EQUAL TO THE OCCASION.
 
 EQUAL TO THE 
 OCCASION 
 
 EDWARD GARRETT 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' BV STII.t. WATERS,' ' AT ANY COST,' 
 'ONE NEW YEAR'S NIGHT,' ETC. ETC. 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 12 BIBLE HOUSE 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 148 & 150 MADISON ST.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. SAINT CECICILA-IN-THE-GARDEN 7 
 
 ii. CHEISSY'S FATHER, 24 
 
 in. NEXT MORNING'S NEWS, 49 
 
 IV. THE GREAT METROPOLITAN BANK, .... 63 
 
 v. MR. BENTLEY'S VERDICT, -75 
 
 VI. IN THE SKY-PARLOUR, 89 
 
 VII. HANS KRINKEN, .Ill 
 
 vui. CHRISSY'S HOLIDAY, . . . . . .118 
 
 IX. AN OLD PICTURE, 132 
 
 x. CHRISSY'S TEMPTATION, 146 
 
 XI. TEN POUNDS, 156 
 
 XII. A VENTURE, 170 
 
 XIII. ESTHER GRAY, l86 
 
 XIV. AN ANNIVERSARY, 2O2 
 
 XV. TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS, 2l6 
 
 XVI. THE TWO SISTERS, . . ". ~ . . . 227 
 
 XVII. A LOAN AND A LEGACY, 236 
 
 XVIII. WHERE THE SERMON ENDED, 245 
 
 2135S44
 
 Eqttal to the Occasion appeared in serial form In ' The Quiver, ' 
 some years ago
 
 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SAINT CECILIA-IN-THE-GARDEN. 
 
 ONDON, the bust- 
 ling and the 
 crowded, has yet 
 retreats and soli- 
 tudes peculiarly its 
 own. 
 
 So thought the 
 Rev. Harold Bent- 
 ley, as he stood in 
 readiness for week- 
 night service in 
 the vestry of St. 
 Cecilia-in-the-Gar- 
 den, in the heart of the great city. 
 
 The very name of the church told the story of the 
 
 7
 
 8 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 remote and far different days in which it had been 
 reared and dedicated to the worship of God. The 
 ground on which it stood had been part of the great 
 pleasure garden belonging to the mansion of Sir 
 Godfrey Turner, Knight. When his young wife 
 Cecilia died, he had detached this plot for a place of 
 family sepulture, hallowing it by the erection of the 
 house of God, and, in his simple old-world piety, 
 leaving no record of his love and grief except the 
 name that he bestowed upon it. At least so ran the 
 local legend, borne out by many facts. For certainly 
 the church had been built on Sir Godfrey's grounds, 
 and considerably endowed by him ; and since many 
 later generations of Turners had been unmistakably 
 buried in the vaults of St. Cecilia, it was no very 
 great stretch of imagination to believe that Sir 
 Godfrey and his spouse themselves rested among the 
 few unnamed and crumbling sarcophagi. Did not 
 the ancient church plate bear the inscription 
 ' Gifted to God and to His Church of Saint Cecilia- 
 in-the-Garden, by Godfrey Turner, Knight, in the 
 year of our Lord 1570'? Antiquarians indeed said 
 that there had been an ecclesiastical foundation on 
 that spot many centuries earlier, but that did not 
 necessarily militate against the legend of Sir Godfrey. 
 What more likely than that the church lands had 
 been thrown into his demesne at the Reformation ? 
 What more likely than that when Sir Godfrey's
 
 SAINT CECILIA-IN-THE-GARDEN. 9 
 
 mind turned to church-building, it should revert to 
 a spot already consecrated, and he should long to 
 devote it anew to a purer devotion ? The parish- 
 ioners of St. Cecilia-in-the-Garden would not give 
 up the story of the good knight and his beloved 
 lady. 
 
 Tradition further said, that when the church was 
 built, and for long afterwards, there had stood 
 about its quadrangle sixteen trees, four on each side. 
 An old man, still living, remembered another old man 
 who had seen these in their glory ; and certainly, in 
 going about the damp little square, one could see 
 inequalities in the paving where those trees ought to 
 have been. But only one remained now, with its 
 poor roots closed in under the stones, and it put 
 forth leaves more scantily every year, though Miss 
 Griffin, the old housekeeper of the warehouse at the 
 corner, threw buckets of water round its trunk. 
 
 The Rev. Harold Bentley was an entire stranger 
 in the place. He did not know the church nor its 
 vicar. He had never been in the neighbourhood be- 
 fore, and did not even know much of London at all. 
 The vicar of St. Cecilia's was now taking his summer 
 holiday. A mutual friend of his and Mr. Bentley's 
 had undertaken the duty, and had fallen ill, and so 
 Mr. Bentley, passing through the metropolis, had 
 taken his place for this one evening. 
 
 The Rev. Harold Bentley was not a young man,
 
 io EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 though there was still a fire in his eye, and a vigour 
 and suppleness about his commanding figure, which 
 younger men might have envied. But there were 
 masses of silver in his hair, and many experiences, 
 deep and sad as well as joyful, had written out their 
 history over the beauty of youth, which at its best is 
 but a fair blank page. 
 
 His own cure of souls lay in a great northern 
 manufacturing town ; there he had laboured for 
 nearly thirty years, and there he was now surrounded 
 by a generation who had learned from their parents' 
 example and words to honour and to love him. His 
 church there was big and bare, guiltless of carved 
 oak or glowing glass, but filled from aisle to gallery, 
 from the organ-loft to the square pew where his own 
 children sat, with throbbing, earnest life. His con- 
 gregation was not quite an ordinary congregation ; 
 he had gone down to the depths, and had brought up 
 strange treasures for his King, rough, wild-looking 
 colliers, infidel mill-hands, and weird, haggard women 
 of every age. His hearers were old men, with 
 emphasized histories, who knew the truth of every 
 word he said ; middle-aged men, acting out the 
 drama of life, shaping the politics of their country 
 and their town, and coming to him hungering and 
 thirsting for the great principles which must underlie 
 the right conduct of affairs ; young men, with hands 
 already stretching out to the future.
 
 SAINT CE C1LIA-IN- THE- GARDEN. 1 1 
 
 A vision of the /aces he was accustomed to meet 
 from his pulpit rose before his mind's eye as he 
 opened the door of the vestry of St. Cecilia-in-the- 
 Garden, and peeped into the building. 
 
 To him, the church seemed empty in the dusk. 
 A few lamps were burning dimly about the reading- 
 desk, but daylight still streamed through the great 
 windows, which for the most part were filled with 
 small clear panes, though all of them were gemrned 
 with borders and shields of exquisite stained glass. 
 The altar, with its sumptuous carvings of flower and 
 angel, lay in deep shadow, except that some brass 
 ornaments and the crimson velvet altar-cloth caught 
 a single ray of light from one of the pale lamps. 
 Upon the broad desks of each wide high pew Mr. 
 Bentley could see great Bibles and Prayer-Books, 
 whose first owners were probably among those 
 whose eulogistic memorial tablets were supported 
 against the walls by plump cherubs in black or 
 white marble. Did anybody use those books now ? 
 And would they ever be used again ? 
 
 As Mr. Bentley looked out, the church bell 
 ceased, and the organ its player entirely hidden 
 from view rolled forth its deep, melodious welcome. 
 He saw the attentive beadle, gorgeous in crimson 
 and black, advancing, wand in hand, to conduct him 
 to his rostrum. 
 
 But where was the congregation ?
 
 i2 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 That was the question the clergyman asked while 
 the attendant needlessly adjusted and stroked his 
 hood and surplice. 
 
 'They are all here that's coming, sir,' said the 
 man. ' We're pretty few on Sundays, leave alone 
 week nights. No, the Miss Millers are not here yet ; 
 but they're sure to come.' 
 
 ' But I don't see anybody,' remonstrated Mr. 
 Bentley. 
 
 ' Oh, you will when you're in the pulpit, sir,' said 
 the beadle, with perfect satisfaction. ' There's nine 
 already, without the Millers, and I've never known 
 more nor twelve for years back not even when 
 the bishop preached,' he added, misunderstanding 
 Mr. Bentley's concern. ' They are mostly old 
 folks and children, and sits low. You'll see 'em 
 all, sir, when you're mounted, and they are on their 
 feet.' 
 
 ' Well, well,' thought Mr. Bentley, as he followed 
 the man, ' this is disheartening work. The parish 
 may have changed from what it used to be, but 
 certainly there are still many more people in it than 
 seem to care for the ministrations of the Church. I 
 scarcely know how I shall conduct a service under 
 circumstances like these. When one thinks of the 
 surging multitudes outside, this seems labour thrown 
 away, and one never works well when one feels 
 that.'
 
 SAINT CEC1LIA-IN-THE-GARDEN. 13 
 
 But as he knelt in prayer, his mood changed. 
 The very text which he had chosen for that even- 
 ing's meditation came back upon his own heart as 
 by the whisper of a Divine voice 
 
 ' He that is faithful in that which is least, is 
 faithful also in much.' 
 
 He rose from his knees, and looked round. There 
 was the same dusky, empty church, but he could 
 now see the faces of his scanty auditory poor old 
 women, ancient alms-men, apple-faced boys, pro- 
 bably sent there to be safely out of the way 
 of over - burdened mothers. The two belated 
 worshippers had arrived now, and they did not add 
 much to the dignity of the congregation, though 
 their fresh /aces and bright ribbons gleamed in the 
 sombre old place like flowers thrown down in a 
 casket of ancient garnishings. They were only two 
 young girls of sixteen or eighteen years old, 
 daughters, probably, of some of the shopkeepers in 
 the neighbourhood mere children in the eyes of 
 the Rev. Harold Bentley, who had some of his own 
 of about the same age. 
 
 But the transient sense of disheartenment had 
 passed from the good man. What was the largest 
 audience but a congregation of units and here 
 were the units ! Some word of his might carry 
 a thought of cheer or consolation to one of these 
 old folks with the patient faces and threadbare
 
 i 4 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 garments, who had borne poverty in the midst of 
 wealth, and now hoped for nothing but the end. 
 
 ' We have no right to think what our deeds 
 may effect,' said the preacher, disregarding his 
 notes, and speaking straight out of his own heart to 
 , himself. ' It is our place only to see that we act 
 rightly, and to leave the issue with God. None but 
 He knows which is greatest and which least, what 
 shall fade and what shall flourish. One man may be 
 ' the adviser of a mighty potentate, whose plans an 
 assassin's hand may cut short to-morrow ; another 
 may be the teacher of a little child, whose future 
 life may be a light to all mankind. The broad 
 cornfields which a man sows may lie blasted and 
 bare, while the little acorn he dropped unawares 
 may grow into a great sheltering tree. It is far 
 more to be good than to do good because being 
 good is doing good perpetually, while attempting 
 to do good without being good is like carrying 
 bread to feed the hungry, and dropping poison 
 from our garments as we pass along. 
 
 'The poor man thinks that the rich man has a 
 chance of doing greater things than he ; the rich 
 man thinks his poorer brother is freer for the service 
 of God. The young think their time will come 
 when they are old ; the old, that their opportunities 
 have passed away with their youth. But there is 
 no place better for us than the place we are called
 
 SAINT CECILIA-IN-THE-GARDEN. 15 
 
 to fill ; no work worthier than the work we are 
 called to do. God made us what we are, and put 
 us in our places, not necessarily to stay there, but 
 to do our duty there, and to go out where it leads 
 us. We have not to think what we might do, but 
 what we can do. We have not to meet to-morrow's 
 trial, but to-day's duty. In discharging it, we do 
 meet to-morrow's trial in the only way in which it 
 can be met we prepare ourselves and all about us 
 for it. " Take no thought for the morrow ; sufficient 
 unto the day is the evil thereof," are words often 
 blasphemously quoted by those who seek to find 
 in them an excuse for recklessness and indifference. 
 They are really the utterance of a wise Providence, 
 and a noble forecasting. They say simply, " Do not 
 think of your next step ; is your foot sure now ? " 
 
 'From that spirit all true heroisms spring; in 
 that spirit all good work is done. I once heard an 
 aged woman say to a little child, " If you look at 
 the whole length of your seam, you will never get it 
 sewn : look only at the little bit between your 
 thumb and finger." There was a philosophy of 
 life in those humble words. It is not godliness to 
 sit and dream of the heights and glories of heaven : 
 it is godliness to advance towards them, step by 
 step, day by day. The truly devout mind is the 
 " present mind," which knows that God is all about 
 it, sanctifying its homely surroundings, and which
 
 1 6 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 seeks to do the lowliest duty as in His sight, with 
 all one's heart, and with all one's mind, and with all 
 one's strength. There is a story told in Scotch 
 history, that on one occasion the king, Robert the 
 Bruce, then a struggling patriot, sorely pressed 
 by English troops, was fighting single-handed with 
 many men. If he had paused to think of the 
 future, it must have seemed as if what happened 
 then could not matter much, for the fortunes 
 of his country appeared so low that victory to-day 
 could be only defeat to - morrow. Or, if he 
 had thought about himself, he might have judged, 
 " I am not of so much consequence ; I may as 
 well let myself be slain or taken prisoner ; it is no 
 use struggling so desperately." But he thought 
 only of the present and its duty ; and that was, 
 to struggle. And, one by one, his foes went down, 
 and left him triumphant; and his life, passing 
 safely on, was the life of the man who saved his 
 nation from servitude. And it would have made a 
 great difference to us all here if Robert the Bruce 
 had not been found faithful on his occasion, for it 
 was through his brave maintenance of his country's 
 freedom that Scotland and England are united 
 to-day not by conquest, but by peaceful union. 
 
 ' Brethren, there is one ambition which can be 
 set before all lives, however diverse. It is that each 
 may be equal to his occasion. Then that thread of
 
 SAINT CECILIA-1N-THE-GARDEN. i 7 
 
 the world's history which is spun from our being 
 will be sound and pure, and ready for any future 
 strain that may come upon it. 
 
 'And remember, in being faithful, to what we 
 should be faithful. Not to our own wills and 
 wishes; not to the judgments of others; not to) 
 the forms and fashions of the world. We must be 
 faithful to God faithful to His law, which is the' 
 foundation of all right. His law is everywhere 
 above and below and within every possible action 
 or circumstance. A Christian poet has told us that 
 a room may be swept according to God's law. His 
 law is what we familiarly call " the right way," "the 
 right thing to do." But sometimes it is not easy 
 to discover what His law in a matter is. It dips 
 out of our sight, as it were, though it is certainly 
 there. But God has not only given us a law ; He 
 has also given us a Person a life to guide us along 
 the way to the truth. Are you in any doubt as to ( 
 what you should do ? as to how you should be 
 faithful ? Pause and ask yourselves, " What would ' 
 Jesus do?" The very thought of Him the re- 
 membrance that He calls you " brother," " sister ; " 
 that He did not count it loss even to die for you 
 will make hard things easy, and dark things light ; 
 ay, my friends, even though the behest may come 
 at last, " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will 
 give thee a crown of life." '
 
 1 8 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 The clergyman sat down ; he sat in the pulpit, 
 and forgot that the congregation would wait 
 for his departure before they stirred. The 
 beadle fidgeted uneasily at the foot of the pulpit 
 stairs. 
 
 ' Mr. Bentley had not preached the sermon he had 
 meant to preach. He had spoken entirely to him- 
 self, from beginning to end preached at his own 
 faithlessness and discouragement preached, at last, 
 to a pain and an anxiety which lay rankling in his 
 own heart. It was that anxiety which had brought 
 him up to London at this season. It had cost him 
 many a yearning prayer and many a sleepless night. 
 And, like most of our deep pains, it was closely 
 interwoven with familiar happiness and with tender 
 love and pride, for it concerned his eldest child, his 
 son and namesake, Harold. 
 
 When the people saw that the preacher forgot to 
 come down, they rose silently and went out, one by 
 one, waiting to speak to each other by the great 
 carved font in the vestibule. 
 
 ' That was a fine sermon,' said one poor old crone 
 to another. ' Many's the time I've heard my good 
 man that's gone say the very same things in his 
 own homely way. It brought it all back to me, 
 and makes me ashamed of the mean repining 
 thoughts I've had lately, since he was took. "Faithful 
 unto death " he was, if ever man was, and now he's
 
 SAINT CECILIA-IN-THE-GARDEN. 21 
 
 got the crown of life, and I ought to be proud and 
 happy, thinking on it.' 
 
 'Ay, ay,' said another, a grey old maid, Miss 
 Griffin by name, who lived alone with a cat in a 
 wilderness of offices of which she had charge ; ' and 
 I couldn't help thinking that the old woman who 
 told the girl to look at the bit between her thumb 
 and finger must have been very like my mother. 
 It was just like her good common sense. I'm afraid 
 there's no such women now-a-days. I'm sorry for 
 the present generation of young people when I 
 think of it.' 
 
 'You're just such a woman yourself,' said an 
 elderly man, with a green shade over his eyes. ' I 
 heard the doctor's parlour-maid repeating some of 
 your sayings to her young ladies the other day, and 
 the doctor's mother said they ought to be printed in 
 gold. It's as well for me to tell you so. There's 
 not so much pleasant truth spoken o' people in this 
 world as will make them vain to hear the whole of 
 it repeated. And one might as well repeat a good 
 word when one can, for one never knows when a 
 body wants heartening up.' 
 
 ' I say, Jem,' said a little charity boy to his 
 comrade, 'that was grand about the Scotch king, 
 wasn't it ? I've heard my uncle say that it's a good 
 breed of men or dogs that hold on it isn't the 
 grand start, it's the pegging away, that wins any race.'
 
 22 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 And there passed out a woman, who lingered to 
 speak to nobody a woman clad in coarse dusty 
 black, with a face dark and heavy. She went 
 straight forward, with a sluggish tread. Last week 
 the little group would have drawn apart at her 
 coming. But to-night, after that sermon, they only 
 moved aside to let her pass, and the grey old maid 
 ventured on a slight grave nod. 
 
 * Mother used to say it was not for us to judge, 
 and we could afford to pity the sinner after his sins 
 were visited on him,' said Miss Griffin to her friends, 
 as if in apology for her courtesy. 
 
 And as the lonely woman passed into the twilight 
 street, she repeated softly to herself, 
 
 'Jesus calls me sister.' 
 
 The young Miller girls were the last to leave 
 the building, and they had youth's cheery nod and 
 smile for their fellow-worshippers. 
 
 'Fine lassies, both of them,' commented the old 
 man. 
 
 ' But give me the younger one,' said Miss Griffin. 
 
 ' You never know what young things will be till 
 you see where their hearts turn,' observed the 
 widow. 'I don't say what I mightn't have turned 
 out if my old man hadn't been as good as he was.' 
 
 'A good woman gets a good husband or none 
 at all,' said the old maid. 
 
 ' There's no rule,' rejoined the widow ; ' but a
 
 SAINT CECILIA-IN-THE-GARDEN. 23 
 
 good woman will make the best of a bad job if it | 
 falls to her. As I say o' my washing, you may\ 
 make the dirtiest duds a bit wholesomer, but there's 
 some that won't wash white.' 
 
 They were just about to separate, when the 
 youngest Miss Miller stepped back to the group 
 and asked, 
 
 ' Do you happen to know the name of the clergy- 
 man who preached to-night ? ' 
 
 ' Ay, Miss Chrissy,' answered the old man. ' The 
 beadle told me he's the Reverend Harold Bentley, 
 and he's got a big parish in the Midland counties.' 
 
 ' Thank you very much,' said the girl, and tripped 
 away. 
 
 ' Blessings on her pretty face ! ' cried the old 
 widow. ' Something in the sermon has laid hold of 
 her too, I expect.'
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHRISSY'S FATHER. 
 
 HE Millers lived in a street which 
 was almost as much a relic of old 
 times as was the church itself. 
 
 The fine old houses of the 
 parish houses which had once 
 been greatly affected by aged 
 nobles and gentle dames who 
 had sons or husbands in durance 
 in the grim Tower hard by had 
 long since fallen to dry business uses, the stately 
 saloons turned into board-rooms, and the dainty 
 china closets devoted to samples of grain or mineral. 
 And the poor mean lanes of the parish lanes in 
 which the Great Plague had rioted, and in which 
 conspirators and assassins had lurked had all 
 entirely disappeared before the demands of com- 
 merce, and the increasing value of land. 
 
 But Shield Street was something between these 
 
 24
 
 CHRISSY'S FATHER. 25 
 
 two, and the security which generally attends a 
 modest medium had protected it. 
 
 Shield Street and its inhabitants had found place 
 in many parochial records, but none in history. 
 Nobody of particular importance had ever lived 
 there. Its houses had been built for the purposes of 
 trade, and remained to their original uses. They 
 were not the less interesting for this their con- 
 tinuance, only the more clearly indicating the 
 change in times and men, telling, as they did, of 
 days when stalwart apprentices watched their 
 masters' wares, exposed in open booths, and 
 customers could be expected to ascend flights of 
 steps to make slight purchases. A picturesque 
 street was Shield Street, with many pointed gables 
 of varied elevation, for some of its houses were very 
 small and lowly ; while others had considerable 
 pretensions, even rising to back and front staircases, 
 though for some generations past these latter had 
 been mostly divided into two occupancies. 
 
 So Shield Street still remained, but under a 
 perpetual threat of doom. It was a source of lively 
 interest to its inhabitants when that doom would 
 fall some speculating on it joyfully, as giving in- 
 creased value to their leasehold property ; others 
 deprecating it, as if it would destroy all that they 
 had, their last hold on a past which had more 
 brightness for them than any future could have.
 
 26 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 Under its impending doom, Shield Street had 
 plainly deteriorated. One does not renew what is 
 likely to be soon destroyed. Nor do new beginnings 
 start where continuance is not probable. The old 
 residents might not leave Shield Street, except 
 when they died, but as their sons got married they 
 did not set up housekeeping there. What would be 
 the good of planning fixtures, and measuring carpets 
 for such corners and such floors as one was not 
 likely to find anywhere else ? 
 
 Therefore, every year took something from the 
 life and cheer of Shield Street. Even though the 
 old businesses were in several cases maintained, yet 
 as the old people died out, the upper rooms of the 
 houses were either left in dusty desuetude, or let off 
 as offices of the meaner sort, or more generally as 
 tenements. 
 
 The Millers' residence was half of the biggest 
 block in the whole thoroughfare. It consisted 
 apparently of two tall thin old houses, and it was 
 only an intimate acquaintance with their interior 
 economy which revealed that they were really but 
 one : that where the Millers lived consisting of the 
 old shop, the best rooms, and the front stairway, 
 with a wonderful dearth of special kitchen accom- 
 modation ; and the other of a large number of 
 small chambers, and a tortuous staircase. At the 
 back these houses were built around three sides of
 
 CHRISS VS FA THER. 2 7 
 
 a small quadrangle. What had once closed in the 
 fourth was not known, being only indicated on old 
 deeds by a thin drawn line, but it was now shut in 
 by the dead back wall of a comparatively modern 
 edifice. The quadrangle was very small ; standing 
 on its pavement and looking up, one seemed to be 
 at the bottom of a well ; but at least it was private, 
 and the little Millers had been able to perch on 
 their back window-sills and chat and laugh with 
 the Ackroyds, their next-door neighbours. 
 \\ In whatever relation people stand, there is always 
 'somebody who takes the lead and is looked up 
 to. And in Shield Street this was Mr. Alexander 
 Miller, bookseller and stationer. 
 
 He was quite an elderly man now, though his 
 daughters were still girls. He had married rather 
 late in life. Most of his neighbours were surrounded 
 by large family connections. He stood alone. Of 
 his history, it was only known that he was the son 
 of a race of Scotch farmers, and that not another of 
 the family had been seen in London. Despite the 
 isolation of his position, it was not without its 
 advantages to a man of high character and strongly 
 marked good qualities. A large family connection 
 must generally contain many elements, some dis- 
 cordant, and the common people sometimes regard 
 a good man with familiarity because his second 
 cousin is worthy of contempt. There are few
 
 28 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 people, too, so utterly without personal weakness 
 
 and vanity as to be able to maintain a clear 
 
 judgment respecting those closely associated with 
 
 themselves ; and while the suspension of such 
 
 judgment proves partiality, its exercise is currently 
 
 suspected of private spite or harshness. If a man 
 
 ' 'ignores the faults of his own kindred, his exhorta- 
 
 ' 1 tions are received with a quiet hint to look at home. 
 
 I If he looks at home and acknowledges what he sees 
 
 there, he is judged to be without natural affection. 
 
 Mr. Miller could be criticized only through his 
 
 own individuality, and it was not very open to 
 
 criticism. 
 
 Further, there loomed out of this unknown 
 history of Mr. Miller's, sundry facts apt to arrest the 
 imagination of those who are yet at the lowest 
 degree of reverence reverence for what is above 
 them. His people were farmers, had farmed the 
 same land for generations, and straightway, in his 
 London neighbours' eyes, the bookseller's spare 
 figure found the background of a roomy old 
 mansion, such as they knew in the counties, with 
 rich meadows undulating about it. Such a man 
 ought to be an example : it was no wonder he was 
 superior ; and it was certainly far easier for them to 
 acknowledge this than it would have been had they 
 known the facts about the unhewn stone cottage, 
 with its divot thatch and its peat-blackened rafters.
 
 CHRISSY'S FATHER. 29 
 
 Also, he had had more than one brother at the 
 University he had even narrowly missed going 
 there himself. No wonder he was clever and 
 dignified. Nobody else but the vicar and the 
 doctor had had such advantages. The Cockney 
 fancy was filled with Oxford and Cambridge with 
 reports of boating races and Commemoration days. 
 They knew little of the antique Scottish student's 
 attic, and the weekly kist of meal and butter brought 
 in by the carrier. 
 
 Familiarity breeds contempt in vulgar minds. 
 None but a man's equals are worthy to know all 
 about him. It is doubtful whether Shakespeare 
 himself would enjoy so supreme a fame if we knew 
 all the homely ways and all the falls and weaknesses 
 by which he learned the facts of life and the secrets 
 of humanity. 
 
 There was nobody now in the world who knew so 
 much of the real man, Alexander Miller, as did his 
 youngest daughter, Christina. Her mother had 
 long been dead, and the father kept alive in his 
 daughters' hearts a faint but sufficiently pleasant 
 memory of her beauty and taste and dutifulness. 
 Chrissy had once asked him whether she had been 
 at all like her sisters the aunts whom she knew. 
 He had answered gravely, ' No, not in the least.' 
 And Chrissy felt secretly glad of his answer, but 
 she saw also that the question had pained him.
 
 30 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 Mrs. Miller's relations had always ' kept an eye ' 
 on the widower and his girls. They had a great 
 respect for him a respect somehow a little mingled 
 with fear. Therefore, though they objected to a 
 great many of his ways, they never told him so, and 
 only criticised them among each other. What was 
 the use of always having cold dinners on Sunday ? 
 Was it not ridiculously strict not to allow his girls 
 to remain at any party later than ten o'clock ? And 
 was it not absurd to send them to a quiet farmhouse 
 for their yearly country holiday, instead of to some 
 nice lively watering-place ? It might be all very 
 well for him to know what books they read, and to 
 become acquainted with the friends they made, so 
 long as it could last, but that sort of thing must 
 come to an end, since young people are young 
 people. But, after all, it was wonderful what a well- 
 ordered, peaceful home that was in Shield Street, 
 and how bright the girls were. Little Chrissy might 
 turn out a real beauty ! There could be no doubt 
 that brother-in-law Alexander was a wise man, 
 discounting these eccentricities, and that he would 
 be perfect if he would discontinue them. 
 
 It was Chrissy who had sat on her father's knee 
 on Sunday afternoons, while her elder sister Helen 
 elected to go to church with the servant. It 
 was from his lips and the pictures of the old family 
 Bible that Chrissy learned all her Scripture history.
 
 CHXISSY'S FATHER. 31 
 
 It was in the gloaming afterwards, with a pleasant 
 smell of toast rising from the kitchen, that she used 
 to hear all about the old Scotch home, and the 
 grandmother spinning among her maids, and the 
 studious uncle who could never be trusted to mind 
 the cattle, and the old woman who lived by herself 
 on the moor and was not afraid. She heard, too, 
 much of that curious lore, in which untutored fancy 
 stretches itself into the Unseen of the sands which 
 came in and covered the arable fields that a wicked 
 laird took from his brother's orphan girls, of the 
 subterranean passage to the sea, down which an 
 ungodly piper went in bravado and came back no 
 more, though his pipes are still to be heard if you 
 put your ear to the ground when the wind is high 
 enough ; of the standing stones that the peasants 
 could not count ; of the ghost in the abbey ruins 
 which nobody saw save those who would not believe 
 in it! 
 
 She heard, too, about his leaving home, and how 
 lonely he felt when he came, an unknown country 
 boy, to f serve his time,' in the very house where he 
 now ruled as master. The sensitive little girl almost 
 seemed to see the shadow of the poor yoilng lad in 
 the dim rooms ; she stood awed in the tiny gable 
 attic where he had kneeled to pray 'for those at 
 home,' and slept to dream of them. She had seen his 
 poor little memorandum-books, sewn by himself,
 
 32 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 containing his modest expenditures for clothes, and 
 pew-rent and books not a single sixpence sliding 
 away under the suspicious heading of 'sundries,', 
 though many was the respectable amount disposed 
 of under the heading ' sent home.' Nay, half- 
 thinking aloud, he had confided the sterner struggles 
 of later life to the reverent ears of the little maiden, 
 and she knew that his marriage had come so late 
 because he would not think of becoming husband 
 and father until every penny was paid off on the 
 business he had bought, and it was fully and fairly 
 his own. There were little personal traits of stern 
 independence, too the individual points of a strong 
 type of character. 
 
 'They said I ought to name you Robina, my 
 Chrissy,' he had narrated, 'because my rich old 
 bachelor master's name was Robin, and he gave it to 
 be generally understood that he would not forget 
 his name-children. But I said no ; I'd christened 
 Helen after my wife, your mother, and I must christen 
 you after my own good old mother, who had got 
 her new name in Heaven by that time, and that if 
 my old master thought of remembering us at all, he 
 should set more store on my honest services than 
 on a compliment that might easily be paid from 
 interested motives. And he did not remember us, 
 Chrissy. But neither did he remember those who 
 had named their children after him, and so they have
 
 CHRISSY' S FATHER, 33 
 
 in their families a standing monument of their own 
 cupidity and of a fellow-creature's faithlessness. It's 
 a good rule never to do for the sake of gain what 
 one wouldnM: do for love or djjty, Chrissy. Then 
 one is sure of one's reward at once, whether or not 
 any comes after.' 
 
