Warner Susan
The End of a Coil

CHAPTER II
CHRISTINA AND HER MOTHER

Mrs. Eberstein watched during the next few days, to see, if she could, whether the sudden resolve taking on Dolly's part that first evening "meant anything," as she expressed it, or not. She remained in doubt. Dolly was thoughtful certainly, and sweet certainly; "but that don't tell," Mrs. Eberstein remarked; "it is her characteristic." It was equally certain that she had attached herself with a trustful, clinging affection to the new friends whose house and hearts had received her. Dolly's confidence was given to them fully and heartily from that very first day; and they saw that it was.

Nearly a week passed before the school-term began. Meanwhile Dolly was taken about, in walks and drives, to see all that her friends thought would interest her. Everything interested her, they found; and upon every subject presented to her, her little head went to work; the result of which was the putting of a question now and then, which afforded her guardians, perhaps, as much entertainment as the ground of the question had given Dolly. These questions, however, were called forth most of all by the subject which had seized hold of Dolly's mind with such force that first evening. Mrs. Eberstein had not forgotten her promise about the Bible. One of the first expeditions undertaken the next day had been in search of one; successful, in the judgment of both Dolly and her aunt; and since then the book was very often to be seen in Dolly's hands.

"What are you reading there, Dolly?" Mr. Eberstein asked, corning in one evening just before dinner. Dolly was on a low seat at the corner of the fireplace, reading by the shine of a fire of Liverpool coal, which threw warm lights all over the little figure. She looked up and said it was her Bible she was studying.

"You will put out your eyes."

"Oh no, Uncle Edward; the print is so good, and the fire makes such a nice blaze, I can see perfectly."

"And pray, what are you looking for, or what are you finding, in that book, little one?"

"I am looking for a great deal, – and I am finding a little," was Dolly's reply.

"Different with me," said Mr. Eberstein with a short laugh. "I generally find more in the Bible than I look for."

"What do you look for in it?" said Dolly, raising her head which had gone down to the reading.

Mr. Eberstein laughed again.

"Truly, Dolly," he said, "you have hit me there! I believe I often open the Bible without looking for anything in particular."

"Perhaps that makes the difference," said Dolly, letting her eyes fall again to her page.

"Perhaps it does; but, Dolly, I should very much like to know what you are looking for?"

"I am looking to find out the will of God, Uncle Edward."

"Come here, my pet," said Mr. Eberstein, coaxing the little girl into his arms and setting her on his knee. "What do you want to find out the will of God for? what about?"

"About me."

"What do you want to know the will of God about you for?"

"I want to do it, Uncle Edward."

"There couldn't be a better reason. Jesus says, 'He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me.' Do you find what you seek?"

"I find some," said Dolly.

"Where were you reading just now?"

"About Abraham."

"Abraham! What do you find in Abraham's life, may I ask, that tells you the will of God about Dolly Copley? You are not called upon to leave your country and go out into a strange land."

"No; not that. But God said to Abraham, 'Walk before Me, and be thou perfect.' And it puzzles me."

"What puzzles you?"

"I don't see how I can 'walk before Him.'"

"Dolly, – the Lord is here, here where we are, wherever we are."

"Yes. I know that."

"Then, if you know that and remember it, and do everything you do in His presence, and feeling that it is in His presence, you will be walking before Him; don't you see? Just as if Jesus were here again upon earth, and you were always with Him; only you do not see Him now. He sees you."

"And 'be perfect'?" said Dolly questioningly.

"Yes. That means, I think, don't try to serve two masters. If you love God with all your heart, and give Him your whole life and service, – not a part of it, – that is what the word to Abraham means, I think. A servant of God is a perfect servant, if he does all the will of God that he knows, and as fast as he knows it. But you cannot do that of yourself, little Dolly."

"Why cannot I, if I want to?"

"Why, because there come temptations, and there come difficulties; and you will want to do something you like, and not what God likes; and you will do it too, unless the Lord Jesus keeps fast hold of you and saves you from making such a mistake. Only He can."

"Can He?"

"Certainly He can."

"Will He?"

"If you want Him to do it, and trust Him to do it, He will. He will just do all that you trust Him to do."

Dolly pondered. "Will He do that because He loves me?" she asked.

"Just for that reason, Dolly."

"Then He will do it," said Dolly confidently; "for I will trust Him. Won't you show me where he says that, Uncle Edward?"

