Mildred Keith - Complete 7 Book Collection. Finley Martha
"and certainly desire no other."
She was entirely sincere, yet it did seem a little lonely as she sat by the fire in her own room after they had gone.
But she turned resolutely to her books, soon grew interested, and after a couple of hours spent in close study, retired to bed.
Only her uncle, Miss Worth, and the children met her at the breakfast-table the next morning.
Mr. Dinsmore explained that his wife and her nieces were sleeping off their fatigue, adding, "The girls danced all night, and really it was near sunrise when we reached home."
"They must be very tired," Mildred said. "Aunt Belle and you too, uncle."
"Yes; I think your plan was the wisest, after all. But what shall you do with yourself to-day? I fear you will be left quite to your own resources."
"I assure you I will be at no loss," she returned with a cheery smile.
The first thing in order after breakfast was a ride, in which Adelaide, Louise and Lora were her companions. A very enjoyable one, the morning being bright, clear and not very cold.
On their return, as they cantered up the avenue, Adelaide exclaimed, "There's the Ion carriage at the door. What an early call Mrs. Travilla is making!"
But it was only a servant with a note for Mildred; an urgent invitation to her to drive over to Ion and spend the day.
"I send my carriage for you," wrote Mrs. Travilla, "hoping it may not return empty. Uncle Eben is a careful driver, will bring you safely, I think, and carry you back when you feel that your visit must come to an end. I should drive over for you myself, but am confined to the house by a severe cold."
No more welcome invitation could have come to Mildred. Full of delight she hastened to her room to change her riding habit for something more suitable for the occasion. That was the work of but a few moments, and leaving a message for Mrs. Dinsmore, who had not risen, she was presently bowling briskly along the road leading to Ion.
She anticipated a delightful day and was not disappointed. It was passed principally in Mrs. Travilla's boudoir and without other companionship, and seemed to Mildred very much like a day at home with her mother; for this new friend was a woman of the same spirit, and very similar gifts and graces. And she received her young guest with truly motherly warmth and tenderness of greeting.
The talk was first of Mildred's far off home and the dear ones there, then of the better land and the dearest Friend of all that either possessed; and while conversing of Him and His wondrous love their hearts were drawn very close together.
"Mrs. Travilla," Mildred said, breaking a pause in the conversation, "there is some one I want you to help me pray for; one who wants just such a kind, loving, powerful, everpresent Friend as Jesus."
"Yes, my child, I will," Mrs. Travilla responded with feeling, "we will unite our prayers, and he will know whom we mean, though I am ignorant of it; He whose precious promise is, 'If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask it shall be done of them of my Father which is in heaven.'"
"It is a precious promise," Mildred said, tears springing to her eyes. "And there are others—O, Mrs. Travilla, can you not guess whom? that I want to plead it for. Some that I love, who are very kind to me, but seem to care nothing at all about this Friend, and to have no thought or concern for anything beyond this life."
"Yes, I know," Mrs. Travilla said, pressing the girl's hand tenderly in hers, "and you may well believe that I have not known them all these years without often asking my dear Lord to reveal himself to them in all his loveliness; and now I am very, very glad to have a helper in this."
They sat silent then for some minutes, when the adornments of the room attracting Mildred's eye, reminded her of a question she had been longing to ask.
Beginning with an account of her visit to Mrs. Landreth and the talk between them, in which Mrs. Travilla seemed interested, she went on to say, with a smiling glance around the tasteful apartment, "I feel sure that you do not think as she does, and that she is not right in her views or practice either; and yet I confess I am at a loss to know how to refute her arguments. So I have wanted to ask an explanation of your views. Do you think Mrs. Landreth a really good Christian woman?"
"Yes, my dear, I do," Mrs. Travilla said "She is beyond question very self-denying and benevolent; but I think she forgets that we are to 'adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things;' and so fails to recommend it as she might to others; particularly her husband and his nephew.
"I quite agree with your mother that it is a wife's duty to study the comfort and happiness of her husband in everything that she can without violating the plain commands of God.
"Mrs. Landreth and I take different views on the question of the best way to help the poor. She gives money, I let them earn it, paying them liberally for their work; this plan encourages industry and honest pride of independence; while the other teaches them to be willing to be idle pensioners on the bounty of their richer neighbors.
"Mine certainly seems the more self-indulgent way," she added with a smile, "for my house is thus filled with pretty things while Mrs. Landreth's is left very bare of ornament; and yet I think it is the better plan."
"I am sure it is," Mildred responded with an energy and positiveness that brought a musical laugh from the lips of her friend.
"And," resumed Mrs. Travilla, "we differ quite as decidedly on the question of dress—she considering it a duty to spend as little as possible upon herself, that she may have the more to give; I thinking that those who have the means to do so without stinting their charities, or driving hard bargains with their tradesmen, should buy beautiful and expensive things in order to help and encourage manufacturers, and render themselves and their houses attractive.
"Surely God would not have implanted in us so strong a love of the beautiful, and given so much to gratify it, if he meant us to ignore and repress it."
"No, surely not," Mildred said, thoughtfully. "Oh, how good he is! how much he has given us to enjoy! there are so many beautiful sights and sounds in nature, so much to gratify the taste and smell—the perfume from your plants comes most pleasantly to my nostrils at this moment, and the sweet song of that mocking bird to my ear. And I do so love old ocean's roar and the rippling of running water. Does it not seem like a slander upon the God of love, to teach that he would have us spend all our time, effort and means on those things that are utilitarian only?"
"It certainly does; and yet are not some of these things which some condemn as mere indulgences, really useful, after all? the surroundings affect the spirits, and they in turn the health, and therefore the ability to work. Grand or beautiful scenery has often an inspiring or soothing effect, and their pictured representations the same to some extent."
"And just so with a sweet and noble face," Mildred said, "and what a lovely one that is," turning her eyes toward a painting on the opposite wall.
"Yes," returned her friend, "I love to lie on my couch and gaze upon it, when not able to sit up, and it has been a comfort and help to me in many an hour of pain or sadness. Ah who shall say that an artist's work is a waste of time—when his pencil is devoted to the reproduction of the good and beautiful—or that his God-given talent is not to be improved?"
Then she drew Mildred's attention to other paintings, and pieces of fancy work, to each of which she had a story attached: generally of a struggle with poverty and want on the part of the one of whose talent and skill it was a specimen.
These tales were told in no boastful spirit, yet Mildred learned from them a valuable lesson on the best use of wealth, and how much good might be done with it, in the way of lending a helping hand to those who needed assistance or lift them out of otherwise hopeless poverty, and how it could be accomplished without sacrificing a praiseworthy pride of independence.
Chapter Twelfth.