 Was it any marvel that Chrissy loved her father 
 with the deepest, most clinging devotion? Of 
 course, she could not yet, in her dawning woman- 
 hood, know all that he was to her. It is only time 
 and experience which can teach us all the worth 
 of the friends and guides of our youth. But she 
 already knew the comfort though she could not 
 yet appreciate the preciousness of possessing a true 
 ideal, of which she could say, when her heart was 
 stirred by noble precept or story, 'That is what 
 father does ; that is just like father.' 
 
 This is what she thought as she walked down 
 Shield Street in the dusk after Mr. Bentley's sermon, 
 and saw her father standing within the gas-lit shop, 
 talking to somebody, whom she could not see for an 
 intervening case. 
 
 'Father is one of those who have been faithful 
 in all things,' she said to herself. 
 
 But, as she drew nearer, she was struck with 
 something in the expression of her father's face. It 
 was a look she had never seen there before. Some- 
 how it made her recall a picture she had lately 
 
 c
 
 34 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 seen, where a traveller, rowing down an unknown 
 river, comes suddenly upon rapids whose proximity 
 he did not suspect, and stands up and calmly 
 confronts destruction. Her heart stood still for one 
 moment, and then, with the swift elasticity of youth, 
 bounded on again. What queer fancies she took 
 sometimes ! Helen always said so. How Helen 
 would laugh if she knew ! 
 
 As the girls entered the shop, Mr. Miller's inter- 
 locutor rose from his stooping posture. It was Mr. 
 Ackroyd, the next-door neighbour. It was Mr. 
 Miller's principle to be friendly towards anybody 
 who entered into the remotest relation with him, 
 but it takes two of one mind to be friends, and that 
 Mr. Miller and Mr. Ackroyd were not. Mr. Ackroyd 
 was an architect, and had done some clever work ; 
 but he was a restless, shiftless man, ever on the 
 eve of some great success, never achieved. He 
 had a little plaintive, puling wife, whom everybody 
 vaguely pitied and called 'poor Mrs. Ackroyd,' 
 they scarcely knew why, and two children, a boy 
 and a girl, of about the same ages as Helen and 
 Christina Miller. 
 
 'Well, young ladies,' said Mr. Ackroyd, turning 
 towards them, and speaking in rather a constrained 
 tone, ' well, have you been to week-night service ? 
 and did you get a good sermon ? ' 
 
 'Much the same as usual,' returned Helen Miller
 
 CHKISSY'S FATHER. 35 
 
 lightly. 'All sermons are good, you know, Mr. 
 Ackroyd.' 
 
 Now Chrissy Miller loved her elder sister dearly, 
 and generally thought her the sweetest and kindest 
 of girls. But when Helen came in contact with 
 strangers, there was often something in her tone 
 which jarred Chrissy. She did not seem to have a 
 mind of her own, but to give back the mere reflection 
 of what passed before her at the moment. Even 
 now, she had answered Mr. Ackroyd concerning 
 sermons with the same levity with which she knew 
 he regarded them. Chrissy glanced at her father, 
 lest he should be pained, and with her arm twined 
 through Helen's, made gently to draw her on through 
 the shop. 
 
 But Mr. Ackroyd, too, was taking his departure. 
 
 'Well, Mr. Miller,' he remarked, Til say good 
 evening. To-morrow will put us out of suspense, so 
 we may live in hope for one more night. It is no 
 use troubling ourselves : it is out of our power to do 
 anything.' 
 
 ' Except prepare our minds and foresee our paths,' 
 said Mr. Miller gravely. 
 
 ' Oh, well, that of course. Keep up your spirits, 
 though. Things never turn out as bad as they look. 
 There are a hundred ways of escaping the worst. 
 Good-night, young ladies.' 
 
 ' Helen,' said Chrissy, when they had reached
 
 36 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 their little bedroom, and she stood, smoothing out 
 her bonnet ribbons with thrifty neatness, ' Helen, 
 something has happened which troubles father. 
 Did you not hear what Mr. Ackroyd was saying ? ' 
 
 'I did not notice,' replied Helen, who was still 
 lingering in her walking gear before the looking- 
 glass, trying the effect of sundry bright bows against 
 her black straw hat. ' I did not notice. Oh, but it 
 will not be anything very serious. I think I heard 
 something this morning about water having got into 
 that chest of old books that father was getting from 
 Germany, through some of Mr. Ackroyd's friends 
 there.' 
 
 ' I wonder if that is really all,' mused Chrissy. 
 
 ' Of course it is,' said Helen, with cheerful con- 
 fidence. ' What else could it be ? Besides, don't 
 you remember what Mr. Ackroyd said that things 
 never turn out so bad as they seem. When the 
 books have been spread out and dried, I daresay 
 they will be little the worse. I am sure I hope they 
 will not,' she added, with a stronger shade of interest, 
 ' for I want to coax father into letting us have 
 velveteens for our autumn dresses, and he is always 
 so strict in his rule that the first thing that must be 
 done after any loss is to spend no money unneces- 
 sarily till it is replaced.' 
 
 ' A very good rule,' said Chrissy. 
 
 ' Oh yes, of course,' rejoined Helen rather impa-
 
 CHRISSTS FATHER. 37 
 
 tiently, ' but it need not be carried out so promptly ; 
 it could wait a little while, if one wants anything 
 very particularly.' 
 
 Chrissy did not argue that point with her sister. 
 Nor did she feel quite satisfied that Helen was right 
 in her conviction as to the source of anxiety. 
 
 She stole down-stairs in search of her father. He 
 was not in the little dining-room behind the shop, 
 where at that hour he generally rested and read the 
 newspapers, or examined the latest ancient treasure 
 which had found its way to the shelves of the second- 
 hand department in the bookshop. Nor was he in 
 the narrow yard, where he kept a few growing plants 
 which he made it his own daily duty to water and 
 tend. She must look for him elsewhere. 
 
 The shop was closed by this time, and the gas 
 nearly turned off. Chrissy could but barely see to 
 thread her way among the book-stands and cases to 
 the little sanctum, called rather imposingly 'the 
 counting-house.' It had a side light upon the shop, 
 and somebody was evidently inside, for there the gas 
 was burning fully. The lower part of the side light 
 was blinded with ground glass, and though the door 
 had two panes of glass in its upper panel, they were 
 above Chrissy's head. She hesitated for a second, 
 somebody might be speaking with her father on 
 business. But when she knocked, her father's voice 
 bade her ' come in,'
 
 38 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 It was a very tiny bare sanctum indeed : its floor 
 covered with waxcloth ; its only ornaments, an old- 
 fashioned barometer, two steel engraved portraits in 
 deep maple frames, and a dignified-looking clock 
 perched on a lean bracket ; its furniture was equally 
 scanty, being only two cane-bottomed chairs, a desk, 
 standing on a plain four-legged table, and a fine old 
 bureau, now open, and in front of which Mr. Miller 
 was seated. 
 
 That room had stood much as it did now for fully a 
 hundred years, the furnishing having descended from 
 one family in occupation to another. It certainly had 
 its place in the domestic history of the house. Young 
 wives had there shyly intruded on the business pre- 
 occupations of indulgent husbands. There, too, wills 
 had been solemnly signed and witnessed. And little 
 children had stolen in to gaze and wonder at the 
 many drawers and pigeon-holes of the roomy bureau. 
 Even as Chrissy now entered the room, her eye was 
 caught by a broken toy lying in one of the recesses 
 a relic of the dead child brother, whom she 
 scarcely remembered. 
 
 Three or four of the bureau drawers were standing 
 open, and its flap-desk was strewn with packets of 
 papers tied up and endorsed, and sundry yellow 
 deeds. Her father had his pen in hand, and seemed 
 totalling up certain figures in a worn leathern-bound 
 book, which Chrissy had only seen before on rare
 
 CHJ^ISS Y'S FA THER. 3 9 
 
 occasions. She half repented of interrupting him, 
 but he welcomed her pleasantly. 
 
 ' Well, little woman/ he said ; ' do you think that 
 I have forgotten my supper ? Run away ; I'll be 
 with you in a minute nay, stop, I'll come with you 
 at once, and come back here again afterwards ! ' 
 
 But Chrissy had her arm about his neck, and her 
 cheek against his forehead. How pale it was and 
 cold! 
 
 ' Father, dear,' she whispered, ' something is 
 wrong, is it not ? ' 
 
 He turned, and, laying his hands on her shoulders, 
 held her from him, and gazed into her sweet, earnest 
 eyes. 
 
 ' How did my little woman pick that up ? ' he 
 asked. 
 
 ' From what Mr. Ackroyd said as he went out,' 
 answered Chrissy simply. 
 
 ' Well, Chrissy,' said Mr. Miller, ' something may 
 be wrong ; we don't know yet. We shall be quite 
 sure about it in good time.' 
 
 'But won't you tell me what it may be?' she 
 pleaded, laying her head again on his shoulder. 
 
 ' I must not, Chrissy,' returned Mr. Miller ; ' I 
 heard the report as a secret. I could trust you with 
 my own secrets, Chrissy, but we must not trust any- 
 body with secrets confided to us by other people. 
 That is to prove ourselves untrustworthy altogether.'
 
 40 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' It is so hard not to know what to expect ! For 
 then how can one know what to do ? ' sighed Chrissy 
 a little plaintively. ' And the sermon we heard to- 
 night was about being faithful even in the least 
 things, and equal to every occasion.' 
 
 Much as that sermon had impressed poor Chrissy, 
 she little thought what was soon to impress it on 
 her heart for ever ! 
 
 ' Chrissy, Chrissy,' said her father kindly, ' the 
 present occasion calls for a little patience ! And 
 that is the sort of occasion which occurs often enough 
 in life.' 
 
 ' Ah patience waiting,' said Chrissy ; ' but then 
 we know what we are waiting for.' 
 
 ' Do we ? ' asked her father, with a grave smile. 
 ' By sick-beds, do we know whether we are waiting 
 for life or death ? Do people know, as they rear their 
 children, whether they will bring home pride or 
 humiliation ? When they pray for prodigals, do they 
 know whether the prodigals will return while they 
 wait at the gate, or only after they are in the grave ? 
 No, no, my Chrissy, God generally keeps us waiting 
 in the dark.' 
 
 ' With nothing to do ? ' said Chrissy, whose aroused 
 moral energies were now longing for action, with the 
 usual sore danger of running to waste, and expend- 
 ing their freshness before the day of real battle. 
 
 ' No, never, Chrissy,' answered Mr. Miller, holding
 
 CHRISSY'S FATHER. 41 
 
 her hand in his with a firm grasp, which she seemed 
 to feel oh, how often, in after years ! ' Never. 
 We may be shut up in a dungeon, or tied down to a 
 paralytic's bed, but our loving Father never leaves 
 us without the best work He can give His children, 
 and that is to learn by heart to say, " Father, prepare 
 us for whatever be Thy Holy Will, and help us to 
 fear nothing except displeasing Thee !" ' 
 
 He spoke with devout fervour. His sympathetic 
 little daughter felt that this was no common occasion. 
 But she was too loyal even to try to guess what 
 might be the shadow hanging over them. Only, 
 nestling close to him, she whispered, 
 
 'Nothing can matter to us very much, father, 
 while we have each other.' 
 
 ' God bless my little Chrissy,' he said softly ; 
 ' nothing can matter to us at all while we all keep 
 close to God, for then we can never lose each other. 
 But we must not keep Helen waiting for her supper,' 
 he said, with a rather forced return to his ordinary 
 tone. 'And my Chrissy must not trouble herself 
 too much. I would have spared her suspense if I 
 could, for I know it is not the sudden blow, however 
 sharp, which makes us crouch, so much as the sword 
 hanging over us ! But life generally gives us both 
 experiences.' 
 
 He lowered the gas as he left the counting-house, 
 but did not put it out, as he meant to return. As
 
 42 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 they groped their way through the shop he struck 
 his foot against something. 
 
 ' There,' said he cheerily, ' that's the box of 
 German books I was lamenting over this morning 
 and they are all right, after all. Though the bottom 
 of the chest was soaked, seemed, in fact, to have 
 stood in water, no moisture has penetrated it.' 
 
 Chrissy squeezed the arm to which she was cling- 
 ing. She knew he mentioned this to reassure her 
 with the thought how fears could seem well-grounded, 
 and yet prove groundless. 
 
 The light evening meal stood prepared, with 
 Helen ready to dispense it. The Millers never 
 thought of cultivating table elegances. But thrift 
 and care and neatness had compassed the utmost of 
 art. The little tablecloth, well preserved by Chrissy's 
 delicate darning, was of pure fine damask, a relic of 
 a former century, part of those 'household plenish- 
 ings' which Mr. Miller had bought from his old 
 bachelor master along with the stock-in-trade and 
 the goodwill of the business. The crystal came from 
 the same store, and was of heavy old cut-glass ware, 
 while the water-jug was a veritable 'Uncle Toby' 
 beaker, with that worthy character depicted in its 
 upper tier of ornamentation in the enjoyment of his 
 pipe and the contemplation of the parish church and 
 the windmill, while beneath his feet horseman, hounds, 
 and hare chased each other round the base. The
 
 FATHER. 43 
 
 Millers scarcely knew that these things had a money 
 value, but they liked and treasured them for their 
 old associations, and their own honest, substantial 
 prettiness. An artist in still life might have been 
 tempted to paint the homely table, with its crisp 
 brown loaf, its freshly-cut cheese, and its dainty 
 celery. And the picture would have told its own 
 story of gentle housewifery and of lowly-lofty family 
 life. 
 
 Helen had been so little impressed by Mr. 
 Ackroyd's words, and the conjectures to which 
 they had given rise, that she had forgotten all 
 about the matter-; and if there was an unusual 
 gentle gravity in the demeanour of her father and 
 sister, certainly she did not notice it. She chatted 
 on with her usual bright gaiety, told her father the 
 anecdotes out of the sermon, threw out a hint about 
 the velveteen dresses, and finally informed him, in 
 a tone wherein lay some suppressed mockery, that 
 ' Esther Gray was in church to-night ! ' 
 
 At sound of that name Mr. Miller looked up 
 quickly. There had recently been a tragedy in that 
 parish, a tragedy common enough in London, but 
 sufficiently rare in that decent, business-like locality. 
 A story of riot and dissolute living had ended in 
 a death, about which some mystery hung. There 
 were those who thought there was blood madly 
 shed, perhaps ; but still blood on the hands of
 
 44 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 Esther Gray. Small wonder that her decorous 
 fellow-worshippers had shrunk a little from that 
 heavy-faced woman in the dingy black garments ! 
 
 ' Was she indeed, poor soul ? ' saW the good man. 
 ' I remember her when, if she had seen herself as she 
 is now, she would have asked, " Am I a dog, that I 
 should become this thing?" But that was beforel 
 she knew trouble. That found out her weak points, i 
 poor body. That always drives us up or down;'|\ 
 and Chrissy thought he looked wistfully from one 
 daughter to the other. 
 
 ' People talk of her good looks once,' remarked 
 Helen carelessly, ' but she never can have been 
 pretty.' 
 
 'She was, in her way,' answered Mr. Miller 
 reflectively. 'You might not think a flower was 
 pretty, if you did not see it till it had been trodden 
 under foot in a gutter. When Esther Gray was 
 young she took after her mother, and she was a 
 good woman.' 
 
 ' Aunt Kezia says she was pretty, and that every- 
 body said so,' observed Helen complacently. ' But 
 then, as Aunt Kezzy must have been always plain, 
 I fancied she only repeated the favourable verdict to 
 show she was not spiteful.' 
 
 ' Nellie/ said her father, with some severity, ' I 
 fancy there is as much malice and envy in girls 
 who think themselves pretty as there can possibly
 
 CHRISSY'S FATHER. 45 
 
 be in any who know they are plain. I think some- 
 times we have a moment's share of the sight God 
 sees with, and then some pretty faces seem ugly 
 to us, and some *ugly faces grow sweet. If there is 
 repentance in Esther Gray's heart to-night, I can 
 well understand that her marred face is fairer in 
 God's sight than it was in her young days, when 
 the evil spirit was springing up within her. I do 
 not mean to be stern to you, Nellie,' he said, with a 
 strange softening, 'but I cannot bear to hear you 
 speak lightly of fellow-creatures' terrible falls and 
 degradations. To scoff at sin is no safeguard from \ 
 it; it is rather like flouting at plague-stricken 
 garments.' 
 
 He bade his daughters good-night. And as they 
 went off to their room, he returned to the counting- 
 house, and Chrissy, looking back from the stairs, 
 saw its side light again illumined by the fully turned- 
 on gas. 
 
 It was rather earlier than their usual retiring hour, 
 and Christina, who did not feel quite able to rest, 
 took up some needlework. But Helen said she was 
 tired, and, going straight to bed, was soon sound 
 asleep. 
 
 Chrissy stitched on, feeling refreshed as the night 
 air, coming through the open window, grew cooler 
 and cooler. 
 
 All was profoundly quiet; till suddenly there
 
 46 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 was a sharp sound, which Chrissy knew well enough. 
 It was the closing of a room door in the next house. 
 The building was so solid and substantial, that 
 though the two houses had once been one, sounds 
 did not travel from one to the other. This sound 
 reached her through the Ackroyds' open window 
 and her own. 
 
 It was followed up by a sound of voices. Mr. 
 Ackroyd was speaking gruffly and sternly, and Mrs. 
 Ackroyd retorted in high petulant tones, interrupted 
 by hysterical sobs. Here and there an observation 
 was put in by a quiet voice, which Chrissy readily 
 recognised as that of their son, James Ackroyd. 
 
 ' We shall know all about it to-morrow. You need 
 not display your selfishness till you are sure it is 
 necessary,' said Mr. Ackroyd's harsh tones. 
 
 Chrissy sprang up. This had forced itself upon 
 her hearing. But she would hear no more. She 
 closed her window, and went back to her work. She 
 would sit up till all was quiet, and open the casement 
 again before she retired : it was too sultry to sleep 
 with it closed. 
 
 She sat so for fully half an hour. Then she felt 
 the irresistible sleep of youth stealing over her. 
 Moving softly, not to waken Helen, she drew aside 
 the curtain and unhasped the window. 
 
 The girls' bedroom was in the wing of the building, 
 consequently it faced the wing of the Ackroyds'
 
 CHISS Y'S FA THER. 4 7 
 
 house. The window directly opposite theirs was 
 that of James Ackroyd's room. There was a light 
 there now, and, standing between it and the window, 
 his figure was thrown on the blind. He was leaning 
 on his toilet-table, with his face buried in his hands. 
 
 Softly as Chrissy had moved, he heard a sound, 
 raised his head, and, pushing aside the blind, thrust 
 it from the window. 
 
 ' Chrissy,' he said in a loud whisper, ' Chrissy 
 Miller, is that you?' 
 
 ' Yes, James,' said Chrissy hurriedly. ' It's very 
 late ; good-night.' 
 
 James and Chrissy had been friends from their 
 cradles, and she did not usually dismiss him so 
 curtly. But the boy did not wonder now. 
 
 'You know all about it, don't you?' he asked, 
 with solemn mystery. ' Isn't it awful ? ' 
 
 'I don't know anything. Good-night,' said 
 Chrissy. 
 
 ' Stop, stop ! ' cried the boy. ' Do you mean to say 
 you don't know there is something?' 
 
 'Yes, I do,' Chrissy admitted reluctantly. 'But 
 father said he had heard it as a secret, and would 
 tell me when I ought to know. I'll wait till I hear 
 it from father,' she added resolutely. ' Good-night, 
 James ; ' and the curtain dropped inexorably. 
 
 It was after she had slept some time, but how long 
 she could not say, that Chrissy woke suddenly,
 
 48 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 starting up. Despite the open window, the room 
 was close and hot, but Chrissy was shivering, and 
 her heart went pit-a-pat. 
 
 But all was still as death itself. 
 
 ' I must have heard father's step going up-stairs/ 
 she reflected. ' Or perhaps his room door happened 
 to close rather noisily. What can it be that is 
 wrong ? ' as the thought of last evening came back. 
 ' Oh, what can it be ? I wish it was to-morrow ! 
 How miserable poor Jem's shadow looked before he 
 saw me ! I must just say father's prayer again, 
 and try to go to sleep.'
 
 CHAPTER Til. 
 
 NEXT MORNING'S NEWS. 
 
 F T E R Chrissy's 
 disturbed night 
 she slept heavily 
 towards morning, 
 and it was little 
 wonder that, for 
 once, her sister 
 Helen was first 
 astir. 
 
 It was Helen's 
 voice carolling 
 which awakened 
 her. She lay 
 drowsy for a moment, with that strange sense 
 which most of us have known, that a burden and 
 a shadow are coming towards us with our full con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Then she started up. Yes ! There was that 
 secret the Ackroyds knew already, and which she
 
 50 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 was to know in due time. Would it be due time to- 
 day ? Perhaps it might not be so very much, after 
 all. Only there was that strange look on her father's 
 face, and the shadow of James Ackroyd's bowed 
 head on the blind ! Yet she ought to give no hint 
 to Helen. And so Helen must go on singing. 
 
 For one moment the merry tune and the gay 
 words jarred Chrissy unbearably. 
 
 * Oh, Helen, do be quiet ! ' she cried. 
 
 Helen stopped instantly, and turned upon her a 
 face of innocent amaze. Chrissy's heart instantly 
 smote her. 
 
 ' Is this how I bear trouble, even while it is far 
 off? ' she asked herself. ' Then what shall I do if it 
 comes ? ' 
 
 Poor child ! she was inexperienced in life's deeper 
 depths, and so how was she to know that the hardest 
 of all blows to bear is the blow not yet fallen, and 
 that they are indeed God's heroes who not only sub- 
 mit to His rod, but wait, smiling, till He smites ? 
 
 ' I suppose if I had any real sorrow,' she mused, 
 ' I should want the sun to grow dark and the flowers 
 to fade, instead of feeling sure that God must know 
 all is well, else He would never keep the sun shining 
 and the flowers growing. Don't leave off singing, 
 Helen dear,' she added aloud, ' only sing a softer 
 sort of tune.' 
 
 ' What ! are you getting like the old lady father
 
 NEXT MORNING'S NE IVS. 5 1 
 
 tells of, who said " she aye liked sad sangs the best ; 
 they garred the een to greet, wi'out wringing the 
 heart " ? ' answered Helen, with an admirable imita- 
 tion of the Scottish dialect. 
 
 Chrissy smiled at Helen's mimicry. ' I think father 
 himself is inclined to agree with her,' she said. 
 
 ' Then I'll give you one of his favourites,' returned 
 Helen, and straightway the clear voice was lilting, 
 
 " O little did my mither ken, 
 The day she cradled me, 
 The lands that I should travel in, 
 Or the death that I should dee." ' 
 
 But presently she interrupted herself, to exclaim, 
 
 ' How quiet the house seems ! ' 
 
 ' It's quite early,' said Chrissy. 
 
 'Not too early for the sweeping up to begin in the 
 shop,' Helen answered. ' I believe that new shop- 
 boy is lazy I said he would be, the moment I looked 
 at him. It is really wonderful to see the patience 
 father has with people most unlike himself. I never 
 'would have hired that boy.' 
 
 ' Father took him because of his imperfect 
 German-English,' said Chrissy ; ' it stood in his way 
 for so many situations, and it does not matter so 
 very much for ours.' 
 
 ' People who won't suit anybody else must be 
 always made to suit us,' replied Helen. 'That's 
 father's way, and I believe you are quite as bad.'
 
 52 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' Hans Krinken has an honest face/ said Chrissy. 
 ' If he is a little late to-day, I have no doubt it is an 
 accident.' 
 
 But Hans had not needed her excuses. When 
 she left her room, leaving Helen still brushing out 
 the coils of hair, which always occupied her attention 
 for a longer time than her sister gave to her whole 
 toilet, she found Hans seated in the passage, 
 patiently awaiting the arrival of his master with the 
 keys of the business premises, which Mr. Miller 
 always carried to his own room. 
 
 ' Have you not seen my father yet, Hans ? ' 
 Chrissy asked, surprised. 
 
 ' No, me-ess,' answered the German boy, with a 
 ready, good-humoured smile. ' Martha the maid, she 
 say he is not out of his room yet.' 
 
 ' My father was at work in the counting-house till 
 very late last night,' said Chrissy. 
 
 ' If he is sleeping still, me-ess,' said the kindly 
 German lad, ' don't disturb him yet for a while. I 
 will make the more haste when he shall appear, and 
 the shop shall be no later.' 
 
 ' Thank you very much,' answered Chrissy, think- 
 ing to herself how her father made people like him, 
 and so turned their hired service into a labour of 
 love. This youth had only been in his employment 
 for a month, but what could that signify, when the 
 good Scotch bookseller already knew more of the
 
 NEXT MORNING'S NEWS. 53 
 
 lad's history, of his past trials and future hopes, than 
 most masters know concerning those who have 
 served them for a lifetime, and had given him more 
 counsel and thought than some parents bestow on 
 their own children ? Because Mr. Miller had a living 
 faith in eternity, he never lost a moment of time. 
 Because he looked for a harvest, he scattered good 
 seed broadcast. 
 
 Chrissy went on into the parlour, where Martha 
 had already set breakfast. Martha was not a bad 
 specimen of a London general servant ; she was a 
 little too much inclined to smart caps and dirty 
 aprons, but she was honest and willing, had had 
 hard experiences in former places, and, rinding it 
 possible to please her present employers, did her 
 utmost to do so. 
 
 ' The master's sleeping sound to-day, miss,' she 
 said. ' I've knocked at his door twice, and got no 
 answer.' 
 
 ' Poor father must have been tired out,' thought 
 Chrissy. She felt a sudden fear stir in her heart, 
 one of those sudden fears which great love often 
 feels, quite causelessly. She wished Helen would 
 come down. She wandered back to the passage, to 
 Hans Krinken. He had gone to the side door by 
 which Martha had admitted him, for he did not live 
 on the premises. It was open, and he was standing 
 there.
 
 54 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 Chrissy paused in the passage, looking in that 
 direction. There was not much astir in Shield 
 Street at that early hour. But the opposite shop 
 was already open. It was a very unpretending 
 establishment, a mere slice cut off a big leather store. 
 It was kept by the old widow who had been at St. 
 Cecilia's the evening before, and in it she sold small 
 haberdashery, sweets, and newspapers. As Chrissy 
 stood there, vaguely looking at the familiar boxes 
 and bottles, a newspaper boy came along with his 
 daily supply under his arm, and his paste-pot and 
 brush in his hand. He paused to splash over 
 yesterday's poster and daub on the fresh announce- 
 ment sheet. Then, thrusting half a dozen papers 
 into the shop, he went whistling on his way. 
 
 Across the narrow roadway, Chrissy could read 
 the list : ' Proceedings in Parliament. Alleged 
 Libel by a Solicitor. Report of the Royal Scientific 
 Society. Poaching Affray in the New Forest. 
 Stoppage of the Great Metropolitan Bank.' 
 
 ' Nothing very exciting to-day, Hans,' she said. 
 ' No great battle, no great crime, no great speech.' 
 
 Hans did not answer. Had he not heard her, or 
 only not understood ? She stepped a little forward, 
 and repeated her words. 
 
 His broad German face looked pale, and he 
 turned it rather from her than towards her, as he 
 stammered,
 
 NEXT MORNING'S NEWS. 55 
 
 ' That will be one great failure, Me-ess Chrissy 
 that bank.' 
 
 Chrissy knew quite enough of Hans' antecedents 
 to feel sure that no financial crash was likely to 
 touch him directly. Yet he was certainly affected 
 by this one. She asked kindly, 
 
 ' Do you know anybody who is likely to be con- 
 cerned in it ? ' 
 
 ' I am afraid that I do, Me-ess Chrissy,' he re- 
 plied very gravely, and, stepping within the passage, 
 shut the door. 
 
 'We must call the master again,' he said, and 
 Chrissy followed him to the foot of the stairs, and 
 stood there listening, while he ascended and knocked 
 at Mr. Miller's door. 
 
 Hans knocked once twice thrice, each knock 
 louder than before. But there was no reply. It 
 seemed to Chrissy as if the dead silence was some- 
 thing which could be heard. She repeated to 
 herself that phrase ' the dead silence,' and her heart 
 stood still. 
 
 She could hear Helen's voice in their room, still 
 singing, 
 
 Hans came forward to the banister. 
 
 * Me-ess Chrissy,' he whispered. 
 
 ' Yes, Hans,' said Chrissy faintly. 
 
 ' Does the master keep his key turned ? Don't 
 you think you should go in ? '
 
 56 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' I must. Oh, Hans ! ' The girl waited with her 
 hand upon the door. 
 
 ' The good God go with you, Me-ess Chrissy,' 
 said the young German, as she crept into the room. 
 He stole in behind her ; for his sympathetic heart 
 told him what she would find. 
 
 ' He is not dead ! ' she cried. ' Oh, Hans, say that 
 father is not dead ! ' 
 
 ' He is with the good God,' said Hans solemnly. 
 
 The passage from one world to the other must 
 have been very swift and smooth. The room was in 
 its usual simple order. The unruffled couch bore 
 witness to no last struggle. On a little table at the 
 head of the bed stood the extinguished candle, and 
 beside it lay an open Bible. 
 
 For a moment Chrissy stood like one transfixed. 
 Her father's face was turned towards her. He could 
 not be dead ! For were not his lips parting to wel- 
 come her with the same wistful smile he had turned 
 on her as she left him last night? And yet and 
 yet he did not see her, for his eyes were closed. 
 He had passed away in sleep. 
 
 With one low cry, she rushed to the bed, and 
 buried her face beside him. Only a few weeks 
 before she had kneeled so beside a living father, 
 and then a kind hand had been raised to caress 
 his Chrissy's curls. That hand lay still and 
 cold now. That slight memory that little fact
 
 NEXT MORNING'S NE WS. 5 7 
 
 brought home the whole awful truth to Chrissy's 
 heart. 
 
