"Yes, but, Maria, you must consider that Eva isn't like you. Eva really is fond of Mary, and had rather have her there than a younger and stronger woman. Mary has been an old servant in the family. Eva has grown up with her. She loves Eva like a child."

"Oh, pshaw!" said Aunt Maria. "Now, of all things, don't be sentimental about servants. It's a little too absurd. We are to attend to our own interests!"

"But you see, sister," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, "Eva is just what you call sentimental, and it wouldn't do the least good for me to talk to her. She's a married woman, and she and her husband have a right to manage their affairs in their own way. Now, to tell the truth, Eva told me about this affair, and on the whole" – here Mrs. Van Arsdel's voice trembled weakly – "on the whole, I didn't think it would do any good, you know, to oppose her; and really, Maria, I was sorry for poor Mary. You don't know, you never had a daughter, but I couldn't help thinking that if I were a poor woman, and a daughter of mine had gone astray, I should be so glad to have a chance given her to do better; and so I really couldn't find it in my heart to oppose Eva."

"Well, you'll see what'll come of it," said Aunt Maria, who had stood, a model of hard, sharp, uncompromising common sense, looking her sister down during this weak apology for the higher wisdom. For now, as in the days of old, the wisdom of the cross is foolishness to the wise and prudent of the world; and the heavenly arithmetic, which counts the one lost sheep more than the ninety and nine that went not astray, is still the arithmetic, not of earth, but of heaven. There are many who believe in the Trinity, and the Incarnation, and all the articles of the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds, to whom this wisdom of the Master is counted as folly: "For the natural man understandeth not the things of the kingdom of God; they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them."

Now Aunt Maria was in an eminent degree a specimen of the feminine sort of "natural man."

That a young and happy wife, with a peaceful, prosperous home, should put a particle of her own happiness to risk, or herself to inconvenience, for the sake of a poor servant woman and a sinful child, was, in her view, folly amounting almost to fatuity; and she inly congratulated herself with the thought that her sister and Eva would yet see themselves in trouble by their fine fancies and sentimental benevolence.

"Well, sister," she said, rising and drawing her cashmere shawl in graceful folds round her handsome shoulders, "I thought I should come to you first, as you really are the most proper person to talk to Eva; but if you should neglect your duty, there is no reason why I should neglect mine.

"I hear of a very nice, capable girl that has lived five years with the Willises, who has had permission to advertise from the house, and I am going to have an interview with her, and engage her provisionally, so that, if Eva has a mind to listen to reason, there may be a way for her to supply Mary's place at once. I've made up my mind that, on the whole, it's best Mary should go," she added reflectively, as if she were the mistress of Eva's house and person.

"I'm sorry to have you take so much trouble, Maria; I'm sure it won't do any good."

"Did you ever know me to shrink from any trouble or care or responsibility by which I could serve you and your children, Nellie? I may not be appreciated – I don't expect it – but I shall not swerve from my duty to you; at any rate, it's my duty to leave no stone unturned, and so I shall start out at once for the Willises. They are going to Europe for a year or two, and want to find good places for their servants."

And so Mrs. Van Arsdel, being a little frightened at the suggestions of Aunt Maria, began to think with herself that perhaps she had been too yielding, and made herself very uncomfortable in reflecting on positive evils that might come on Eva.

She watched her sister's stately, positive, determined figure as she went down the stairs with the decision of a general, gave a weak sigh, wished that she had not come, and, on the whole, concluded to resume her story where she had left off at Aunt Maria's entrance.

CHAPTER XXVI
SHE STOOD OUTSIDE THE GATE

The trial of human life would be a much simpler and easier thing to meet, if the lines of right and wrong were always perfectly definite. We are happy so far to believe in our kind as to think that there are vast multitudes who, if they only knew exactly what was right and proper to be done, would do it at all hazards.

But what is right for me, in these particular circumstances? – in that question, as it constantly rises, lies the great stress of the trial of life.

We have, for our guidance, a Book of most high and unworldly maxims and directions, and the life of a Leader so exalted above all the ordinary conceptions and maxims of this world that a genuine effort to be a Christian, after the pattern and directions of Christ, at once brings us face to face with daily practical inquiries of the most perplexing nature.