Mr. Eberstein told Dolly to find Matt. xxi. 21. Dolly read eagerly —

"Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

Dolly read to herself, then looked up, eager and confident, for the next reference.

"Turn to John xv. 7."

Again Dolly found and read, in silence —

"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."

"What next, Uncle Edward?"

"Isn't that promise enough?"

"Yes; but I thought you had more."

"There is a great deal more. Look out Thessalonians v. 23, 24."

Dolly read, slowly, aloud now —

"'And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.' That is beautiful, Uncle Edward!"

"Do you want another? Find Jude, and read the 24th and 25th verses."

With some trouble Dolly found it.

"'Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.'"

Dolly slipped off Mr. Eberstein's knee and retook her old place by the fire; where she sat turning from one passage to another of those she had been reading. Mr. Eberstein watched her, how the ribbon markers of the Bible were carefully laid in two of the places, and a couple of neat slips of paper prepared for the others.

"What have you been doing to-day, Dolly?" he asked at length.

"We went to see the water works."

"Oh, you did! And what did you think of the water works?"

"We went up to the top and walked about. Do the people in Philadelphia want so much water as all that?"

"They want a great deal more. The Fairmount works give only enough for part of the city."

"That is taking a great deal of trouble to get water."

"It would be worse trouble to do without it."

"But why don't people all live in the country, as we do at home? then they would have water for nothing."

"Humph! That would answer, Dolly, if people were contented with water; they all want wine. I mean, my child, that most people are not satisfied with simple doings; and for anything more they must have money; and they can make money faster in cities. Therefore they build cities."

"Is that what they build cities for?" said Dolly.

"Largely. Not altogether. A great many things can be better done where people are congregated together; it is for the convenience of trade and business, in many kinds and in many ways. What have you been doing since you came home from the water works?"

"O Uncle Edward!" said Dolly, suddenly rising now and coming to him, "Aunt Harry has opened for me her old bookcase!"

"What old bookcase? I didn't know she had an old bookcase."

"Oh yes; the one where she keeps the books she had when she was as old as I am."

"And as young, eh? Well, what is in that bookcase? is it a great find?"

"O Uncle Edward, there is a great deal in it! It is wonderful. Books I never saw, and they look so interesting!"

"What, for instance? Something to rival Plutarch's Lives?"

"I don't know," said Dolly; "you know I have not read them yet. There is 'Sandford and Merton;' I was reading in that, and I like it very much; and the 'Looking Glass' is another; and 'Rosamond' I am sure is interesting. Oh there is a whole load of them."

"Well I am glad of it," said Mr. Eberstein. "That is the right sort of stuff for your busy little brain; will not weigh too heavy. Now I suppose you will be reading all the time you are in the house."

"Aunt Harry has begun to teach me to knit."

"Very good," said Mr. Eberstein. "I believe in knitting too. That's safe."

They went to dinner, and after dinner there was a further knitting lesson, in which Dolly seemed absorbed; nevertheless, before the evening was over she brought up a very different subject again.

"Aunt Harry," she began, in the midst of an arduous effort to get the loops of wool on her needles in the right relative condition, – "does mother know about the Bible?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Eberstein, with a glance at her husband, "she knows about it, something."

"Then why did she never tell me anything about it?"

Mrs. Eberstein hesitated.

"I suppose, Dolly, her thoughts were fuller of other things."

"But how could they be?" said the little one, laying her hands with their knitting work in her lap, and looking up.

Her aunt did not answer.

"How could her thoughts be fuller of other things, if she knows the Bible?" Dolly urged.

"I don't think she really knows much of what is in the Bible," Mrs. Eberstein said. "She has never read it much."

"I don't think she knows about Jesus," Dolly went on gravely; "for she never told me; and she would if she had known, I think. Aunt Harriet, I think I ought to tell her now."

"What would you tell her, my darling?"

"Oh, I will tell her that I know Him and love Him; and I will tell her I have got a Bible, and some of the things I have found in it. I will ask her to get one too, and read it. I don't believe she knows."

"The reason why a great many people do not know, Dolly, is, as your Aunt Harry says, that they are so much taken up with other things."

"Then I think one ought to take care not to be too much taken up with other things," said Dolly very seriously.

"But you have got to be taken up with other things," Mr. Eberstein went on. "Here you are going to school in a few days; then your head will be full of English and French, and your hands full of piano keys and harp strings, from morning till night. How are you going to do?"

Dolly looked at the speaker, came and placed herself on his knee again, and laid a hand on his shoulder; eyeing him steadily.