 ' Oh, father, father ! ' Never again. She may 
 search earth's remotest region, but she shall never 
 find him. She may live till her hair is as white as 
 his was, till her steps and her senses fail, as his had 
 not failed, but she shall never meet him in any 
 path, by any fireside. 
 
 Sharp swords pierce the girl's heart as she kneels 
 there. Old words sound in her ears, fraught with a 
 new meaning they can never lose again. 
 
 A voice says, 
 
 ' He is not here, but he is risen.' 
 
 It is not the less an angel's message to Chrissy 
 because it is homely Hans who delivers it. As 
 her own agony yearns out into the unknown, she 
 feels a great wave of love rush thence to meet 
 it. Her father was longing to reach her, even as 
 she was longing to reach him. Only he stood 
 higher now. He must not return to her. She must 
 go to him. 
 
 Kneeling there, she saw as in a vision that the 
 light of Faith can only illumine the path of duty. 
 Walking with God, we walk also with those whose 
 life is hid with Christ in Him. 
 
 Henceforth, Chrissy knew what St. Paul meant 
 when he said that whether he had been in the body 
 or out of the body, he could not tell.
 
 58 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 A door in the house closed a light step ran on 
 the stair. Helen was coming down. 
 
 Chrissy sprang to her feet It seemed to her that 
 the glory of the vision departed, while the blow 
 beneath which she had seen it remained. 
 
 Only she asked, ' What can I do ? ' 
 
 And when a vision ends so, it has come from God, 
 and has fulfilled its mission. 
 
 ' I must stop Helen,' was the quick resolve ; and 
 she darted from the room. Her sister was within a 
 few paces of its open door, but the sight of Chrissy's 
 face arrested her instantly. 
 
 ' Father is ill ? ' said Helen, with whitening lips. 
 
 ' Father has been ill,' answered Chrissy solemnly. 
 ' Oh, Helen, Helen ! bear it bravely be good and 
 strong for father's sake.' 
 
 ' He is not dead ? ' gasped the elder girl, making a 
 movement to pass Chrissy. But the younger sister 
 held her firmly. 
 
 ' God called him very gently, Nellie,' she said. 
 ' Don't you remember he always said he could not 
 respond to the prayer against sudden death ? Oh, 
 Nellie, Nellie ! ' 
 
 Helen burst into wild lamentations. She could not 
 believe that her father was really really dead. He 
 had only fainted he was only in a fit and they were 
 letting him die ! A doctor must be sent for. Somebody 
 must be sent for. Anybody oh yes, and quickly !
 
 NEXT MORNINGS NEWS. 59 
 
 ' Somebody "must be sent for, certainly ! ' said pale 
 Chrissy, standing by her sister's side in the parlour, 
 where she had led her. That frantic uncontrolled 
 woe seemed like a profanation of the stately calm of 
 the death-chamber. 
 
 ' There are Mr. and Mrs. Ackroyd only next 
 door/ cried Helen. 
 
 ' Not the Ackroyds,' said Hans Krinken im- 
 pulsively. 
 
 ' Not the Ackroyds,' echoed Chrissy. 
 
 And then there returned upon her the thought of 
 the tidings her father was to tell her in due time. 
 When would be the due time now, and who would 
 tell her in his stead ? Oh, "how thankful she was 
 that she had refused to snatch from James Ackroyd 
 what her father had withheld, and so had obeyed his 
 last wish ! 
 
 ' Aunt Kezia is so far away,' cried Helen ; ' and 
 who is to go for anybody ? ' 
 
 ' There is Hans,' said Chrissy. 
 
 ' Hans ! ' repeated Helen. ' You and I cannot be 
 left alone with Martha and father, now he is ' 
 
 She paused before the dreadful word. Helen had 
 that sheer physical shrinking from death commonly 
 found in those whose sensuous perceptions are 
 stronger than their spiritual intuitions. 
 
 ' I will go myself,' said Chrissy. 
 
 'You ! Could you leave me alone with strangers,
 
 60 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 even if you have no feeling for yourself?' asked 
 Helen. ' No ; Martha must go. You must tell 
 where she is to go, and whom she is to fetch. I 
 can think of nothing ; my head is whirling round 
 with the shock.' 
 
 'There is Miss Griffin at the warehouse,' said 
 Chrissy hesitatingly. ' She is kind and good, and 
 father liked her. Be sure you don't startle her, 
 Martha. Don't be more sudden than you can help.' 
 
 Chrissy and Hans followed the weeping Martha 
 to the door. 
 
 ' Did the master have the disease of the heart, 
 me-ess ? ' whispered Hans timidly. 
 
 'I never knew of it, Hans/ Chrissy answered, 
 pausing. ' I know he heard something last night 
 which troubled me. I don't know what it was.' 
 
 ' I think I do, me-ess,' said Hans in a very low 
 whisper. 
 
 Chrissy shook her head. ' I don't think so,' she 
 replied ; ' he heard it quite late, just as the shop was 
 being shut.' 
 
 'And it was Herr Ackroyd who did whisper the 
 bad news,' Hans went on. ' Is not that so ? ' 
 
 'I think so,' said Chrissy, astonished. 'James 
 Ackroyd offered to tell me what it was, but I said 
 I'd wait till father told me himself.' 
 
 'Just step you this way for one minute,' requested 
 the German boy, stealing back to the street-door,
 
 NEXT MORNING'S NE WS. 6 1 
 
 which he opened gently, and held a little ajar, 
 indicating to Chrissy to peer through the crevice. 
 
 Like one stunned, or in a dream, she obeyed. She 
 could see nothing but the little haberdasher's shop, 
 with the news-board standing against its front 
 
 ' Read the last of the lines,' whispered Hans. 
 ' Now you see what the master would have told you 
 to-day. And you know it first by no other voice.' 
 
 It was not then that Chrissy appreciated the deli- 
 cate consideration of the homely lad. 
 
 'Stoppage of the Great Metropolitan Bank,' she 
 repeated mechanically. 'Why, what could that 
 have to do with father ? ' 
 
 ' I know he owned a share in it,' said Hans. 
 
 ' Only one share ! ' echoed innocent Chrissy ; ' that 
 could not have mattered so much. I should like to 
 think dear father died quite naturally. It would be 
 terrible to feel that something had killed him.' 
 
 ' How would it feel if it was somebody ? ' asked the 
 German boy of himself; and there flashed a fierce 
 gleam through his soft blue eyes, and he clenched 
 his teeth sternly. 
 
 ' I'm so grieved that father should have had any- 
 thing to trouble him just at the last,' sighed poor 
 Chrissy. ' But really, if that was all, it could not 
 have been very much ! ' 
 
 Hans Krinken said nothing. 'The vessel can but 
 hold its measure,' he philosophized. 'When the
 
 62 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 heart is filled with sorrow, then there is no room for 
 trouble.' 
 
 ' Chrissy, Chrissy ! ' wailed Helen's voice ; ' how 
 can you leave me so long alone ? You are thinking 
 of nobody but yourself. I wish you would make 
 me a little tea. What Martha had prepared for 
 breakfast is quite cold. I feel as if I should faint. 
 You know I am not so strong as you are.' 
 
 ' Poor Nellie ! ' said Chrissy, quite compunctious. 
 ' I really did forget you were alone ! ' 
 
 She went to lift the kettle on to the hob. Why 
 was it so heavy ? Hans saw her fruitless effort, and 
 he understood it, and came to her help. 
 
 ' I wish she would shed one little tear,' he thought, 
 and cast about in his mind how he could strike one of 
 those minor chords of feeling to which tears respond. 
 But before he had hit on any kindly device, there was a 
 muffled knock at the door, and he hurried away to ad- 
 mit Martha, Miss Griffin, and a tall grave gentleman 
 whom he did not know. Mr. Ackroyd had seen the 
 group from his own windows, and was following hard 
 on their steps. Before Hans could get the door shut 
 he was upon them, asking them what was the matter. 
 
 It was Hans who answered him. And Hans, 
 who, under the strong feeling of that moment, had 
 forgotten all his English, made answer in German. 
 
 Perhaps it was as well for Mr. Ackroyd's comfort 
 that he did not understand that language.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE GREAT METROPOLITAN BANK. 
 
 HE tall grave stranger was no 
 other than the Rev. Harold 
 Bentley. 
 
 Miss Griffin and Martha had 
 met him as they were hurrying 
 from the warehouse to Shield 
 Street, and Miss Griffin, know- 
 ing, of course, who he was, had 
 stopped him and pressed him 
 into the service of the stricken family. It did not 
 signify in the least to the good old maid that he 
 was not the parish clergyman, but only a stray 
 visitor. She wisely regarded clergymen as placed 
 in the battle of life, like the Red Cross people in a 
 war where each might have work specially his own, 
 but all are bound to combat sin and to succour 
 sorrow wherever they may be found. 
 
 She did not count amiss on Mr. Bentley. He 
 
 63
 
 64 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 listened, and followed her readily. He sought no 
 excuse in a blow which had fallen on himself that 
 very morning. By the crosses sent to a devout and 
 disciplined soul it fences itself into the path of duty, 
 and not out of it. 
 
 Martha was again despatched in quest of the 
 family doctor. And it was either when she went in 
 search of that gentleman, or when she returned with 
 him, that Mr. Ackroyd gained admittance to the 
 house, though he kept in the background till the 
 doctor and the clergyman came out from their 
 solemn visit to the chamber of death. 
 
 There was no doubt as to the cause of the death. 
 The doctor had known that Mr. Miller had a deep- 
 seated heart-disease, and had warned him against 
 agitation of any sort, especially that of worry or 
 anxiety. 
 
 ' And despite the disease, a quiet-minded, brave- 
 hearted man like him should have lived out all his 
 days,' said the doctor. ' Something must surely 
 have upset him terribly.' 
 
 ' He heard some sort of bad news last night,' 
 explained Chrissy, raising her strained, white face. 
 ' And Hans Krinken that's the shop-boy says 
 he believes my father had one share in the Great 
 Metropolitan Bank which is stopped to-day.' 
 
 The doctor and Mr. Bentley looked at each other, 
 with a slight ominous shake of the head. They
 
 THE GREAT METROPOLITAN BANK. 65 
 
 knew the full import of poor Chrissy's words, which 
 she did not know herself. 
 
 * Terrible affair, this of the bank,' said Mr. 
 Ackroyd. ' A great many people will be involved 
 in it. I am afraid I'm not quite clear myself.' 
 
 Everybody looked towards him. It was the first 
 time his presence had been remarked. 
 
 'It is a ruin that reaches every way,' observed 
 Mr. Bentley. 'My eldest son held office in the 
 bank, and is of course thrown out of his appoint- 
 ment by its stoppage.' 
 
 ' It does not seem fair when a man like Mr. Miller 
 gets drawn into these financial whirlpools,' said the 
 doctor. 'His life was one of diligent work and 
 careful saving, and it seems hard when one's 
 prudence and economy lead up to one's ruin. And 
 these poor girls ! ' he added in an undertone, glanc- 
 ing towards Helen and Chrissy. 
 
 ' Come away with me, dears,' said kindly Miss 
 Griffin, putting her hand through Helen's arm. 
 'Come away to your own room, and keep quiet 
 there. Your aunt will be here presently ; I've sent 
 Martha off for her next. There's none of your 
 papa's own folk nigh at hand, is there ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Chrissy quietly. ' My father's people 
 were very few, and they are scattered far now. 
 Aunt Kezia will do.' 
 
 And at the door of the room she turned back to
 
 66 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 say, 'Ought not the shop to be unlocked and 
 opened ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, Chrissy ! ' cried Helen ; ' how can you think 
 of that ? What can that matter ? 
 
 ' It was father's business,' she answered. 
 
 'She is quite right,' said Mr. Bentley quickly. 
 He understood her feeling, that the matters to which 
 her father had given his labour and his skill should 
 not be thrust aside as if they were now nobody's 
 affair. 
 
 ' I know where father kept the keys,' she remarked, 
 and went off for them. 
 
 Nobody knew at any rate nobody reflected 
 that her errand took her face to face with her dead 
 father, that it involved her disturbing the garments 
 he had doffed and laid aside for the last time on the 
 previous night. Love, the gentlest teacher, ever 
 sets the hardest tasks. 
 
 But Miss Griffin and Hans Krinken, standing 
 aside on a landing, preparing sundry little cordials 
 and comforts for Helen, saw Chrissy pass out of her 
 father's room with the keys in her hand and go 
 straight to the dining-room. 
 
 ' Everything is to be done to coddle Miss Helen, 
 and Miss Chrissy is to be left to do the work,' said 
 Hans reproachfully. 'And it is she who most 
 wants the comfort,' he added. 
 
 ' Ay, lad,' said the old lady ; ' d'ye think I don't
 
 THE GREAT METROPOLITAN BANK. 67 
 
 know that far better than the likes of you can tell 
 me ? But it's easy giving a cup of tea, and a couch, 
 and a few strokes and pats what Miss Helen wants. 
 But Miss Chrissy wants God and all His promises, 
 and who can give her those but Himself? The 
 most and the best we can do for her is to leave 
 her the work.' 
 
 While Chrissy had gone away, the three gentle- 
 men had held a slight conference. 
 
 'Mr. Miller has had a good business, and has 
 always lived very quietly,' said Mr. Ackroyd, with a 
 rather forced air of mere neighbourly interest. * He 
 must have been a fairly wealthy man in his station. 
 The loss involved by one share cannot mean very 
 much to him.' 
 
 ' The bank is unlimited, remember,' observed Mr. 
 Bentley. 
 
 ' If you are concerned in it yourself, sir,' said the 
 doctor to Mr. Ackroyd, 'I am afraid you scarcely 
 realize the gravity of your position. I am told that 
 from three to four thousand pounds will be imme- 
 diately called for on each share, and that will not 
 be all.' 
 
 'Grave enough, of course, especially to a poor 
 professional man like me,' said Mr. Ackroyd ; 'and 
 the feeling, " that will not be all," makes it more or 
 less alarming for everybody. But three or four 
 thousand would not mean ruin to such an estate as
 
 68 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 Mr. Miller's must be. Oh, certainly not quite 
 impossible ! ' 
 
 The doctor said nothing, rightly holding that any 
 knowledge of his patients' affairs acquired by him 
 should be treated as confidentially as his knowledge 
 of their ailments. But he knew what he knew 
 that on the day when he warned Mr. Miller against 
 agitation or excitement, the good man had quietly 
 replied that his anxieties in. life were over ; he had 
 not made a fortune, it was true, but there was just 
 enough to keep the lassies from starvation, or to 
 start them in careers of their own ; that if he lived 
 he meant to train Chrissy to manage the bookselling 
 business, and that would keep up a home for both, 
 if they should not happen to marry. The doctor 
 had an impression that three or four thousand 
 pounds would have meant a good deal to Mr. Miller. 
 The doctor had risen from poverty himself, and 
 knew how hard it is to make a fortune when its 
 beginnings are hampered by claims and duties, 
 instead of being furthered by help and influence. 
 But he kept silence, only fearing that facts would 
 soon tell the truth but too plainly. 
 
 When Chrissy reappeared with the keys, he made 
 so as to take them from her, thinking to spare her 
 a trial. But Chrissy held them. 
 
 ' I will come too,' she said. 
 
 For her father's step had been the last there, and
 
 THE GREAT METROPOLITAN BANK. 69 
 
 that made the homely places into holy places, which 
 a stranger's foot must not be the first to invade. 
 
 The doctor and Mr. Ackroyd demurred. 
 
 ' Let the young lady come/ decided Mr. Bentley. 
 Like Miss Griffin, he understood. 
 
 Chrissy led the way through the shop to the 
 counting-house. She knew that her father had 
 spent his last hours there among his private papers. 
 He might have left them lying about, thinking to be 
 himself the first to enter. It was not likely, but it 
 might be. 
 
 No everything was cleared away. But the old 
 bureau stood open, and a paper, ruled in double 
 columns, lay on it. One column was headed assets 
 the other debts. The sum total under the first 
 was two thousand five hundred pounds the three 
 or four sums set under the last were all under ten 
 pounds. Only these were not added up; an ugly 
 blank was left after the words, ' liabilities on one 
 share in the Metropolitan Bank.' 
 
 If poor Chrissy saw at first, she did not under- 
 stand. And presently she could see nothing. 
 Glancing up from the paper, her eye fell on the dead 
 baby brother's broken toy set in the pigeon-hole 
 of the old desk. And then a merciful mist of tears 
 came. Oh, tender, loving father, where, oh, where 
 are you now ? And by what token do you re- 
 member your little Chrissy, as you remembered
 
 70 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 youf lost baby by this little plaything ? She sat 
 down in her father's chair, and bowed her head over 
 her father's desk, and wept bitterly, the big tears 
 falling on the sad paper which she did not yet 
 understand was the summing-up of his ruin. 
 
 Doctor Julius had a fit of coughing. Mr. Ackroyd 
 softly left the counting-house. Mr. Bentley raised 
 his hand and gently touched the bright, bowed head. 
 That roused Chrissy. She rose, with streaming 
 eyes, and held out the paper. 
 
 'Is that any use?' she asked. 'What should I 
 do with that ? ' 
 
 ' Lock it in the front of the desk, dear young 
 lady,' said Mr. Bentley, very gently. ' It will be 
 of great use the very use for which your father 
 intended it.' 
 
 He and the doctor stepped outside while Chrissy 
 fastened up the desks and drawers and put her 
 father's chair back against the wall. 
 
 ' That retreat has been made in good order at any 
 rate,' said the doctor, who had been in the army, and 
 who generally used military terms when his higher 
 feelings were keenly touched. 'But did you see 
 what was on that paper, sir ? It seems but a sad 
 outcome for such a life and character as I know his 
 was.' 
 
 ' But nothing we can see is the end ofwhat is, you 
 know,' said the clergyman.
 
 THE GREAT METROPOLITAN BANK. 71 
 
 ' Ah ! ' returned the doctor, ' you are going on 
 higher ground. Yet, when we feel how the defeat 
 of good men disheartens us even yet, we can realize 
 what the disciples must have felt when they stood 
 on Calvary.' 
 
 Mr. Bentley was silent. He was thinking of quiet, 
 brave little Chrissy. It struck him afterwards that 
 he had not thought of her as a penniless orphan, but 
 only as a devoted daughter and a sensible girl. 
 
 ' I suppose nothing more can be done till the 
 relations come,' whispered Mr. Ackroyd, as the 
 other two gentlemen joined him. ' My eye could 
 not help catching the items on that paper/ he added 
 apologetically ; ' but I am sure there is some 
 mistake. I feel certain Mr. Miller was a rich man. 
 Why, he was willing to lend me a hundred pounds, 
 without any security, only a few weeks ago/ he 
 concluded, with a little nervous titter, like that of a 
 man who has some desperate attempt to make and 
 wants to get it over. ' Only, of course, I could not 
 allow that.' 
 
 ' So you offered as security ? ' questioned Dr. 
 Julius. 
 
 He knew a little of Mr. Ackroyd, and was not 
 attracted by what he knew. Besides, the doctor 
 had seen many a sly fraud presently perpetrated 
 on widows and orphans, for whom nothing but 
 sympathy had been expressed in the first blush of
 
 72 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 their bereavement. Some fact might have got 
 omitted from good Mr. Miller's little schedule ; and 
 if it should happen to be in favour of the dead man's 
 representatives, then the sooner two or three people 
 knew about it, the safer for them. 
 
 ' Why why,' said Mr. Ackroyd, speaking quickly, 
 ' I could not accept a loan at all : I did not need 
 one. I only wanted a little ready money, and I 
 thought, as I said to him, that I was doing him 
 quite a favour in selling him a share in the Great 
 Metropolitan.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' observed Dr. Julius, with a mistrustful 
 glance ; ' one of several shares you hold, I suppose ? ' 
 
 * Yes yes ; I'm considerably concerned in the 
 bank,' returned the architect. ' It will be a terrible 
 affair for me.' 
 
 ' But not so bad as it has proved for him,' remarked 
 the doctor drily. 
 
 Mr. Ackroyd did not like the tone, but there was 
 nothing that he could challenge in the words. 
 
 ' I suppose nothing more can be done until the rela- 
 tives arrive,' whispered Mr. Bentley. 'We had better 
 leave these poor girls awhile with that good old lady. 
 I shall be at the vicarage all to-day, and I shall tell 
 her to send for me if my services can be of any avail.' 
 
 Chrissy came forward to shake hands with Dr. 
 Julius and the clergyman when she heard they were 
 going.
 
 THE GREA T ME TR OPOLITAN BANK. 7 3 
 
 ' It was so kind of you to come, sir,' she said, 
 looking up into Mr. Bentley's face. Her words 
 expressed little of what was in her heart, for to his 
 sermon she felt that she owed much of that pleasant 
 talk with her father which would henceforth be 
 graven on her memory with the solemnity and 
 significance of all last things. 
 
 ' I shall see you again before I leave town, my 
 dear young lady,' he said. ' I shall make a point 
 of seeing you. God help and bless you ! Never 
 doubt that He will.' 
 
 He was the last of the three to leave the house, 
 and poor Chrissy followed him to the threshold. Just 
 as he stepped out he was joined by a tall young 
 man, whose very handsome face bore considerable 
 traces of ill-health or mental disquietude. As he 
 came up to the clergyman, Mr. Ackroyd raised his 
 hat. The youth returned the salute rather slightly. 
 
 ' How did you find me here, Harold ? ' asked Mr. 
 Bentley. 
 
 ' The vicarage housekeeper told me she had seen 
 you enter this house, father,' said the young man ; 
 'so I came after you. Only, seeing the closed 
 shutters, I did not ask for you, but waited outside.' 
 
 'And who is that person? I mean the person 
 who stepped out before me, to whom you bowed. 
 He had been in the room with me, but I never heard 
 his name.'
 
 74 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' He is a Mr. Ackroyd, father. He is an architect 
 a slight acquaintance of mine.' 
 
 ' Harold,' said the clergyman sadly, ' is it not a 
 melancholy state of things when a father cannot feel 
 prepossessed towards anybody who he sees is an 
 acquaintance of his son's ? Oh, Harold, you young 
 folks have the happiness almost the very dis- 
 positions of your elders in your keeping. I am 
 growing a soured, suspicious man since I have had so 
 much disappointment in you. I don't even feel the 
 present cloud over your prospects as I should. If 
 all was well with you your very self the gloomiest 
 prospect would soon brighten. While all is not 
 well, what can prospects signify ? ' 
 
 The youth answered nothing. Perhaps his pale 
 cheeks flushed a little, and then he and his father 
 walked in silence to the vicarage beside St. 
 Cecilia-in-the-Garden.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. BENTLEY'S VERDICT. 
 
 
 
 lUNT KEZIA came and took up 
 her temporary abode in the old 
 house in Shield Street. And so 
 there was no occasion for Miss 
 Griffin to remain longer, and 
 indeed Aunt Kezia gave her to 
 understand that her presence 
 could only be regarded as an 
 insinuation that ' the relatives ' 
 
 were not doing their duty. 
 
 ' Which the relatives are quite ready to do,' she 
 
 observed acidly ; ; they may have to be sharp about 
 
 some things, perhaps, and so they may not get so 
 
 much credit for kindness as strangers might. 
 
 Strangers can always afford to be kind, having 
 
 no real responsibility.' 
 
 And yet it seemed to Chrissy that Aunt Kezia 
 
 was there chiefly to guard against any responsibility 
 
 being thrust upon herself. 
 
 75
 
 76 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' Who would have thought of such a strict man as 
 your father getting himself mixed up in speculation 
 and ruined by it ! ' she observed. ' So often as I've 
 heard him say he did not believe in money being set 
 to breed money. What but the high interest could 
 have tempted him to go buying a Metropolitan 
 share ? But that is how it always is preaching is 
 one thing and practice is another. It is better to be 
 consistent in one's ways than high in one's ideas. / 
 always believe in getting as good an interest as you 
 can, with the capital safe. It is the greed that rushes 
 to ruin which I hate.' 
 
 Chrissy was used to her aunt's code of morality, 
 with its mean method of preserving consistency by 
 laying down no rules to which it was not convenient 
 to conform. She scarcely resented her aunt's 
 implied condemnation of her father, because she 
 knew that lady always condemned anybody who 
 had lost anything, and felt that, just as she blamed 
 Mr. Miller for having lost his money, so she blamed 
 Helen and her for having lost their father. She 
 seemed to take the eighteenth verse of the forty-ninth 
 Psalm as a precept for human conduct rather than an 
 observation upon it. Misfortunes and bereavements 
 were all 'judgments ' in Miss Kezia's eyes, and she 
 seemed to think it would be 'a setting oneself 
 against Providence' if she attempted to mitigate 
 their pain and severity for others, while she protected
 
 MR. BENTLEY'S VERDICT. 77 
 
 herself against them as much as possible by keeping 
 her personal interests within the narrowest limits. 
 
 But it did hurt Chrissy to wonder whether in this 
 instance there was any ground for the condemna- 
 tion. If by doing right her father had lost his 
 property and left his children beggars, then never 
 mind the loss. Chrissy felt as if she could walk 
 forth, homeless, yet proud of her inheritance. But 
 had he really been doing, for once, what Chrissy 
 knew he had always deprecated seeking to make 
 money for money's sake ? Chrissy did not expect 
 that her father must be infallible. Everybody was 
 tempted, anybody might fall. With a swelling 
 heart, Chrissy even remembered that her father 
 had himself said, 'Whom the Lord loved, He was 
 swift to chastise, and that the solitary lapse of t'he 
 righteous man, the first deviation from the straight 
 path, was often, in mercy, swiftly followed by dire 
 results which the persistent wrong-doing of the 
 ungodly or indifferent seems to escape in triumph.' 
 Only it was so hard not to know whether her aunt's 
 bitter words should be met by a brave defence or a 
 loving excuse. 
 
 There was no comfort to be found in Helen ; all 
 her cry was, 
 
 ' If our poor father had cared more for money all 
 along, he would have made more, and then this loss 
 would not have hurt us so much. And indeed he
 
 78 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 would have had so much more experience that he 
 would have known better than to have become 
 possessed of a Metropolitan share. Aunt Kezia 
 says so, and if she is wise about anything it is about 
 money matters, especially about making money, I 
 think she overdoes the matter of saving. The more 
 I think about saving, the more foolish it seems. 
 Have not we lost everything now ? We might just 
 as well have enjoyed it more while we had it. We 
 might have spent more on our holidays, and not 
 been so sparing on our clothes. It would have all 
 come to the same thing in the end.' 
 
 ' No, it would not,' said Chrissy ; ' there would 
 have been so much the less wherewith to meet our 
 liabilities.' 
 
 But when Chrissy heard that her father had taken 
 the share because Mr. Ackroyd had offered it to him 
 in exchange for a loan, a load was raised from her 
 heart, and she lifted up her head. 
 
 ' Ought not Mr. Ackroyd to take back his share ? ' 
 she asked. 
 
 It was Dr. Julius to whom she made that 
 observation. He shook his head. 
 
 ' No, little woman,' he said ; ' that might be justice, 
 but it is not law. It would be honesty, but it is not 
 what is called " business." ' 
 
 They were standing in the shop. Hans Krinken, 
 from behind the counter, broke in impulsively,
 
 MR. BENTLETS VERDICT. 81 
 
 ' I know all about it. I heard it. I think Mr. 
 Ackroyd did fancy I had but little English. Mr. 
 Ackroyd, he said he was badly wanting fifty pounds 
 to pay his rent he had been disappointed in some 
 moneys he was to receive. Mr. Miller, he offer to 
 lend the fifty pounds for one week. Mr. Ackroyd, 
 he offer to pay the what you call interest. Mr. 
 Miller, he shake his head, and say he no usurer. Mr. 
 Ackroyd, he say he is no beggar, and offer interest 
 again. But the master, he very firm. Then Mr. 
 Ackroyd, he clap his hands, and say, " I have it," and 
 he runs out and brings back a bit of paper, and he 
 says to the master, " Buy that from me. I give fifty 
 pounds for it, but it is worth one hundred now." 
 Mr. Miller, he say he will not take it for less than it 
 is worth. He say he knows nothing about such 
 things, and has none. Mr. Ackroyd look very 
 sorrowful ; say he does not like to part with it it 
 be very soon worth one hundred twenty one 
 hundred thirty pqunds. Then my master say he 
 will give Mr. Ackroyd what he says it is worth 
 one hundred pounds, and he can buy it from him 
 at the same price when he can get the money. Mr. 
 Ackroyd, he goes away, and come back soon with 
 some papers, and say it settled all right. And Mr. 
 Miller, he answers that Mr. Ackroyd is not to forget 
 it is his on the same terms. And Mr. Ackroyd, 
 he laugh, and say, Mr. Miller has done him one
 
 82 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 good turn, and himself another! Dr. Julius, Mr. 
 Ackroyd is the bad man. I hate him ! ' 
 
 And the warm-hearted boy brought his clenched 
 fist heavily on the counter. 
 
 ' Hist, hist ! ' said the doctor. ' My good fellow, 
 we may have our thoughts ! But at that time the 
 shares were selling at the price Mr. Ackroyd named. 
 Things of this sort are among the lucky accidents 
 one always hears of connected with great crashes. 
 It is odd how they generally happen to a certain 
 class of people ! ' 
 
 ' But Mr. Ackroyd has other shares still,' suggested 
 Chrissy. She would not defend her father from 
 imprudence by rushing to impute treachery and 
 fraud to a stranger. 
 
 ' Ah, well,' admitted Dr. Julius rather reluctantly, 
 'he thought so at first. He thought he had a vital 
 interest in some shares held under a certain trust. 
 But it appears otherwise. He has had a narrow 
 escape from ruin, he says.' 
 
 ' I know Mrs. Ackroyd and James were terribly 
 alarmed about it,' said Chrissy involuntarily, re- 
 membering all she had overheard on the night of her 
 father's death. But at the same instant came back 
 the memory of Mr. Ackroyd's own cool, almost 
 mocking tones. 
 