Our friend, Mrs. Maria Wouvermans, was the very type and impersonation of this world's wisdom of the ordinary level. The great object of life being to insure ease, comfort, and freedom from annoyance to one's self and one's family, her views of duty were all conveniently arranged along this line. In her view, it was the first duty of every good housekeeper to look ahead and avoid every occasion whence might arise a possible inconvenience or embarrassment. It was nobody's duty, in her opinion, to have any trouble, if it could be avoided, or to risk having any. There were, of course, duties to the poor, which she settled for by a regular annual subscription to some well-recommended board of charity in her most respectable church. That done, she regarded herself as clear for action, and bound to shake off in detail any troublesome or embarrassing person that threatened to be a burden to her, or to those of her family that she felt responsible for.

On the other hand, Eva was possessed by an earnest desire to make her religious profession mean something adequate to those startling and constantly recurring phrases in the Bible and the church service which spoke of the Christian as a being of a higher order, led by another Spirit, and living a higher life than that of the world in general. Nothing is more trying to an ingenuous mind than the conviction of anything like a sham and a pretense in its daily life.

Mr. St. John had lately been preaching a series of sermons on the history and customs of the primitive church, in hearing which the conviction often forced itself on her mind that it was the unworldly life of the first Christians which gave victorious power to the faith. She was intimately associated with people who seemed to her to live practically on the same plan. Here was Sibyl Selwyn, whose whole life was an exalted mission of religious devotion; there was her neighbor Ruth Baxter, associated as a lay sister with the work of her more gifted friend. Here were the Sisters of St. Barnabas, lovely, cultivated women who had renounced all selfish ends and occupations in life, to give themselves to the work of comforting the sorrowful and saving the lost. Such people, she thought, fully answered to the terms in which Christians were spoken of in the Bible. But could she, if she lived only to brighten one little spot of her own, if she shut out of its charmed circle all sight or feeling of the suffering and sorrow of the world around her, and made her own home a little paradise of ease and forgetfulness, could she be living a Christian life?

When, therefore, she heard from the poor mother under her roof the tale of her secretly-kept shames, sorrows, and struggles for the daughter whose fate had filled her with misery, she accepted with a large-hearted inconsiderateness a mission of love towards the wanderer.

She carried it to her husband; and, like two kind-hearted, generous-minded young people, they resolved at once to make their home sacred by bringing into it this work of charity.

Now, this work would be far easier in most cases, if the sinner sought to be saved would step forthwith right across the line, and behave henceforth like a saint. But unhappily that is not to be expected. Certain it was, that Maggie, with her great, black eyes and her wavy black hair, was no saint. A petted, indulged child, with a strong, ungovernable nature, she had been whirled hither and thither in the tides of passion, and now felt less repentance for sin than indignation at her own wrongs. It might have been held a hopeful symptom that Maggie had, at least, so much real truthfulness in her as not to profess what she did not feel.

It was a fact that the constant hymns and prayers and services of the pious Sisters wearied her. They were too high for her. The calm, refined spirituality of these exalted natures was too far above her, and she joined their services at best with a patient acquiescence, feeling the while how sinful she must be to be so bored by them.

But for Eva she had a sort of wondering, passionate admiration. When she fluttered into her sick room, with all her usual little graceful array of ribbons and fanciful ornament, Maggie's dull eye would brighten, and she looked after her with delighted wonder. When she spoke to her tenderly, smoothed her pillow, put cologne on her laced handkerchief and laid it on her brow, poor Maggie felt awed and flattered by the attention, far more, it is to be feared, than if somebody more resembling the traditional angel had done it. This lively, sprightly little lady, so graceful, so pretty in all her motions and in all her belongings, seemed to poor worldly Maggie much more nearly what she would like an angel to be, in any world where she would have to live with them.

The Sisters, with their black robes, their white caps, and their solemn prayers, seemed to her so awfully good that their presence chilled her. She felt more subdued, but more sinful and more hopeless with them than ever.

