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Page 9
"Oh, yes, I'm quite a grandfather, only minus the grey hair."
It was beautiful walking home that afternoon in the light June breeze.
She wondered what Clarence was doing just then. Home looked so sweet and
pleasant, too, as she opened the gate, and she thought how sorry she
should be to leave it to go to college in the fall.
Beth stayed in her room a little while, and then came down stairs.
Arthur was alone in the parlor, sitting by the north window, and Beth
sat down near. The wind had ceased, the sun was slowly sinking in the
west, a flock of sheep were resting in the shadow of the elms on the
distant hill-slope, and the white clouds paused in the blue as if moored
by unseen hands. Who has not been moved by the peace and beauty of the
closing hours of a summer Sabbath? Arthur and Beth were slow to begin
conversation, for silence seemed more pleasing.
"Arthur, when are you going out as a missionary?" asked Beth, at last.
"Not for three or four years yet."
"Where are you going, do you know?"
"To the Jews, at Jerusalem."
"Are you sure you will be sent just where you want to go?"
"Yes, for I am going to pay my own expenses. A bachelor uncle of mine
died, leaving me an annuity."
"Don't you dread going, though?"
"Dread it! No, I rejoice in it!" he said, with a radiant smile. "One has
so many opportunities of doing good in a work like that."
"Do you always think of what you can do for others?"
"That is the best way to live," he answered, a sweet smile in the depths
of his dark eyes.
"But don't you dread the loneliness?"
"I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."
"Oh, Arthur!"--she buried her face for a moment in the cushions, and
then looked up at him with those searching grey eyes of hers--"you are
brave; you are good; I wish I were, too."
He looked down upon her tenderly for a moment.
"But, Beth, isn't your life a consecrated one--one of service?"
"It is all consecrated but one thing, and I can't consecrate that."
"You will never be happy till you do. Beth, I am afraid you are not
perfectly happy," he said, after a pause. "You do not look to be."
"Oh, yes, I am quite happy, very happy, and I shall be happier still by
and by," she said, thinking of Clarence. "But, Arthur, there is one
thing I can't consecrate. I am a Christian, and I do mean to be good,
only I can't consecrate my literary hopes and work."
"Oh, why not, Beth? That is the very thing you should consecrate. That's
the widest field you have for work. But why not surrender that, too,
Beth?"
"Oh, I don't know. I couldn't write like 'Pansy' does, it isn't natural
to me."
"You don't need to write like 'Pansy.' She has done splendid work,
though, and I don't believe there is a good home where she isn't loved.
But it may not be your place to be just like 'Pansy.'"
"No; I want to be like George Eliot."
A graver look crossed his face.
"That is right to a certain extent. George Eliot certainly had a grand
intellect, but if she had only been a consecrated Christian woman how
infinitely greater she might have been. With such talent as hers
undoubtedly was, she could have touched earth with the very tints of
heaven. Beth, don't you see what grand possibilities are yours, with
your natural gifts and the education and culture that you will have?"
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