 'Ah, well,' said Dr. Julius again, 'we must not 
 let our minds dwell on these things. What is done
 
 MR. BENTLETS VERDICT. 83 
 
 cannot be undone. And conjectures and suspicions 
 lead nowhere, and can do us no good.' He himself 
 had a medical man's horror of 'fixed ideas,' and 
 their evil effect on the mental, moral, and physical 
 nature. Also, he had a brother a lawyer, who was 
 in the habit of saying that the best way to get one's 
 wrongs redressed was to forget all about them. 
 
 ' Ay, so it may be/ answered the young German ; 
 ' but I can guess what was in the mind of my master 
 as he lay down to his last sleep. And I marked 
 that his Bible lay open at that fifteenth Psalm, on 
 each verse of which my good grandfather used to say 
 every minister should preach at least once a year.' 
 
 Chrissy tried to obey the doctor's advice. And 
 indeed Hans Krinken's account had given her one 
 more glimpse of her father, so beautiful in its view 
 of his stern conscientious and kindly heart, that it 
 seemed to make the bearing of all else quite easy. 
 But she could not stop there. Her father was not 
 only excused, but amply and nobly justified, without 
 casting any condemnation on others. Mr. Ackroyd 
 could not have known what he was doing. No, that 
 was quite impossible. If Chrissy could have thought 
 otherwise, it is doubtful whether she could have 
 repeated the story, for an ingenuous young heart 
 shrinks from the thought of guilt in others, as if the 
 shame and pain were reflected upon itself. But after 
 she had told the history to Aunt Kezia, a horrible
 
 84 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 doubt crept into her mind, for she found that Aunt 
 Kezia did not seem to think it half so unnatural 
 that Mr. Ackroyd should have thought of over- 
 reaching his neighbour's innocence, as that her father 
 should have been so ready to help a neighbour's 
 need. 
 
 ' No good ever comes of mixing yourself up in 
 other people's business,' said Miss Kezia Daffy. ' I 
 believe people only do so out of vanity, thinking 
 themselves wiser and better than other folk ; and 
 this is the way pride gets a fall. Well, girls, it is to 
 be hoped you'll practise all the good ways your 
 father trained you in, and put all his queer notions 
 and high-flown ideas out of your head, and not strive 
 to be better than other folks ; for that only makes 
 the world a harder place than it is at the best of 
 times ; and you'll have nobody to look to but your- 
 selves. There is Helen beginning to expect every- 
 body will run to help her. I tell her she will find it 
 is not so. There are children left orphans and 
 penniless every day in the year, and nobody thinks 
 anything of it except themselves.' 
 
 Those hard words had a certain stern comfort for 
 poor Chrissy, who had a wholesome horror of tragic 
 circumstance, and would rather that her sorrows 
 were commonplace and unnoticeable. 
 
 ' What you are to be, I don't know,' continued her 
 aunt. ' You are scarcely old enough for governesses.
 
 MR, BENTLETS VERDICT. 85 
 
 I believe my friend Madame Vinet, who is a dress- 
 maker in the West End, would take one of you for 
 a word from me. You'd have to live in the house, 
 and you'd get very little money for a year or two. 
 I think Helen will take that chance. She did not 
 seem to like it at first, but she came round when I 
 said she'd have to be nicely dressed to be in the 
 show-room. But that's only one of you.' 
 
 Chrissy spoke now. She had been quietly form- 
 ing certain plans, which she would not confide to her 
 aunt till they had taken some shape. She had 
 already laid them before Dr. Julius, and they had 
 met with his approval. 
 
 ' I think I may be able to stay on in my father's 
 shop,' she said quietly. ' I know what the books 
 are, and where they are, and the requirements of the 
 customers. Father has let me learn all that lately ; 
 and the people may therefore find it an advantage 
 to hire me as an assistant. I thought of that my- 
 self; and Dr. Julius says it may easily happen that 
 it is often done.' 
 
 Aunt Kezia looked at her niece, up and down. 
 The good lady had not spared complaints of having 
 ' all the burden of those helpless girls' future cast 
 upon her mind ; ' but now she half resented the 
 firm though modest way in which Chrissy seemed 
 inclined to take hers into her own hands, and form 
 plans and projects for herself.
 
 86 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' Humph ! ' she said ; ' that will be a strange kind 
 of place for you to fill. However, if you can get it, 
 it may do as well as anything else. What sort of a 
 salary will you expect ? ' Then, taking alarm as she 
 reflected that her own residence was within walking 
 distance from Shield Street, and that she intended 
 her nieces ' to begin as they would have to go on,' 
 which meant to expect nothing from her, she asked, 
 ' I don't suppose you'd be able to stay in the house ; 
 it's not too big for one family, without assistants. 
 And they would not be likely to pay you enough to 
 find you in board and lodging elsewhere.' 
 
 ' I asked Dr. Julius what would be the very least 
 they could give,' Chrissy answered gently ; ' and 
 Miss Griffin says she could take me to live with her 
 for the sum he named.' 
 
 ' Miss Griffin has no house of her own to take you 
 to. She is only a hired servant herself/ snapped 
 Aunt Kezia. 
 
 ' The warehouse people won't object to her taking 
 me in,' Chrissy persisted. ' They have often said 
 that they wished she had some young niece or friend 
 to sleep there with her, and save her from being so 
 lonely.' 
 
 ' You'll find you are looked upon as quite a 
 common working girl,' said the aunt, regarding 
 Chrissy with strong disfavour. 
 
 Chrissy smiled slightly.
 
 MR. BENTLEYS VERDICT. 87 
 
 ' That does not matter,' she said. ' I shall be 
 doing the sort of work that father did, and it is the 
 nearest plan I can see for doing the work he meant 
 me to do. He always thought I should be able to 
 keep on the shop.' 
 
 ' But all that is over now ; being hired if you can 
 get hired to serve in the shop is a very different 
 thing,' observed Miss Kezia. 
 
 'Shopmen often rise to be masters,' said poor 
 Chrissy, with an expression of resolution settling on 
 her face. 
 
 ' Women are not men ; women never rise,' pro- 
 nounced Miss Daffy. ' That's why it's the duty of 
 their relatives to see that they are properly provided 
 for to begin with.' 
 
 This was one of those side hits at her dead father 
 which Chrissy could not endure. So she replied 
 with some spirit, 
 
 'Then if a woman should prove that she has it 
 in her to rise, it becomes clear that the very best 
 provision possible has been made for her.' 
 
 ' You will find that poor people must not have 
 tempers,' said Aunt Kezia, with ironical good 
 humour. 
 
 The Rev. Harold Bentley was true to his word. 
 His own business, or rather his son's, detained him 
 in town, and, in the absence of the vicar, it was he 
 who conducted Mr. Miller's funeral. And he went
 
 88 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 home afterwards to the house in Shield Street, and 
 spoke soothing words to the weeping girls, and 
 listened patiently to the recital of Aunt Kezia's trials, 
 among which that lady did not omit to mention 
 what she considered the strong-headedness and 
 wrong-headedness which her younger niece had in- 
 herited from the dead man. 
 
 As he went down Shield Street, on his way to the 
 vicarage, he heard many of the neighbours talking of 
 him whom they had just seen carried to his last rest. 
 He heard one say, in almost the same words as Dr. 
 Julius had used, ' Sad that such a life should end in 
 such defeat ! ' 
 
 ' Defeat ! ' echoed the clergyman within himself. 
 ' He who leaves behind him such a child as Chrissy 
 Miller, leaves an investment on earth, which he will 
 find again with untold increase in the Kingdom of 
 God. Alexander Miller is written down in heaven 
 as a successful man.' 
 
 And Mr. Bentley sighed. But the sigh was for 
 some who still lived, not for him who was at rest. 
 
 And so the dead was buried out of the sight of the 
 living. And the sunshine once more streamed 
 through the old house in Shield Street. And a few 
 more days would decide the future of the girls.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN THE SKY-PARLOUR. 
 
 HERE are some cir- 
 cumstances under 
 which human nature 
 is seldom seen to 
 advantage. These are 
 not the supreme crises 
 of life. The possibili- 
 ties of danger or loss 
 often call out all that 
 is best in us. But 
 some who will not 
 shrink from certain 
 forms of self-sacrifice 
 seem unable to resist very small temptations to self- 
 aggrandizement Brothers and sisters who have vied 
 with each other in the support and solace of an aged 
 parent, when the filial duty is completed, will occa- 
 sionally fall into most unfraternal feelings over the 
 
 89
 
 90 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 division of such simple household spoil as feather 
 beds and silver tea-spoons. Old neighbours and 
 attendants, who have rendered services without price, 
 will show a singular avidity to possess a ' memorial ' 
 of pecuniary value. 
 
 Many a dead man, could he stand among his 
 friends after the reading of his will, would feel as if 
 they must be almost glad of his departure, so eagerly 
 do they make prey of his effects, while they seem to 
 recall the ties of near kindred and long association 
 only to urge them as claims for precedence in 
 plunder. But the dead man does not so stand. If 
 he has risen to the higher life, we may certainly trust 
 that his vision is closed to all but what may rise there 
 with him, the pure and patient love which sits 
 silently aside, and will scarcely use his own expressed 
 wishes as a claim for itself, strongly as it urges them 
 in behalf of others. 
 
 But, alas ! for that pure and patient love for its 
 vision must remain open to the sordid struggle round 
 it. Alas ! that to the agonized cry, ' Why was the 
 light of mine eyes taken ? ' there must be so often 
 added the bitter wail, 'And why was I left with 
 these ? ' 
 
 It all seemed so strange to Helen and Chrissy. 
 It always does seem strange when we first discover 
 that the old familiar surroundings of our lives can 
 be torn from us, and that they have other value than
 
 IN THE SKY-PARLOUR. 91 
 
 their use or their prettiness. The child enters the 
 world with a glorious sense of property. He uses the 
 possessive pronoun with everything. Little by little 
 he learns his own poverty ; his weakness to win 
 his greater weakness to hold. And only when he 
 has learned to think of nought as ' mine,' or even as 
 ' ours,' but of all as ' God's,' does he enter on his true 
 inheritance which can never fade away. 
 
 ' Of course, till all the creditors are paid, every- 
 thing belongs to them,' observed Aunt Kezia acidly ; 
 ' and the Great Metropolitan Bank is a creditor that 
 will swallow up everything. But there are some 
 things it has no right to. There were certain articles 
 your mother took from your grandmother's house 
 that were not exactly given to her: she was just 
 allowed to take them as a sort of obligement because 
 she had grown used to them, and to save your 
 father's money, I suppose. There's that bronze 
 fender in the best bedroom, and a good feather bed 
 and two down pillows ; I'd often thought of saying 
 to your father that I'd had as good a right to those 
 things as your mother could have had ; and that I'd 
 no down pillows of my own. But I wasn't the 
 person to disturb them while he lived. I think I'd 
 better go through the drawers and boxes at once and 
 see if I can find any other similar trifles, and then 
 I'll take them away quietly in my cab to-night. 
 When you know you have an honest right to things,
 
 92 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 it's no use raising a scandal and a hubbub, and 
 tempting lawyers and such people into trying to 
 defraud you/ 
 
 ' Aunt Kezia is like a magpie picking up buttons,' 
 said Helen, who had begun to recover her volatile 
 spirits. ' She has an innate hankering after " things," 
 whether they are what she will ever use or not.' 
 
 Helen accompanied her aunt in her rummaging. 
 She did not shrink from seeing the old stores, and 
 could find amusement in Miss Daffy's prattle con- 
 cerning kinsfolk and old neighbours, brought to 
 mind by the old relics she was turning over. It was 
 quite decided that Helen was to go to live with 
 Madame Vinet, the West End dressmaker ; and 
 Chrissy wondered why it was that she did not like 
 to hear how Helen dwelt on one side only of her 
 future life. Of course, it was right to dwell only on 
 the sunnier side to forecast only brightness. But 
 why did not the real pleasure of honest work, the 
 blessings of industry, and providence, and ambition, 
 put in any appearance on this sunny side of Helen's 
 future? Why was it only represented by the 
 amount of hoped-for leisure, by the acquaintances 
 which might be made, and by vague possibilities of 
 changes for the better ? Chrissy felt an aching fear 
 lest somehow life should disappoint Helen and 
 then what then ? 
 
 Chrissy could not bear to see her aunt lifting out
 
 IN THE SKY-PARLOUR. 93 
 
 and unfolding and criticizing. For the sake of her 
 dead father, all the dead had grown sacred to her, 
 and whatever had been linked with vanished lives 
 became holy. There was a little quaint, inexpensive 
 jewellery which had belonged to dead kinswomen 
 on Mrs. Miller's side, of which Aunt Kezia took 
 possession, saying that it was useless to the girls in 
 its present old-fashioned state, and they would have 
 neither money to alter it nor occasion to wear it for 
 years to come, whereas she was an old-fashioned 
 woman herself, and had known its original owners, 
 and so forth. There was one ring in particular, of 
 red Mexican gold, with something lying dim beneath 
 the crystal set in it. 
 
 ' I'll have that taken out, and your mother's hair 
 put in,' said Aunt Kezia. ' And after my time, the 
 ring will come to one of you to whichever best 
 deserves it,' she added didactically. 
 
 ' But is not that somebody's hair in it already ? ' 
 asked Chrissy softly. 
 
 ' Yes, child,' answered Aunt Kezia, looking up in 
 wonder. ' But what of that ? If it is taken out, 
 the ring will be as good as new.' 
 
 'But somebody put it there,' persisted Chrissy. 
 ' Somebody loved it, and put it there. Ought we 
 not to leave it for their sake ? 
 
 ' La, child ! ' said the old lady; ' I don't know who 
 they were, so what can I care for their sakes ? '
 
 94 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' For sake of the love, ' Chrissy whispered, her 
 face flushing with the sense that she was speaking j 
 words which would be nonsense to the ears that 
 heard them. 
 
 ' Now, that is what I call downright sentimental 
 rubbish ! ' retorted Miss Kezia sharply. ' If people 
 went on at that rate, the world would never move 
 forward. I suppose you would have us keep old 
 hats and shoes next, and our houses would be full of 
 moth-eaten memorials.' 
 
 'No,' said Chrissy stoutly; 'that is quite a 
 different thing. Clothes are no record of love ; they 
 were bought for use, and that is their best end. You 
 know I wanted you to give my father's clothes to 
 Hans Krinken. They would have saved his money, 
 and he knew my father, and would have valued 
 them not less, but more, because they had belonged 
 to him.' 
 
 'In the state of your father's affairs, it was not for me 
 to go giving away his things,' snapped Miss Kezia. 
 
 She knew it had hurt Chrissy sorely when she 
 had bartered them with a second-hand wardrobe 
 keeper, and she also knew that the Great Metro- 
 politan Bank, in whose interest she had professedly 
 indulged in these and many similar economies, had 
 been no gainer by the exchanges she had got, 
 sundry glass vases and a handsome tea-service, now 
 standing; in her own house.
 
 IN THE SKY-PARLOUR. 95 
 
 ' You get far better value in kind than in cash,' 
 she had explained to the girls, quieting her own 
 conscience by the reflection. * We don't lose what 
 a friend gets, and two orphan girls can be only the 
 better off for any gain accruing to their aunt and 
 only protector.' 
 
 The day of the sale arrived. The incoming 
 tenant of the Shield Street house the purchaser 
 of the business, who, to Chrissy's solemn delight, 
 had gladly fallen in with an arrangement for her 
 services agreed to take over the greater part of 
 the furniture as it stood, at a valuation. Only a 
 few articles of a more special character were to be 
 sold by auction as, for example, an old-fashioned 
 black oak bookcase, which Mr. Miller himself had 
 rescued from destruction at the hands of an 
 ignorant furniture-dealer. It was bought by Mr. 
 Ackroyd. Chrissy learned this because, in anxiety 
 for its fate, she inquired of Hans Krinken. The 
 boy's face darkened as he told her the fact. 
 
 ' The Great Metropolitan Bank had not done him 
 much harm, after all,' he said. 
 
 ' There is always somebody strangely saved in 
 shipwrecks and disasters,' said Chrissy, ' and I 
 suppose it is the same in these failures. That 
 doesn't make it really harder for those who are not 
 saved though it makes it seem so,' she added 
 candidly.
 
 96 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' If it is not Mr. Ackroyd's fault that he is so 
 fortunate, then it is his misfortune,' said Hans 
 grimly. And Chrissy knew he was vexed, but 
 fancied that his expression in English was rather 
 defective. 
 
 The aunt and her two nieces each carried off 
 some salvage from the household wreck. Miss 
 Daffy had her down pillows, and her out-of-date 
 brooches, and sundry other little knick-knacks, to 
 which she laid a family claim ; and Helen had a 
 bundle of strange faded shreds, which seemed to 
 her aunt utterly worthless, but in which the girl's 
 quick eye detected the makings of singular and 
 rather distinguished finery. The girls had not many 
 books of their very own their reading, limited 
 enough in Helen's case, having been in their 
 father's library. Such as they had they divided 
 between them ; and Helen, as the eldest, got the 
 grandly-bound Bible, which her father had never 
 used ; and Chrissy had the little worn volume, 
 which had lain open by her father's death-bed, and 
 the broken toy which had stood in his .bureau, 
 and the stumpy pen with which he had written 
 that terrible schedule which had proved his last 
 earthly task. 
 
 The last hour of the last sad day came in time. 
 Helen was to go home with her Aunt Kezia and 
 remain with her for a day or two, making sundry
 
 IN THE SKY-PARLOUR. 97 
 
 preparations for her ultimate sojourn with her 
 aunt's friend Madame Vinet. Miss Kezia was 
 determined that there should not be a scanty frill 
 or a deficient garment in Helen's outfit, since that 
 might be a slur on her own solicitude. But poor 
 Chrissy was to go straight to Miss Griffin. Miss 
 Daffy never even visited that worthy woman to see 
 what accommodation she could offer her niece. 
 Chrissy had taken her own way ; let her take it, was 
 her aunt's feeling. Independence and enterprise are 
 often left to a very ungenial freedom. Where* 
 people cannot patronize, they often do not care to 
 help. 
 
 In the course of the day Miss Griffin ran up to 
 the old house in Shield Street to tell Chrissy that 
 everything was ready for her at her place. But she 
 had to go home again to attend to some duties of 
 her own, and Chrissy would have to walk up alone. 
 She helped her aunt and Helen to stow their 
 baggage into the cab that was to carry them away, 
 and then went back for her own little package of 
 relics, and stood on the pavement to watch them 
 off. 
 
 James Ackroyd was there too, helping Miss Daffy, 
 and speaking last words to Helen, whose mingled 
 tears and smiles made a picture of pain and patience 
 enough to excite anybody's sympathy. 
 
 The cab drove off. James Ackroyd, with a slight,
 
 98 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 absent-minded smile on his lips, turned and went 
 into his own house. He had not specially noticed 
 Chrissy standing beside him. And there need be 
 no last words for her. She was not going away ; he 
 might see her again to-morrow. 
 
 Chrissy moved off tearless, with her little bundle 
 in her hands, and a great weight of loneliness in her 
 heart. To whom, or to what, did she belong now ? 
 The very portico she had just left was no longer her 
 home-threshold, but a stranger's doorstep. An 
 aching weariness, a sense of sordid drudgery, over- 
 came her. The package she carried suddenly 
 seemed to grow heavy and unwieldy. She was 
 nobody's ' little Chrissy.' She was only one of those 
 whom she had often heard so carelessly massed 
 together as ' working girls.' 
 
 ' Miss Chrissy, let me carry that.' 
 
 Chrissy started. The familiar voice sounded so 
 soft and subdued. It was only Hans Krinken. 
 Chrissy surrendered her parcel without one word. 
 
 She walked on. Hans did not keep pace with 
 her, but kept behind. Nobody had seemed to re- 
 member her but this poor shop-boy, almost a 
 stranger. Well, she was only a shop-girl now ; yet 
 still she had been his master's daughter. His 
 acknowledged consciousness of the fact seemed like 
 the last vestige of her lost position. Why should 
 she surrender it ?
 
 IN THE SKY-PARLOUR. 99 
 
 That thought was not worthy of Chrissy, and a 
 truer one came. Her familiar knowledge of Scripture 
 supplied her with definite form for her intuitions. 
 She had learned to think in Scriptural imagery. 
 
 ' Who was the neighbour of him who fell among 
 thieves ? ' she asked herself. ' He who showed 
 kindness to him.' What should we think of the 
 rescued Jew, if we heard that afterwards, because 
 his benefactor was a Samaritan, he ' kept him in his 
 place ' ? 
 
 She turned and spoke to Hans, who stepped 
 forward to listen to 'Miss Christina.' But the 
 moment she was silent he fell back again. 
 
 Chrissy had often visited Miss Griffin before, and 
 then her sky-parlour, overlooking a landscape of red 
 tiles and chimney-pots, had seemed a delightfully 
 quaint abode, such as one reads of in Andersen's 
 tales of Danish or German life. But to-day the dark 
 stairway, common to all the offices of which Miss 
 Griffin had charge, seemed dirty and stuffy ; there 
 was a ceaseless clatter of voices behind the closed 
 doors, a pervading smell of 'samples,' and even the 
 nettle-geranium spreading itself across the window 
 on the landing looked like somebody in reduced 
 circumstances, resolutely making the best of things. 
 It was all so different from the sweet simple quietude 
 that used to reign in Shield Street. And that 
 quietude was broken up now. It seemed to Chrissy
 
 ioo EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 that the cruel change would have been easier to 
 bear if she had left that intact Some order would 
 reign there again presently, but just now she had 
 left dust and confusion and bickering voices even 
 there. She had not only been driven from paradise, 
 but paradise was shaken on its own foundations. 
 The world Chrissy's world seemed coming to an 
 end. There remained nothing for her but to try to 
 do the right thing as far as each moment showed 
 it to her. To do it, no longer easily and happily, 
 but at least sincerely and strenuously ; even when 
 it might be only in such small matters as giving 
 an appreciative look at Miss Griffin's hospitably 
 spread tea - table, and noticing its decorative 
 bunch of china-asters with the exclamation, * How 
 pretty ! ' 
 
 And in doing this, poor Chrissy had her reward. 
 For, as she looked from these little preparations to 
 her hostess's face, she saw that they had been a 
 labour of love. The little woman was in a perfect 
 flutter of joyful excitement. Her lonely life was 
 ended, for a while at least, and this was a gala day 
 for her, only chastened by the recollection that it 
 could be no gala for poor Chrissy. 
 
 ' You'll stay and take a cup of tea with us,' she 
 said to Hans, when Chrissy had gone to her own 
 room to take off her bonnet and settle her small 
 possessions. 'I reckon you've all had a hard day of
 
 IA T THE SKY-PARLOUR. 101 
 
 it at Shield Street, and you look nearly as tired as 
 Miss Chrissy herself.' 
 
 1 No, thank you ; I would rather go straight 
 home,' he answered. And he persisted in his deter- 
 mination till Miss Griffin, giving a keen look into 
 his face, saw something there which checked her 
 kindly invitation. 
 
 ' No, no,' he said to himself as he went slowly 
 down-stairs ; ' it's not with me that the world's going 
 to teach her it thinks she is standing in a new place. 
 She is still Miss Chrissy, and I'm Hans Krinken. I 
 may be Mr. Hans Krinken some day, though. Only 
 I'll keep my distance till then. And I've heard my 
 grandmother say that a friend beneath one often 
 serves one better than a patron above one.' 
 
 ' That German boy seems a fine lad,' commented 
 Miss Griffin, as Chrissy took her seat at the tea- 
 table. ' He must have been brought up by superior 
 people ; he has such gentle, unassuming manners. I 
 should say there are good things before him. Per- 
 haps some day it will be an incident in your life 
 that he helped you this afternoon. Stranger things 
 have happened. It will be nice for you to have him 
 to work under you in the shop instead of a perfect 
 stranger.' 
 
 ' He will be soon fit for a better situation,' said 
 Chrissy. ' Father said he would be directly he knew 
 English ways and spoke English fluently, and he
 
 io2 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 has made wonderful progress since he came to 
 Shield Street.' 
 
 ' Ah, well, at any rate, you will have got warm to 
 your work before he goes away,' said Miss Griffin. 
 'And you'll be quite at home among your book- 
 shelves from the first.' 
 
 ' I hope I shall be able to satisfy my employers,' 
 said poor Chrissy dismally. 
 
 Miss Griffin laughed, a strange little soft laugh. 
 
 'You've got to do more than that,' she said.' 
 ' That's the beginning ; but it would be dreary work 
 if it was the end. You'll have to satisfy yourself 
 too, and to serve God. And that last is the founda- 
 tion of all. There cannot be a happy life if that 
 does not come in. Our souls need that service, if 
 they are to be healthy, just as much as our bodies 
 need food.' 
 
 ' I have been thinking that I shall begin to teach 
 in the Sunday school/ murmured Chrissy wistfully. 
 
 ' Ay, my dear, and that will be a good and a happy 
 work for you,' said Miss Griffin, who could guess at 
 once, by old secrets of her own heart, how the girl 
 had been surveying her desolated life, and pondering 
 how new interests of affection and service could be 
 brought into it. ' But that is not quite what I mean. 
 We must not give God what is worth nothing ; and 
 until we have got all our lives into His service, no 
 part of them is worth offering to Him. We have
 
 IJV THE SKY-PARLOUR. 103 
 
 got to do our work for wages, our work for our 
 bread, with a constant sense of His presence, just 
 as you, without wages, once helped and pleased your 
 dear father.' 
 
 ' Oh, but that was so easy ! ' sighed Chrissy. 
 
 ' Ay, my dear, and so is the other. Never fancy that 
 God's service is hard and dreary. " Wisdom's ways 
 are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." 
 Take your wages as quite apart from your work, 
 as just something to keep you going, like the meals 
 in your father's house. And don't measure God's 
 love for you, nor what He is doing for you, by what 
 you get of worldly gear, any more than you would 
 have reckoned up your father's love by the number 
 of dishes he set before you. And always remember; 
 this, my dear, there is not a task in the world 
 which isn't done differently according as he who 
 does it fears and loves God, or only thinks of him- ( 
 self and his own pleasure or gain. There's some 
 employments in which we can see this plainly 
 enough, such as teaching, and nursing, and domestic 
 service (I'm only speaking of women now). But 
 it's the same in all. And I'll tell you how I found 
 that out, my dear. I found it out when my mother 
 died, and her annuity died with her, and I discovered 
 that I was not able to earn my bread by being 
 anything but what I am now, a poor old chambers- 
 keeper.'
 
 to 4 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 She paused with a trembling lip. Chrissy let 
 her warm young fingers close over the withered 
 hand. 
 
 'You have been so kind to me,' she said, 'and I've 
 been feeling very bad to-day, and now you're mak- 
 ing me begin to feel better.' 
 
 ' If one has set one's face into the right way, one 
 always gets what one wants to help one on,' said 
 Miss Griffin simply, and then she proceeded : 
 
 * Well, my dear, I can assure you it was a bitter day 
 for me when I found out how little I was really fit for. 
 I'd always flattered myself I was quite fit either for 
 a lower sort of teacher or a hospital nurse. It is a 
 foolish way that women have, of fancying that at a 
 moment's notice they are quite fit to be what they'd 
 like to be. I hope they're growing wiser now. It 
 would be a terrible world if men had the same idea, 
 wouldn't it ? Perhaps I might have been trained to 
 fill either of these positions when I left school, but 
 then that was many years before, and I had gone 
 back, and the world had gone forward. And I 
 found that the humblest teacher was expected to 
 instruct in subjects whose very names I did not 
 understand, and that nobody could get employment 
 as a nurse who was under a certain height or over a 
 certain age. These are all changes for the better, I 
 don't deny. But still, there was poor little me, with 
 thirty or forty possible years of life before me
 
 IN THE SKY-PARLOUR. 105 
 
 unless, indeed, I died sooner of starvation, which did 
 not seem unlikely at that time ! ' 
 
 The little woman's face still quivered. She was 
 telling now what she had never told before. Her 
 life had had its great sorrows, about which she could 
 often speak calmly and trustfully ; but it is our 
 very soul which is in danger on the day when its 
 ambitions, be they homely or lofty, lie dead about 
 it ; and when we stir the dust of that defeat, the old 
 misery will rankle within us. 
 
 ' Well, well,' she said, rallying herself, ' I found 
 out I could dust rooms, and keep account of dinners, 
 and lock doors ; and so here I am ! And very hard 
 and bitter I was at first.' 
 
 ' And what helped you ? ' asked Chrissy softly. 
 
 ' It was just this: A young man, employed as a 
 clerk in one of the offices below, went wrong. He 
 had not been doing well for some time, and at last 
 it ended, as it generally does, in his being dishonest. 
 His masters did not want to be hard with him, but 
 they could not keep him on in his situation, nor 
 could they give him any character ; and, besides, 
 there were other people mixed up in it, which made 
 them fear he might have to be sent to prison. 
 His poor mother came up from the country, travel- 
 ling day and night to get here in time ; and when 
 the gentlemen saw her, a poor, sickly, worn-out 
 widow, they could not bear to speak to her in their
 
 ro6 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 business rooms, with not one woman that she knew 
 in all the great city round her ; and they brought 
 her up to me, and told me to give her rest and 
 refreshment.' 
 
 ' And I know how kind you would be to her ! ' 
 said Chrissy. 
 
 ' I did my best,' said Miss Griffin ; ' and I really 
 felt for her, if that might be any comfort. And she 
 sat just opposite where we are sitting now, and asked 
 question after question about her boy, and what his 
 habits had been in this respect and in that, and how 
 he had begun to go wrong. And ever and again 
 she would say, " There was nobody to keep him up 
 to the mark in a frierj{Jl_way." I asked her if he 
 wrote often to her. He had at first, she said, but it 
 dropped off. " There was nobody to put him in 
 mind, you see, but plenty of influences pulling the 
 other way." And I said to myself, then and there, 
 " There will be other young lads coming to begin 
 the world in these offices, and I'll lay their charge on 
 myself, and do my best to keep them in remembrance 
 of what is good." And that has served to keep me up 
 to my other duties better than anything else ; for one 
 has to be both respected and friend-like before one 
 can hope to do any good. One can find out many a 
 way when one has the will. I think of their dinners 
 for them, and find out what is cheap, and remember 
 what they like ; and I look after their overcoats and
 
 IN THE SKY-PARLOUR. 107 
 
 boots on wet days, and put them in mind when they 
 should begin their winter underclothing. And then 
 they sit down and speak a little and talk about 
 home ; and after that I can ask a question as to 
 when they have heard from their folks, and when 
 they have written to them ; and so I get a chance 
 of being a friend to them in my small way. A 
 woman isn't earning her living, but dying a slow 
 death, unless she finds work for her heart as well as 
 her hands ; if she is to be the whole creature God 
 made her, and not only half a one, she's got to 
 serve and help somebody. And there's lots of ways 
 come to her in time. It is not God's work in the 
 world that is running short, but the eyes and hands 
 to see and seize it.' 
 