In short, poor Maggie was yet a creature of this world, and of sense, and the spiritual world to her was only one dark, confused blur, rather more appalling than attractive. A life like that of the Sisters, given to prayer and meditation and good works, was too high a rest for a soul growing so near the ground and with so few tendrils to climb by. Maggie could conceive of nothing more dreary. To her, it seemed like being always thinking of her sins; and that topic was no more agreeable a subject of meditation to Maggie than it is to any of us. Many people seem to feel that the only way of return for those who have wandered from the paths of virtue is the most immediate and utter self-abasement. There must be no effort at self-justification, no excusing one's self, no plea for abatement of condemnation. But let us Christians who have never fallen, in the grosser sense, ask ourselves if, with regard to our own particular sins and failings, we hold the same strict line of reckoning. Do we come down upon ourselves for our ill temper, for our selfishness, for our pride, and other respectable sins, as we ask the poor girl to do who has been led astray from virtue?

Let us look back and remember how the Master once coupled an immaculate Pharisee and a fallen woman in one sentence as two debtors, both owing a sum to a creditor, and both having nothing to pay, – both freely forgiven by infinite clemency. It is a summing up of the case that is too often forgotten.

Eva's natural tact and delicacy stood her in stead in her dealings with Maggie, and made her touch upon the wounds of the latter more endurable than any other. Without reproof for the past, she expressed hope for the future.

"You shall come and stay with your mother at my house, Maggie," she said, cheerfully, "and we will make you useful. The fact is, your mother needs you; she is not so strong as she was, and you could save her a great many steps."

Now, Maggie still had skillful hands and a good many available worldly capacities. The very love of finery and of fine living which had once helped to entrap her, now came in play for her salvation. Something definite to do, is, in some crises, a far better medicine for a sick soul than any amount of meditation and prayer. One step fairly taken in a right direction, goes farther than any amount of agonized back-looking.

In a few days, Maggie made for herself in Eva's family a place in which she could feel herself to be of service. She took charge of Eva's wardrobe, and was zealous and efficient in ripping, altering and adapting articles for the adornment of her pretty mistress; and Eva never failed to praise and encourage her for every right thing she did, and never by word or look reminded her of the past.

Eva did not preach to Maggie; but sometimes, sitting at her piano while she sat sewing in an adjoining room, she played and sung some of those little melodies which Sunday-schools have scattered as a sort of popular ballad literature. Words of piety, allied to a catching tune, are like seeds with wings – they float out in the air and drop in odd corners of the heart, to spring up in good purposes.

One of these little ballads reminded Eva of the night she first saw Maggie lingering in the street by her house:

"I stood outside the gate,
A poor wayfaring child;
Within my heart there beat
A tempest fierce and wild.
A fear oppressed my soul
That I might be too late;
And, oh, I trembled sore
And prayed – outside the gate,

"'Mercy,' I loudly cried,
'Oh, give me rest from sin!'
'I will,' a voice replied,
And Mercy let me in.
She bound my bleeding wounds
And carried all my sin;
She eased my burdened soul,
Then Jesus took me in.

"In Mercy's guise I knew
The Saviour long abused,
Who oft had sought my heart,
And oft had been refused.
Oh, what a blest return
For ignorance and sin!
I stood outside the gate
And Jesus let me in."

After a few days, Eva heard Maggie humming this tune over her work. "There," she said to herself, "the good angels are near her! I don't know what to say to her, but they do."

In fact, Eva had that delicacy and self-distrust in regard to any direct and personal appeal to Maggie which is the natural attendant of personal refinement. She was little versed in any ordinary religious phraseology, such as very well-meaning persons often so freely deal in. Her own religious experiences, fervent and sincere though they were, never came out in any accredited set of phrases; nor had she any store of cut-and-dried pious talk laid by, to be used for inferiors whom she was called to admonish. But she had stores of kind artifices to keep Maggie usefully employed, to give her a sense that she was trusted in the family, to encourage hope that there was a better future before her.

Maggie's mother, fond and loving as she was, seconded these tactics of her mistress but indifferently. Mary had the stern pride of chastity which distinguishes the women of the old country, and which keeps most of the Irish girls who are thrown unprotected on our shores superior to temptation.

