A Red Wallflower Part 68

And, comforted by this thought and the plans she presently began to weave in with it, she looked now with much more equanimity than Betty herself towards the end of Pitt's visit. Mrs. Dallas, however, was not to get off without another shock to her nerves.

It was early in September, and the weather of that sultry, hot, and moist character which we have learned to look for in connection with the first half of that month. Miss Frere's embroidery went languidly; possibly there might have been more reasons than one for the slow and spiritless movement of her fingers, which was quite contrary to their normal habit. Mrs. Dallas, sitting at a little distance on the verandah, was near enough to hear and observe what went on when Pitt came upon the scene, and far enough to be separated from the conversation unless she chose to mix in it. By and by he came, looking thoughtful, as Betty saw, though she hardly seemed to notice his approach. There was no token in her quiet manner of the quickened pulses of which she was immediately conscious. Something like a tremulous thrill ran through her nerves; it vexed her to be so little mistress of them, yet the pleasure of the thrill at the moment was more than the pain. Pitt threw himself into a chair near her, and for a few moments watched the play of her needle. Betty's eyelashes never stirred. But the silence lasted too long. Nerves would not bear it.

'What can you find to do in this weather, Mr. Pitt?' she asked languidly.

'It is good weather,' he answered absently. 'Do you ever read the Bible?'

Miss Betty's fine eyes were lifted now with an expression of some amus.e.m.e.nt. They were very fine eyes; Mrs. Dallas thought they could not fail of their effect.

'The Bible?' she repeated. 'I read the lessons in the Prayer-book; that is the same.'

'Is it the same? Is the whole Bible contained in the lessons?'

'I don't know, I am sure,' she answered doubtfully. 'I think so. There is a great deal of it.'

'But you read it piecemeal so.'

'You must read it piecemeal any way,' returned the young lady. 'You can read only a little each day; a portion.'

'You could read consecutively, though, or you could choose for yourself.'

'I like to have the choice made for me. It saves time; and then one is sure one has got hold of the right portion, you know. I like the lessons.'

'And then,' remarked Mrs. Dallas, 'you know other people and your friends are reading that same portion at the same time, and the feeling is very sacred and sweet.'

'But if the Bible was intended to be read in such a way, how comes it that we have no instruction to that end?'

'Instruction was given,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'The Church has ordered it.'

'The Church' said Pitt thoughtfully. 'Who is the Church?'

'Why, my dear,' said Mrs. Dallas, 'don't ask such questions. You know as well as I do.'

'As I understand it, mother, what you mean is simply a body of Christians who lived some time ago.'

'Yes. Well, what then?'

'I do not comprehend how they should know what you and I want to read to-day. I am not talking of Church services. I am talking of private reading.'

'But it is pleasant and convenient,' said Betty.

'May be very inappropriate.'

'Pitt,' said his mother, 'I wish you would not talk so! It is really very wrong. This comes of your way of questioning and reasoning about everything. What we have to do with the Church is to _obey_.'

'And that is what we have to do with the Bible, isn't it?' he said gravely.

'Undoubtedly.'

'Well, mother, I am not talking to you; I am attacking Miss Frere. I can talk to her on even terms. Miss Frere, I want to know what you understand by obeying, when we are speaking of the demands of the Bible?'

'Obeying? I understand just what I mean by it anywhere.'

'Obeying what?'

'Why, obeying G.o.d, of course.'

'Of course! But how do we know what His commands are?'

'By the words--how else?' she asked, looking at him. He was in earnest, for some reason, she saw, and she forbore from the light words with which at another time she would have given a turn to the subject.

'Then you think, distinctly, that we ought to obey the words of the Bible?'

'Ye-s,' she said, wondering what was coming.

'_All_ the words?'

'Yes, I suppose so. All the words, according to their real meaning.'

'How are we to know what that is?'

'I suppose--the Church tells us.'

'Where?'

'I do not know--in books, I suppose.'

'What books? But we are going a little wild. May I bring you an instance or two? I am talking in earnest, and mean it earnestly.'

'Do you ever do anything in any other way?' asked the young lady, with a charming air of fine raillery and recognition blended. 'Certainly; I am in earnest too.'

Pitt went away and returned with a book in his hand.

'What have you there? the Prayer-book?' his mother asked, with a doubtful expression.

'No, mamma; I like to go to the Fountain-head of authority as well as of learning.'

'The Fountain-head!' exclaimed Mrs. Dallas, in indignant protest; and then she remembered her wisdom, and said no more. It cost her an effort; however, she knew that for her to set up a defence of either Church or Prayer-book just then would not be wise, and that she had better leave the matter in Betty's hands. She looked at Betty anxiously. The young lady's face showed her cool and collected, not likely to be carried away by any stream of enthusiasm or overborne by influence. It was, in fact, more cool than she felt. She liked to get into a good talk with Pitt upon any subject, and so far was content; at the same time she would rather have chosen any other than this, and was a little afraid whereto it might lead. Religion had not been precisely her princ.i.p.al study. True, it had not been his princ.i.p.al study either; but Betty discerned a difference in their modes of approaching it. She attributed that to the Puritan or dissenting influences which had at some time got hold of him. To thwart those would at any rate be a good work, and she prepared herself accordingly.

Pitt opened his book and turned over a few leaves.

'To begin with,' he said, 'you admit that whatever this book commands we are bound to obey?'

'Provided we understand it,' his opponent put in.

'Provided we understand it, of course. A command not understood is hardly a command. Now here is a word which has struck me, and I would like to know how it strikes you.'

He turned to the familiar twenty-fifth of Matthew and read the central portion, the parable of the talents. He read like an interested man, and perhaps it was owing to a slight unconscious intonation here and there that Pitt's two hearers listened as if the words were strangely new to them. They had never heard them sound just so. Yet the reading was not dramatic at all; it was only a perfectly natural and feeling deliverance. But feeling reaches feeling, as we all know. The reading ceased, n.o.body spoke for several minutes.