"Ought I not to go to school?"

"Must! – else you cannot be the right sort of a woman, and do the right sort of work."

"How then, Uncle Edward? what shall I do?"

"I'll tell you one thing, Dolly. Don't study and practise to get ahead of somebody else; but to please the King!"

"The King – that is Jesus?"

"Certainly."

Dolly nodded, in full agreement with the rule of action as thus stated; presently brought forward another idea.

"Will He care? Would it please Him to have me play on the piano, or learn French and arithmetic?"

"Dolly, the more you know, and the better you know it, the better servant you can be; you will have the more to use for Jesus."

"Can I use such things for Him? How?"

"Many ways. He will show you how. Do you think an ignorant woman could do as much in the world as an elegant, well-informed, accomplished woman?"

Dolly thought over this question, nodded as one who had come to an understanding of it, and went back to her knitting.

"What ever will become of that child," said Mrs. Eberstein an hour or two later, when she and her husband were alone. "I am full of anxiety about her."

"Then you are taking upon you the part of Providence."

"No, but, Edward, Dolly will have a history."

"So have we all," Mr. Eberstein responded very unresponsively.

"But she will not have a common history. Do you see how open she is to receive impressions, and how fast they stay once they are made?"

"I see the first quality. I never saw a creature quicker to take impressions or to welcome affections. Whether they will prove as lasting as they are sudden, – that we have no means of knowing at present."

"I think they will."

"That's a woman's conclusion, founded on her wishes."

"It is a man's conclusion too; for you think the same thing, Edward."

"Don't prove anything, Harry."

"Yes, it does. When two people come to the same independent view of something, it is fair to suppose there are grounds for it."

"I hope so. Time will show."

"But, Edward, with this extremely sensitive and affectionate nature, how important it is that Dolly should have only the right surroundings, and see only the right sort of people."

"Just so. And so she is going out into the world of a large school; where she will meet all sorts of people and be subjected to all sorts of influences; and you cannot shield her."

"I wish I could keep her at home, and have her taught here! I wish I could!"

"Playing Providence again. We all like to do it."

"No, but, Edward, just look at her," said Mrs. Eberstein with her eyes full of tears.

"I do," said Mr. Eberstein. "I've got eyes. But you will have to trust her, Harry."

"Now she will go, I have no doubt, and write that letter to her mother. I wonder if Sally will get scared, and take her away from us?"

"Why, Hal," said her husband, "your self-will is getting up very strong to-night! What if? Dolly's future does not depend upon us; though we will do what we can for it."

What they did then, was to pray about it again; for these people believed in prayer.

The next day Mrs. Eberstein had invited an acquaintance to come to dinner. This acquaintance had a daughter, also about to enter Mrs. Delancy's school; and Mrs. Eberstein's object was to let the two girls become a little known to each other, so that Dolly in the new world she was about to enter might not feel everything utterly strange. Mrs. Thayer belonged to a good New York family; and it likewise suited her purposes to have her daughter received in so unexceptionable a house as Mrs. Eberstein's, albeit the young lady was not without other Philadelphia friends. So the party fitted together very harmoniously. Mrs. Thayer, in spite of her good connections, was no more than a commonplace personage. Christina, her daughter, on the other hand, showed tokens of becoming a great beauty. A little older than Dolly, of larger build and more flesh and blood development generally, and with one of those peach-blossom complexions which for fairness and delicacy almost rival the flower. Her hair was pretty, her features also pretty, her expression placid. Mrs. Eberstein was much struck.

"They are just about of an age," remarked Mrs. Thayer. "I suppose they will study the same things. Everybody studies the same things. Well, I hope you'll be friends and not rivals, my dears."

"Dolly will not be rivals with anybody," returned Dolly's aunt.

"She don't look very strong. I should think it would not do for her to study too hard," said the other lady. "Oh, rivalry is necessary, you know, to bring out the spirit of boys and girls and make them work. It may be friendly rivalry; but if they were not rivals they would not be anything; might as well not be school girls, or school boys. They would not do any work but what they liked, and we know what that would amount to. I don't know about beating learning into boys; some people say that is the way; but with girls you can't take that way; and all you have to fall back upon is emulation."

"Very few young people will study for the love of it," Mrs. Eberstein so far assented.

"They might, I believe, if the right way was taken," Mr. Eberstein remarked.

"Emulation will do it, if a girl has any spirit," said Mrs. Thayer.

"What sort of spirit?"