 ' Do you think I, too, shall find God's work among 
 my selling books and account - keeping ? ' asked 
 Chrissy. 'That will be something better to think 
 of than only of getting on : that could make one 
 content if one happened never to get on.' 
 
 ' I am quite sure you will find it,' answered Miss 
 Griffin. ' You know the verse, 
 
 " Wherever in the world I am, 
 
 In whatsoe'er estate, 
 I have a fellowship with hearts 
 
 To keep and cultivate j 
 And a work of lowly love to do 
 
 For the Lord on whom I wait." 
 
 That wasn't written when I was a girl, but directly
 
 io8 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 I read it I said, "That's exactly what I've been 
 trying to put into words." And that verse keeps 
 saying itself over to me as nothing else ever does, 
 except "Who ran to kiss me when I fell," and 
 " How doth the little busy bee," and other bits I 
 learnt almost in my cradle. And now I think we'll 
 go to bed early to-night, for you must be tired out, 
 and when I've been thinking over old things, I like 
 to go and lie quiet in the dark. Don't you think 
 the angels may see us best then, and speak to our 
 hearts in the silence ? I've lived so much alone, 
 my dear, that I expect I shall be talking some of 
 my strange fancies aloud to you now.' 
 
 ' I have some strange fancies too,' said Chrissy ; 
 ' and some of them help me to try to be good. 
 Don't you think fancies, like people, should be known 
 by their fruits ? ' 
 
 ' Ay, my child,' said Miss Griffin ; ' and there's a 
 sort of common sense which seems to me like an 
 air-pump I once saw at work at a lecture. It only 
 pumped away the air ; everything looked exactly 
 the same in the vessel from which the air had been 
 pumped, only whatever had life began to faint away, 
 and would have died if the pump hadn't been stopped 
 and air let in again. Our very bodies can't exist 
 without the air which we cannot see, and I reckon 
 our souls are much the same without faith, and I 
 expect that is what you and I really mean when we
 
 IN THE SKY-PARLOUR. 109 
 
 say " fancies," and maybe we'd be wiser if we used 
 the right word, so that nobody can misunderstand 
 us. And now, my dear, you are not to get up when 
 you hear me moving in the morning, for I shall be 
 astir extra early for some time to come.' 
 
 ' How is that ? ' asked Chrissy, in alarm lest her 
 presence imposed some additional duty on her kind 
 hostess. 
 
 'Well/ said Miss Griffin, clearing away the tea- 
 things, 'we wanted an extra charwoman in the 
 offices, and I've got leave to employ poor Esther 
 Gray. The masters were against it at first. They 
 said it was offering encouragement to a bad character. 
 But I talked them round. " To give work like our 
 charing to such a woman as Esther Gray might have 
 been is no encouragement, but a severe penance 
 which she won't take unless she's in earnest to do 
 better." And they let me have my own way. But 
 it wouldn't do to have Esther about the place when 
 the office people begin to come, as the other char- 
 women may be against it; indeed, she said to me 
 herself that she could not stand that ; the very looks | 
 they'd give would drive her wild, and send her back' 
 to drink and misery. So I said she could come 
 earlier, and I could easily get up and let her in.' 
 
 'Good-night, Miss Griffin,' said Chrissy. 'I feel 
 quite happy now. What you have said has helped 
 me, and what you are inspires me.'
 
 i io EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' Dear, dear ! to hear her talk ! ' exclaimed the old 
 lady, after she had cordially returned the girl's warm 
 kiss, and had shut herself into her own little chamber. 
 ' It was just the sight of the brave young thing 
 going out to fight her own battle which gave me 
 courage to think what a poor old simpleton I had 
 been when I started, and how God had smoothed 
 and brightened the way even for me. I can trust 
 her with Him. He won't forget his young lions 
 when they cry to Him, since He does not even 
 forget His poor old sheep like me.'
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HANS KRINKEN. 
 
 HRISSY MILLER soon found 
 that there were plenty of little 
 interests and duties springing up 
 by the wayside of her life. To 
 begin with, the new bookseller, 
 a Mr. Bisset, a fellow-country- 
 man of her father's, was a young 
 man, and had brought a young 
 wife from her own kith and kin 
 in the North to the crowded lonesomeness of London. 
 She had grown nervous and low-spirited before she 
 came to Shield Street. It was like a Godsend to 
 her when her husband told her of the arrangement 
 he had made with the late bookseller's daughter. 
 
 ' If she will come, will you let her go with me for 
 a walk sometimes ? ' she asked. ' She will know all 
 the turnings, and will keep me from being frightened 
 
 at the busy driving to and fro.' 
 
 111
 
 ii2 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' She shall go with you whenever I can possibly 
 spare her,' said the husband. ' I daresay she'll be 
 glad of the change. And exercise and a cheerful 
 companion will soon bring back your bloom and 
 merriment. Is it not a terrible thing that you do 
 not find your husband himself a sufficing joy?' He 
 laughed, happily confident that one half of her 
 nervous terrors and depression arose from anxiety 
 over his prospects and his delicate health. And he 
 thought silently, 'That young Miss Miller has a 
 sweet, sensible face ; but if she had not had so much 
 sorrow and loss herself lately, she might be a more 
 inspiriting companion for my poor lassie.' 
 
 That was all he knew ! for men are very simple 
 creatures about some things. How could he be 
 expected to imagine that the sight of one who was 
 still able to live brightly, and to smile and sing 
 after 'the worst had come to the worst,' as Mrs. 
 Bisset expressed it, was exactly the tonic required 
 by that solicitous, forecasting little woman ? 
 
 How surprised the young bookseller was when his 
 wife came to him one evening in the counting-house, 
 the very counting-house where Chrissy and her 
 father had talked together, and, putting her arms 
 round his neck, told him that she saw how wrong 
 and foolish she had been to worry and forebode, and 
 spoil life's sunshine to-day for fear it should be 
 eclipsed to-morrow !
 
 HANS KRINKEN. 1 1 3 
 
 ' Even if it is,' she added, with shining, tearful eyes, 
 ' it will shine again the day after. Just think of our 
 Miss Miller!' 
 
 And even in her simple manifold labours in the 
 shop, Chrissy soon learned, as Miss Griffin had done 
 in her time, how much influence lies in very lowly, 
 unregarded places. She found how often she could / 
 recommend one book, and withdraw another from 
 notice, and how a little judgment and tact presently 
 gave weight to her recommendations, so that they / 
 were sought again. She found how much time and 
 temper she could save for busy people by a con- / 
 siderate hint or suggestion ; how often she could 
 help the ignorant to economy, or direct a confused 
 taste. 
 
 These were the discoveries which lightened her 
 heart and took the sting from many a wound she 
 received in those early days of independence. 
 Sophia Ackroyd passed her in the street with the 
 briefest of nods, and gave her no greeting beyond a 
 cool 'Good morning,' when she had occasion to 
 enter the shop. And Chrissy knew that the distance 
 between them originated not in Mr. Ackroyd's 
 having ruined her father, but in her father's ruin 
 having made his child into ' a shop-girl.' 
 
 It is very easy to say that one should take such 
 people at their real value, and hold oneself above 
 such petty contumelies ; but, in truth, it is not the
 
 ii4 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 noblest or the gentlest heart which most readily 
 accepts the baseness of one's fellow-creatures as a 
 natural thing, and which is not surprised at the 
 injustice or wrong-headedness of the world. God 
 does not mean the young to have all the quiet, 
 patient wisdom of the old. He wants their burning 
 hearts and struggling hands in His service first, 
 destroying and pulling down as much evil as they can ; 
 and then He will give them faith and contentment 
 that what they have not conquered shall still be 
 conquered, and that, in the meantime, what God can 
 suffer they too can endure. 
 
 But best of all to Chrissy was something which 
 presented itself as in no sense a duty, but as only 
 a sweet natural incident the growing friendship 
 between herself and the German lad Hans Krinken. 
 Little by little, by no express confidence, but in the 
 chance remarks of daily intercourse, Chrissy learned 
 his history, and caught glimpses of the quaint interior 
 in which Hans had been reared. She learned about 
 the good grandfather, busy from morning till night 
 at his trade, polishing spectacle-glasses ; while the 
 grandmother sat and knitted in the great flowered 
 chair in the chimney-corner. The grandmother had 
 been only a peasant woman, full of the sharp 
 fragmentary wisdom of her class ; the grandfather 
 had been something more, and had evidently been a 
 philosopher in his own way.
 
 HANS KRINKEN. 115 
 
 ' He had been intended for one of the learned 
 professions,' Hans said one day ; ' but he could not 
 satisfy himself that he was fit for any of them, and 
 so he took to the spectacle-making. " One can't be 
 wrong in making eyesight go a little further than it 
 otherwise might, and one's customers will keep one 
 up to the mark at that work," he used to say.' 
 
 Hans never spoke of his father or mother. They 
 seemed to have died before his recollection at least 
 Chrissy thought so. When the good old couple died 
 the old man last they had left no money behind 
 them. It was in obedience to his grandfather's wish 
 that Hans had come to England. His grandfather 
 had never given any express reason for this wish ; 
 but his grandmother had backed it up by the words, 
 ' You'll be left alone in the world. Lonely people 
 are less lonely in strange places. There's no place 
 so foreign as the old chimney-corner when the old 
 faces are out of it.' 
 
 The old household gods of the lowly German home 
 had been sold to pay the boy's expenses. While 
 the sale was going on in Shield Street, and when 
 Hans saw the pained expression of Chrissy's face, 
 as the desire for a good bargain overcame some 
 neighbour's sense of kindly propriety, he had slipped 
 up behind her and whispered, 
 
 ' I have seen all this before. One outlives it ; one 
 even forgets it.'
 
 n6 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 Hans had had terrible days when he first arrived 
 in London. His little store had been speedily 
 exhausted. He had sunk lower and lower. The 
 pet of the good old grandfather had seen and felt 
 the wild and sordid miseries of the common lodging- 
 houses. Once, when a hungry-looking lad came 
 singing down Shield Street, Chrissy noticed Hans 
 draw from his pocket a leathern purse, which she 
 had never seen on any other occasion, and take from 
 it a silver coin, which he handed to the youth with a 
 few words which made the boy stand watching him 
 back into the shop. 
 
 ' I've heard it said that one should not give to 
 beggars in the street,' Chrissy observed. 
 
 ' Where the face is pinched with hunger, pain, or 
 age, one need ask no questions, for the want is 
 clearly there,' said Hans, with a strange, dreamy look 
 on his face. 
 
 ' But that was a great deal for you to give,' Chrissy 
 ventured to add. 
 
 He looked at her. ' I seemed to give it to myself,' 
 he said. ' I stood singing so once. I told him so.' 
 
 Chrissy stood silent for a moment, then she asked 
 softly, 
 
 ' Did not all this suffering ever make you wish you 
 had disobeyed your grandfather's wish, and stayed 
 in Germany?' 
 
 Hans shook his head slowly as he answered,
 
 HANS KRINKEN. 1 1 7 
 
 ' Perhaps it did sometimes, and yet again it didn't. 
 One must meet troubles somehow ; grandmother 
 used to say that life without them would be like a 
 pudding without its cloth ; it wouldn't hold together. 
 And one can't meet them better than when one is 
 following the advice of a good counsellor. I don't 
 know what might have happened to me if I had 
 stayed at home ; and the worst I've been through 
 has ended in my being here.' 
 
 ' Do you ever write to anybody in the old place ? ' 
 Chrissy asked. 
 
 ' I haven't yet,' Hans replied. ' I've only one 
 friend there, a boy who used to go to school with 
 me, and he was a wild, wilful fellow, set on his own 
 way, so I was determined I would not let him know 
 the troubles I'd got into through obeying grandfather 
 till I'd got through them. But I'll write to him 
 to-night. I'm all right now.' 
 
 And so Chrissy in her turn received a lesson in 
 contentment. For the lot with which Hans was so 
 satisfied looked hard and poor enough, even from 
 her new standpoint. For he had started penniless 
 decently clothed only by her father's charity, though 
 Chrissy did not know that then and his wage was 
 only the poor pittance earned by manual labour. 
 
 But a happy heart can make a hard life bright, 
 just as sunshine lends a charm to the most 
 monotonous scenery.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CHRISSY'S HOLIDAY. 
 
 T was a long time before Chrissy 
 again met her sister Helen. 
 
 Madame Vinet's junior appren- 
 tice always remained on the 
 establishment during Sunday, 
 while from certain exigencies of 
 its business, the shop in Shield 
 Street was not able to conform 
 to the hours of the Saturday half- 
 holiday, the season when Helen Miller seemed to 
 pay a tolerably regular visit to Aunt Kezia. Helen 
 was obliged to return to Madame Vinet's establish- 
 ment just at the hour when the shutters were being 
 put up in the old home. Cross circumstances like 
 these often sorely mar the leisure and enjoyment 
 of working people. 
 
 Yet Chrissy fancied and then blamed herself for 
 
 the fancy that if she had been the one at liberty, 
 
 us
 
 CHJZISS Y 'S HO LI DA Y. 119 
 
 she would have had some plan for catching at least 
 a glimpse of her sister. She would have walked 
 into the old house and bought a trifle over the 
 counter, for the opportunity of exchanging a few 
 words. But Helen did not seem to think of this ; 
 and Chrissy shrank back from reminding her. We 
 never get any satisfaction from forms of love which 
 we have shaped for ourselves, however they may fit 
 our own wishes. The clumsiest scheme worked out 
 by love itself comes sweeter to us, though we may 
 be able to enjoy it only by the help of a great deal 
 of ' make-believe.' 
 
 Chrissy felt this, and felt as if it was only selfish 
 pride which kept her from giving Helen the hint. 
 She was certain that Helen would do anything that 
 was kind if only she thought of it ! And did she 
 not often send Chrissy a little note, hastily enough 
 written perhaps, but at least beginning and ending 
 with expressions of warm endearment ? 
 
 By these little notes, Chrissy learned that Sophia 
 and James Ackroyd had more than once been Aunt 
 Kezia's guests at the same time as Helen. Once or 
 twice James Ackroyd had escorted Helen home to 
 Madame Vinet's, and then returned to Aunt Kezia's 
 to accompany his sister back to Shield Street. 
 Chrissy, in daily attendance in the old shop next 
 door to the Ackroyds' home, saw wonderfully little 
 of them. Certainly they never brought her any
 
 120 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 message from Helen. Chrissy was not sorry to see 
 little of Mr. Ackroyd himself, but it pained her to 
 miss James so entirely out of her life. He had 
 associated with the Miller girls in that easy, happy 
 camaraderie, which comes with old neighbourhood 
 or cousinship, and which, as life passes on, may 
 ripen into the most reliable of friendships. 
 
 Chrissy could not believe that James shunned her 
 because the bookseller's daughter had changed into 
 the bookseller's shop-girl a subtle loss of caste, 
 which she well knew would quite account for the 
 change in Sophia Ackroyd's manner towards her. 
 But Chrissy could not help remembering her whis- 
 pered interview with James across the back-yard on 
 the night of her father's death. What had he 
 known then ? Or what had he feared ? She could 
 remember the very words which had passed between 
 them : his question, ' Do you mean to say you don't 
 know there is something ? ' her reply, ' Yes, I do.' 
 How much, and what, had he believed she knew ? 
 
 And then Chrissy felt half-glad not to see much 
 of James. How could she confront him with a sus- 
 picion of his father in her heart? Only when, 
 peeping between her book-shelves, she saw him pass 
 down Shield Street, she was- sorry to fancy that he 
 did not look quite himself, but seemed dark and 
 moody. She comforted herself that this was but 
 her own fancy, born of her secret knowledge and
 
 CHRISS Y 'S HO LI DA Y. 121 
 
 silent cogitations. She did not know that more 
 than one old neighbour had remarked that ' young 
 Ackroyd was not improving.' 
 
 At last Chrissy found she could look forward to 
 a free Saturday. The moment she heard this, she 
 wrote to Aunt Kezia to say she should pay her a 
 visit, and so meet Helen. She did certainly expect 
 an answer, but, as none came, she interpreted silence 
 to mean assent, and started off the moment the 
 shop was shut, or rather before the shop was shut, 
 for Hans Krinken paused with a shutter in his hand 
 to watch her neat little figure moving down the 
 street. He was unconsciously receiving impressions 
 which were to fix his standard of beauty and worth 
 for ever. 
 
 Aunt Kezia lived in a house of the kind which 
 give shrewd observers an idea of property in the 
 funds. It was small, gloomy, and shabby, but 
 with gloom and shabbiness quite different from 
 those of poverty. The furniture was old and 
 ugly, but it had been costly when new, and that in 
 the best rooms had not only never been used, but 
 had been preserved with every device of cover and 
 drawn blind from those atmospheric influences 
 which, left to themselves, will mercifully subdue the 
 most garish upholstery into artistic ' repose.' What 
 Helen called Aunt Kezia's 'love of things,' was 
 manifest in the heterogeneous mass of articles
 
 122 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 which she had gathered together, without any 
 relation to each other or to her own requirements. 
 Only one requirement she apparently never had the 
 meed for the beautiful. She bought tea-spoons and 
 cake-baskets, not pictures or statuary. In Aunt 
 Kezia's house, stuffed full of ' things,' ornament was 
 represented by three huge Bohemian glass vases 
 and two pictures, one representing the death of 
 Abel, and the other the burning of Archbishop 
 Cranmer. They were so dim and old that they 
 might assume the dignity of heirlooms. But in 
 reality they had been thrown into lots at sales, to 
 get them out of the auctioneer's way. One had been 
 bought with a set of dish-covers, the other with a 
 kitchen fender. Aunt Kezia was a great frequenter 
 of sales especially sales in private houses. Most 
 of her bargains had a flavour of tears and ruin 
 about them. 
 
 Chrissy found Helen already with her aunt. Helen 
 rushed upon Chrissy, and embraced her warmly. 
 Aunt Kezia said, 
 
 ' Dear me, child ! is your work wearing you thin ? 
 Or does not your dress suit you ? There's some- 
 thing wrong about you surely. Or perhaps it is 
 only seeing you beside Helen ; though I used to 
 think you would be the better-looking of the two. 
 But circumstances alter cases and faces as well.' 
 
 Helen was certainly a very brilliant young damsel.
 
 CHRISS Y'S HO LI DA Y. 123 
 
 and Chrissy thought so, and was quite content to be 
 second to the beloved sister, utterly unaware that 
 any artist's eye would have passed over Helen's 
 befringed brow and befrilled dress to rest on her 
 expressive face and the graceful lines of her simple 
 garments. 
 
 ' I don't suppose you'll have much news to give 
 me,' Miss Kezia went on. ' Helen always brings me 
 quite a budget, descriptions of the grand ladies who 
 have called at Madame Vinet's, and the dresses they 
 have ordered, and little secrets about the fashions 
 that are coming out. It's wonderful to me how 
 people can spend such sums of money on them- 
 selves. It's terrible to think of.' 
 
 ' It is certainly thriftier to do what you do, aunt,' 
 laughed Helen, and then narrated to Chrissy, ' Aunt 
 goes through the fashion-books and decides what 
 material she would prefer and what style she would 
 choose, and then shuts the book and goes on 
 wearing her dear old satin. Oh, auntie, auntie,' cried 
 the girl, who seemed quite a privileged person in the 
 stiff old house, ' it is no use to make believe you are 
 not fond of dress ! you are only much fonder of 
 your money ! ' 
 
 'You are a saucy chit,' said the old lady, smiling, 
 and almost blushing under the imputation, which, 
 far from displeasing her, did rather the reverse. ' I 
 never was reckoned fond of dress,' she remarked
 
 i2 4 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 impressively, ' but I like to see people well dressed ; 
 indeed, it's a mark of proper respect to one's betters. 
 People with means of their own may do as they 
 please, of course ; but those who have their way to 
 make must take care to be acceptable in the eyes of 
 others. It is very vexatious to see scrubby-looking 
 poor relations going about, causing strangers to say 
 that their kin ought to do more for them.' 
 
 * Now how glad I am I bought this new dress ! ' 
 cried Helen. ' I was afraid you would think me 
 extravagant, but my first mourning was getting so 
 shabby.' 
 
 ' And you must do credit to Madame Vinet,' said 
 Miss Daffy, rising and feeling the material of her 
 niece's skirt. ' That is a pleasure to touch, Helen. 
 You must have paid dearly for that, though I 
 suppose you would get it at a reduction.' 
 
 ' I did pay dearly for it,' Helen admitted, finding 
 herself on safe ground. 'Shall I own the whole truth? 
 I've been boarding with Madame Vinet for four 
 months, and you know my salary is only a trifle, and 
 every penny of it has gone into that dress. I had set 
 my heart on it,' she pleaded bewitchingly, 'and I'm 
 well stocked with other clothes ; I shan't need any- 
 thing else for a long time. I know you have always 
 said that good things are the cheapest in the end.' 
 
 ' But there may be good calico as well as good 
 silk,' Chrissy ventured to interrupt.
 
 CHRISSY'S HO LID A Y. 125 
 
 4 Well, you that can't get much money can hardly 
 do better with it than put it into handsome clothes, 
 which give you a comfortable, satisfactory appear- 
 ance,' said Aunt Kezia. ' Helen has a right to do 
 what she likes with her money, and I can't see how 
 she could have done better. It's a sort of invest- 
 ment for her.' 
 
 ' Only if one wanted the money instead ? ' Chrissy 
 suggested timidly. 
 
 ' What could she want the money for ? ' asked 
 Aunt Kezia. ' She won't want any for herself, she 
 says ; and you two have got nobody to look to you 
 for anything, thank goodness ! ' 
 
 Chrissy sighed. 
 
 ' You must smarten up too,' said Aunt Kezia. 
 ' You get much higher wages than Helen, only of 
 course you have to pay Miss Griffin, though she 
 oughtn't to charge you much for sharing with her ; 
 and I hope you look out sharply to see she doesn't 
 impose upon you. I suppose any shabby clothes 
 which are decent, are good enough for you during your 
 working hours and at home in the evening ; but that 
 is only the more reason for your keeping something 
 very nice for special occasions. What are you think- 
 ing of for your change of mourning ? You needn't 
 wear much crape for more than six months, you 
 know. A fine cashmere made up with crape-cloth 
 would be becoming ; and they are all the fashion.'
 
 126 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' I have enough dresses to last me till next spring 
 without buying anything/ said Chrissy bravely ; 
 ' and I have resolved never to buy any dress which 
 will not be suitable for a working dress when its best 
 days are over.' 
 
 ' Chrissy wants to make her fortune. I'm sure you 
 ought to approve that laudable ambition, aunt,' 
 remarked Helen mischievously. 
 
 Miss Kezia sniffed. ' Chrissy may want what she 
 chooses,' she said. ' She won't be able to do it. 
 Women only get fortunes by inheriting them or 
 marrying them. And men look for something in 
 their wives. Girls with no establishments of their 
 own must be very particular about their appearance 
 and their manners and opinions, else they will 
 offend where it would be their interest to please.' 
 
 'Did you hear Aunt Kezia on the duties of 
 portionless maidens ? ' laughed Helen, adverting to 
 this speech, as, later in the evening, she accepted 
 Chrissy's company in her walk back to Madame 
 Vinet's. 
 
 ' I don't believe Aunt Kezia means all she says,' 
 returned Chrissy. 
 
 ' She feels that single blessedness is reserved for 
 the well-to-do, like herself,' Helen went on. ' Poor 
 girls, like us, owe it to society to get married and 
 relieve our relations of all responsibility concerning 
 us. Well, it must be awful to be a poor old maid.
 
 CHXISS Y'S HO LI DA Y. 127 
 
 Almost as bad as to be a poor wife but that deepest 
 depth is one's own fault. I wonder where Aunt 
 Kezia will leave her money ; she ought to divide it 
 between us two.' 
 
 ' Helen, Helen,' cried Chrissy, ' do not speak do 
 not think of such things. It is not helpful ; it is not 
 right.' 
 
 'But money is,' said Helen almost gloomily. 
 ' Every day I see more what money can do. You, 
 poked up in Shield Street, scarcely know what we 
 have missed through being left so poor.' 
 
 'All that I miss much is father,' said Chrissy 
 softly ; ' and rich girls' fathers die, as well as 
 poor ones'.' But she broke off there, with the 
 sudden reflection that, but for the ruin which had 
 overtaken them, her father might be living yet. 
 It was hard to accept the hand of God behind the 
 blow dealt by that treacherous neighbour, Mr. 
 Ackroyd. 
 
 Just as his name was in Chrissy's thoughts, 
 Helen said, 
 
 ' I suppose you don't see much of the Ackroyds ? 
 Sophia makes believe she is afraid of you, because 
 you must be so eccentric and strong-minded, to take 
 up such a strange way of life. I know' it's only 
 make-believe. She'd make up some such fable to 
 excuse passing over me, if she had to see me at my 
 work. But she accepts me as Miss Daffy's niece, not
 
 i 2 8 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 as Madame Vinet's apprentice. And isn't she 
 jealous of James ! As if she could expect to keep 
 him to herself for ever ! ' 
 
 The sisters had known no brother, except the little 
 dead boy they scarcely remembered that little baby 
 brother, whose broken toy had passed from her 
 father's keeping into her own. Chrissy's sister-love 
 was not less tender and sensitive because it was ideal, 
 and Helen's tone and words alike jarred Chrissy. 
 
 * She was so vexed when James asked my advice, 
 and it went counter to hers,' Helen went on, in 
 reckless triumph. " The time has come when James 
 has got to settle finally what he will be. Sophy, 
 going in for gentility, wants him to be a doctor " a 
 professional gentleman," as she says. That was 
 the original idea in the Ackroyd family. But now 
 James has a chance of entering the office of a friend 
 of his father's, a stock and share broker. It would 
 be sure to end in a partnership, he says.' 
 
 ' And which will he choose to take ? ' asked 
 Chrissy. 
 
 ' He'd like to be a doctor,' Helen narrated ; ' but 
 then, as he says, fortune is on the other side. He 
 says his father would have made a bare income as 
 an architect. Whatever money he has made has 
 been by speculation.' 
 
 ' I don't think Mr. Ackroyd attended very strictly 
 to his professional work/ observed Chrissy.
 
 CHRISSTTS HOLIDAY. 129 
 
 ' Oh, but it is the same with everybody,' observed 
 Helen. ' Men who really succeed in their professions 
 cannot make as much money in twenty years as 
 others do with one lucky stroke in stocks and shares. 
 James says so. So I said to him, " If that is the 
 case, I cannot understand why you hesitate for a 
 moment." And so he has decided. And Sophia is 
 so cross. She had advised for the doctor.' 
 
 ' I think I should have agreed with her,' said 
 Chrissy. And remembering Sophia's last curt nod, 
 it cost her something to say this. 
 
 ' Why so ? ' asked Helen quickly. 
 
 ' Because I'd rather have some other end in my 
 daily work than money-making only.' 
 
 ' Oh, that's it, is it ? ' said Helen, evidently re- 
 lieved. ' Sophia doesn't think about that It's the 
 gentility she is aiming at. It's the very same feeling 
 which makes her snub you for serving in a shop. 
 And now you needn't come any further. Madame 
 Vinet's door is in sight. James Ackroyd has brought 
 me home the last two Saturday nights, and I don't 
 want the girls to know he is not here to-night. 
 And it's time you were at home, too, though you are 
 such a discreet, sober-looking little body that one 
 could trust you anywhere.' 
 
 She extended her hand. Chrissy held it lingcr- 
 ingly. Were they to part like this? What had 
 become of the best side of Helen? What would
 
 1 3 o EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 their father have said if he had heard her talk to- 
 night ? 
 
 'Any messages for our old friends, Helen?' she 
 asked. 
 
 ' Our old friends ! ' Helen echoed, with a light 
 laugh. ' Oh ! give the correct civilities to Miss 
 Griffin. And stop ! is that stupid German still in 
 the shop ? I quite forgot to ask.' 
 
 'He will soon be too good for the shop,' said 
 Chrissy, with a curious feeling of pique. ' He is so 
 already. Only he is one of those people who don't 
 make haste to change.' 
 
 ' A model of all the virtues,' said Helen. ' Well, 
 good night, darling.' 
 
 Chrissy sped citywards with a very unsatisfied 
 heart. She had looked forward to this holiday, and 
 it had disappointed her. Aunt Kezia and sister 
 Helen were vestiges of the old happy life which had 
 been so hard to give up, and yet it seemed a relief 
 to return to the thought of her daily toil and her 
 fellow-workers. 
 
 When she reached Miss Griffin's house, to her 
 astonishment she found Hans Krinken leaning 
 against the door-post. 
 
 'Oh, Hans !' she cried, 'is anything the matter? 
 ' Have you been up-stairs ? ' 
 
 'No, Miss Christina,' he said. 'I waited here 
 for you. You remember, months ago, I wrote a
 
 CHRISS Y 'S HO LI DA Y. 131 
 
 letter to a schoolfellow in my native village in 
 Germany ? ' 
 
 ' I remember perfectly,' Chrissy replied. ' I have 
 often wondered whether you got an answer. I have 
 meant to ask you.' 
 
 ' An answer has come to-night. It has come from 
 America. My schoolfellow has gone there, and my 
 letter was sent out after him.' 
 
 ' But he left the village after you did,' said Chrissy; 
 ' so I hope he has given you some later news.' 
 
 ' Some strange news,' said Hans, in a low tremulous 
 voice. ' Very soon after I left the place, a stranger 
 in a grand coach came making inquiries after me/ 
 
 ' Oh, what a pity you were away ! ' cried Chrissy. 
 ' And you suffering so much at the very time ! And 
 haven't you the least idea who the stranger was ? ' 
 
 Hans shook his head, but didn't speak. 
 
