“That is,” she replied, with a smile, “I shall live on your charity instead of that of someone else.”
His face grew sad at once, but he answered, as he went away, “I could not give you charity, Miss Ludolph.”
Christine saw that she had pained him, and was much vexed with herself. But his remark added to the hope and almost belief that she still held her old place in his heart, and she resolved to make amends in the evening for her unlucky speech.
With a smile she said to herself: “If he only knew that I would prefer the coarsest, scantiest fare provided by him to the most costly banquet, he would not have gone away with that long face. How rich life would be if I could commence it with him, and we struggle up together! Oh, Heaven, grant,” she sighed, looking earnestly upward, “that through these wonderful, terrible changes, I may climb the mountain at his side, as he so graphically portrayed it in his picture!”
Mrs. Leonard still slept, and her husband in an agony of anxiety watched at her side. At last, a little before midday, she opened her eyes and said, in her natural tone: “Why, John, I must have greatly overslept. Where am I?” and then, as her husband fairly sobbed for joy, she started up and said, hurriedly: “What is the matter? What has happened?”
“Oh, be calm!” whispered Christine to the professor. “Everything depends on keeping her quiet.” Then she bent over her friend, and said: “Do not be alarmed, Susie; you are now safe and well, and so is your husband. But you have been ill, and for his sake and your own you must keep quiet.”
She turned inquiringly to her husband, who said, more calmly, “It is all true, and if you can only be careful we can go back to Boston as well as ever.”
“I will do anything you say, John; but why am I in a church?”
“You were taken sick in the street, and this was the nearest place to bring you.”
“Oh, dear! I have had such strange, dreadful dreams. I am so glad they were only dreams, and you are here with me;” and she lay quietly holding her husband’s hands and looking contentedly in his face. It was evident she was herself again, and much better.
Dr. Arten soon after came and said, cheerily, “All right! all right! will have you out in a day or two as good as new, and then, Miss Ludolph, you will see how much more grateful she is to the old doctor than you were.”
“You must present your bill,” replied Christine, with a smile.
“May I?” retorted the doctor, wiping his lips.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” cried Christine; adding, quickly, “when I welcome you to my own home you may.”
“An old maid’s hall, I suppose.”
“It will be an orphan’s home, at least,” said Christine, softly and sadly.
Tears filled the old man’s eyes, and putting his arm around her he drew her to him, saying, as he stroked her drooping head: “Poor child! poor child! I did not know. But you shall never want a protector while the old doctor is above ground. As far as possible I will be a father to you;” and Christine knew she had found a friend as true and strong as steel, and she buried her face on his shoulder and cried as trustingly as his own child might have done.
“Oh, Christine!” cried Mrs. Leonard, “I am so sorry for you!”
At the voice of her old friend she at once rallied, and, trying to smile through her tears, said, “God has been so much better to me than I deserved that I have only gratitude when I think of myself; but my poor father—” and again she covered her face and wept.
“Christine, come here,” said Mrs. Leonard, softly, and she put her arms around the weeping girl. “You spoke of God’s being good to you. Have you in truth found and learned to trust Him?”
“Yes,” she replied, eagerly, joy and peace coming out in her face like the sun shining through clouds and rain. Then with bowed head she whispered low: “The one I wronged on earth led me to the One I wronged in heaven, and both have forgiven me. Oh, I am so glad, so happy!”
“Then you have seen Mr. Fleet.”
“Yes, he saved my life again and again, but in teaching me how to find my Saviour, he has done far more for me.”
“And you will not wrong him any more, will you, Christine? He has loved you so long and faithfully.”
In reply she lifted an eager face to her friend and said, “Do you think he can love me still after my treatment of him?”
“Give him a chance to tell you,” said Mrs. Leonard, with a half-mischievous smile. “Has he not shown his feelings?”
“He has treated me more as a brother might have done, and yet he is so very respectful and deferential—I hope—but I am not perfectly sure—and then he seems under some restraint.”
Mrs. Leonard said, musingly: “He knows that you are Baroness Ludolph. I told him last week, for I thought he ought to know, and the fact of your approaching departure for Europe has been no secret of late. He thinks you are pledged to a future in which he cannot share; and in your grateful, dependent condition he would not cause you the pain of refusing him. I think that is just where he stands,” she concluded, with a woman’s mastery of the science of love, and taking almost as much interest in her friend’s affair as she had felt in her own. To most ladies this subject has a peculiar fascination, and, having settled their own matters, they enter with scarcely less zest on the task of helping others arrange theirs. Mrs. Leonard rallied faster under the excitement of this new interest than from the doctor’s remedies.
After a few moments’ thought Christine said, decidedly: “All that nonsense about