"What sort of spirit! Why, the spirit not to let themselves be outdone; to stand as high as anybody, and higher; be No. 1, and carry off the first honours. A spirited girl don't like to be No. 2. Christina will never be No. 2."

"Is it quite certain that such a spirit is the one to be cultivated?"

"It makes them study," – said Mrs. Thayer, looking at her questioner to see what he meant.

"What do you think the Bible means, when it tells us not to seek for honour?"

"Not to seek for honour?" repeated the lady.

"Not the honour that comes from man."

"I didn't know it forbade it. I never heard that it was forbidden. Why, Mr. Eberstein, it is natural to wish for honour. Everybody wishes for it."

"So they do," Mr. Eberstein assented. "I might say, so we do."

"It is natural," repeated the lady.

"Its being natural does not prove it to be right."

"Why, Mr. Eberstein, if it is natural, we cannot help it."

"How then does trying to be No. 1 agree with the love that 'seeketh not her own'?"

Dolly was listening earnestly, Mr. Eberstein saw. Mrs. Thayer hesitated, in some inward disgust.

"Do you take that literally?" she said then. "How can you take it literally? You cannot."

"But Christ pleased not Himself."

"Well, but He was not like us."

"We are bidden to be like him, though."

"Oh, as far as we can. But you cannot press those words literally, Mr. Eberstein."

"As far as we can? I must press them, for the Bible does. I ask no more, and the Lord demands no more, than that we be like our Master as far as we can. And He 'pleased not himself,' and 'received not honour from men.'"

"If you were to preach such doctrine in schools, I am afraid you would have very bad recitations."

"Well!" said Mr. Eberstein. "Better bad recitations than bad hearts. Though really there is no necessary connection between my premises and your conclusion. The Bible reckons 'emulations,' Mrs. Thayer, in the list of the worst things human nature knows, and does."

"Then you would have a set of dunces. I should just like to be told, Mr. Eberstein, how on that principle you would get young people to study. In the case of girls you cannot do it by beating; nor in the case of boys, after they have got beyond being little boys. Then emulation comes in, and they work like beavers to get the start of one another. And so we have honours, and prizes, and distinctions. Take all that away, and how would you do, Mr. Eberstein?"

Mr. Eberstein was looking fondly into a pair of young eyes that were fixedly gazing at him. So looking, he spoke,.

"There is another sort of 'Well done!' which I would like my Dolly and Miss Christina to try for. If they are in earnest in trying for that, they will study!" said Mr. Eberstein.

Mrs. Thayer thought, apparently, that it was no use talking on the subject with a visionary man; and she turned to something else. The party left the dinner-table, and Dolly took her new acquaintance upstairs to show her the treasure contained in Mrs. Eberstein's old bookcase.

"Mr. Eberstein is rather a strange man, isn't he?" said Miss Christina on the way.

"No," said Dolly. "I don't think he is. What makes you say so?"

"I never heard any one talk like that before."

"Perhaps," said Dolly, stopping short on the landing place and looking at her companion. Then she seemed to change her manner of attack. "Who do you want to please most?" she said.

"With my studies? Why, mamma, of course."

"I would rather please the Lord Jesus," said Dolly.

"But I was talking about school work," retorted the other. "You don't suppose He cares about our lessons?"

"I guess He does," said Dolly. They were still standing on the landing place, looking into each other's eyes.

"But that's impossible. Think! – French lessons, and English lessons, and music and dancing, and all of it. That couldn't be, you know."

"Do you love Jesus?" said Dolly.

"Love him? I do not know," said Christina colouring. "I am a member of the church, if that is what you mean."

Dolly began slowly to go up the remaining stairs. "I think we ought to study to please Him," she said.

"I don't see how it should please him," said the other a little out of humour. "I don't see how He should care about such little things."

"Why not?" said Dolly. "If your mother cares, and my mother cares. Jesus loves us better than they do, and I guess He cares more than they do."

Christina was silenced now, as her mother had been, and followed Dolly thinking there were a pair of uncomfortably strange people in the house. The next minute Dolly was not strange at all, but as much a child as any of her fellows. She had unlocked the precious bookcase, and with the zeal of a connoisseur and the glee of a discoverer she was enlarging upon the treasures therein stowed away.

"Here is 'Henry Milner,'" she said, taking down three little red volumes. "Have you read that? Oh, it is delightful! I like it almost best of all. But I have not had time to read much yet. Here is 'Harry and Lucy,' and 'Rosamond,' and 'Frank.' I have just looked at them. And 'Sandford and Merton.' do you know 'Sandford and Merton'? I have just read that."

