Stepping Heavenward [93]
to dress tastefully; the most empty-hearted frivolous young person can do it, provided she has money enough. Those who can't get the money make up for it by fearful expenditure of precious time. They plan, they cut, they fit, they rip, they trim till they can appear in society looking exactly like everybody else. They think of nothing, talk of nothing but how this shall be fashioned and that be trimmed; and as to their hair, Satan uses it as his favorite net, and catches them in it every day of their lives."
"But I never cut or trimmed," said Miss Clifford.
"No, because you could afford to have it done for you. But you acknowledge that you spent a great deal of time in dressing because you thought that the easiest way of making yourself attractive. But it does not follow that the easiest way is the best way, and sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home."
"For instance?"
"Well, let us imagine a young lady, living in the world as you say you lived. She has never seriously reflected on any subject one half hour in her life. She has been borne on by the current and let it take her where it would. But at last some influence is brought to bear upon her which leads her to stop to look about her and to think. She finds herself in a world of serious, momentous events. She see she cannot live in it, was not meant to live in it forever, and that her whole unknown future depends on what she is, not on how she looks. She begins to cast about for some plan of life, and this leads---"
"A plan of life?" Miss Clifford interrupted. "I never heard of such a thing."
"Yet you would smile at an architect, who having a noble structure to build, should begin to work on it in a haphazard way, putting in a brick here and a stone there, weaving in straws and sticks if they come to hand, and when asked on what work he was engaged, and what manner of building he intended to erect, should reply he had no plan, but thought something would come of it."
Miss Clifford made no reply. She sat with her head resting on her band, looking dreamily before her, a truly beautiful, but unconscious picture.. I too, began to reflect, that while I had really aimed to make the most out of life, I had not done it methodically or intelligently.
We are going to try to stay in town this summer. Hitherto Ernest would not listen to my suggestion of what an economy this would be. He always said this would turn out anything but an economy in the end. But now we have no teething baby; little Raymond is a strong, healthy child, and Una remarkably well for her, and money is so slow to come in and so fast to go out. What discomforts we suffer in the country it would take a book to write down, and here we shall have our own home, as usual. I shall not have to be separated from Ernest, and shall have leisure to devote to two very interesting people who must stay in town all the year round, no matter who goes out of it. I mean dear Mrs. Campbell and Miss Clifford, who both attract me, though in such different ways.
Chapter 22
XXII.
OCTOBER.
WELL, I had my own way, and I am afraid it has been an unwise one, for though I have enjoyed the leisure afforded by everybody being out of town, and the opportunity it has given me to devote myself to the very sweetest work on earth, the care of my darling little ones, the heat and the stifling atmosphere have been trying for me and for them. My pretty Rose went last May, to bloom in a home of her own, so I thought I would not look for a nurse, but take the whole care of them myself. This would not be much of a task to a strong person, but I am not strong, and a great deal of the time just dressing them and taking them out to walk has exhausted me. Then all the mending and other sewing must be done, and with the over-exertion creeps in the fretful tone, the impatient word. Yet I never can be as impatient with little children as I should be but for the remembrance that I should count it only a joy to minister once more to my darling boy, cost what weariness it might.
But now new cares are
"But I never cut or trimmed," said Miss Clifford.
"No, because you could afford to have it done for you. But you acknowledge that you spent a great deal of time in dressing because you thought that the easiest way of making yourself attractive. But it does not follow that the easiest way is the best way, and sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home."
"For instance?"
"Well, let us imagine a young lady, living in the world as you say you lived. She has never seriously reflected on any subject one half hour in her life. She has been borne on by the current and let it take her where it would. But at last some influence is brought to bear upon her which leads her to stop to look about her and to think. She finds herself in a world of serious, momentous events. She see she cannot live in it, was not meant to live in it forever, and that her whole unknown future depends on what she is, not on how she looks. She begins to cast about for some plan of life, and this leads---"
"A plan of life?" Miss Clifford interrupted. "I never heard of such a thing."
"Yet you would smile at an architect, who having a noble structure to build, should begin to work on it in a haphazard way, putting in a brick here and a stone there, weaving in straws and sticks if they come to hand, and when asked on what work he was engaged, and what manner of building he intended to erect, should reply he had no plan, but thought something would come of it."
Miss Clifford made no reply. She sat with her head resting on her band, looking dreamily before her, a truly beautiful, but unconscious picture.. I too, began to reflect, that while I had really aimed to make the most out of life, I had not done it methodically or intelligently.
We are going to try to stay in town this summer. Hitherto Ernest would not listen to my suggestion of what an economy this would be. He always said this would turn out anything but an economy in the end. But now we have no teething baby; little Raymond is a strong, healthy child, and Una remarkably well for her, and money is so slow to come in and so fast to go out. What discomforts we suffer in the country it would take a book to write down, and here we shall have our own home, as usual. I shall not have to be separated from Ernest, and shall have leisure to devote to two very interesting people who must stay in town all the year round, no matter who goes out of it. I mean dear Mrs. Campbell and Miss Clifford, who both attract me, though in such different ways.
Chapter 22
XXII.
OCTOBER.
WELL, I had my own way, and I am afraid it has been an unwise one, for though I have enjoyed the leisure afforded by everybody being out of town, and the opportunity it has given me to devote myself to the very sweetest work on earth, the care of my darling little ones, the heat and the stifling atmosphere have been trying for me and for them. My pretty Rose went last May, to bloom in a home of her own, so I thought I would not look for a nurse, but take the whole care of them myself. This would not be much of a task to a strong person, but I am not strong, and a great deal of the time just dressing them and taking them out to walk has exhausted me. Then all the mending and other sewing must be done, and with the over-exertion creeps in the fretful tone, the impatient word. Yet I never can be as impatient with little children as I should be but for the remembrance that I should count it only a joy to minister once more to my darling boy, cost what weariness it might.
But now new cares are