Mary keenly felt that Maggie had disgraced her, and as health returned and she no longer trembled for her life, she seemed called upon to keep her daughter's sin ever before her. Her past bad conduct and the lenity of her young mistress, her treating her so much better than she had any reason to expect, were topics on which Mary took every occasion to enlarge in private, leading to passionate altercations between herself and her daughter, in which the child broke over all bounds of goodness and showed the very worst aspects of her nature. Nothing can be more miserable, more pitiable, than these stormy passages between wayward children and honest, good-hearted mothers, who love them to the death, and yet do not know how to handle them, sensitive and sore with moral wounds. Many a time poor Mary went to sleep with a wet pillow, while Maggie, sullen and hard-hearted, lay with her great black eyes wide open, obdurate and silent, yet in her secret heart longing to make it right with her mother. Often, after such a passage she would revolve the line of the hymn —

"I stood outside the gate."

It seemed to her that that gate was her mother's heart, and that she stood outside of it; and yet all the while the poor mother would have died for her. Eva could not at first account for the sullen and gloomy moods which came upon Maggie, when she would go about the house with lowering brows, and all her bright, cheerful ways and devices could bring no smile upon her face.

"What is the matter with Maggie?" she would say to Mary.

"Oh, nothing, ma'am, only she's bad; she's got to be brought under, and brought down, – that's what she has."

"Mary, I think you had better not talk to Maggie about her past faults. She knows she has been wrong, and the best way is to let her get quietly into the right way. We mustn't keep throwing up the past to her. When we do wrong, we don't like to have people keep putting us in mind of it."

"You're jest an angel, Miss Eva, and it isn't many ladies that would do as you do. You're too good to her entirely. She ought to be made sensible of it."

"Well, Mary, the best way to make her sensible and bring her to repentance is to treat her kindly and never bring up the past. Don't you see it does no good, Mary? It only makes her sullen, and gloomy, and unhappy, so that I can't get anything out of her. Now please, Mary, just keep quiet, and let me manage Maggie."

And then Mary would promise, and Eva would smooth matters over, and affairs would go on for a day or two harmoniously. But there was another authority in Mary's family, as in almost every Irish household, – a man who felt called to have a say and give a sentence.

Mary had an elder brother, Mike McArtney, who had established himself in a grocery business a little out of the city, and who felt himself to stand in position of head of the family to Mary and her children.

The absolute and entire reverence and deference with which Irish women look up to the men of their kindred is something in direct contrast to the demeanor of American women. The male sex, if repulsed in other directions, certainly are fully justified and glorified by the submissive daughters of Erin. Mike was the elder brother, under whose care Mary came to this country. He was the adviser and director of all her affairs. He found her places; he guided her in every emergency. Mike, of course, had felt and bitterly resented the dishonor brought on their family by Maggie's fall. In his view, there was danger that the path of repentance was being made altogether too easy for her, and he had resolved on the first leisure Sunday evening to come to the house and execute a thorough work of judgment on Maggie, setting her sin in order before her, and, in general, bearing down on her in such a way as to bring her to the dust and make her feel it the greatest possible mercy and favor that any of her relations should speak to her.

So, after Eva had hushed the mother and tranquilized the girl, and there had been two or three days of serenity, came Sunday evening and Uncle Mike.

The result was, as might have been expected, a loud and noisy altercation. Maggie was perfectly infuriated, and talked like one possessed of a demon; using, alas! language with which her sinful life had made her only too familiar, and which went far to justify the rebukes which were heaped upon her.

In his anger at such contumacious conduct, Uncle Mike took full advantage of the situation, and told Maggie that she was a disgrace to her mother and her relations – a disgrace to any honest house – and that he wondered that decent gentle-folks would have her under their roof.

In short, in one hour, two of Maggie's best friends – the mother that loved her as her life and the uncle that had been as a father to her – contrived utterly to sweep away and destroy all those delicate cords and filaments which the hands of good angels had been fastening to her heart, to draw her heavenward.

When a young tree is put in new ground, its roots put forth fibres delicate as hairs, but in which is all the vitality of a new phase of existence. To tear up those roots and wrench off those fibres is too often the destructive work of well-intending friends; it is done too often by those who would, if need be, give their very heart's blood for the welfare they imperil. Such is life as we find it.