 ' I hope you are not very sorry you came away,' 
 said Chrissy. ' But isn't it a pity that nobody could 
 give him an address where he might have written to 
 you ? ' 
 
 ' Miss Christina,' said Hans, speaking with some 
 emotion, his German accent returning under the 
 influence of a strong feeling, ' Miss Christina, to- 
 night I am more glad than ever that I came away. 
 Perhaps my grandfather expected the coming of this 
 stranger. Perhaps it was that expectation that gave 
 him some good reason for the advice he gave me.'
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AN OLD PICTURE. 
 
 S time passed on, 
 Chrissy began to find 
 that definite duties, 
 beginning and end- 
 ing at definite hours, 
 leave one very definite 
 leisure. When there 
 was nothing to do 
 between seven o'clock 
 and ten, there was 
 really a temptation 
 to begin remodelling 
 one's bonnets and 
 
 dresses, and planning where a bit of embroidery 
 
 might come in effectively. 
 
 ' There can be no harm in that,' said one very 
 
 natural side of the girl's nature. The idea came to 
 
 her in thinkinsr over Aunt Kezia's observations. It
 
 AN OLD PICTURE. 133 
 
 seemed to offer a way of conforming to some of 
 her aunt's suggestions without spending money a 
 matter on which Chrissy's mind was quite made up. 
 
 ' But, then, is there any good in it ? ' quickly re- 
 torted her secret consciousness. 
 
 ' Perhaps there is. It is right to cultivate beauty, 
 it is right to make oneself a pleasant object in the 
 world which God has made so beautiful. There was 
 something in what Aunt Kezia said, though, of 
 course, she expressed it after her own fashion.' 
 
 'Quite true,' returned the Mentor in her own 
 bosom. ' But is not the beauty which God makes 
 always that which helps, and does not hinder, the 
 highest functions of that which it adorns ? And 
 how often is there any true beauty in mere fashion ? 
 Take up any book of portraits ten years old, and 
 what will you find ? The pictures of dear old ladies 
 in their plain dresses and muslin tippets are still 
 pleasant to look on. So are those of ladies in trim 
 serviceable travelling dress, and of servant-women 
 in their white caps and aprons. But when you come 
 upon the portrait of a lady in the full fashionable 
 costume of its date, you burst out laughing, and say, 
 " How funny ! is it possible that people ever made 
 themselves such guys as that ? " As for making 
 oneself a pleasant object in God's pleasant world, 
 neither much money nor much time need be spent 
 on compassing that object most successfully ; no
 
 134 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 more, indeed, than must be spent in procuring 
 decency and neatness. A dash of rich colour suited 
 to one's complexion and easily enough procurable, 
 and a neat white ruffle, which will wash and wear 
 for ever, are cheaper and more simple than a dozen 
 fancy scarves of every unnatural hue which fancy 
 may dictate, or yards and yards of tawdry "frilling." 
 No, no ; it is not in making ourselves pleasant in 
 God's pleasant world, and sweet in the eyes of our 
 friends, that we waste our time and money, but in 
 indulging our own vanity, and teasing our acquaint- 
 ances by out -vicing them. You know it is so, 
 Chrissy Miller. You know that at this present time 
 it is not your dear father's wishes, Miss Griffin, or 
 Hans, or harmony with the shadowy dignity of St. 
 Cecilia's Church, which is in your thoughts, but it is 
 Sophia Ackroyd, and Aunt Kezia, and your next 
 visit to Aunt Kezia's house.' 
 
 God be praised for every faithful friend, who will ' 
 speak the plain truth to us ; and God be doubly 
 praised when He has given us such a faithful friend 
 to dwell in our own hearts, and sit in judgment on' 
 our very thoughts. And such a friend has He given j 
 to all of us, but we know it takes two to make a] 
 friendship. It is not the amount of wisdom which 
 we hear, either without us or within us, which makes 
 us wise, but only what we accept and live up to. 
 Still, if we do not keep in wisdom's ways we are
 
 AN OLD PICTURE. 135 
 
 sure to pass out of hearing even of her voice. But 
 if her voice speaks within us, we find ourselves 
 surrounded by echoes of it. 
 
 A very homely oracle echoed the conclusions of 
 Chrissy's own heart. 
 
 On one of these leisure evenings very long and 
 monotonous as they would seem sometimes Chrissy 
 took Miss Griffin out to a public picture-gallery. 
 Miss Griffin would have been scared to have been 
 told she was an art-critic. But she was one, never- 
 theless, inasmuch as she said what she thought 
 about what she saw, instead of saying, as too many 
 people do, what she thought ought to be said. 
 Perhaps her simplicity was one element in her 
 candour, for she did not know ' masterpieces ' from 
 'pot-boilers,' old masters from new students, ex- 
 cept by such merits as she could recognise, and 
 consequently gave forth all sorts of heresies quite 
 innocently. 
 
 Perhaps, for the taste of those connoisseurs who 
 dwell much on 'texture,' and seem to think that 
 human incident is quite subordinate to 'still life' 
 and 'fabrics,' poor Miss Griffin dwelt too much 
 on the subjects of pictures. She could not bear 
 Murillo's ' Beggar - boys,' with their expression of 
 coarse cunning, and their low tricks. She would 
 not admire the realism of their dirt-engrained feet. 
 
 ' We see too much of such things in real life. I'd
 
 136 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION, 
 
 sooner wash some of them than copy them/ she 
 said. 
 
 She turned away with contempt from many of 
 the Dutch interiors. 
 
 ' Drunken men are an ugly sight. I would not 
 hang on my parlour wall a representation of what 
 I would turn off my doorstep,' was her judgment ; 
 but she would add, ' I do like some of the pictures 
 of clean Dutch kitchens, with everything in them 
 just a model of what things ought to be, and heaps 
 of beautiful vegetables, and abundance of wholesome 
 food. Yet there are too many of them, and there 
 seems to be nothing going forward but eating and 
 drinking.' 
 
 Shewould not admire the delicate sentimentalities 
 of Greuze. ' If I saw live women like his pictures,' 
 she decided, ' I should be terribly afraid they were 
 not worth much." 
 
 But she could appreciate many of the old painters' 
 Madonnas, and would gaze raptly into the soft eyes 
 of the Mother of the Son of Man as they looked 
 down at her through the dim mist of centuries. Yet 
 the mere 'subject' did not carry her away, for, even 
 of these, she would pass by some with the comment, 
 'A woman like that could never have been the 
 " Blessed among women." ' 
 
 And she always liked landscapes, if, as she 
 described it, '.they looked like real places,' no
 
 AN OLD PICTURE. 137 
 
 matter though the country they depicted might 
 have no striking features, but be flat and tame. 
 ' It's worth painting,' she would remark. ' It's a bit 
 of God's world, and there are hearts that remember 
 it, and eyes that grow dim with longing to see 
 it.' 
 
 She stood still opposite a picture. It was the 
 portrait of a lady painted in the early years of this 
 century. From the back of the head rose an 
 elaborate erection of hair, transfixed by a huge pin. 
 At either side of the face, on a level with the eyes, 
 was a highly ornate comb, beneath which the hair 
 was arranged in drooping plaits, caught up round the 
 ear, and fastened into the coronal. From the ears 
 were suspended long drop earrings. About the 
 brow was bound a black velvet ribbon. The dress 
 was very low and elaborately laced. One hand was 
 just visible, holding a book, and the wrist was 
 clasped by a bracelet heavy as a gyve. Yet the 
 face, when one could separate it from its grotesque 
 surroundings, was pure and noble. The effect was 
 like a statue of Minerva masquerading in a South 
 Sea Islander's trappings. 
 
 The two the old woman and the young gazed 
 for a moment in silence. Then Miss Griffin spoke 
 
 ' What was the artist's name ? ' she asked. 
 
 Chrissy had the Catalogue, and replied. It was a 
 very famous and familiar name.
 
 138 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 1 He ought to have known better,' mused Miss 
 Griffin. ' And who is the lady ? ' 
 
 Chrissy told her. She was the daughter of a 
 great ducal line whose scions princes had feared 
 as enemies and sought as friends. 
 
 'Ah,' said Miss Griffin, 'some folks don't like to 
 say the plain truth to these very grand people. But 
 that artist ought to have been above that. For it's 
 not so very long ago : it's since slavery was found 
 out to be wicked. And there's no slavery like being 
 driven to do work one knows would be better left 
 undone. A very queen has no right to set a genius to 
 draw an ugly fashion picture. He might have made 
 a pretty speech to her, and said that he could not 
 paint her in anything that would not give pleasure 
 as lasting as her beauty could ; and that the power 
 of her rank should be exercised in showing people 
 what they ought to do.' 
 
 'Artists might do good if they spoke out like 
 that,' said Chrissy. 
 
 ' They do sometimes,' returned Miss Griffin. 
 ' My grandfather was a rich man, and my grand- 
 mother had her portrait painted. She was a notable 
 housewife and a famous spinner, but on that occa- 
 sion she thought she ought to array herself in a 
 nodding head-dress and a stiff stomacher. The 
 artist had seen her in her own home, and knew what 
 manner of woman she was. When he saw her in
 
 AN OLD PICTURE. 139 
 
 her fine toggery, he shook his head, and said, " This 
 will not do. I want to paint you the lady who 
 turns out the finest napery and the best preserves on 
 the country-side the woman who looks well to the 
 ways of her household, and eats not the bread of 
 idleness. I want to paint your character, not the 
 conventional madam who goes out to tea-parties and 
 carpet-dances. You could not do those things in 
 these garments." And he made her put on a black 
 bombazine, with a fine hand-worked muslin cap 
 on her head, and a similar kerchief folded over 
 her bosom, and hung a bunch of keys round her 
 waist, and put her spinning-wheel in the back- 
 ground.' 
 
 ' And I must say,' Miss Griffin added presently, 
 with a humorous smile gleaming over her prim 
 countenance, ' that excellent man's advice did me 
 a good turn which he never dreamed of at the time 
 he gave it. For when my poor father fell into mis- 
 fortune, and all his effects were sold, of course the 
 family portraits went too. And the be-frilled and 
 be-feathered portraits, with no historical or human 
 interest, went for the price of an old song, and may 
 be hanging yet, smoke-dried, in the dens of the 
 marine store-dealers who bought them. But when 
 the auctioneer looked at my grandmother's picture, 
 he said, " We needn't call this a portrait ; it is more, 
 it is a subject." And he put it down in the
 
 140 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 catalogue, "A housewife of the good old school." 
 And it sold well.' 
 
 And so Chrissy made up her mind, seeing clearly 
 that what she should feel it was foolish to spend 
 money upon, it must be equally foolish to spend time 
 over. She thought she knew of better uses for her 
 money uses which might secure competence and 
 independence in later life. She was not quite sure 
 how these uses might arise. Yet, meanwhile, money 
 was coming in but slowly, and could harmlessly 
 accumulate while awaiting fit opportunity. And 
 that was where money evidently differed from 
 leisure. Leisure would not accumulate. Idle half- 
 hours could not be saved up till they made a whole 
 holiday. They must be expended on the spot, or 
 lost for ever. 
 
 Chrissy could not readily see her way to a satis- 
 factory conclusion in this matter. It required 
 consideration ; and all the while precious hours were 
 wasting in a manner against which Chrissy's fresh 
 energies rebelled. 
 
 What could she do? One thing occurred to her. 
 There was some needlework presently required by 
 herself and Miss Griffin. There was no haste for it. 
 If anything else had supervened, it could have been 
 taken up and laid down during the ensuing winter 
 months. Chrissy resolved to put it, as Miss Griffin 
 expressed it, ' straight through ' to work as women
 
 AN OLD PICTURE. 141 
 
 work when a wedding or a long journey is imminent. 
 While she was doing that, some other task might 
 present itself, for which she would be then found 
 entirely disengaged. It was a narrow and lowly 
 entrance to that best philosophy of human life, 
 which teaches us that we must have made the 
 utmost of every humble duty beside us before we 
 venture to say that our lives are barren of interest, 
 our powers thrown away, and our souls stranded on 
 the barren sands of ennui. 
 
 And so Chrissy and her good old friend planned 
 and cut out thriftily, and sewed substantially, for 
 Miss Griffin had her own shrewd version of economy. 
 
 'There's no cheapness in being ill put together,' 
 she said. ' Folks and fabrics wear the better for a 
 good_constitution.' 
 
 It occurred to Chrissy, as she picked up the 
 ' pieces,' that there were enough ' left over ' to 
 make a useful little garment for the hall-porter's 
 child, provided a certain rather quaint style of 
 making it up was adopted. 
 
 'Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost,' 
 quoted Miss Griffin approvingly. Chrissy's face 
 flushed with a strange thrill of pleasure. Yes the 
 Divine eye the Divine behest reached even such 
 matters as these. She felt like a sentry on ome 
 remote outpost, who suddenly hears his general pass 
 by with an approving word.
 
 1 42 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' I should not wonder,' mused Miss Griffin, ' but 
 fashion itself actually began in thrift in a determi- 
 nation to use up pieces of all shapes and colours, and 
 to keep things strong, and make them look pretty, 
 after they had seen a good deal of service. And 
 then, perhaps, somebody did her patching so daintily 
 that somebody else copied it when there was no 
 occasion for it. It's wonderful how there is generally 
 something good at the bottom of everything.' 
 
 When that little garment was finished, Miss 
 Griffin and Chrissy took it with them to the hall- 
 porter's own home. They had long promised him a 
 visit, because he had a wonderful old grandmother, 
 said to be nearly a hundred years old, and still hale 
 and brisk. 
 
 They found the centenarian rocking her great- 
 grandchild's cradle. Her grandson and grand- 
 daughter stood aside in reverent gratification, feeling 
 that the visit was paid to the old lady, and that it 
 was due to their visitors that she should be seen at 
 her best. 
 
 She was delighted with the gift, yet shook her 
 head, saying, ' It was made up too fancy.' (Miss 
 Griffin and Chrissy exchanged a significant glance.) 
 * Not but what she had liked bright colours in her 
 young days, and liked 'em still.' (' Grannie can't 
 bear to wear what she calls a dowdy shawl,' put in 
 the mother of the baby.) ' But the whole world is
 
 AN OLD PICTURE. 143 
 
 getting too fancy now-a-days a-beginning every- 
 thing at the wrong end, thinking more o' feathers 
 nor of flannel, and putting down bits o' carpet 
 instead of scrubbing the floor. It's the same with 
 everything, even with learnin'. Neither mind nor 
 body should have victuals for ever a-standing about. 
 Food should not be put down till there's a good 
 appetite ready for it.' 
 
 ' But surely you like every one to learn to read 
 and write ? ' pleaded Chrissy. 
 
 'Well, yes,' the old lady admitted, with a slight 
 reluctance. ' But I'd rather not if it makes them set 
 no value on reading and writing. I learned reading 
 followin' my mother, and asking her the letters on 
 the back o' the Catechism. She knew them,. but she 
 was not always sure of the words. An' I didn't learn 
 to write till after I was married. And I taught 
 myself, long winter nights, when my husband was at 
 his work, an' I did it, picking out letter by letter 
 from the notes his master used to leave for him. I 
 got a few good lessons at last, from a writing master, 
 just to finish me off; I couldn't have afforded more. 
 "And," says he to me, says he, "you've done well. 
 You happened to get a good model, an' you put your 
 will into it. The will's the thing ! " says he. And I 
 always had a good will ! ' chuckled the old lady, with 
 a pleasant egotism, surely pardonable in one so 
 nearly putting off the armour of life.
 
 144 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 1 Well,' said Miss Griffin, as she and Chrissy 
 walked home, ' it is wonderful what different people 
 come to the same opinions, and in what different 
 ways they get them. You heard what that good old 
 body said ? And when I was a young woman, I 
 heard a great professor of Oriental languages say 
 much the same thing. He was in the house of a 
 friend of mine, talking over a young student, who 
 did not seem getting on with his learning so well as 
 he might. They were speaking of classes and tutors 
 and cram-books, as they called them ; and, says the 
 professor, " They are all very well in their place, but 
 success is in none of them. Success is in setting 
 yourself down to your work. Every educated man 
 is a self-educated man," says he.' 
 
 'And,' thought Chrissy, 'after all, why should I 
 give up all the thoughts I had had of going through 
 a regular course of drawing ? Dear dear father was 
 going to let me have lessons this winter. If he had 
 been living, I should have gone to a morning class. 
 I might go to an evening one now, if I left the shop 
 very promptly, and made great haste over my tea. 
 But no, I should not like to be bound to run off from 
 Mr. Bisset, if he really wanted my services, and I 
 should not like to leave Miss Griffin alone, after all, 
 when I know how she has been looking forward to 
 having a companion in the long lamp-lit hours. 
 I can certainly learn a great deal more than I know
 
 AN OLD PICTURE. 145 
 
 now, working on by myself. And I'll make myself 
 stick to what a master would keep me, and not copy 
 landscapes and flowers, but go on drawing lines and 
 outlines, and then practise " from the round " on Miss 
 Griffin's cups and candlesticks.' 
 
 And this was how-Chrissy found out that leisure 
 can be stored, by converting it into something else, 
 and that the interest on such wise investment is an 
 ever-increasing value for the new leisure life may 
 bring.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHRISSY'S TEMPTATION. 
 
 OOKED at from the outside, it 
 might have seemed a very still 
 and monotonous life which 
 Chrissy Miller lived through that 
 first winter of her orphanhood. 
 Certainly it seemed so to Sophia 
 Ackroyd, who never had less than 
 three parties 'coming off' each 
 week, and who felt the interven- 
 ing days to be insupportably long and dreary. It 
 seemed so, too, to Helen, who felt that her own 
 existence would have been unendurable to her but 
 for a glamour which was thrown over everything 
 a strange perilous delight, revealing in its flashes all 
 sorts of castles looming in the dim future, and in 
 the present transforming the common incidents of 
 life a visit, a letter, the badinage of thoughtless 
 companions into fairy gold. 
 
 But then neither Sophia nor Helen could see into
 
 CfiXSSSY'S TEMPTATION. 147 
 
 the heart of Chrissy's life. In their degree they 
 were removed from it as the poet's poodle is from 
 the poet whom he sits and watches. Nay, perhaps 
 further, for the poor dog watches in a mysterious 
 love and reverence, while they beheld only with a 
 mean wonder, verging on a meaner contempt. 
 
 How could they guess that there was developing 
 in Chrissy something very like a new sense even 
 the perception of the way in which the expression 
 of truth and beauty may steal into the simplest 
 and humblest material forms ? How could they 
 know that in her search for help and guidance 
 in her homely art-studies, she had lighted on an 
 oracle, which answered many a doubting question, 
 and found shape for many a misty thought 
 had, in short, found a new friend, great and good, 
 in the written works of a master-mind ? For, from 
 the rector's library, she got the works of John 
 Ruskin, art critic and social philosopher, whom cen- 
 turies to come will recognise as the prophet of this 
 present age. And if Sophia and Helen could have 
 known these facts, they could not have appreciated 
 the exquisite delight attending them. 
 
 And there was more still. For during that winter 
 Chrissy sounded the meaning of many a theological 
 phrase, which she had hitherto whispered in reverent 
 mystery, as something quite outside the experience 
 of common life. She learned what ' communion with
 
 148 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 God 'is. Kneeling by her little lonely bed, pouring 
 out her bitterness and griefs as she would not pour 
 them out even to Miss Griffin, lest they should make 
 her sad, Chrissy felt her heart fill with peace and 
 patience. Things around her did not change. She 
 changed herself. God's sunshine had never gone 
 out ; it was hidden because her own head was down 
 in the dust. This raised, the brightness was there 
 again. And she learned, too, what good Bishop 
 Taylor calls the ' practice of the presence of God,' 
 the truth which he declares to be the readiest way 
 ' to make sin. to cease from among the children of 
 men, and for men to approach to the blessed estate 
 of the saints in heaven.' 
 
 In her loss and loneliness, she found there was 
 One ever with her to be served and pleased, as she 
 had once striven to serve and please her father, who 
 could be with her as even her father could never 
 have been, seeing the very thoughts of her heart, 
 and leading her on to an ever purer service. And 
 as she thus entered into some of the meaning of the 
 Fatherhood of God, she felt a strange new human 
 tie to Him, the Elder Brother, who revealed it, so 
 that she saw His life as sharing with her own life, 
 and all lives, and interpreting their mysteries by 
 itself. For her father's untimely death, for the 
 wrongs done him, and the slights cast on his memory 
 and his children, what comfort was there like
 
 CHRJSSY'S TEMPTATION. 149 
 
 Calvary, where He, who had 'known no sin,' did not 
 shrink from sorrow, and shame, and death? Was 
 she not meaning to discover a little of His meaning 
 when He said, ' It is expedient for you that I go 
 away : for if I go not away, the Comforter will not 
 come unto you.' 
 
 Chrissy began to feel that if the meetings in the 
 higher life are dashed by any grudge over the part- 
 ings here, then the partings have not fulfilled God's 
 meaning. Even in the moments when her heart 
 most yearned for the touch of her father's fingers on 
 her hair, there came ever the thought, ' but not for 
 myself as I used to be then.' 
 
 Is it any wonder that Chrissy would not have 
 agreed with Sophia Ackroyd and Helen, in pro- 
 nouncing her life that winter to be dull and dreary ? 
 
 It was early in the spring of the following year 
 that Chrissy, looking over the advertisements in the 
 morning papers, was arrested by one : 
 
 WANTED a well-educated youth, who can speak 
 English and German fluently. A small beginning, 
 with hard work, but good prospects. 
 
 And then followed an address, which Chrissy, with 
 her long acquaintance with dim city byways, knew 
 belonged to a small old-fashioned firm of Dutch 
 origin, and doing business with those States of North 
 America where a German population predominate. 
 She remembered the office quite well a low building,
 
 150 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION, 
 
 flanking two sides of a tiny triangular court-yard. 
 She had asked her father concerning the nationality 
 of the quaint name, ' Zachary Bilderdyk,' and he 
 had bidden her remark the way in which the worthy 
 Dutch merchant had expressed the habits of his race 
 in the painful cleanliness of the mean little building, 
 and the great green bucket, with its well-clipped 
 evergreen, set down on neatly-laid red tiles. He 
 had drawn a contrast between all this homely neat- 
 ness and the glaring plate-glass and dirty grandeur 
 of most of the surrounding offices, adding that 'the 
 Bilderdyks were a respectable firm, who might be 
 thought rather slow-going now-a-days, but whose 
 word was as good as a bond and better than many. 
 He had seen Zachary Bilderdyk once on some 
 public occasion, and he seemed a character.' 
 
 Chrissy had known what the last phrase meant 
 from her father's lips, seeing that he never, under 
 any circumstances, applied it to those gross exaggera- 
 tions of recklessness and selfishness which have 
 nothing to do with character, unprefixed by the word 
 ' bad.' When Chrissy had been a little girl, she had 
 asked her father what he meant by 'a character.' 
 And he had said, ' I mean somebody extra-good, but ( 
 with the extra-goodness growing a little on one side, I 
 like a tree which is too big for the place where it > 
 is planted, and has to reach round or stretch over 
 something.'
 
 CffRISSY'S TEMPTATION. 151 
 
 Chrissy remembered her father's words as she 
 read this advertisement, and she felt as if Mr. 
 Bilderdyk was quite an old friend. 
 
 Might not this prove a good opening for Hans 
 Krinken ? He really ought to be looking out for 
 something better than what he was getting now 
 the poor pittance which is paid for sheer manual 
 labour. He had no right to seem so settled down 
 as he did. 
 
 And yet and the thought struck Chrissy like a 
 blow there was no change which could now come 
 to life in Shield Street which could be so much for 
 the worse as that Hans should leave it. The 
 Bissets were kind and good ; true, but they had 
 never known her father. Theirs were new faces, 
 which had had no part in the finished household 
 drama. Some of the old neighbours, too, were 
 pleasantly familiar, but they had always stood 
 outside. They had been going on, all unconscious, 
 with their own business, on that terrible morning 
 when she and Hans had crept to her father's silent 
 room. And she and Hans knew what they knew 
 about the Ackroyds, and the way of Mr. Miller's 
 ruin. Nobody else knew it, or, at least, under- 
 stood it, as they did. Poor Chrissy almost started, to 
 find what strong ties are woven of companionship 
 in sorrow and mutual comprehension of a secret. 
 And why must it be Hans to go, when there
 
 152 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 seemed no likelihood that the Ackroyds would not 
 remain for ever, ' flourishing like a green bay-tree ' ? 
 said poor Chrissy in that bitter moment. 
 
 Surely, surely, it was very nice of Hans if he was 
 not so terribly impatient to leave old friends. And 
 perhaps, if she told him about this, he would only 
 think that the matter did not make any difference 
 to anybody, and that she did not care how soon he 
 went away. And his going would be a great loss 
 to Mr. Bisset he would hardly get anybody so 
 efficient in his place. And there might be some 
 way for Hans to stay where he was, and yet get 
 on. Nobody knew what might turn up. And 
 perhaps, when his grandfather had so wished him 
 to leave Germany, he might have preferred his not 
 entering into any relations with Germans. Besides, 
 if Hans had any intention of changing his situa- 
 tion, he was probably watching advertisements on 
 his own account, and would take due notice of 
 any which seemed likely to suit him, without any 
 seemingly ungracious reminder from her. Besides, 
 if he did apply for the situation, very likely he 
 would not get it, and that might only dishearten 
 him. 
 
 No, no ! this would not do. Chrissy felt that she 
 had got on a wrong tack ; she was steering with 
 the wind, not on her proper course, and that may 
 be easy sailing at the outset of a voyage, but it
 
 CHRISSY'S TEMPTATION. 153 
 
 will never land us in the haven where we would 
 be. It was not Chrissy's duty to study what Hans 
 might think of her, nor what might be his duty 
 under any circumstances which might arise. It 
 was her duty to do the simple kindly thing. We 
 can never act rightly and truly until we realise that 
 we have nothing to do with the consequences of 
 our actions, but only with their motives and their 
 wisdom. 
 
 Yes ; she would tell Hans, come what might. 
 But as she came to this resolve, she could not help 
 feeling that it was the easier to carry out because 
 she knew how many situations must be applied for 
 before one is obtained. 
 
 It may seem strange, but such humbling self- 
 revelation is generally the Divine recompense for 
 honest endeavour, just as self-satisfaction seems the 
 deadly growth of sloth and indifference. 'To 
 whom that hath shall be given,' and whoever has 
 worthy aspirations, shall never lose sight of the un- 
 attained. Wise men say, ' He who blames himself 
 has done his best.' 
 
 "*""' ~^ v_ 
 
 She told Hans while they were at work together 
 in the shop he lifting out a boxful of books which 
 she had to catalogue. 
 
 ' I shall certainly go after the chance,' he said, in 
 what seemed to her a rather dry and matter-of-fact 
 way.
 
 r54 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' A great many people go after every place,' she 
 observed. ' You must not be disappointed if you 
 don't get it.' 
 
 ' I shall not be disappointed,' he answered, in the 
 same quiet tone, bending over the chest. ' I am 
 sure to get something some day. I can't stay here 
 always.' 
 
 Chrissy's heart was beating heavily. She hoped 
 Hans noticed no change in her voice. She could 
 not think why it sounded so strangely. Possibly 
 Hans was sufficiently occupied with similar cogi- 
 tations of his own. 
 
 At noontide, when Hans generally went out for 
 some lunch, he came past Chrissy's place behind 
 the counter. 
 
 ' I am going to Bilderdyk's now,' he said. ' Won't 
 you wish me luck ? ' 
 
 ' I wish you everything that is good,' Chrissy 
 answered. ' You know I do, Hans. I know father 
 would like you to do well.' 
 
 Chrissy had almost said, ' to get on ; ' but that 
 phrase did not chime in with what had been the 
 fashion of her father's thoughts. 
 
 'Thank you, Miss Christina,' said Hans. 'A 
 thought of one's bg.st friend is the_best omen to 
 start with. And I am not sure what might be a 
 d isappointment' 
 
 He was gone. What did he mean by his last
 
 CHRISSY'S TEMPTATION. 155 
 
 words ? Chrissy wondered ; more than they ex- 
 pressed, she was sure. But busy people have no 
 time to perform vivisection on their friends' speeches, 
 tones, and looks. Chrissy felt vexed with herself, 
 and somehow pained by Hans. If she had been an 
 idle miss, she might have indulged her sensations till 
 they ended in a flood of tears or a fit of ' nerves.' 
 But Chrissy had to make up the weekly accounts, 
 and before she was half through her task, the mist 
 had cleared from her spirit, the world was again the 
 healthy work-a-day world, and she and Hans, two 
 friends in it, who would always keep a kind thought 
 for each other, even if they ^parted and never met 
 again.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 TEN POUNDS. 
 
 HRISSY knew that HansKrinken's 
 interview with Mr. Bilderdyk 
 could not be a very long one, but 
 she was busy in the counting- 
 house all the affernoon, and 
 though he could easily have 
 looked in on her there, he 
 managed to keep out of her way 
 till just before the time for 
 shutting up the shop. 
 
 Even then, when they encountered each other, he 
 did not look up at her, or appear to notice her 
 presence, but went on steadily with the task he had 
 in hand, to wit, the counting of sundry packets of 
 notepaper sent in from a wholesale warehouse. 
 
 ' Well, Hans ? ' said Chrissy, with a cheerful tone 
 of interrogation. 
 
 ' One two three,' counted Hans, and then
 
 TEN POUNDS. 157 
 
 paused to set up a pile before he went on 
 deliberately, 
 
 ' Well, Miss Chrissy I went' 
 
 'And I'm afraid you found the vacancy filled/ 
 said Chrissy, hating herself for secretly hoping so. 
 
 'Four five six' another pile was set up, 
 silently 'seven eight nine. No, Miss Chrissy 
 I did not' 
 
 ' And have you got the situation ? ' Chrissy in- 
 quired anxiously. 
 
 'Ten eleven twelve,' another piling up. 'Not 
 exactly. It is to be kept open till to-morrow 
 for me' some very deliberate counting 'but I 
 shall not take it' 
 
 ' Shall not take it ! ' echoed Chrissy, with a sudden 
 leaping of heart and a strange revulsion of feeling, 
 as if, after all, she would not now mind so very much 
 if he did. ' But why ? Is it not a real step for you ? 
 Do you not think the prospects are good ? ' 
 
 Hans did not answer in haste. 
 
