The Letter of Credit

It was a step in advance of all Rotha had made yet. It was the step, which introduces a sinner into the pathway of a Christian; before which that path is not entered, however much it may be looked at and thought desirable. Rotha had made her choice and given her allegiance; for she at once told it to the Lord and asked his blessing.

And then, forthwith, came the trial of her sincerity. The cross was presented to her; which the Lord says those must take up and bear daily who would follow him. People think that crosses start up in every path; it is a mistake; they are only found in the way of following Christ and in consequence of such following. They are things that may be taken up and carried along; that must be, if the Christian follows his Master; but that he may escape if he will turn aside from following him and go with the world. They are of many kinds, but all furnished by the world and Satan without, or by self-will within. The form which the cross took on this occasion for Rotha was of the latter kind. Conscience whispered a reminder – "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee – " And instantly Rotha's whole soul rose up in protest. Make an apology to her aunt now? Humble herself to confess herself wrong, when the wrong done to her was so manyfold greater? Bend to the hardness that would crush her? Justify another's evil by confessing her own? Self-will gave her an indignant "Impossible!" And conscience with quiet persistence held forth the cross. Rotha put both hands to her face and swayed up and down, with a kind of bodily struggle, which symbolized that going on in her mind. It was hard, it was hard! Nature cried out, with a repulsion that seemed unconquerable, against taking up this cross; yet there it was before her, in the inexorable hands of conscience, and Grace said, "Do it; take it up and bear it." And Nature and Grace fought. But all the while, down at the bottom of the girl's heart, was a certain knowledge that the cross must be borne; a certain prevision that she would yield and take it up; that she must, if her new determination meant anything; and Rotha felt she could not afford to let it vanish in air. She struggled, rebelled, repined, and ended with yielding. Her will submitted, and she said in her heart, "I must, and I will."

There came a sort of tired lull over her then, which was grateful, after the battle. She considered when she should do this thing, which it was so disagreeable to do. She could not quite make up her mind; but at the first opportunity, whenever that might be. Before she left the house at any rate, if even she had to make the opportunity she wanted.

Then she thought she would return to her little cold room again, before anybody found her in the parlour. She was thoroughly warmed up, she had no more thinking to do just then; and if need be she would lay herself on the bed and cover herself with blankets, and so wait till luncheon time. As she went up stairs, something happened that she did not expect; there stole into her heart as it were a rill of gladness, which swelled and grew. "Yes, Jesus is my King, she thought, and I am his child. O I don't care now for anything, for Jesus is my King, and He will help and take care." She went singing that Name in her heart all the way up stairs; for the first time in her life the sweetness of it was sweet to her; for the first time, the strength of it was something to lean upon. Ay, she was right; she had stepped over the narrow boundary line between the realm of the Prince of this world and the kingdom of Christ. She had submitted herself to the one Ruler; she was no longer under the dominion of the other. And with her first entrance into the kingdom of the Prince of peace, she had stepped out of the darkness into the light, and the air of that new country blew softly upon her. O wonderful! O sweet! O strange! – that such a change should be so quickly made, and yet so hard to make. Rotha had not fought all her battles nor got rid of all her enemies, but that the latter should have no more dominion over her she felt confident. She was a different creature from the Rotha who had fled down stairs an hour or two before in wrath and bitterness.

It was very cold up stairs. She lay down and covered herself with blankets and went to sleep.

She was called to luncheon; got up and smoothed her hair as well as she could with her hands, and thought over what she had to do. She had to set her teeth and go at it like a forlorn-hope upon a battery, but she did not flinch at all.

Mr. Busby was at luncheon, which was unusual and she had not counted upon. He was gracious.

"How do you do, Rotha? Bless me, how you have improved! grown too, I declare."

"There was no need of that, papa," said Antoinette, who was going to be a dumpy.

"What has Mrs. Mowbray done to you? I really hardly know you again."

"Fine feathers, papa."

"Mrs. Mowbray has been very kind to me," Rotha managed to get in quietly.

"She's growing handsome, wife!" Mr. Busby declared as he took his seat at the table.

"You shouldn't say such things to young girls, Mr. Busby," said his wife reprovingly.

"Shouldn't I? Why not? It is expected that they will hear enough of that sort of thing when they get a little older."

"Why should they, Mr. Busby?" asked Rotha, innocently curious.

"Yes indeed, why should they?" echoed her aunt.

"Why should they? I don't know. As I said, it is expected. Young ladies usually demand such tribute from their admirers."

