitted through her mind that Alice was very thin, and seemed to want her old strength, whether in riding, or walking, or any other exertion; and it had struck her that the bright spots of colour in Alice's face were just like what her mother's cheeks used to wear in her last illness. These thoughts had just come and gone; but now as she recalled them and was forced to acknowledge the justness of them, and her review of Alice's face pressed them home anew, hope for a moment faded. She grew white, even to the lips.

"My poor Ellie! my poor Ellie!" said Alice, pressing her little sister to her bosom, "it must be! We must say 'the Lord's will be done'; we must not forget He does all things well."

But Ellen rallied; she raised her head again; she could not believe what Alice had told her. To her mind it seemed an evil too great to happen; it could not be! Alice saw this in her look, and again sadly stroked her hair from her brow. "It must be, Ellie," she repeated.

"But have you seen somebody? have you asked somebody?" said Ellen; "some doctor?"

"I have seen, and I have asked," said Alice; "it was not necessary, but I have done both. They think as I do."

"But these Thirlwall doctors – "

"Not them; I did not apply to them. I saw an excellent physician at Randolph, the last time I went to Ventnor."

"And he said – "

"As I have told you." Ellen's countenance fell – fell.

"It is easier for me to leave you than for you to be left, I know that, my dear little Ellie! You have no reason to be sorry for me; I am sorry for you: but the hand that is taking me away is one that will touch neither of us but to do us good; I know that too. We must both look away to our dear Saviour, and not for a moment doubt His love. I do not; you must not. Is it not said that 'He loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus'?"

"Yes," said Ellen, who never stirred her eyes from Alice's.

"And might He not, did it not rest with a word of His lips, to keep Lazarus from dying, and save his sisters from all the bitter sorrow his death caused them?"

Again Ellen said, "Yes," or her lips seemed to say it.

"And yet there were reasons, good reasons, why He should not, little as poor Martha and Mary could understand it. But had He at all ceased to love them when He bade all that trouble come? Do you remember, Ellie – oh how beautiful those words are! – when at last He arrived near the place, and first one sister came to Him with the touching reminder that He might have saved them from this, and then the other, weeping and falling at His feet, and repeating 'Lord, if thou hadst been here'! when He saw their tears, and more, saw the torn hearts that tears could not ease, He even wept with them too! Oh, I thank God for those words! He saw reason to strike, and His hand did not spare; but His love shed tears for them! and He is just the same now."

Some drops fell from Alice's eyes, not sorrowful ones; Ellen had hid her face.

"Let us never doubt His love, dear Ellie, and surely then we can bear whatever that love may bring upon us. I do trust it. I do believe it shall be well with them that fear God. I believe it will be well for me when I die, well for you, my dear, dear Ellie; well even for my father – "

She did not finish the sentence, afraid to trust herself. But oh, Ellen knew what it would have been; and it suddenly startled into life all the load of grief that had been settling heavily on her heart. Her thoughts had not looked that way before; now when they did, this new vision of misery was too much to bear. Quite unable to contain herself, and unwilling to pain Alice more than she could help, with a smothered burst of feeling she sprang away, out of the door, into the woods, where she would be unseen and unheard.

And there, in the first burst of her agony, Ellen almost thought she should die. Her grief had not now indeed the goading sting of impatience; she knew the hand that gave the blow, and did not raise her own against it; she believed too what Alice had been saying, and the sense of it was, in a manner, present with her in her darkest time. But her spirit died within her; she bowed her head as if she were never to lift it up again; and she was ready to say with Job, "What good is my life to me?"

It was long, very long after, when slowly and mournfully she came in again to kiss Alice before going back to her aunt's. She would have done it hurriedly and turned away; but Alice held her and looked sadly for a minute into the woe-begone little face, then clasped her close and kissed her again and again.

"Oh, Alice," sobbed Ellen on her neck, "aren't you mistaken? maybe you are mistaken?"

"I am not mistaken, my dear Ellie, my own Ellie," said Alice's clear sweet voice; "nor sorry, except for others. I will talk with you more about this. You will be sorry for me at first, and then I hope you will be glad. It is only that I am going home a little before you. Remember what I was saying to you a while ago. Will you tell Mr. Van Brunt I should like to see him for a few minutes some time when he has leisure? And come to me early to-morrow, love."

