The Wide, Wide World

She nodded, weeping afresh.

"Do you love Him less since He has brought you into this great sorrow?"

"No," sobbed Ellen; "more."

He drew her closer to his breast, and was silent a little while.

"I am very glad to hear you say that! then all will be well. And haven't you the best reason to think that all is well with your dear mother?"

Ellen almost shrieked. Her mother's name had not been spoken before her in a great while, and she could hardly bear to hear it now. Her whole frame quivered with hysterical sobs.

"Hush, Ellie!" said John, in a tone that, low as it was, somehow found its way through all her agitation, and calmed her like a spell; "have you not good reason to believe that all is well with her?"

"Oh yes! oh yes!"

"She loved and trusted Him too; and now she is with Him; she has reached that bright home where there is no more sin, nor sorrow, nor death."

"Nor parting either," sobbed Ellen, whose agitation was excessive.

"Nor parting! and though we are parted from them, it is but for a little; let us watch and keep our garments clean, and soon we shall be all together, and have done with tears for ever. She has done with them now. Did you hear from her again?"

"Oh no; not a word!"

"That is a hard trial. But in it all, believe, dear Ellie, the love that God hath toward us; remember that our dear Saviour is near us, and feels for us, and is the same at all times. And don't cry so, Ellie."

He kissed her once or twice, and begged her to calm herself. For it seemed as if Ellen's very heart was flowing away in her tears; yet they were gentler and softer far than at the beginning. The conversation had been a great relief. The silence between her and Alice on the thing always in her mind, a silence neither of them dared to break, had grown painful. The spell was taken off; and though at first Ellen's tears knew no measure, she was easier even then; as John soothed her and went on with his kind talk, gradually leading it away from their first subject to other things, she grew not only calm, but more peaceful at heart than months had seen her. She was quite herself again before Alice came home.

"You have done her good already," exclaimed Alice as soon as Ellen was out of the room; "I knew you would; I saw it in her face as soon as I came in."

"It is time," said her brother. "She is a dear little thing!"

The next day, in the middle of the morning, Ellen, to her great surprise, saw Sharp brought before the door with the side-saddle on, and Mr. John carefully looking to the girth, and shortening the stirrup.

"Why, Alice," she exclaimed, "what is Mr. John going to do?"

"I don't know, Ellie, I am sure; he does queer things sometimes. What makes you ask?"

Before she could answer, he opened the door.

"Come, Ellen, go and get ready. Bundle up well, for it is rather frosty. Alice, has she a pair of gloves that are warm enough? Lend her yours, and I'll see if I can find some at Thirlwall."

Ellen thought she would rather not go; to anybody else she would have said so. Half a minute she stood still, then went to put on her things.

"Alice, you will be ready by the time we get back? in half-an-hour."

Ellen had an excellent lesson, and her master took care it should not be an easy one. She came back looking as she had not done all winter. Alice was not quite ready; while waiting for her, John went to the bookcase and took down the first volume of "Rollin's Ancient History;" and giving it to Ellen, said he would talk with her to-morrow about the first twenty pages. The consequence was, the hour and a half of their absence, instead of being moped away, was spent in hard study. A pair of gloves was bought at Thirlwall; Jenny Hitchcock's pony was sent for; and after that, every day when the weather would at all do, they took a long ride. By degrees reading and drawing and all her studies were added to the history, till Ellen's time was well filled with business again. Alice had endeavoured to bring this about before, but fruitlessly. What she asked of her Ellen indeed tried to do; what John told her was done. She grew a different creature. Appetite came back; the colour sprang again to her cheek; hope, meek and sober as it was, relighted her eye. In her eagerness to please and satisfy her teacher, her whole soul was given to the performance of whatever he wished her to do. The effect was all that he looked for.

The second evening after he came, John called Ellen to his side, saying he had something he wanted to read to her. It was before candles were brought, but the room was full of light from the blazing wood fire. Ellen glanced at his book as she came to the sofa; it was a largish volume in a black leather cover a good deal worn; it did not look at all interesting.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It is called," said John, "'The Pilgrim's Progress from this World to a Better.'"