"To tell them they are handsome?" said Rotha.

"Yes," said Mr. Busby looking at her. "Ladies like it. Wouldn't you like it?"

"I should not like it at all," said Rotha colouring with a little excitement. "I don't mind your saying so, Mr. Busby; you have a right to say anything you like to me; but if any stranger said it, I should think he was very impertinent."

"You don't know much yet," said Mr. Busby.

"There is small danger that Rotha will ever be troubled with that sort of impertinence," said Mrs. Busby, with that peculiar air of her head, which always meant that she thought a good deal more than she spoke out at the minute.

"Maybe," returned her husband; "but she is going to deserve it, I can tell you. She'll be handsomer than ever Antoinette will."

Which remark seemed to Rotha peculiarly unlucky for her just that day.

Mrs. Busby reddened with displeasure though she held her tongue.

Antoinette was not capable of such forbearance.

"Papa!" she said, breaking out into tears, "that is very unkind of you!"

"Well, don't snivel," said her father. "You are pretty enough, if you keep a smooth face; but don't you suppose there are other people in the world handsomer? Be sensible."

"It is difficult not to be hurt, Mr. Busby," said his wife, pressing her lips together.

"Mamma!" cried Antoinette in a very injured tone, "he called me 'pretty'?"

"Aint you?" said her father, becoming a little provoked. "I thought you knew you were. But Rotha is going to be a beauty. It is no injury to you, my child."

"You seem to forget it may be an injury to Rotha, Mr. Busby."

Whether Mr. Busby forgot it, or whether he did not care, he made no reply to this suggestion.

"I never tell Antoinette she will be a beauty," Mrs. Busby went on severely.

"Well, I don't think she will. Not her style."

"Is it my style to be ugly, papa?" cried the injured daughter.

"Where will you see such a skin as Antoinette's?" asked the mother.

"Skin isn't everything. My dear, don't be perverse," said Mr. Busby, in his husky tones which sounded so oddly. "Nettie's a pretty little girl, and I am glad of it; but don't you go to making a fool of her by making her think she is more. You had just as fine a skin when I married you; but that wasn't what I married you for."

Rotha wondered what her aunt had married Mr. Busby for! However, if there had once been a peach-blossom skin at one end of the table, perhaps there had been also some corresponding charm at the other end; a sweet voice, for instance. Both equally gone now. Meantime Antoinette was crying, and Mrs. Busby looking more annoyed than Rotha had ever seen her. Her self- command still did not fail her, and she pursed up her lips and kept silence. Rotha wanted a potatoe, but the potatoes were before Mrs. Busby, and she dared not ask for it. The silence was terrible.

"What's the matter, Nettie?" said her father at length. "Don't be silly.

I don't believe Rotha would cry if I told her her skin was brown."

"You've said enough to please Rotha!" Antoinette sobbed.

"And it is unnecessary to be constantly comparing your daughter with some one else," said Mrs. Busby. "Can't we talk of some other subject, more useful and agreeable?"

Then Rotha summoned up her courage, with her heart beating.

"May I speak of another subject?" she said. "Aunt Serena, I have been wanting to tell you – I have been waiting for a chance to tell you – that I want to beg your pardon."

Mrs. Busby made no answer; it was her husband who asked, "For what?"

"To-day, sir, and a good while ago when I was here – different times – I spoke to aunt Serena as I ought not; rudely; I was angry. I have been wanting to say so and to beg her pardon."

"Well, that's all anybody can do," said Mr. Busby. "Enough's said about that. It's very proper, if you spoke improperly, to confess it and make an apology; that's all that is necessary. At least, as soon as Mrs. Busby has signified that she accepts the apology."

But Mrs. Busby signified no such thing. She kept silence.

"My dear, do you want Rotha to say anything more? Hasn't she apologized sufficiently?"

"I should like to know first," Mrs. Busby began in constrained tones, "what motive prompted the apology?"

"Motive! – " Mr. Busby began; but Rotha struck in.

"My motive was, that I wanted to do right; and I knew it was right that I should apologize."

"Then your motive was not that you were sorry for what you said?" Mrs.

Busby inquired magisterially.

Rotha was so astonished at this way of receiving her words that she hesitated.

"I am sorry, certainly, that I should have spoken rudely," she said.

"But not sorry for what you said?"

"You are splitting hairs, my dear!" said Mr. Busby impatiently.

"Let her answer – " said his wife.

