Lucy Raymond | Page 5

Sunday school, she now regretted exceedingly that Stella had not been present to hear Miss Preston's earnest words.
"Oh, Stella," she said eagerly, "I do so wish you had been with me! If you had only heard what Miss Preston said to us, it would have done you good all your life."
"Well, you know I don't worship Miss Preston," replied Stella, always ready to tease, "she looks so demure. And as for dressing, why, Ada and Sophy wouldn't be seen out in the morning in that common-looking muslin she wore to church."
"Oh, Stella, how can you go on so?" exclaimed Lucy impatiently. "If you only had something better to think of, you wouldn't talk as if you thought dress the one thing needful."
"That's a quotation from one of Uncle Raymond's sermons, isn't it?" rejoined Stella aggravatingly.
Lucy drew her arm away from her cousin's and walked off alone to the house, obliged to hear Stella's closing remark: "Well, I'm glad I didn't go to Sunday school if it makes people come home cross and sulky!" And then, unconscious of the sting her words had implanted, Stella turned to meet little Harry, who was bounding home in his highest spirits.
Lucy slowly found her way to her own room, her especial sanctuary, where she had a good deal of pleasure in keeping her various possessions neatly arranged. At present it was shared by her young visitor, whose careless, disorderly ways were a considerable drawback to the pleasure so long anticipated of having a companion of her own age. Just now her eye fell at once on her ransacked bookcase all in confusion, with the books scattered about the room. It was a trifle, but trifles are magnified when the temper is already discomposed; and throwing down her gloves and Bible, she hastily proceeded to rearrange them, feeling rather unamiably towards her cousin.
But as she turned back from the completed task, her card with its motto met her eye, like a gentle reproof to her ruffled spirit--"LOOKING UNTO JESUS." Had she not forgotten that already? She had come home enthusiastic--full of an ideal life she was to live, an example and influence for good to all around her. But, mingled in her aspirations, there was an unconscious desire for pre-eminence and an insidious self-complacency--"little foxes" that will spoil the best grapes. She had to learn that God will not be served with unhallowed fire; that the heart must be freed from pride and self-seeking before it can be fit for the service of the sanctuary. Already she knew she had been impatient and unconciliatory, contemptuous to poor ill-trained Nancy, whose home influences were very unfavourable; and now, by her hastiness towards her cousin, whom she had been so anxious to influence for good, she had probably disgusted her with the things in which she most wanted to interest her.
She did not turn away, however, from the lights conscience brought to her. Nurtured in a happy Christian home, under the watchful eye of the loving father whose care had to a great extent supplied the want of the mother she could scarcely remember, she could not have specified the time when she first began to look upon Christ as her Saviour, and to feel herself bound to live unto Him, and not to herself. But her teacher's words had given her a new impulse--a more definite realization of the strength by which the Christian life was to be lived--
"The mind to blend with outward life, While keeping at Thy side."
Humbled by her failure, she honestly confessed it, and asked for more of the strength which every earnest seeker shall receive.
With a much lighter heart and clearer brow, Lucy went to rejoin Stella, whom she found amusing herself with Harry and his rabbits, having forgotten all about Lucy's hastiness. Lucy seated herself on the grass beside them, joining readily in the admiration with which Stella, no less than Harry, was caressing the soft, white, downy creature with pink eyes, which was her brother's latest acquisition.
"I want him to call it Blanche--such a pretty name, isn't it, Lucy?" said Stella.
"I won't," declared the perverse Harry, "because I don't like it;" and so saying, he rushed off to join "the boys," as he called them.
"What have you got there?" asked Stella, holding out her hand for Lucy's card, which she had brought down. "Yes, it's pretty, but Sophy does much prettier ones; you should see some lovely ones she has done!"
"Has she?" asked Lucy with interest,--thinking Stella's sister must care more for the Bible than she herself did, if she painted illuminated texts. "I was going to tell you this was what Miss Preston was speaking to us about."
"I don't see that she could say much about that, it's so short. I don't see what it means; Jesus is