Chapter XI: In Church

THAT little Miss Kathleen Withers was the very sweetest child!

She seemed to come to me like a sort of sunbeam. I had got out of sunshine, and among shadows, with black clouds overhead, and I couldn't see any brightness anywhere. And then all of a sudden I came on her.

Isn't it wonderful how comfort is sent when one needs it? Not that I deserved anything of the sort, I'm sure; but still it seemed sent.

Mrs. Withers was kept longer than she meant or thought to be. But it didn't matter. I was in no hurry.

Miss Kathleen took me up to a little attic-room, as neat as could be, and told me I was to sleep there. She popped her head into different rooms by the way, bidding me peep in, awl telling me whose they were. "That's father and mother's," she'd say. "And that's the best spare-room. And that's mine. And that's the boys. And those are the nurseries."

When I was in my room, she ran away; but before I'd been five minutes alone, she came rapping at the door, and when I opened it, she was carrying a little tray, with a cup of tea and some bread and butter.

"That's for you," says she, all in a glow of pleasure.

"O Miss Kathleen, you shouldn't!" I said, feeling shamed to have her wait on me.

"O yes, I should," said she, walking in. "They'd have brought it, but I wanted to bring it myself. Why shouldn't I?" says she, looking up at me. "You're in trouble, you know and father always says one ought to wait upon people in trouble, and take care of them. And you've been ill too. Oh, don't cry," says she, looking anxious. "I oughtn't to have said that, ought I? Please don't cry, but just drink the tea while it is hot. You see, the servants don't have their tea for nearly an hour yet, and we thought you oughtn't to wait so long."

Then she bade me sit down on the bed, and she perched herself on the dressing-table.

"Don't you like tables to sit on? I do," said she. "I like anything better than chairs."

I wasn't used to sit on tables, and I said so, my tears drying fast, for she interested me.

"Well, I suppose I shall have to leave off soon, now I'm growing so big," says she. "I wish one needn't grow big. Only of course, when I'm big I can be of more use to my mother and father, and that will be nice."

Then she told me she was the only girl, and she gave me the names and ages of her brothers, and all the birthdays. She seemed to think a deal of the birthdays. She talked next about the pets—the dogs and cats and birds—and she said she wasn't fond of lessons, only she tried to work hard because one ought.

"For I want to be very very useful by-and-by to everybody," said she, "and of course I can't be that if I don't learn now. Don't you want to be useful?" says she, smiling up at me as if she'd known me always.

"I suppose I do," I said, wondering that I hadn't wanted it more.

"Only 'suppose,'" says she, opening her eyes wide. "Oh, but I want it a great deal more than only just supposing. I want it dreadfully. Don't you know those words—" and then she folded her hands, speaking soft— "don't you know those words about our Lord?—'He went about doing good.' That's what I want," says she. "I want to go about doing good, when I'm grown up. Mother says, if I mean to do it by-and-by, I've got to begin now, because there's so much in habit. Do you think I shall be able to do any good to you while you're here?" says she, not a bit conceited, but all in earnest.

"Yes, Miss Kathleen," said I, for I did feel as if she was doing me good already.

"But then I'm only a little girl," says she. "Mother will do you good, and father. I don't see how I can. I'm only a little girl, and you are grown up. Anyhow—" and she smiled— "anyhow, I can bring you a cup of tea, and a cup of tea does you good, I'm sure. It's put more colour into your face already, you know."

It wasn't only the cup of tea, though. It was her own self. She had brought a sort of gleam of hope to me for the first time—even though that very day Walter Russell had turned from me.

Mrs. Withers was just as kind as Miss Kathleen, though in a different manner. I liked her, but I never could forget the one time we had met before. Most like she didn't forget it neither. People don't forget that sort of thing, once it's come before them, and of course she must know I'd been deceiving them that day. She must have heard all about it since, which made her asking me to the house the more kind. I used to wonder sometimes if everything had been told, and I couldn't feel sure.

Miss Kathleen took a wonderful fancy to me. She used to find me out wherever I was, and bring me a flower from her garden, or a book from her bookcase, or else she'd come and sit down for a chat, which I liked best of all. She seemed to have got it into her head that I was in trouble and that she had to comfort me, and she was always trying one way and another. "Mother is so busy," she'd say. "I do like to help her." But I think she got fond of me too.

There wasn't any difficulties made by Mrs. Withers. She just let things go on so. But one day, all of a sudden, she took me by surprise, speaking when she and I were alone together. I couldn't think whatever was coming, but soon I understood.

She began about the liking Miss Kathleen showed to be with me, and how she was very glad Miss Kathleen should—only—and there she stopped, and began afresh. Miss Kathleen was such a good truthful child always, she said, and so simple, and with no nonsense in her head. Then there came another stop.

