The Channings. Henry Wood
from a visit, Constance Channing encountered Mr. Yorke. He turned to walk with her to the door.
“I intended to call this afternoon, Constance, but was prevented from doing so,” he observed. “I have spoken to Lady Augusta.”
“Well?” she answered with a smile and a blush.
“She would be very glad of you; but the difficulty, at first, appeared to be about salary. However, I pointed out a few home truths, and she admitted that if the girls were to be educated, she supposed she must pay for it. She will give you forty guineas a year; but you are to call upon her and settle other details. To-morrow, if it should be convenient to you.”
Constance clasped her hands. “I am so pleased!” she exclaimed, in a low tone.
“So am I,” said Mr. Yorke. “I would rather you went to Lady Augusta’s than to a stranger’s. And do, Constance, try and make those poor girls more what they ought to be.”
“That I shall try, you may be sure, William. Are you not coming in?”
“No,” said Mr. Yorke, who had held out his hand on reaching the door. He was pretty constant in his evening visits to the Channings, but he had made an engagement for this one with a brother clergyman.
Constance entered. She looked in the study for her brothers, but only Arthur was there. He was leaning his elbow upon the table in a thoughtful mood.
“Where are they all?” inquired Constance.
“Tom and Charles have gone to the cricket match. I don’t think Hamish has come in.”
“Why did you not go to cricket also?”
“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “I did not feel much inclination for cricket this evening.”
“You looked depressed, Arthur, but I have some good news for you,” Constance said, bending over him with a bright smile. “It is settled about my going out, and I am to have forty guineas a year. Guess where it is to?”
Arthur threw his arm round Constance, and they stood together, looking at the trailing honeysuckle just outside the window. “Tell me, darling.”
“It is to Lady Augusta’s. William has been talking to her, and she would like to have me. Does it not seem lucky to find it so soon?”
“Lucky, Constance?”
“Ah, well! you know what I think, Arthur, though I did say ‘lucky,’” returned Constance. “I know it is God who is helping us.”
Very beautiful, very touching, was the simple trustfulness reposed in God, by Constance and Arthur Channing. The good seed had been sown on good ground, and was bringing forth its fruit.
“I was deep in a reverie when you interrupted me, Constance,” Arthur resumed. “Something seems to whisper to me that this loss, which we regard as a great misfortune, may turn out for good in the end.”
“In the end! It may have come for our good now,” said Constance. “Perhaps I wanted my pride lowered,” she laughed; “and this has come to do it, and is despatching me out, a meek governess.”
“Perhaps we all wanted it,” cried Arthur, meaningly. “There are other bad habits it may stop, besides pride.” He was thinking of Hamish and his propensity for spending. “Forty guineas you are to have?”
“Yes,” said Constance. “Arthur, do you know a scheme that I have in my head? I have been thinking of it all day.”
“What is it? Stay! here is some one coming in. It is Hamish.”
Hamish entered with the account-books under his arm, preparatory to going over them with his father. Constance drew him to her.
“Hamish, I have a plan in my head, if we can only carry it out. I am going to tell it you.”
“One that will set the river on fire?” cried gay, laughing Hamish.
“If we—you and I, and Arthur—can only manage to earn enough money, and if we can observe strict economy at home, who knows but we may send papa to the German baths yet?”
A cloud came over Hamish’s face, and his smile faded. “I don’t see how that is to be done.”
“But you have not heard of my good luck. I am going to Lady Augusta’s, and am to have forty guineas a year. Now, if you and Arthur will help, it may be easy. Oh, Hamish, it would be worth any effort—any struggle. Think how it would be rewarded. Papa restored to health! to freedom from pain!”
A look of positive pain seated itself on Hamish’s brow. “Yes,” he sighed, “I wish it could be done.”
“But you do not speak hopefully.”
“Because, if I must tell you the truth, I do not feel hopefully. I fear we could not do it: at least until things are brighter.”
“If we do our very best, we might receive great help, Hamish.”
“What help?” he asked.
“God’s help,” she whispered.
Hamish smiled. He had not yet learnt what Constance had. Besides, Hamish was just then in a little trouble on his own account: he knew very well that his funds were wanted in another quarter.
“Constance, dear, do not look at me so wistfully. I will try with all my might and main, to help my father; but I fear I cannot do anything yet. I mean to draw in my expenses,” he went on, laughing: “to live like any old screw of a miser, and never squander a halfpenny where a farthing will suffice.”
He took his books and went in to Mr. Channing. Constance began training the honeysuckle, her mind busy, and a verse of Holy Writ running through it—“Commit thy way unto the Lord, and put thy trust in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.”
“Ay!” she murmured, glancing upwards at the blue evening sky: “our whole, whole trust in patient reliance; and whatsoever is best for us will be ours.”
Annabel stole up to Constance, and entwined her arms caressingly round her. Constance turned, and parted the child’s hair upon her forehead with a gentle hand.
“Am I to find a little rebel in you, Annabel? Will you not try and make things smooth for me?”
“Oh, Constance, dear!” was the whispered answer: “it was only my fun last night, when I said you should not take me for lessons in an evening. I will study all day by myself, and get my lessons quite ready for you, so as to give you no trouble in the evening. Would you like to hear me my music now?”
Constance bent to kiss her. “No, dear child; there is no necessity for my taking you in an evening, until my days shall be occupied at Lady Augusta Yorke’s.”
CHAPTER VII. – MR. KETCH
Mrs. Channing sat with her children. Breakfast was over, and she had the Bible open before her. Never, since their earliest years of understanding, had she failed to assemble them together for a few minutes’ reading, morning and evening. Not for too long at once; she knew the value of not tiring young children, when she was leading them to feel an interest in sacred things. She would take Hamish, a little fellow of three years old, upon her knee, read to him a short Bible story, suited to his age, and then talk to him. Talk to him in a soft, loving, gentle tone, of God, of Jesus, of heaven; of his duties in this world; of what he must do to attain to everlasting peace in the next. Day by day, step by step, untiringly, unceasingly, had she thus laboured, to awaken good in the child’s heart, to train it to holiness, to fill it with love of God. As the other children came on in years, she, in like manner, took them. From simple Bible stories to more advanced Bible stories, and thence to the Bible itself; with other books at times and seasons: a little reading, a little conversation, Gospel truths impressed upon them from her earnest lips. Be you very sure that where this great duty of all duties is left unfulfilled by a mother, a child is not brought up as it ought to be. Win your child towards heaven in his early years, and he will not forget it when he is old.
It will be as a very shield, compassing him about through life. He