"I do not know how to answer," said Rotha slowly, and thinking how to choose her words. "I am sorry for my ill-manners and unbecoming behaviour; I beg pardon for that. Is there anything else to ask pardon for?"

"You do not answer."

"What else can I say?" Rotha returned with some spirit. "I am not apologizing for thoughts or feelings, but for my improper behaviour. Shall I not be forgiven?"

"Then your feeling is not changed?" said the lady with a sharp look at her.

Rotha thought, It would be difficult for her feeling to change, under the reigning system. She did not answer.

"Pish, pish, my dear!" said the master of the house, – "you are splitting straws. When an apology is made, you have nothing to do but to take it. Rotha has done her part; now you do yours. Has Santa Claus come your way this year, Rotha?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did he bring you, hey?"

"Mrs. Mowbray gave me a Bible."

"A Bible!" Mrs. Busby and her daughter both exclaimed at once; "you said a bag?"

"I said true," said Rotha.

"She gave you a Bible and a bag too?"

"Yes."

"What utter extravagance! Had you no Bible already?"

"I had one, but an old one that had no references."

"What did you want with references! That woman is mad. If she gives to everybody on the same scale, her pocket will be empty enough when the holidays are over."

"But she gets a great deal of pleasure that way – " Rotha ventured.

"You do, you mean."

"Well, I am not so rich as Mrs. Mowbray," Mr. Busby said; "but I must remember you, Rotha." And he rose and went to a large secretary which stood in the room; for that basement room served Mr. Busby for his study at times when the table was not laid for meals. Three pair of eyes followed him curiously. Mr. Busby unlocked his secretary, opened a drawer, and took out thence a couple of quires of letter paper: 'sought out then some envelopes of the right size, and put the whole, two quires of paper and two packages of envelopes, into Rotha's astonished hands.

"There, my dear," said he, "that will be of use to you."

"What is she to do with it, papa?" Antoinette asked in an amused manner.

"Rotha has nobody to write letters to."

"That may be. She will have writing to do, however, of some kind. You write themes in school, don't you?"

"But then, what are the envelopes for, papa? We don't put our compositions in envelopes."

"Never mind, my dear; the envelopes belong to the paper. Rotha can keep them till she finds a use for them."

"They won't match other paper, papa," said Antoinette. But Rotha collected her wits and made her acknowledgments, as well as she could.

"Has Nettie shewn you her Christmas things?"

"No, sir."

"Well, it will please you to see them. You are welcome, my dear."

Rotha carried her package of paper up stairs, wondering what experiences would till out the afternoon. Her aunt and cousin seemed by no means to be in a genial mood. They all went up to the dressing room and sat down there in silence; all, that is, except Mr. Busby. Rotha's thoughts went with a spring to her bag and her books at Mrs. Mowbray's. Two o'clock, said the clock over the chimney piece. In three hours more she might go home.

Mrs. Busby took some work; she always had a basket of mending to do. Apologies did not seem to have wrought any mollification of her temper. Antoinette went down to the parlour to practise, and the sweet notes of the piano were presently heard rumbling up and down. Rotha sat and looked at her aunt's fingers.

"Do you know anything about mending your clothes, Rotha?" Mrs. Busby at last broke the silence.

"Not much, ma'am."

"Suppose I give you a lesson. See here – here is a thin place on the shoulder of one of Mr. Busby's shirts; there must go a patch on there. Now I will give you a patch – "

She sought out a piece of linen, cut a square from it with great attention to the evenness of the cutting, and gave it to Rotha.

"It must go from here to here – see?" she said, shewing the place; "and you must lay it just even with the threads; it must be exactly even; you must baste it just as you want it; and then fell it down very neatly."

Rotha thought, as she did not wear linen shirts, that this particular piece of mending was rather for her aunt's account than for her own. Lay it by the threads! a good afternoon's work.

"I have no thimble, – " was all she said.

Mrs. Busby sought her out an old thimble of her own, too big for Rotha, and it kept slipping off.

The rest of the history of that afternoon is the history of a patch. How easy it is, to an unskilled hand, to put on a linen patch by a thread, let anyone who doubts convince herself by trying. Rotha basted it on, and took it off, basted it on again and took it off again; it would not lie smooth, or it would not lie straight; and when she thought it would do, and shewed it to her aunt, Mrs. Busby would point out that what straightness there was belonged only to one side, or that there was a pucker somewhere. Rotha sighed and began again. She did not like the job. Neither had she any pleasure in doing it for her aunt. Her impatience was as difficult to straighten out as the patch itself, but Rotha thought it was only the patch. Finally, and it was not long first, either, she began to grow angry. Was her aunt trying her, she questioned, to see if she would not forget herself and be ill-mannerly again? And then Rotha saw that the cross was presented to her anew, under another form. Patience, and faithful service, involving again the giving up of her own will. And here she was, getting angry already. Rotha dropped her work and hid her face in her hands, to send up one silent prayer for help.