"Kitty," says she, "you have not always been truthful, and you have had a great deal of nonsense in your head. I know so much, you see. Can I depend upon you with my little girl?" says she. "You have had a sharp lesson, and I think you cannot be the same after it that you were before. If I let the child be in and out with you as much as she likes, can I be sure that she will gain no harm—will learn no deceit nor folly from you?" says she.

It did go to my heart to think I wasn't counted fit to be trusted with that child; and yet what else was to be expected, after the way I'd let myself be drawn into evil?

I don't half know what I said, except that I had had a sharp lesson, and I would be very very careful, and never speak a word to Miss Kathleen which I wouldn't wish her mother to hear.

"Yes, that will be right—that will do," said she.

Then I gave way and cried bitterly, and how good, to be sure, she was! She took one seat, and made me take another, and she said such comforting words.

Somehow I hadn't felt till then so fully how I had sinned against God first and most of all, and how first and most of all I needed His forgiveness.

I had wronged my father, and before he died he had forgiven me; and I had wronged my mother, and she wasn't in a state to know how to pardon. But far, far beyond these I had wronged my Father in Heaven, and that had been only a second sort of thought with me.

"Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned!" Mrs. Withers said once or twice; and I began to say the words in my heart, meaning them. Not "only" in one sense, because I had wronged others; but "only" in another sense, because the wrong against others was nothing at all seen beside the wrong done to my God.

I kept thinking of that wrong and sin all the rest of the day. I tried to pray for pardon, but no comfort came. When Miss Kathleen came to me, and wanted to talk about all sorts of things, I didn't find it easy to listen nor answer. "Against Thee—Thee only" —was running through my head.

Next day was Sunday; and it was a day I shan't soon forget, though it passed by quiet enough to all outward seeming, and nobody could have guessed it was anything out of the common to me.

The morning service wasn't. I went to Church, and knelt and stood and sat just as usual; and I couldn't listen much, nor take it all in. And the afternoon dragged by in a like fashion.

Then came the evening service. I had a seat in a dark corner, half behind a pillar, where I couldn't be seen. I was glad of this—soon.

For in the very first words, the opening sentences, there came a message straight to my heart.—

"I will arise, and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, Father, I have sinned—"

That was all I heard.

In one moment I seemed to see the whole. The Father waiting at home, full of love, full of longing; and the poor wanderer far away, just making up his mind to "arise and go."

Perhaps I hadn't done that. I had sat still and bemoaned myself, expecting to have something done to me; but I hadn't taken the first step. I had not said, "I will arise and go."

It might not be many steps to take; still I had to take those steps. They were possible steps for me, because they were right.

"And I will say unto Him, Father—"

There, behind the pillar, in the dimly-lighted country Church, my whole self seemed to give a leap forward, hurrying towards the Father whom I had wronged; and a voice in my heart cried out, "Father!"

It was the cry which had brought to me before the lesser forgiveness which I had craved.

"Father!" I cried, and no man in the congregation heard; but He was listening.

"Father, I have sinned against Thee!" I tried to pray this, and I tried to ask pardon "for Jesus' sake." Then I remembered that Jesus is One with the Father, and that He, as God, is my Father. Isn't He called so once in the Bible, "the Everlasting Father"? Speaking to Him is speaking to God. And no common words of prayer would come, but only the one cry, a child's cry, out of danger and distress— "Father! Father! Father!"

Then the other time came back to me, when I had said the same word, and my earthly father had taken me in his arms, putting away the past, forgiving and showing love.

I thought how it was to be the same over again. For "when he saw his son a great way off, he ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

So poor and weak, so unworthy of any such love! Could I hope or expect—?

I don't know about the hoping or expecting. But I know that was the manner of forgiveness which came to me. I could not stand or sit. I could only kneel, with face hidden, feeling that I had arisen, and that my Father's "Everlasting Arms" were around me.

I didn't hear much of the service for a while; when I did, a new light and beauty had come into the prayers.

I think life was changed to me from that day. Having "bread enough and to spare," I wasn't like to care so much for "the husks that the swine do eat."

And yet of course the old temptations wouldn't lose their power at once, and fighting enough might lie ahead. I had arisen and gone back to my Father. That didn't mean that I could not wander off again, if so I was minded, or if I grew careless.

"Kitty, I think you're different from when you first came," Miss Kathleen said soberly one day, near a week later. "You do look more happy, you know. Are you different? and are you happier? and has it done you good being here?"

"Yes, Miss Kathleen," I answered. I could say "Yes" to all three questions. But I couldn't talk about what I felt yet, even to her. It was too sacred and too solemn; and I wasn't worthy. I had to strive to live as a child of God; that was the great matter. Doing and living are far more than mere talking.