"There are the 'Arabian Nights,'" said Christina.

"Is that good? I haven't read much yet. I don't know almost any of them."

"'The Looking-Glass'" – Christina went on – "'Pity's Gift' – 'Father's Tales.'"

"Those are beautiful," Dolly put in. "I read one, about 'Grandfather's old arm-chair.' Oh, it's very interesting."

"'Elements of Morality'" – Christina read further on the back of a brown book.

"That don't sound good, but I guess it is good," said Dolly. "I just peeped in, and 'Evenings at Home' looks pretty. Here is 'Robinson Crusoe,' and 'Northern Regions;' I want to read that very much. I guess it's delightful."

"Have you ever been to school before?" said Christina. The books had a faint interest for her.

"No," said Dolly.

"Nor have I; but I know somebody who has been at Mrs. Delancy's, and she says there is one lovely thing at that school. Every month they go somewhere."

"They – go – somewhere," Dolly echoed the words. "Who go?"

"Everybody; teachers and scholars and all. There is a holiday; and Mrs. Delancy takes them all to see something. One time it was a rope walk, I think; and another time it was a paper-mill; and sometimes it's a picture-gallery. It's something very interesting."

"I suppose we are not obliged to go, are we, if we don't want to?"

"Oh, but we do want to. I do."

"I would just as lief be at home with my Aunt Harry," said Dolly, looking lovingly at the book-case. But Christina turned away from it.

"They dress a great deal at this school," she said. "Does your mother dress you a great deal?"

"I don't know," said Dolly. "I don't know what you mean."

"Well, what's your school dress? what is it made of?"

"My school dress for every day! It is grey poplin. It is not new."

"Poplin will do, I suppose," said Christina. "But some of the girls wear silk; old silk dresses, you know, but really handsome still, and very stylish."

"What do you mean by 'stylish'?" said Dolly.

"Why don't you know what 'stylish' means?"

"No."

Christina looked doubtfully at her new little companion. Where could Dolly have come from, and what sort of people could she belong to, who did not know that? The truth was, that Dolly being an only child and living at home with her father and mother, had led a very childish life up to this time; and her mother, owing to some invalidism, had lately been withdrawn from the gay world and its doings. So, though the thing was greatly upon her mother's heart, the word had never made itself familiar to Dolly's ear. Christina was reassured, however, by observing that the little girl's dress was quite what it ought to be, and certainly bespoke her as belonging to people who "knew what was what." So the practice was all right, and Dolly needed only instruction in the theory.

"'Stylish,'" – she repeated. "It means – It is very hard to tell you what it means. Don't you know? 'Stylish' means that things have an air that belongs to the right kind of thing, and only what you see in a certain sort of people. It is the way things look when people know how."

"Know how, what?" inquired Dolly.

"Know how things ought to be; how they ought to be worn, and how they ought to be done."

"Then everybody ought to be stylish," said Dolly.

"Yes, but you cannot, my dear, unless you happen to know how."

"But I should think one could always know how things ought to be," Dolly went on. "The Bible tells."

"The Bible!" echoed Christina.

"Yes."

"The Bible tell one how to be stylish!"

"The Bible tells how things ought to be."

"Why, no, it don't, child! the Bible don't tell you what sort of a hat to put on."

"Yes, it does, Christina. The Bible says, 'Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.' I can show you the words."

"Oh, that is something quite different. That has nothing to do with being stylish. How shall I make you understand? If your cravat wasn't tied in a nice bow there, it wouldn't be stylish."

"Well," returned Dolly, "it wouldn't be to the glory of God either."

"What has that to do with it?"

"I think it would be wrong for a Christian to be anything but nice."

"Oh, it isn't being nice!" said Christina. "Your dress wouldn't be stylish if it hadn't those flounces."

"And is it now?"

"Yes – I think it is. I should say, your mother knows what is what. It isn't very easy to be stylish if you are poor; but I've seen people do it, though."

"I don't think I understand, quite," said Dolly. "But when I am old enough to dress myself, – to choose my own dresses, I mean, I shall dress to please Jesus, Christina."

"You can't," said Christina. "I never heard of such a thing. It's making religion little, I think, to talk so."

"I think, if religion isn't little, it'll do so," answered Dolly. Whereby each kept her own opinion; notwithstanding which, at the end of the afternoon they separated, mutually pleased each with her new acquaintance.