Miss Prudence. Mrs. Nathaniel Conklin
she was not always attentive; Mr. Holmes told her that she lacked concentration and that she could not succeed without it. Marjorie was very anxious to "succeed." She scribbled awhile, making a comma and a dash, a parenthesis, an interrogation point, an asterisk and a line of asterisks! But the sense was not changed; there was nobody new in the stage-coach and nobody did anything new. Then she rewrote it again, giving the little child to the foreigner and lady; she wanted the child to have a father and mother, even if the father were a foreigner and did not speak English; she called the foreigner Mr. Angelo, and imagined him to be a brother of the celebrated Michael Angelo; making a dive into the shallow depths of her knowledge of Italian nomenclature she selected a name for the child, a little girl, of course—Corrinne would do, or it might be a boy and named for his uncle Michael. In what age of the world had Michael Angelo lived? At the same time with Petrarch and Galileo, and Tasso and—did she know about any other Italians? Oh, yes. Silvio Pellico—wasn't he in prison and didn't he write about it? And was not the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy? Was that one of the Seven Wonders of the World? And weren't there Seven Wise Men of Greece? And wasn't there a story about the Seven Sleepers? But weren't they in Asia? And weren't the churches in Revelation in Asia? And wasn't the one at Laodicea lukewarm? And did people mix bread with lukewarm water in summer as well as winter? And wasn't it queer—why how had she got there? But it was queer for the oriental king to refuse to believe and say it wasn't so—that water couldn't become hard enough for people to walk on it! And it was funny for the East Indian servant to be alarmed because the butter was "spoiled," just because when they were up in the mountains it became hard and was not like oil as it was down in Calcutta! And that was where Henry Martyn went, and he dressed all in white, and his face was so lovely and pure, like an angel's; and angels were like young men, for at the resurrection didn't it say they were young men! Or was it some other time? And how do you spell resurrection? Was that the word that had one s and two r's in it? And how would you write two r's? Would punctuation teach you that? Was B a word and could you spell it?
"Well, Marjorie?"
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Marjorie. "I've been away off! I always do go away off! I don't remember what the last thing I thought of was. I never shall be concentrated," she sighed. "I believe I could go right on and think of fifty other things. One thing always reminds me of some thing else."
"And some day," rebuked Miss Prudence, "when you must concentrate your thoughts you will find that you have spoiled yourself."
"I have found it out now," acknowledged Marjorie humbly.
"I have to be very severe with myself."
"I ought to be," Marjorie confessed with a rueful face, "for it spoils my prayers so often. I wouldn't dare tell you all the things I find myself thinking of. Why, last night—you know at the missionary meeting they asked us to pray for China and so I thought I'd begin last night, and I had hardly begun when it flashed into my mind—suppose somebody should make me Empress of China, and give me supreme power, of course. And I began to make plans as to how I should make them all Christians. I thought I wouldn't force them or destroy their temples, but I'd have all my officers real Christians; Americans, of course; and I thought I would compel them to send the children to Christian schools. I'd have such grand schools. I had you as principal for the grandest one. And I'd have the Bible and all our best books, and all our best Sunday School books translated into Chinese and I would make the Sabbath a holy day all over the land. I didn't know what I would do about that room in every large house called the Hall of Ancestors. You know they worship their grandparents and great-great-grandparents there. I think I should have to let them read the old books. Isn't it queer that one of the proverbs should be like the Bible? 'God hates the proud and is kind to the humble.' Do you know all about Buddha?"
"Is that as far as you got in your prayer?" asked Miss Prudence, gravely.
"About as far. And then I was so contrite that I began to pray for myself as hard as I could, and forgot all about China."
"Do you wander off in reading the Bible, too?"
"Oh, no; I can keep my attention on that. I read Genesis and Exodus last Sunday. It is the loveliest story-book I know. I've begun to read it through. Uncle James said once, that when he was a sea-captain, he brought a passenger from Germany and he used to sit up all night and read the Bible. He told me last Sunday because he thought I read so long. I told him I didn't wonder. Miss Prudence," fixing her innocent, questioning eyes upon Miss Prudence's face, "why did a lady tell mother once that she didn't want her little girl to read the Bible through until she was grown up? It was Mrs. Grey—and she told mother she ought not to let me begin and read right through."
"What did your mother say?"
"She said she was glad I wanted to do it."
"I think Mrs. Grey meant that you might learn about some of the sin there is in the world. But if you live in the world, you will be kept from the evil, because Christ prayed that his disciples might be thus kept; but you must know the sin exists. And I would rather my little girl would learn about the sins that God hates direct from his lips than from any other source. As soon as you learn what sin is, you will learn to hate it, and that is not sure if you learn it in any other way. I read the Bible through when I was about your age, and I think there are some forms of sin I never should have hated so intensely if I had not learned about them in the way God thinks best to teach us his abhorrence of them. I never read any book in which a sin was fully delineated that I did not feel some of the excitement of the sin—some extenuation, perhaps, some glossing over, some excuse for the sinner—but in the record God gives I always intensely hate the sin and feel how abominable it is in his sight. The first book I ever cried over was the Bible and it was somebody's sin that brought the tears. I would like to talk to Mrs. Grey!" cried Miss Prudence, her eyes kindling with indignation. "To think that God does not know what is good for his children."
"I wish you would," said Marjorie with enthusiasm, "for I don't know how to say it. Mother knows a lady who will not read Esther on Sunday because God isn't in it"
"The name of God, you mean," said Miss Prudence smiling. "I think Esther and Mordecai and all the Jews thought God was in it."
"I will try not to build castles," promised Marjorie often a silent half minute. "I've done it so much to please Linnet. After we go to bed at night she says, 'Shut your eyes, Marjie, and tell me what you see,' Then I shut my eyes and see things for us both. I see ourselves grown up and having a splendid home and a real splendid husband, and we each have three children. She has two boys and one girl, and I have two girls and one boy. And we educate them and dress them so nice, and they do lovely things. We travel all around the world with them, and I tell Linnet all we see in Europe and Asia. Our husbands stay home and send us money. They have to stay home and earn it, you know," Marjorie explained with a shrewd little smile. "Would you give that all up?" she asked disappointedly.
"Yes, I am sure I would. You are making a disappointment for yourself; your life may not be at all like that. You may never marry, in the first place, and you may marry a man who cannot send you to Europe, and I think you are rather selfish to spend his money and not stay home and be a good wife to him," said Miss Prudence, smiling.
"Oh. I write him splendid long letters!" said Marjorie quickly. "They are so splendid that he thinks of making a book of them."
"I'm afraid they wouldn't take," returned Miss Prudence seriously, "books of travel are too common nowadays."
"Is it wrong to build castles for any other reason than for making disappointments?" Marjorie asked anxiously.
"Yes, you dwell only on pleasant things and thus you do not prepare yourself, or rather un-prepare yourself for bearing trial. And why should a little girl live in a woman's world?"
"Oh, because it's so nice!" cried Marjorie.
"And are you willing to lose your precious childhood and girlhood?"
"Why no," acknowledged the child, looking startled.
"I think you lose a part of it when you love best to look forward to womanhood; I should think every day would be full enough for you