 ' It would be a real step for me,' he replied. 
 ' Not that the salary is much higher than my wages 
 here ; but, if I did my duty, my way would be 
 opened up to good work and solid position in time.' 
 
 ' You would like the work ? ' questioned Chrissy. 
 
 ' Ay, that I should,' said Hans. ' Part of it would 
 be taking charge of poor German emigrants over to 
 America, and interpreting for them. At present, I
 
 158 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 should only have to take parties from place to place 
 from one accredited agent to another. But as I 
 grew accustomed to their requirements, and picked 
 up a knowledge of the country and of business in 
 general, if I kept my character and gave satisfaction, 
 I should become an accredited agent myself.' 
 
 ' And settle in America ? ' asked Chrissy. 
 . Her heart felt heavy as lead. Hans said he did 
 not mean to take this chance, but the very sight of 
 it seemed to show her how big the world was, and 
 how very far people could wander away in it. 
 
 'And settle in America,' Hans repeated. 
 
 Chrissy stood silent. These wholesome manly 
 statements generally startle women into pitiful little 
 remarks about loneliness, home-sickness, and so forth. 
 But Chrissy's quick wit saw that in this case these 
 forlorn pleas, unavailing as they generally are, were 
 entirely out of place. Hans had only been in 
 London for a year. What was there to make it 
 more home-like to him than any other strange 
 place ? 
 
 Perhaps Hans had not expected this utter silence. 
 Perhaps he tried to interpret it, for he said 
 
 ' All places are lonely till we make ourselves at 
 home in them. Wherever I go, I can have nothing 
 to leave behind yet ! ' 
 
 Did he expect Chrissy to contradict him ? How 
 could she ? She only said, timidly
 
 TEN POUNDS. 159 
 
 ' But you say you do not mean to go.' 
 
 ' I shall not go,' Hans answered. 
 
 ' You don't wish to go,' she said, doubtfully. 
 
 ' Whether I do or not, I cannot go,' he said. 
 
 ' But it is not decided ? ' she asked. ' You say it 
 is open for you till to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Mr. Bilderdyk wished it left open,' said Hans. ' I 
 told him what my decision must be, but he seemed 
 to think I might change it.' 
 
 Chrissy was puzzled, and rather hurt by something 
 in Hans' manner ; and she felt that, hard as it had 
 seemed that Hans must go away, it would not be 
 any easier if he stayed there against his will. 
 
 ' Won't you change your decision ? ' she pleaded. 
 
 ' I cannot, Miss Chrissy/ he replied. By this time 
 he had made up the last pile of paper, and setting it 
 down, he turned and walked into the store-room, 
 leaving Chrissy standing mute, her secret wish of 
 that morning apparently fulfilled, yet her spirit 
 touched with strange unrest and dissatisfaction. She 
 had done nothing to secure her own gratification 
 nay, she had done all she could to risk it, seeing that 
 she had herself started Hans on his quest. Yet she 
 had a lurking sense of remorse something was 
 certainly discordant, and her secret consciousness of 
 having been out of tune herself seemed to lay the 
 blame at her door. But what more could she do ? 
 She had tried to invite Hans' friendly confidence,
 
 160 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION, 
 
 generally so freely given, " and for once he had 
 repelled it with a stubborn frowardness she had 
 never noticed in him before. It was not her fault. 
 She tried to comfort herself with that. 
 
 Somewhat mechanically she finished off her duties 
 for the day. Mr. Bisset and his wife were in the 
 parlour taking their -tea, and she looked in upon 
 them to say good evening, and went _on through the 
 shop. Hans had just closed up all but the door 
 left open for her to go out. He stood, leaning 
 against the door-post, and a street-lamp shed a 
 strong light on his face. Its expression was not 
 sad, but moody, almost discontented ; and his voice, 
 as he bade her good-night, had a dreary sound in 
 it. 
 
 Chrissy walked a few paces down Shield Street ; 
 then paused, and suddenly turned. 
 
 The youth was standing where she had left him. 
 Chrissy stepped back into the shop. 
 
 ' Hans,' she said, in a hurried whisper, ' Hans, 
 I know there is something wrong something's 
 troubling you. What is it ? ' 
 
 His face brightened as she spoke. The cloud 
 broke up, but the brightness that came forth was as 
 pathetic moonlight, not sunshine. 
 
 ' What can be troubling me, Miss Chrissy ? ' he 
 asked. 
 
 'I don't know,' said Chrissy, waxing braver.
 
 ^ JEN POUNDS. 161 
 
 'But something is, I am sure. Do tell me the 
 truth, Hans ; I know you will.' 
 
 'I have been a little troubled,' he answered. 
 ' One may be foolish sometimes, and fancy things 
 might be managed better for us than they are. But 
 that mood passes, Miss Chrissy. It is passed already.' 
 
 ' Won't you tell me what it was ? ' implored 
 Chrissy. 
 
 Hans was silent. 
 
 ' You would really have liked to take this 
 situation ? ' she urged. 
 
 ' I ought to have been glad of it,' he admitted ; 
 ' and I wish I ought to be very glad of it,' he added 
 more enigmatically. 
 
 ' And it is kept open for you till to-morrow,' cried 
 Chrissy, ' and yet you have made up your mind not to 
 take it ? Hans, it must be offered to you with some 
 condition you do not like. But won't you think it over, 
 even if you won't say what it is ? For father thought 
 Mr. Bilderdyk was a good man, and he may have 
 reasons for his rules which you do not understand.' 
 
 if His rules are reasonable and wise, I can see that,' 
 said Hans quietly ; ' but I cannot meet them.' 
 
 They were both inside the shop now, and Hans 
 had closed the door. Only one lamp was burning, 
 casting a dim light on the book-laden shelves and . 
 heavy packing-cases. The old place looked very 
 much as it did on that evening when Chrissy had
 
 1 62 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 groped across its gloom to find her father in the 
 counting-house. It had been her duty then to 
 submit to silence and secrecy. But that did not 
 seem her duty now. The same duties seldom 
 return upon us. Experience must grow with our 
 growth, or it will check it. Some people never 
 do^ the duty of to-day, because they are striving 
 to do the duty they neglected yesterday; while 
 with the wiser sort, one task accomplished generally 
 leads to a widely varied one. 
 
 ' Hans,' she pleaded, ' won't you tell me what it is ? 
 It cannot be any habit which Mr. Bilderdyk imposes 
 on his people, for all your habits are good ; you go 
 to church, you do not smoke. Hans, it will be kind- 
 ness to me to tell me ; there are so few now who care 
 to tell me anything about themselves. I'm not very 
 wise, Hans, but I might think of something to help 
 you ; a very little helps one sometimes.' 
 
 ' If it was counsel I wanted, I would seek yours 
 I would indeed, Miss Chrissy,' said the young man 
 earnestly. ' But this is something quite different.' 
 
 ' If father had been alive, could he have helped 
 you ? ' she asked. 
 
 Hans paused, then answered ' Yes.' 
 
 ' And would you have asked his help ? ' she went 
 on eagerly. 
 
 The pause was longer, but the answer came again, 
 ' Yes ! '
 
 TEN POUNDS. 163 
 
 'It must be something about references or 
 money ! ' cried Chrissy. 
 
 'There there !' said Hans hastily. ' It does not 
 matter you can never guess ! 
 
 But Chrissy was not to be so silenced now. She 
 went on boldly 
 
 ' It cannot be reference. Mr. Bisset would speak 
 well of you, and I am sure Dr. Julius would give 
 you a good word, and so would Miss Griffin. It 
 must be money. Hans, do do tell me what it is.' 
 
 But Hans was stubbornly mute. 
 
 ' It is about money ; if it is not, Hans, at least say 
 that' 
 
 ' It is about money, Miss Chrissy/ said Hans in 
 a choking voice ; ' but it does not matter. I don't 
 want to go. Perhaps I might not have gone if I had 
 been able.' 
 
 He moved towards the shop door, opened it, and 
 went out. He was not going to risk more of this 
 perilous interview. His secrets would be safer in the 
 street. But Chrissy followed him. 
 
 * Hans,' she said timidly, ' is it anything about 
 clothes ? ' 
 
 Hans laughed a painful laugh. 
 
 ' No, it isn't, Miss Chrissy,' he answered. ' These 
 are all I have, but Mr. Bilderdyk did not guess that, 
 so that subject did not come up. When your father 
 had mercy on me,' he went on with austere truth-
 
 1 64 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 fulness, ' I was a beggar, in beggar's rags. These 
 clothes I wear he gave me ; and I have saved money 
 sufficient to buy more. I have got so far ahead of 
 the world in one short year and yet I am discon- 
 tented ! ' he added, in a gentler tone. 
 
 ' Hans,' pleaded Chrissy, walking by his side, and 
 never noticing that James and Sophia Ackroyd 
 passed them by ' Hans, will you not tell me what 
 this money is needed for tell me because I am my 
 father's daughter ? ' 
 
 ' Women ought not to be burdened with money 
 troubles ; women like you have enough burdens of 
 their own,' said Hans. 
 
 And then he came to a dead stand-still ; for he 
 said to himself, ' She ought not to be seen speaking 
 with me in the street ; she is Miss Miller, and I am 
 only the German shop-boy.' For he had observed 
 the architect's son and daughter, and had compre- 
 hended the scorn on the young lady's face. 
 
 ' 1 cannot leave you like this,' said Chrissy ; ' you, 
 whom my father liked and thought so much of.' 
 
 And without a word, she turned from the thorough- 
 fare down which they were walking still crowded 
 and bustling in the long spring twilight and passed 
 through a small iron gate which opened on her right 
 hand. Hans could not do less than follow her. 
 
 That little iron gate led them to a quaint retreat 
 with which Chrissy had been familiar from her
 
 TEN POUNDS. 165 
 
 earliest days. It was a broad quay running parallel 
 with the dingy street they had just left, and it was 
 flanked on one hand by spacious Government offices, 
 while on the other lay the river. Thus a few steps 
 gave them an entire change of scene and surround- 
 ing. On the street side, the Government offices were 
 dark and mean, with rough men lounging at low 
 doors, while all the houses round were either gloomy 
 or sordid, and one scarcely dared to raise one's eyes 
 to the strip of sky overhead, lest one should find 
 oneself jostled into the mire. But to the river, the 
 great building turned a calm and stately face. 
 
 Countless pigeons found refuge in its deep eaves 
 and on the capitals of its pillars, and fluttered down 
 to take their tithe of bounteous ship cargoes, fearless 
 of the pale little city children who played about the 
 great flight of steps, or of the feeble old city pen- 
 sioners who rested themselves on thoughtfully pro- 
 vided seats, and watched the busy vivid life of the 
 silent highway, the big ships coming in and going 
 out, the passenger-laden steamers passing to and fro, 
 the picturesque hay barges with their dark red sails 
 and fragrant freight, or else looked up at the sun- 
 set over the city, and thought deeper and sweeter 
 thoughts than they could ever find words for. 
 
 The sun was already down to-night ; only one line 
 of pale glory still lingered on the other side of the 
 river, behind a magnificent pile which might have
 
 1 66 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 been ' the cathedral ' anywhere else, but in London 
 is only ' a parish church.' The old people were 
 beginning to bestir themselves ; the breeze would 
 soon blow cold, and the liveried porter would come 
 out of the Government office to lock the gates of 
 the quay. Chrissy knew that what she had to do 
 must be done quickly. 
 
 ' Hans,' she said, ' how can you shrink from speak- 
 ing out to me? I am poor, like you. We must 
 both^ know the same struggles and defeats and 
 successes too, perhaps.' 
 
 ' Perhaps that does not make it easier,' muttered 
 Hans. 
 
 But Chrissy did not catch his words. 
 
 ' It is so hard to be kept out of a friend's counsel, r 
 just because the friend feels that one cannot help,' , 
 she bewailed. 
 
 Oh, the wiles of a woman ! Let no man think to 
 escape them. The utmost that is given to him is to 
 take care that the wiles beguile him to his good and 
 not to his hurt. Hans was fairly conquered. How 
 could Chrissy take up his silence so, at precisely its 
 opposite meaning ? He was driven to defend himself. 
 
 ' It is not that at all,' he cried. ' Only why should 
 I trouble you with hearing that I must give up a 
 chance of of doing a great deal I should like to do, 
 because it is one of Mr. Bilderdyk's rules, like a law 
 of the Medes and Persians, that the youth who takes
 
 TEN POUNDS. 167 
 
 the place which is offered to me, should always pay 
 his first passage to America himself. The rule 
 arose because he had two or three young men in 
 succession who hired with him simply to secure the 
 passage, and deserted his service directly they landed. 
 It is therefore quite a reasonable rule, but it is a speci- 
 men of the harm dishonest and selfish people do.' 
 
 ' Hans,' said Chrissy very quietly, ' are you quite 
 sure you like the work ? And did Mr. Bilderdyk 
 really think you would suit? ' 
 
 ' I should like the work, certainly,' said Hans. 
 * It is a way of gaining one's living into which one 
 could put a lot of usefulness. And Mr. Bilderdyk 
 kindly said he thought I would suit particularly well. 
 And as for the going away well, that's the part 
 which makes the disappointment easier.' 
 
 The rough edge had gone from his voice. He 
 was good-natured Hans once more. 
 
 ' Hans,' Chrissy said breathlessly, and with 
 shining eyes, ' if it is only about ten pounds that 
 you want, I have them ready ; they are just lying 
 by, waiting to be useful in some way.' She did not 
 leave him time to rally from his astonishment and 
 refuse, but went on rapidly, ' Because I am a woman, 
 you will not say I ought not to be a friend. 
 Because I am a woman, you will not say I must not 
 try to carry on what my father began. You will 
 repay me those ten pounds long before I shall need
 
 1 68 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 them, It is nothing, Hans; it is no favour, it is 
 no kindness, it is only a neighbourly service." 
 
 ' I cannot take it ; it must not be,' said poor 
 Hans ; ' but you have already done me a kindness 
 I can never repay by offering it to me.' 
 
 ' So, am I to work only to buy finery, or to pro- 
 vide for my own old age ? ' cried Chrissy. ' Nobody 
 would have blamed me much if I had spent most of 
 that money on myself, on what I do not want, and 
 can do quite well without. But I suppose nobody 
 will approve of my using it in any such way as this 
 to serve a fellow-creature, and bring happiness to 
 myself. If you cannot accept help from a woman, 
 Hans Krinken, it must be because you think a 
 woman is unworthy to help you. Then I wonder , 
 why God made women at all ! But in great men's . 
 lives one often reads that they were helped and 
 served in their early days by ' 
 
 Chrissy paused in confusion ; for there was 
 something in the radiant face Hans turned upon 
 her which recalled what in her excitement she had 
 rushed upon, forgetful, to wit, that her sentence must 
 end with the words, ' Those who, in many cases, 
 were afterwards their wives.' 
 
 Hans looked at her earnestly. 
 
 ' Miss Chrissy,' he said, in low solemn tones, ' I 
 will take your kindness if, after I have seen Mr. 
 Bilderdyk to-morrow, no other way is opened for
 
 TEN POUNDS. 169 
 
 me. But, Miss Chrissy, I, too, know all about you 
 and your affairs and how much, therefore, you are 
 doing for me. This money must be ' 
 
 ' It is all my own earnings since my father's death,' 
 she interrupted, ' and I have a little more still, and 
 more will be coming in every week to pay my ex- 
 penses, and I need very little. It is all right, Hans.' 
 
 ' My life ought to be something good, after such 
 an event as this coming into it,' mused Hans. 
 ' Good-night, Miss Chrissy. I will do my very best 
 to get away from you it will be quite easy now 
 I find you are willing to risk your fortune to send 
 me off.' 
 
 There was something in the playful words which 
 made Chrissy's heart leap, and it danced within her 
 all the while as she ran home to Miss Griffin's. She 
 felt sure Hans would go now, and it was her own 
 hand which had loosed his moorings ; but the pain 
 of parting was over over, at least, for this ecstatic 
 hour, though it might come back upon some lower 
 mood. 
 
 For the soul which can make God's will its own, 
 and cheerfully set its hand to work in the weaving 
 of His circumstances, is master of events. There 
 is a truth for daily use in the Divine paradox 
 ' Whosoever would save his life, shall lose it ; and 
 whosoever shall lose his life for My sake ' for the 
 love of God and of his brother man ' shall find it.'
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A VENTURE. 
 
 'HEN Hans presented 
 himself at Mr. Bilder- 
 dyk's office for his 
 second and conclusive 
 interview, the grave 
 Dutch merchant 
 said 
 
 ' So you've come 
 back again. I thought 
 you would.' 
 
 He had formed his 
 own conclusions as to 
 the condition which 
 had given rise to the youth's hesitancy. Of course 
 it concerned the ten pounds on which he insisted for 
 preliminary expenses. It was unlikely that such a 
 sum would not be a grave consideration to a friend- 
 less young foreigner a matter calling for debate and 
 
 170
 
 A VENTURE. 171 
 
 delay. But Mr. Bilderdyk did not choose to believe 
 that it could be any insurmountable obstacle if the 
 young man really wanted to be employed by him. 
 Any respectable person could find means to borrow 
 or raise such a sum. Mr. Bilderdyk had never 
 looked poverty full in the face. He had had his own 
 early struggles with it, but he had conquered, so to 
 speak, from trench or battlement : it had never come 
 to a hand-to-hand fight. Further, he came to this 
 conclusion because it suited him. He thought Hans 
 a specially promising applicant. But he had no in- 
 tention of abating his rule for any exception, always 
 arguing that it did less harm to be wrong in one 
 case, by strictly adhering to a good rule, than to 
 hold such rule at the mercy of impulse or circum- 
 stance. If Hans could not raise this money, then 
 he must be relegated to the ranks of the undesirable. 
 Mr. Bilderdyk was an upright man, and had strict 
 ideas of duty, but they all took an organised and 
 official form. He would not have picked up a 
 wounded traveller and set him on his own beast. 
 He would have called a policeman and sent for a 
 hospital ambulance. His mind was something like 
 a kitchen garden, free equally from the rankest 
 weeds and the sweetest flowers, but well stocked 
 with potatoes and pot-herbs, by no means to be 
 despised. To those who knew it best, his life pre- 
 sented a regulated symmetry quite consoling and
 
 172 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 restful among the general mass of human muddle ; 
 but it was the regulated symmetry of a neatly-ruled 
 ledger, not of a noble ode. 
 
 ' Sir,' said Hans, with the clear colour coming 
 into his face, ' I saw, from the first, there was 
 nothing I should be more thankful for than such a 
 chance as you offer to give me. My only hesita- 
 tion concerned the money for my first travelling 
 expenses.' 
 
 ' I knew that I felt sure of that,' observed Mr. 
 Bilderdyk, gratified by the frank statement which 
 confirmed his own shrewd conjecture. 
 
 ' I told you, sir, that I was poor, a stranger, and 
 friendless,' Hans went on ; ' but ' 
 
 'You find you are not so friendless as you 
 thought,' said the merchant, with a quiet smile. 
 He was not a hard man, except in the matter of 
 his rules. On the security of Hans' honest face 
 and candid manner he would almost have advanced 
 him such a sum himself, for any purpose but to 
 enter his own service. For this rule of his had 
 been made, not so much to prevent money-losses, 
 as to spare the confusion caused by mere temporary 
 hirelings. 
 
 The colour on Hans' face deepened. 
 
 ' I told you, sir,' said he, ' about my first master 
 Mr. Miller, who took me up when I was but a 
 beggar, little more than a year ago, and who is
 
 A VENTURE. 173 
 
 since dead. His daughter, sir, desires to lend me 
 this money.' 
 
 'Good!' said Mr. Bilderdyk, delighted by this 
 confirmation of the theory on which his rule was 
 founded. 
 
 ' But my master died not rich, you know, sir. 
 It is a question whether I ought to accept this 
 money.' 
 
 ' It is only a loan ? ' inquired Mr. Bilderdyk. 
 
 ' It is a loan,' said Hans ; ' but it is a loan freely 
 offered to a wandering foreigner, who can give no 
 security for its return in case of his misfortune or 
 death.' 
 
 'What interest are you to pay?' asked Mr. 
 Bilderdyk. 
 
 ' None,' said Hans, almost sharply. ' I could not 
 propose any the loan was not offered so.' 
 
 ' Because, of course, high interest covers risks,' 
 mused the merchant. 'Well, the old lady shows 
 that she has considerable faith in you.' 
 
 We are all apt to conjure up pictures in associa- 
 tion with an idea presented to us, and some fine 
 imaginations have a curious gift for correctness, 
 even in very small details. But Mr. Bilderdyk's did 
 not dance and leap like an unaccountable cataract, 
 but ran in straight lines, like the canals of his native 
 Holland, so that every step of its progress could be 
 accounted for. Women never had money to do
 
 174 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 what they liked with till they were old. Good old 
 women liked helping worthy young people. Ergo, 
 Hans' benefactress must be old. Perhaps it was 
 significant that Hans did not at once contradict 
 the inappropriate adjective. A minute or two 
 afterwards, his silence struck him as false as 
 something like a lie. 
 
 'I don't think I should disappoint the lady's 
 confidence in the long run,' he said ; ' but I might 
 die and she could ill afford to lose such a sum. 
 I could not bear that she should lose it through me.' 
 
 The merchant sat reflecting. 
 
 ' I know one thing you can do,' he said presently. 
 ' You can insure your life for twenty-five pounds, 
 and, in the event of your death, that would cover 
 your funeral expenses and pay this debt too. But 
 I'm afraid you are not of age ; the difficulty may 
 be got over, only it will give rise to complicated 
 arrangements, and cause some trouble.' 
 
 ' I am of age next week,' said Hans eagerly. 
 
 ' Dear me, that is particularly fortunate,' returned 
 the old Dutchman, looking at the youth over his 
 spectacles. 'I did not think you were so old; I took 
 you for about eighteen ; if I remember rightly, I did 
 not inquire your age I took it for granted.' 
 
 Hans thought Mr. Bilderdyk had a faculty for 
 guessing ages wrongly. 
 
 ' It will be quite easily managed,' went on the mer-
 
 A VENTURE. 175 
 
 chant. ' You can make arrangements for getting 
 the insurance complete by the time you are of age, 
 then you can make a simple will leaving all you 
 have to this old lady ' 
 
 ' To Miss Christina Miller,' put in Hans. 
 
 ' And that will can hold good till you have repaid 
 this loan.' 
 
 ' It can hold good for ever,' thought Hans, ' at least, 
 unless until ' and there he reined in his fancy, for if 
 he let it carry him on so fast he should lose his head. 
 
 ' It will be best to put the will in charge of some 
 trustworthy person,' pursued the business-like Mr. 
 Bilderdyk. ' I will not offer to take charge of it 
 myself ; its custodian had better be some personal 
 friend of yours or of the old lady's.' 
 
 'I had rather Miss Miller did not know anything 
 about it,' returned Hans. ' I will ask Dr. Julius, the 
 medical man who lives opposite St. Cecilia's Church, 
 to take it in hand.' 
 
 ' Ay, that will do,' said the old merchant. ' And if 
 you like, I will be one witness to the document. These 
 arrangements are always made more secure by several 
 responsible persons knowing of them, especially as 
 you don't wish to acquaint the old lady herself with 
 them, and enable her to protect her own interests.' 
 
 There is a place for everybody in the world, and 
 a part in which every man's innocent idiosyncrasies 
 can disport themselves for the general good. Cer-
 
 176 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 tainly Mr. Bilderdyk's matter-of-fact precision made 
 poor Chrissy's enthusiastic generosity into the most 
 rational proceeding possible ; and if worldly wisdom 
 and shrewdness would more often hold themselves at 
 the service of the higher intuitions and warmer emo- 
 tions, instead of dominating over them, much that is 
 now thought ' visionary ' would become ' visible.' 
 
 As Hans Krinken walked back to Shield Street, 
 all painful sense of obligation, all lurking fear of 
 unmanly dependence, had quite passed away, and 
 there remained but that gratitude for the enjoyment 
 of a ready and watchful love, which is one of the 
 most helpful possessions with which a soul can start 
 on the journey of life. 
 
 Yet not for worlds would he let Chrissy know 
 how carefully she was to be shielded from 
 possible loss. He would not have done anything 
 which could make her think that he imagined he 
 had lessened his debt to her. Hans was far too 
 wise to imagine any such thing. Nor was he any 
 the more tempted to do so when, on going to Dr. 
 Julius, and telling that gentleman the whole story, 
 he not only promised to keep the secret and give 
 the purposed arrangement all the help and further- 
 ance in his power, but treated Hans with marked 
 consideration, and even hinted that had he come 
 to him in the first instance, he himself might have 
 advanced the required sum.
 
 A VENTURE. 177 
 
 Hans was thankful for the doctor's expressions of 
 kindliness, and did not doubt their sincerity; but, 
 young as he was, a severe experience of life had taught 
 him that people are viewed much more favourably 
 through the medium of another person's confidence 
 and friendship, and that when anybody comes to us 
 so commended, it is not all of us who have sufficient 
 imagination to realize how we should have regarded 
 him had he come before us without such credentials. 
 Hans rather felt that Chrissy had done more than 
 lend him gold she had given hirn^ character. 
 
 Chrissy was a little anxious all th~at morning 
 while Hans was away at Mr. Bilderdyk's. She was 
 afraid he was dreadfully unwilling to take her 
 money; and fancying, as women often do, that every- 
 body must see the worth of what they value, she could 
 not help thinking that the Dutch merchant himself 
 would smooth the way for the young man. And 
 somehow, if Hans went away without her help, it 
 would make his going seem harder. Why, it would 
 have been hard to say ; but the mind, and still more 
 the heart^ have processes which defy logic. And 
 these will have their way, however unaccountable, 
 like many other forces of nature ; like the sun, for 
 instance, which dominates the planets round it, quite 
 serenely, though we know little more of ' gravitation ' 
 than the name we have ourselves given it. 
 
 When Hans came towards her with a light step
 
 1 78 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 and a beaming face, she felt sure that his object was 
 to be accomplished without her aid. Well, she 
 must be glad, and rejoice in his rejoicing. But it is 
 useless to deny that she found it much easier to be 
 glad when Hans said 
 
 ' You are to have it all your own way, Miss 
 Chrissy. Yours is to be the hand which is to send/ 
 me into banishment.' 7 
 
 Chrissy told only Miss Griffin of her venture, for 
 the girl had a loyal heart, and did not care to keep 
 secrets from one who opened up to her all the 
 treasures of her own experience. She could not be 
 sure it would win Miss Griffin's entire approval, but 
 it would certainly meet with the kindly sympathy 
 with which the good old maid always heard and 
 considered other people's affairs. 
 
 Chrissy told her story with beating heart and 
 blushing face. Miss Griffin, arranging her tea-china 
 in the early summer twilight, said not a word while 
 she told it, and was silent for a few minutes after- 
 wards. Then she suddenly came round to where 
 Chrissy was sitting, and put one of her hands on 
 each of Chrissy's shoulders. 
 
 ' I suppose I ought to preach up prudence, and ' 
 condemn you for rashness and over-generosity, and / 
 remind you of your own old age, and of all the 
 mischances which may befall you. It's a good ser-, 
 mon, but you'll find plenty of people to preach it. (
 
 A VENTURE. 179 
 
 Chrissy Miller, I'd have done what you have done, i 
 There was a day once, Chrissy. But I had nothing i 
 of my own. The will of the Lord be done ! Onlyi 
 men will never be worse off for the better fortune of/ 
 women ! ' 
 
 Hans Krinken left his post in the Shield Street 
 shop, and entered Mr. Bilderdyk's employment a few 
 weeks before he was required to leave England. A 
 day or two after this change it was only natural that 
 he should find some message which required that he 
 should visit Miss Griffin's rooms after office hours. 
 Many a young heart has leaped with delight when 
 some sweet voice has shyly dropped an accustomed 
 title, and taken up the more familiar Christian name. 
 But in this instance matters were reversed. It was 
 when Chrissy softly said, ' Mr. Krinken,' that Hans 
 looked up, and thanked her with his kind blue eyes. 
 For one thing, it was so good of her to recognize and 
 remember that though he was still as poor as ever 
 was even her debtor in a special way which he had 
 never been before yet he had advanced a step in 
 social status, and now had a humble position among 
 educated men. And more than that, he was there- 
 fore drawn nearer her. The little ceremony of her 
 address did not mark a barrier set up between them, 
 but one broken down. It would not stay for ever. 
 But its rearing made possible some future fair day 
 when he miht ask to be Hans once more no loncrcr
 
 i So EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 homely Hans the shop-boy, but Hans the equal 
 friend, perhaps the happy lover. Yes, there was 
 music for him in Chrissy's simple phrase. 
 
 'We are just sitting down to tea, Mr. Krinken ; 
 won't you join us ? ' 
 
 'Yes yes, certainly Mr. Krinken will/ said Miss 
 Griffin, bustling to her china-cupboard for another 
 cup and saucer. 
 
 And this time the invitation was accepted. 
 
 They talked to him about what he would need to 
 take with him for his voyage, and for his sojourn in 
 the strange country. Hans had a true instinct that 
 he must joyfully accept must almost request little 
 kindnesses from the hands which had done so much 
 for him. He told them frankly how much money of 
 his own he had to spend, and what he absolutely 
 required, and appealed to their woman's wit and 
 fertility of resource to make the best of the business 
 for him. Miss Griffin undertook to do all the buying 
 and making up. Chrissy said she would have plenty 
 of time to help now ; there was all the evening 
 leisure. But what about her drawing? Hans asked ; 
 for he had heard about her efforts and her studies 
 concerning them. Chrissy laughed. Her drawings 
 could wait. She would work all the better after a/ 
 rest. There would be time enough for them when , 
 there was nothing else to do, she added, a little 
 pathetically. But she would show them to him.
 
 A VENTURE. 181 
 
 She had certainly worked hard. She had started 
 with a good stock of such mechanical skill as girls 
 acquire at school. And after a little ' free-hand,' 
 and a few original exercises from the ' round,' she 
 had taken for models sundry prim old representa- 
 tions of buildings of historical interest in England 
 and on the Continent. The pictures were to be 
 found in a rare old book which she had borrowed 
 from Mr. Bisset's stock. Many of them were of 
 places which had vanished already, or were likely 
 soon to be improved off the face of the earth, 
 and the accuracy of Chrissy's copies almost rivalled 
 the precision of the originals. 
 