"You won't get your patch done that way," said Mrs. Busby's cold voice.

Rotha took her hands down and said nothing, resolved that here too she would do what it was right to do. She gave herself to the work with patient determination, and arranged the patch so that even Mrs. Busby said it was well enough. Then she received a needle and fine thread and was instructed how to sew the piece on with very small stitches. But now the difficulty was over. Rotha had good eyes and stitched away with a good will; and so had the work done, just before the light failed too much for her to see any longer. She folded up the shirt, with a gleeful feeling that now the afternoon was over. Antoinette came up from her practising, or whatever else she had been doing, just as Rotha rose.

"Aunt Serena," said the girl, and she said it pleasantly, "my stockings some of them want mending, and I have no darning cotton. If you would give me a skein of darning cotton, I could keep them in order."

"Do you know how?"

"Yes, ma'am, I know how to do that. Mother taught me. I can darn stockings."

Mrs. Busby rummaged in her basket and handed to Rotha a ball of cotton yarn.

"This is too coarse, aunt Serena," Rotha said after examining it.

"Too coarse for what?"

"To mend my stockings with."

"It is not too coarse to mend mine."

"But it would not go through the stitches of mine," said Rotha looking up. "It would tear every time."

"How in the world did you come to have such ridiculous stockings? Such stockings are expensive. I do not indulge myself with them; and I might, better than your mother."

"Poor people always think they must have things fine, I suppose," said Antoinette. "I wonder what sort of shoes she has, to go with the stockings?"

The blood flushed to Rotha's face; and irritation pricked her to retort sharply; yet she did not wish to speak Mr. Digby's name again. She hesitated.

"Whose nonsense was that?" asked Mrs. Busby; "yours, or your mother's? I never heard anything equal to it in my life. I dare say they are Balbriggans. I should not be at all surprised!"

"I do not know what they are," said Rotha, striving to hold in her wrath, "but they are not my mother's nonsense, nor mine."

"Whose then?" said Mrs. Busby sharply.

Rotha hesitated.

"Mrs. Mowbray's!" cried Antoinette. "It is Mrs. Mowbray again! Mamma, I should think you would feel yourself insulted. Mrs. Mowbray is ridiculous! As if you could not get proper stockings for Rotha, but she must put her hand in."

"I think it is very indelicate of Mrs. Mowbray; and Rotha is welcome to tell her I say so," Mrs. Busby uttered with some discomposure. Rotha's discomposure on the other hand cooled, and a sense of amusement got up. It is funny, to see people running hard after the wrong quarry; when they have no business to be running at all. However, she must speak now.

"It is not Mrs. Mowbray's nonsense either," she said. "Mr. Southwode got them for me."

"Mr. Southwode!" – Mrs. Busby spoke out those two words, and the rest of her mind she kept to herself.

"Mamma," said Antoinette, "Mr. Southwode is as great a goose as other folks. But then, gentlemen don't know things – how should they?"

"You are a goose yourself, Antoinette," said her mother.

"Have you no cotton a little finer? I mean a good deal finer?" said Rotha, going back to the business question.

"There are no stockings in my house to need it."

"Then what shall I do? There are two or three little holes in the toes."

"I will tell you. I will get you some stockings fit for you; and you may bring those to me. I will take care of them till you want them, which will not be for a long time."

Rotha turned cold with dismay. This was usurpation and oppression at once; against both which it was in her nature to rebel furiously. She was fond of the stockings, as of everything which Mr. Southwode had got for her; moreover they suited her, and she liked the delicate comfort of them. And though nothing less than suspicious, Rotha had a sudden feeling that the time for her to see her stockings again would never come; they would be put to other use, and Mrs. Busby would think it was a fair exchange. She would wear the coarse and Antoinette would have the fine. There was a terrible tempest in Rotha's soul, which nevertheless she did not suffer to burst out. She would appeal to Mrs. Mowbray. She took leave somewhat curtly, carrying her two quires of paper with her, but leaving the coarse darning cotton which she did not intend to use.