Ellen thought it did not sound at all interesting. She had never been more mistaken in her life, and that she found almost as soon as he began. Her attention was nailed; the listless, careless mood in which she sat down was changed for one of rapt delight; she devoured every word that fell from the reader's lips; indeed they were given their fullest effect by a very fine voice and singularly fine reading. Whenever anything might not be quite clear to Ellen, John stopped to make it so; and with his help, and without it, many a lesson went home. Next day she looked a long time for the book; it could not be found; she was forced to wait until evening. Then, to her great joy, it was brought out again, and John asked her if she wished to hear some more of it. After that, every evening while he was at home they spent an hour with the "Pilgrim." Alice would leave her work and come to the sofa too; and with her head on her brother's shoulder, her hand in his, and Ellen's face leaning against his other arm, that was the common way they placed themselves to see and hear. No words can tell Ellen's enjoyment of those readings. They made her sometimes laugh and sometimes cry; they had much to do in carrying on the cure which John's wisdom and kindness had begun.

They came to the place where Christian loses his burden at the cross; and as he stood looking and weeping, three shining ones came to him. The first said to him, "Thy sins be forgiven thee;" the second stripped him of his rags and clothed him with a change of raiment; the third also set a mark on his forehead.

John explained what was meant by the rags and the change of raiment.

"And the mark in his forehead?" said Ellen.

"That is the mark of God's children – the change wrought in them by the Holy Spirit – the change that makes them different from others, and different from their old selves."

"Do all Christians have it?"

"Certainly. None can be a Christian without it."

"But how can any one tell whether one has it or no?" said Ellen, very gravely.

"Carry your heart and life to the Bible and see how they agree. The Bible gives a great many signs and descriptions by which Christians may know themselves – know both what they are and what they ought to be. If you find your own feelings and manner of life at one with these Bible words, you may hope that the Holy Spirit has changed you and set His mark upon you."

"I wish you would tell me of one of those places," said Ellen.

"The Bible is full of them. 'To them that believe Christ is precious,' there is one. 'If ye love me keep my commandments'; 'He that saith He abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked'; 'Oh how love I Thy law.' The Bible is full of them, Ellie; but you have need to ask for great help when you go to try yourself by them; the heart is deceitful."

Ellen looked sober all the rest of the evening, and the next day she pondered the matter a good deal.

"I think I am changed," she said to herself at last. "I didn't use to like to read the Bible, and now I do very much; I never liked praying in old times, and now, oh, what should I do without it! I didn't love Jesus at all, but I am sure I do now. I don't keep His commandments, but I do try to keep them; I must be changed a little. Oh, I wish mamma had known it before – "

Weeping with mixed sorrow and thankful joy, Ellen bent her head upon her little Bible to pray that she might be more changed; and then, as she often did, raised the cover to look at the text in the beloved handwriting.

"I love them that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me."

Ellen's tears were blinding her. "That has come true," she thought.

"I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee."

"That has come true too!" she said, almost in surprise, "and mamma believed it would." And then, as by a flash, came back to her mind the time it was written; she remembered how when it was done her mother's head had sunk upon the open page; she seemed to see again the thin fingers tightly clasped; she had not understood it then; she did now! "She was praying for me," thought Ellen; "she was praying for me! she believed that would come true."

The book was dashed down, and Ellen fell upon her knees in a perfect agony of weeping.

Even this, when she was calm again, served to steady her mind. There seemed to be a link of communion between her mother and her that was wanting before. The promise, written and believed in by the one, realised and rejoiced in by the other, was a dear something in common, though one had in the meanwhile removed to heaven, and the other was still a lingerer on the earth. Ellen bound the words upon her heart.

Another time, when they came to the last scene of Christian's journey, Ellen's tears ran very fast. John asked if he should pass it over? if it distressed her? She said, Oh no, it did not distress her; she wanted him to go on, and he went on, though himself much distressed, and Alice was near as bad as Ellen. But the next evening, to his surprise, Ellen begged that before he went on to the second part he would read that piece over again. And when he lent her the book, with only the charge that she should not go further than he had been, she pored over that scene with untiring pleasure till she almost had it by heart. In short, never was a child more comforted and contented with a book than Ellen was with the "Pilgrim's Progress." That was a blessed visit of John's. Alice said he had come like a sunbeam into the house; she dreaded to think what would be when he went away.

She wrote him, however, when he had been gone a few weeks, that his will seemed to carry all before it, present or absent. Ellen went on steadily mending; at least she did not go back any. They were keeping up their rides, also their studies, most diligently. Ellen was untiring in her efforts to do whatever he had wished her, and was springing forward, Alice said, in her improvement.

CHAPTER XXXV