On the Church Steps | Page 5

all know what I was singing?"
"That's just it! just what makes it so dreadful! Nobody was thinking
about it--nobody! Nobody there wanted to give up earth and go straight
to heaven and sing. I looked round at all the people, with their new
bonnets, and the diamonds, and the footmen in the pews up stairs, and I
thought, What lies they are all saying! Nobody wants to go to heaven at
all until they are a hundred years old, and too deaf and blind and tired
out to do anything on earth. My heaven is here and now in my own
happiness, and so is yours, Charlie; and I felt so convicted of being a
story-teller that I couldn't hold the book in my hand."
"Well, then," said I, "shall we have one set of hymns for happy people,
and another for poor, tired-out folks like that little dressmaker that
leaned against the wall?" For Bessie herself had called my attention to
the pale little body who had come to the church door at the same
moment with us.
"No, not two sets. Do you suppose that she, either, wants to sing on for
ever? And all those girls! Sorry enough they would be to have to die,
and leave their dancing and flirtations and the establishments they hope
to have! It wouldn't be much comfort to them to promise them they
should sing. Charlie, I want a hymn that shall give thanks that I am
alive, that I have you."
"Could the dressmaker sing that?"
"No;" and Bessie's eyes sought the shining blue sky with a wistful,
beseeching tenderness. "Oh, it's all wrong, Charlie dear. She ought to
tell us in a chant how tired and hopeless she is for this world; and we
ought to sing to her something that would cheer her, help her, even in

this world. Why must she wait for all her brightness till she dies? So
perfectly heartless to stand up along side of her and sing that!"
"Well," I said, "you needn't wait till next Sunday to bring her your
words of cheer."
In a minute my darling was crying on my shoulder. I could understand
the outburst, and was glad of it.
All athrill with new emotions, new purposes, an eternity of love, she
had come to church to be reminded that earth was naught, that the trials
and tempests here would come to an end some day, and after, to the
patiently victorious, would come the hymns of praise. Earth was very
full that morning to her and me; earth was a place for worshipful
harmonies; and yet the strong contrast with the poor patient sufferer
who had passed into church with us was too much for Bessie: she
craved an expression that should comprehend alike her sorrow and our
abundant joy.
The tempest of tears passed by, and we had bright skies again. Poor
Mrs. Sloman's dinner waited long that day; and it was with a guilty
sense that she was waiting too that we went down the hill at a
quickened pace when the church clock, sounding up the hillside, came
like a chiding voice.
And a double sense of guiltiness was creeping over me. I must return to
New York to-morrow, and I had not told Bessie yet of the longer
journey I must make so soon. I put it by again and again in the short
flying hours of that afternoon; and it was not until dusk had fallen in
the little porch, as we sat there after tea, and I had watched the light
from Mrs. Sloman's chamber shine down upon the honeysuckles and
then go out, that I took my resolution.
"Bessie," I said, leaning over her and taking her face in both my hands,
"I have something to tell you."
CHAPTER III.

"I have something to tell you;" and without an instant's pause I went on:
"Mr. D---- has business in England which cannot be attended to by
letter. One of us must go, and they send me. I must sail in two weeks."
It was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and Bessie gave a little gasp of
surprise: "So soon! Oh, Charlie, take me with you!" Realizing in the
next instant the purport of the suggestion, she flung away from my
hands and rushed into the parlor, where a dim, soft lamp was burning
on the table. She sat down on a low chair beside it and hid her face on
the table in her hands.
Like a flash of lightning all the possibilities of our marriage before
many days--arranging it with Mrs. Sloman, and satisfying my partners,
who would expect me to travel fast and work hard in the short time
they had allotted for the journey,--all came surging and