Ellen could hardly get home. Her blinded eyes could not see where she was stepping; and again and again her fulness of heart got the better of everything else, and unmindful of the growing twilight she sat down on a stone by the wayside or flung herself on the ground to let sorrows have full sway. In one of these fits of bitter struggling with pain, there came on her mind, like a sunbeam across a cloud, the thought of Jesus weeping at the grave of Lazarus. It came with singular power. Did He love them so well? thought Ellen – and is He looking down upon us with the same tenderness even now? She felt that the sun was shining still, though the cloud might be between; her broken heart crept to His feet and laid its burden there, and after a few minutes she rose up and went on her way, keeping that thought still close to her heart. The unspeakable tears that were shed during those few minutes were that softened outpouring of the heart that leaves it eased. Very, very sorrowful as she was, she went on calmly now and stopped no more.

It was getting dark, and a little way from the gate on the road, she met Mr. Van Brunt.

"Why, I was beginning to get scared about you," said he. "I was coming to see where you was. How come you so late?"

Ellen made no answer, and as he now came nearer and he could see more distinctly, his tone changed.

"What's the matter?" said he, "you ha'n't been well! what has happened? what ails you, Ellen?"

In astonishment and then in alarm, he saw that she was unable to speak, and anxiously and kindly begged her to let him know what was the matter, and if he could do anything. Ellen shook her head.

"Ain't Miss Alice well?" said he; "you ha'n't heerd no bad news up there on the hill, have you?"

Ellen was not willing to answer this question with yea or nay. She recovered herself enough to give him Alice's message.

"I'll be sure and go," said he, "but you ha'n't told me yet what's the matter! Has anything happened?"

"No," said Ellen; "don't ask me – she'll tell you – don't ask me."

"I guess I'll go up the first thing in the morning, then," said he, "before breakfast."

"No," said Ellen; "better not – perhaps she wouldn't be up so early."

"After breakfast then – I'll go up right after breakfast. I was agoing with the boys up into that 'ere wheat lot, but anyhow I'll do that first. They won't have a chance to do much bad or good before I get back to them, I reckon."

As soon as possible she made her escape from Miss Fortune's eye and questions of curiosity which she could not bear to answer, and got to her own room. There the first thing she did was to find the eleventh chapter of John. She read it as she never had read it before; she found in it what she never had found before; one of those cordials that none but the sorrowing drink. On the love of Christ, as there shown, little Ellen's heart fastened; and with that one sweetening thought amid all its deep sadness, her sleep that night might have been envied by many a luxurious roller in pleasure.

At Alice's wish she immediately took up her quarters at the parsonage, to leave her no more. But she could not see much difference in her from what she had been for several weeks past; and with the natural hopefulness of childhood, her mind presently almost refused to believe the extremity of the evil which had been threatened. Alice herself was constantly cheerful, and sought by all means to further Ellen's cheerfulness! though careful at the same time to forbid, as far as she could, the rising of the hope she saw Ellen was inclined to cherish.

One evening they were sitting together at the window, looking out upon the same old lawn and distant landscape, now in all the fresh greenness of the young spring. The woods were not yet in full leaf; and the light of the setting sun upon the trees bordering the other side of the lawn showed them in the most exquisite and varied shades of colour. Some had the tender green of the new leaf, some were in the red or yellow browns of the half-opened bud; others in various stages of forwardness mixing all the tints between, and the evergreens standing dark as ever, setting off the delicate hues of the surrounding foliage. This was all softened off in the distance; the very light of the spring was mild and tender compared with that of other seasons; and the air that stole round the corner of the house and came in at the open window was laden with aromatic fragrance. Alice and Ellen had been for some time silently breathing it, and gazing thoughtfully on the loveliness that was abroad.

"I used to think," said Alice, "that it must be a very hard thing to leave such a beautiful world. Did you ever think so, Ellie?"

"I don't know," said Ellen faintly, "I don't remember."