 ' If people pored over these things as Chrissy has 
 done,' said Miss Griffin, ' I don't think they could 
 build the nasty modern houses they do.' 
 
 ' I don't think it is a bad plan to multiply copies 
 of these pictures,' said Chrissy, as if in excuse for 
 what she felt too many people would regard as 
 wasted labour. ' Many of these places were removed 
 or altered before photography became general, and 
 as time slowly destroys a few old engravings, it will 
 not be easy to find what the scenes of great his- 
 torical events were like when they happened.' 
 
 ' Miss Chrissy,' said Hans in a low voice, as Miss 
 Griffin went to and fro, on hospitable cares intent, 
 ' Miss Chrissy, should you object to part from some 
 of these drawings ? '
 
 1 82 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' Nobody will want to part them from me, I fear,' 
 retorted Chrissy, laughing. ' But I was going to 
 offer you one whichever you like best. I thought 
 it might be this picture of St. Cecilia-in-the-Garden, 
 as it used to look when all the trees were about it.' 
 
 'Thank you, Miss Chrissy/ said Hans, 'thank 
 you very much indeed ; and you were right in 
 thinking that it would be my choice for myself 
 He spoke English fluently now, his recent know- 
 ledge of it only evidenced by an occasional formality. 
 ' But I was thinking when 1 go abroad I shall go 
 into very out-of-the-way places, among all sorts of 
 German and English people, with many old associa- 
 tions with Britain and the Rhineland. I think some 
 of them might appreciate these drawings. Could 
 you trust a few of them with me ? ' 
 
 'You shall take them all,' said Chrissy, her face 
 aglow with hope and delight. ' I will trim them off, 
 and mount them nicely, and make up a little port- 
 folio of them. How clever of you to think of it, 
 Hans Mr. Krinken ! What a delightful venture it 
 will be ! Nothing will be lost if it fails, and what 
 pure pleasure and gain if it succeeds ! ' 
 
 Hans came back many times during those last 
 few weeks. Except the very last visit, he never came 
 without some reasonable excuse. He brought card- 
 board for Chrissy 's drawings, hunting out of the 
 wholesale warehouses some of a specially suitable
 
 A VENTURE. 183 
 
 size and tint ; he had a portfolio made to order for 
 them, light but strong and waterproof; or he came 
 to give Miss Griffin instructions concerning the size 
 of his stockings, or the quality. But that last 
 evening (he was to sail on the morrow) he came in 
 quietly, and offered no excuse. 
 
 ' I suppose it is really good-bye to-night, Miss 
 Christina,' he said, when they were left alone for a 
 moment. 
 
 ' Not to-night,' Chrissy answered, bending her 
 head low over her work. ' Miss Griffin and I will 
 come to the dock to-morrow to see you off. We 
 have never seen an emigrant ship,' she added shyly. 
 
 And so the two women went down, through a 
 wilderness of meagre crowded streets, which even 
 Miss Griffin, dweller in London all her long life, had 
 never seen before. They stood on the crowded quay 
 among the groups of emigrants, some tearful, some 
 tearless in the terrible meaning of that word, but 
 most simply eager and excited, as if there was little 
 to regret behind and all to hope before. There were 
 stalwart agricultural labourers, with their apple- 
 cheeked families ; there were shrewd town mechanics 
 with their wives and old-faced children ; there were 
 sweet-voiced Irish Biddys and hard-faced Welsh 
 women ; there were worn old fathers and mothers sent 
 for by dutiful children, and going out, as it seemed, 
 chiefly to lay their bones where those children could
 
 1 84 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 look upon their graves. Miss Griffin and Chrissy 
 threaded their way among the crowd, till they came 
 to the group of fair -haired, blue -eyed Germans, 
 clinging together mute amid the Babel around them. 
 
 Presently Hans appeared on the scene. Mr. Bil- 
 dcrdyk was with him. When the old merchant saw 
 the lad lift his hat in salutation, he asked briefly 
 
 ' Friends of yours ? ' 
 
 ' Miss Miller and her friend Miss Griffin,' Hans 
 answered as briefly. 
 
 Mr. Bilderdyk looked shrewdly at the pair. He had 
 no doubt as to which was Miss Miller. Of course, 
 it was the elder woman. His eye went on to the girl. 
 
 ' A pleasant face,' he thought ; ' perhaps she is a 
 particular friend of my new clerk's and the good 
 old lady may not be disinclined to help him forward 
 for her sake.' 
 
 ' Where does Miss Miller live ? ' he asked of Hans, 
 as they went about together collecting the stragglers 
 of their party. 
 
 ' She lives with Miss Griffin, sir. She is still con- 
 nected with her father's shop, and spends the greater 
 part of her day there.' Hans made this reply with 
 flaming cheeks. He knew Mr. Bilderdyk had fallen 
 into a mistake in the first instance concerning 
 Chrissy's identity ; but now, with her before his eyes, 
 he felt quite sure that the good Dutchman must 
 see into the whole matter. It is always hard to
 
 A VENTURE. 185 
 
 believe that affairs important to our own hearts, and ( 
 wholly occupying them, are not perfectly lucid to , 
 our neighbours. 
 
 ' You will have opportunity to spend a few minutes 
 with them at the very last. You must do so. It will 
 be only a proper token of respect to Miss Miller,' 
 said Mr. Bilderdyk. 
 
 He said what he meant, and he meant no more 
 than he said ; and poor self-conscious Hans, blushing 
 again, thought that his master veiled his real kind- 
 ness with delightfully dry humour. 
 
 'Miss Chrissy,' whispered Hans, when, at last, 
 the opportunity for speech was obtained, ' Miss 
 Chrissy, I shall be away from England for one whole 
 year. Many things happen in such a time. I shall 
 find changes. There are some things I should like 
 to say, but ought not to say now. Only shall I 
 is it at all likely I shall find you the same ? ' 
 
 ' I shall be the same,' she said, with a resolute 
 emphasis. ' There may be death, you know ; but 
 death does not change people, Hans.' 
 
 And he was gone. There was only one long 
 hand-clasp from Chrissy, but Miss Griffin put her 
 motherly arms round the youth's neck and kissed 
 him, and whispered in his ear 
 
 ' I will take care of her. We will talk about you, 
 and look forward to your home-coming.' 
 
 ' God bless you ! ' said Hans fervently.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ESTHER GRAY. 
 
 HRISSY did not deny to herself 
 that Hans' absence made a 
 terrible blank in her life ; and 
 the poor girl began to realise 
 the strange difference which 
 exists between separation in life 
 and separation by death, with 
 all the haunting fears and park- 
 ing unrest which belong to the 
 former. Her father was gone whence he could never 
 return to her, but where she was sure to go to him. 
 .When faith was strong, and life was calm and clear 
 about her it might be on her knees in her little 
 bedroom, or it might be receiving the Communion 
 at St. Cecilia's, or even going about her daily duties 
 in the dusky crowded streets it sometimes seemed 
 as if, in some sense, she could follow him already, 
 and tarry with him a while, and gather strength 
 
 1S6
 
 ESTHER GRAY. 187 
 
 for fainter moods and stormier days. But Hans ! 
 Perhaps her last glimpse of him amid the bustle 
 and discomfort of embarkation, was not soothing or 
 reassuring. He might be in danger, he might be 
 among rough or unkindly people, he might be ill, 
 he might but, no, there was one fear that never 
 haunted Chrissy. She never feared lest Hans 
 should do other than honestly and well. If he 
 had been her brother if he had been the familiar 
 friend of her childhood, and nothing more such a 
 watchful loving heart as Chrissy's might well have 
 pondered that the paths of the world are dark, and 
 their temptations are many, and that youth goes out 
 to make its way among them with wayward wits 
 and stormy passions. But Chrissy never doubted 
 Hans. It was the sweet old story of womanlyjaith 
 and following. 
 
 Yet certainly a great restlessness fell upon 
 Chrissy. Her nature had grown beyond the food 
 with which her life supplied it. She went on with 
 her work, with her art-studies, with her hundred 
 little feminine duties, with redoubled energy, but 
 they did not exhaust it. She began to understand 
 something of that mysterious force which before 
 now has driven men into crusades or explorations, 
 battling with human wickedness or nature's fierce- 
 ness, according to the times they lived in, which has 
 sent gentle women to labour in grim lazar-houses or
 
 1 88 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 amid wild heathen populations. What is it ? What 
 can it be except the rushing through the new clear 
 channel of a fresh heart, of that strange miracle 
 which comes nearer the hidden ways of God than 
 any other manifestation of nature, 'the love that 
 makes the world go round.' Experience makes 
 us shy of any panacea for the world's sin and 
 suffering, yet we almost think one might be found 
 in the right direction of this strong emotional energy, 
 which, if left as it generally is, to overflow or to 
 stagnate, is certainly the most fruitful source of sin 
 and suffering. 
 
 In the new light and joy that were filling her 
 own nature, Chrissy took courage to look into the 
 dark places of human hearts. That showed what a 
 whole nature she had. We should always mistrust 
 the gladness which makes us shrink from sadness. 
 Health and joy and wisdom what are they for, if not 
 to make us strong to help and to bear and to heal ? 
 Chrissy began to think of all the woful people, only 
 born to wickedness, as it sometimes seems to us. 
 When she saw the ghastly crowd waiting outside the 
 casual ward, she no longer shivered, and forgot it ; it 
 seemed to her as if each battered limp figure might 
 somehow, once upon a time, have been made into a 
 brave honest youth like Hans. And in the streets, 
 after dark, she had heard girls' laughter which made 
 her heart ache. It almost seemed wrong 1 to be so
 
 ESTHER GRAY. 189 
 
 happy as she was, while these things went on ! It 
 is in such moods as these that an ascetic enthusiasm 
 seizes upon the nobler young hearts. Miss Griffin 
 kept Chrissy in the open ways of wisdom ; for when 
 the girl hinted misgivings concerning her own 
 possession of blessings not shared by others, she 
 answered, sensibly 
 
 ' Don't you feel that you have nothing but what 
 you'd wish everybody to have an honest living, 
 good friends, and ' She glanced slyly at Chrissy, 
 and spared the girl by a slight pause. ' You haven't 
 got more good things than you should have ; it is 
 other people who have fewer. Your giving yours up 
 \vould not give them to those that lack them. A 
 placejn the world can be but filled ; and if we are 
 filKng it ourselves, nobody else can do more. But our 
 very best things we can always share. The best things 
 of life are like the five loaves and the three small 
 fishes ; they'll not give out till there is nobody hold- 
 ing out his hand for them. There are our friends, 
 for instance, and ' Another pause. ' The world 
 isn't poorer because these love us. If they love us 
 really, it is the richer ; they'll be better and kinder to 
 everybody for qiu- sake. Why, Chrissy, if we see one 
 without hands or feet, we don't cut off ours to make 
 ourselves like him ; we are thankful to have ours to 
 help him, and to have our wits, too, to save those 
 accidents from happening by which people are likely
 
 1 90 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 to lose hands and feet. I do think that whenever 
 we get a bit of happiness, we ought to look about 
 to see whether there is any piece of God's work that 
 it gives us courage to do. Do you know, Chrissy 
 dear, if it had not been for the thought that I was to 
 have your cheerful company of an evening, I'm not 
 sure I'd have taken heart to have poor Esther Gray 
 working here in the morning. The American poet 
 says 
 
 I * Only the sorrows of others, 
 , Cast their shadows over me." 
 
 But I really think the sorrows and burdens of others 
 are harder to bear than our own. I've often thought 
 that seeing pain is worse than feeling it. I can't help 
 fancying that if I was in Esther's place I'd get some 
 comfort from the thought of God's goodness, and of 
 how He has promised to put our sins as far from us 
 as the east is from the west, and has bidden us not 
 to think of the things which are behind, but to press 
 
 forward to those which are before. I believe Esther 
 
 I 
 
 has turned right round ; but the more one sees what 
 a deal of suffering there is in getting repented-of sin 
 out of one's heart and memory in this world, the' 
 more one trembles to think what may await unrei 
 pented sin in the next.' 
 
 And then Chrissy thought to herself, How was 
 it that she had forgotten this terrible shadow that 
 haunted her daily life ? its horror only dimmed by
 
 ESTHER GRAY. 191 
 
 its familiarity. Why- did her heart yearn over the 
 unknown crowds going down into the swamps of 
 sin, or strugggling out of them, while she yet held 
 aloof from this woman, Esther Gray, going and 
 coming daily beneath her own roof? To own the 
 truth, Chrissy had always shrank a little from 
 Esther's gloomy averted face, with its blurred features 
 and stained complexion, from the coarse clinging 
 mourning, worn for him whom in the days of her 
 youth she had loved with an unhallowed love, for 
 which she had thrown away life's best hopes and 
 simplest duties, and whom she had lived to loathe 
 with an equally unhallowed hatred. In her presence 
 Chrissy had never been able to forget that Esther 
 was under the shadow of an awful doubt. Her 
 husband, her companion in sin and degradation, had 
 died a sudden and violent death, and whether by 
 accident or by her hand no being in the world knew. 
 Not even Esther herself. The tragedy had been 
 enacted in a wild debauch, and when Esther, coming 
 to herself in a prison cell, heard of her husband's 
 death, her memory remained a blank concerning all 
 which preceded it. A merciful allowance for possi- 
 bilities, a wide construction of the medical evidence, 
 had let her go free. But no verdict of not guilty 
 could efface the brand of Cain from the woman's 
 own heart. It was not to be expected that Chrissy 
 Miller should not shrink from such an one.
 
 1 92 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 But now she remembered how pitifully her father 
 had spoken of the days of Esther's lost girlish 
 innocence. Could it be any fault of Esther's fellow- 
 sinners that Esther could realise no peace and cheer 
 in the thought of God's forgiveness ? Miss Griffin 
 had played a Christian's part she had opened up a 
 way of honest work ; and whether Esther knew it 
 or not, was, at her own cost, making this possible 
 for Esther. But might not some lighter touch of 
 human fellowship be awanting something that 
 might seem less a working out the redemption of 
 the sinner than a friendly greeting for a sinner who 
 was redeemed ? 
 
 It was the first anniversary of Mr. Miller's death. 
 It was the evening before this which was terrible to 
 Chrissy. Its very lights and shadows, its very 
 atmosphere, brought back that evening in Saint 
 Cecilia's, Mr. Bentley's sermon, and all the aspira- 
 tions it awoke, and that last talk afterwards in the 
 counting - house. Mrs. Bisset, who was far too 
 friendly with Chrissy not to know all the dates of 
 her life, and their significance, had bidden her 
 husband give his girl-assistant a half-holiday that 
 evening, and a whole holiday on the morrow. 
 
 Chrissy had her little plan of loving remembrance. 
 She took the train to Epping Forest, she knew an 
 unfrequented glade where wild roses and sweet field- 
 flowers of many kinds still flourished. She would
 
 ESTHER GRAY. 193 
 
 gather a great basketful, and then next day she 
 would select the freshest and twine them in a wreath 
 to lay on her father's grave, in the great dreary 
 cemetery, where his ashes lay lonely, for Chrissy's 
 mother had been buried in a little local graveyard 
 long since closed by wise sanitary law. 
 
 Chrissy got her flowers. She had a hard struggle 
 for some of the richest boughs of roses, for she was 
 only a little body. How easily her tall father had 
 broken them for her in that very glade ! Never 
 mind if there were some bitter heart-rent sobs in 
 that sunny corner. God heard them, and -so did 
 His trees and His daisies. Perhaps there was a 
 little hot dew on the grass where Chrissy had pressed 
 her face for one short moment. But she had no 
 time to lose. She filled her basket as full as it 
 would hold, and, going home in the train, she gave 
 two bonnie blossoms to a babe, who crowed in its 
 father's arms and stretched out its little hands 
 towards her treasures. 
 
 She set the beautiful basket out on the window- 
 ledge in Miss Griffin's staircase, that it might get 
 the benefit of all the air that blew into the dusky 
 old house. It did look very lovely ! Chrissy stole 
 out of her bedroom more than once to gaze upon it. 
 For it was not often nowadays that the London- 
 pent girl saw wild roses. 
 
 The next morning she was early astir to make
 
 194 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 preparations for her sweet-sad pilgrimage. There- 
 fore Miss Griffin indulged in a little longer repose, 
 and Chrissy herself admitted Esther Gray. She left 
 the dismal woman to her accustomed tasks, and 
 went back to her own bedroom. 
 
 For a long time she heard Esther Gray's broom 
 at work. But suddenly the sound ceased, and there 
 was profound silence. There are some silences 
 which call us more loudly than any cry, and, oddly 
 enough, this silence arrested Chrissy's attention. 
 She opened her bedroom door, and looked out. 
 The dismal woman was standing in front of the 
 basket of roses, her two hands spread out on the 
 window-sill, and her eyes gazing into the rose- 
 clusters with awful tearless agony. 
 
 For a moment Chrissy remembered all the sin, 
 all the degradation, all the crime. But next minute 
 she thought of her father's words, and of all the 
 terrible abysses which yawn round human lives, the 
 slippery edges thereof veiled with honey flowers. 
 
 She stepped forward, and put her hand on 
 Esther's arm. 
 
 ' Esther ! ' she said. 
 
 The woman started, and stood upright. But she 
 did not turn towards Chrissy, nor lift her eyes from 
 the flowers. 
 
 ' Aren't they beautiful ? ' Chrissy whispered. ' Does 
 not God give us lovely gifts ? '
 
 'SHE STEPPED FORWARD.' P. 194.
 
 ESTHER GRAY. 197 
 
 The woman threw up her hands and clasped 
 them about her head, and cried out with an exceed- 
 ing bitter cry. Chrissy was so startled that she 
 scarcely knew what to do. But nature had her wise 
 way. After the convulsion, which, as it were, rent 
 Esther Gray's soul and body, the merciful tears 
 came, and she stood sobbing. And presently, amid 
 the sobs, there were words. Chrissy bent forward 
 to catch them. 
 
 ' He gathered wild roses for me once long ago 
 when we went out together. I haven't seen wild 
 roses for years and years ! And they brought it all 
 back ; I wish we'd seen them once again while we 
 were together ! ' 
 
 Chrissy understood that Esther was speaking of 
 the unhappy husband whose life had ruined and 
 haunted her life, and whose violent death must 
 haunt it to the end. She scarcely knew what to 
 say. But Esther went on 
 
 ' Since I've tried to live a better life, the old days 
 have come back upon me, and I remember him as 
 he used to be, and I can't think how I ever changed 
 towards him. I don't think I shall be able to bear 
 it all. I'm like a dirty thing picked out of the mud. 
 I'd better be thrown back again out of sight of 
 everybody even myself.' 
 
 'No, no, Esther,' said Chrissy. 'You would not 
 be out of God's sight.'
 
 198 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' The more the pity, then ! ' she cried passionately. 
 ' For he is out of God's sight.' 
 
 'Nay, nay,' whispered Chrissy, trembling; 'we 
 must not pass judgment on our worst enemy, much 
 less on those who have sinned and suffered with us. 
 And there can be no place in the universe, Esther, 
 out of God's sight.' 
 
 Esther Gray raised her head suddenly, like one 
 roused by an unexpected hope. 
 
 ' But you don't know what my loneliness is,' she 
 resumed dully, ' and I'm not like you, I can't amuse 
 myself with pretty innocent work. I can't think of 
 happy things ; I must not there are none for me 
 to think about. When I go home at night, I'm too 
 tired to do anything but sit still and mope. I don't 
 try even to sleep more than I must, because I have 
 such bad dreams.' 
 
 Chrissy's mind just now was very open to all 
 impressions received at this time last year. In her 
 perplexity, she remembered the question whose use 
 Mr. Bentley had suggested in his memorable ser- 
 mon at St. Cecilia's: 'What would Jesus do?' 
 
 'Would you like me to come and sit with you for 
 a little sometimes?' she asked gently, after a pause. 
 
 ' Oh, Miss Chrissy ! ' said Esther, looking round in 
 amaze, but shaking her head as she answered, ' Oh, 
 Miss Chrissy, but you couldn't come ! I'm in the 
 very room where it happened.'
 
 ESTHER GRAY. 199 
 
 It was too true, horrid as it seemed. The 
 miserable woman had crept back, like a wild beast 
 to its lair. Her little possessions were there, and 
 the now resident landlord had known that whatever 
 his tenant's other faults might be, she would be 
 honest as far as she could, and so he had let her 
 return, after her unsatisfactory acquittal. 
 
 ' I know,' said Chrissy, ' I know ; but God is there 
 too, Esther.' 
 
 'It's scarcely fit for human beings to live in,' 
 Esther went on, ' but it was good enough for us and 
 our ways, and it's good enough for me now. I've 
 no right to aught better.' 
 
 ' I'll come this very evening, Esther,' said Chrissy. 
 
 ' Not this evening, miss ? ' repeated Esther. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Chrissy ; ' why not ? ' 
 
 ' I know what the date is to you,' cried Esther, 
 and I know what you lost this time last year. Oh, 
 dear ! what a good man your father was ! " God 
 help you, Esther Gray ! " he said to me, when first 
 I came out of prison ; " God help you, and God 
 bless you ! " It was not much, but I know he meant 
 a deal. When he died, I felt as if I'd lost some- 
 body I might have looked to.' 
 
 Chrissy's own tears were falling fast. 
 
 ' We'll talk about him together this evening, 
 Esther,' she said. 
 
 ' I don't like your coming to my dismal hole
 
 200 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 to-day,' Esther pleaded. ' When the spirit's sad 
 and sorry, it needs a little cheeriness. It does. I 
 know that, because I go awanting it.' 
 
 A sudden inspiration seized Chrissy. It seemed 
 as if her father's voice whispered in her heart those 
 sweet words of the Master's ' Inasmuch as ye have 
 done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done 
 it unto Me.' 
 
 ' Take my roses, Esther,' she said eagerly. ' They 
 will make your room bright for a day or two, and I 
 shall see them when I come at night.' 
 
 Esther knew nothing of Chrissy's holiday, or the 
 pathetic excursion she had planned for it. It was 
 not for Chrissy to tell her what it cost to give her 
 this pleasure. Esther poured out her thanks only 
 was she not ' robbing ' Chrissy ? though, to be sure, 
 the room would be the brighter when she came, 
 since she would persist in being so good. 
 
 ' No, you are not robbing me in the least,' Chrissy 
 answered. ' Only ' and she gently disengaged one 
 rich bough from the mass of blossoms ' I should 
 like to take this for somebody else.' 
 
 ' Oh, won't you take more for them ? ' Esther 
 asked innocently. 
 
 ' No,' said Chrissy. ' I am sure somebody else 
 would far rather you had them.' 
 
 Esther carried off the flowers. And when Miss 
 Griffin came out of her room, and missed them,
 
 ESTHER GRAY. 201 
 
 she exclaimed, but Chrissy silenced her with a 
 kiss 
 
 'Don't you remember what the angel said at 
 Jesus' grave ? ' asked the girl. ' He said, " He is 
 not here, for He is risen." Jesus only came there 
 for one moment to comfort weeping Mary and 
 then she scarcely knew Him. But the hand- 
 maidens who must have set the supper-tables for 
 the disciples found they had set for the Master 
 too ! So, surely, if there is one place where the 
 spirits of the just are least likely to linger, it is 
 at their own graves ; and the best offering we 
 can make to the departed is help and service to 
 those still with us.'
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AN ANNIVERSARY. 
 
 HRISSY made her 
 pilgrimage to the 
 cemetery alone. 
 It certainly did not 
 matter to her father 
 where his ashes lay, 
 but it did seem a 
 little hard that one 
 who had kept about 
 himself the quaint 
 individuality of the 
 Shield Street 
 house, and had 
 held in utter dislike the uniform rows of pretentious 
 vulgarity which are springing up round all huge 
 cities, should have been carried by others to a large 
 necropolis, scant of tree and bare of grass, and sur- 
 rounded by a fungi of undertakers' shops and masons' 
 yards, thriving on conventional woe, and doing their 
 
 202
 
 AN ANNIVERSARY. 203 
 
 best to desecrate the solemn regions of death and 
 sorrow. 
 
 Chrissy had had no choice in the matter. The 
 selection of a grave had been made by Aunt Kezia, 
 certain Daffys of respectability and wealth having 
 been among the first people interred in that cemetery. 
 In fact, some shares in it were among the Daffy 
 investments, so that Aunt Kezia had been able to 
 buy the grave ' at an advantage,' as she expressed 
 it, and poor honest Chrissy, anxious that every 
 penny of her father's estate should be spared for its 
 dreadful debt to the creditors of the Metropolitan 
 Bank, had therefore raised no objection. 
 
 Among the vast wilderness of gravestones only 
 varied here and there by pretentious catafalques, 
 looking not unlike petrified four-posters Chrissy 
 found her father's grave. She found it by its 
 number. It had nothing but a tiny wooden 
 memorial-mark already mildewed and its turf 
 was rough and poor. And as Chrissy stood beside 
 it, she thought that it was well that she had already 
 recalled the angel's words. No, her father was ' not 
 there.' She kissed her sweet spray of wild rose, 
 and laid it gently on the blackened sod, and 
 turned away. 
 
 As she turned, she saw two figures advancing 
 towards her, down the straight narrow path. They 
 were her sister Helen and her Aunt Kezia.
 
 204 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 Helen had a wreath of immortelles in her hand, 
 and the first glance showed Chrissy that she looked 
 pale and unhappy. Chrissy did not wonder at it, 
 for she could not imagine that Aunt Kezia's com- 
 panionship on such an occasion would be either 
 soothing or inspiriting. 
 
 ' Well, Chrissy,' said Miss Daffy, ' I thought we 
 should not see you here. I fancied you were so 
 devoted to business that you would not think of 
 taking a holiday. Dear me ! how miserable the 
 grave looks, doesn't it ? Who can have put down 
 that trumpery wild-flower, I wonder ? You, Chrissy ! 
 You won't like to leave it there beside Helen's 
 wreath, I reckon. That did not cost less than 
 five shillings.' 
 
 ' It cost more than that,' said Helen. ' I should 
 not have liked to bring a cheap thing.' 
 
 She did not add that she had borrowed the 
 money from a fellow-workwoman, having spent every 
 shilling of her own upon summer additions to her 
 wardrobe. 
 
 'You'll be thinking of putting up a memorial 
 stone soon, I suppose, Chrissy?' Miss Daffy went 
 on. 'To-day would be a very good opportunity 
 for ordering one, when we are all here to consult 
 together in the selection. I should not mind 
 contributing a trifle. We must not ask Helen for 
 anything just now, because she has less cash
 
 AN ANNIVERSARY. 
 
 205 
 
 payment than you, and is obliged to keep up so 
 much more appearance. You must have saved a 
 good deal of money, Chrissy. You must be able to 
 spare six or seven pounds at least, and you could 
 not spend it in a more meritorious way.' 
 
 'I am not thinking of putting up a memorial 
 stone now,' said Chrissy with a beating heart. '1 
 shall put up a little stone cross some day some- 
 thing that will mark the grave for us permanently. 
 But I cannot do even that just now/ she added 
 resolutely, hoping to put an end to Miss Daffy's 
 solicitations. 
 
 ' Oh, well/ said Aunt Kezia, 'just as you please; 
 only I should have thought you would have liked 
 to show every possible respect to your father. Of 
 course I have no reason to interfere. He was not 
 a blood relation of mine, you know. Nobody can 
 blame me for whatever you choose to omit.' 
 
 Chrissy might have known that it would be as 
 well to drop the subject, but she was stung into 
 rejoining 
 
 ' Father did not care for large and costly 
 memorials. He used to say the stones and the 
 money would be better employed in improving poor 
 people's houses than in making barren the resting- 
 place of those who can no longer feel cold or damp. 
 But I do wish he had been buried where flowers 
 would grow,' she added impulsively.
 
 206 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 Aunt Kezia shook her head significantly. 
 
 'I know we had a deal of trouble to get your 
 father to do the usual proper things when your poor 
 mother died. He always had queer views. It's 
 odd how such things turn round on people's own 
 heads at last. Well, well there's nothing like 
 making oneself as comfortable as one can while one 
 lives, for when one's dead, one is soon forgotten. 
 But perhaps it is as well that you shouldn't put up 
 any memorial just now. If people who had lost 
 through folks taking shares in the Great Metropolitan 
 when they had no estates fit to meet the share's 
 liabilities, should see a memorial, they might say 
 ugly things. When a blunder has been made, it is 
 best to court no comment.' 
 
 Chrissy's heart swelled. She moved from the 
 grave. She could not bear to hear her aunt's 
 speeches beside it. 
 
 ' Now, we'll go and see the Daffy tomb,' said 
 Aunt Kezia cheerfully. ' It is in the first-class 
 ground, of course, for Cousin Daffy was very 
 particular, and had everything of the best. He 
 made his fortune out in the East Indies. He 
 managed to make an extra sharp bargain with 
 Government over some matter. We heard there 
 might have been a fuss about it, but it was hushed 
 up. It was said that was because the Government 
 servants were afraid they would be compromised.
 
 AN ANNIVERSARY. 207 
 
 That was said, you know ; but perhaps Cousin Daffy 
 made it worth their while to keep quiet. Going 
 abroad was a fine thing in those days, when the 
 natives were not up to things as they are now, and 
 a good deal might be made out of them. Cousin 
 Daffy was the best business man I ever knew, and 
 was my first adviser about money matters. That 
 is his grave, girls.' 
 
 She pointed to one of the largest and heaviest 
 erections in the cemetery. 
 
 ' Only two of his wives are buried there,' she went 
 on. ' He had three, you know, but the second was 
 one of the Burgesses of Strathallerton, and so she left 
 directions that she was to be buried in her own 
 family's vault at her own place ; for, of course, the 
 Burgesses were county people, and quite above the 
 Daffys in that way, for my cousin would never buy 
 land, because it brings in such a poor percentage. 
 Cousin Daffy used to say he married his first wife 
 for money, his second for position, and his third to 
 please himself. She was quite a young girl when 
 he was an old man, and she could have married 
 him only for his money ; and he left her very well 
 off provided she never married again, and she was 
 not to have a penny if she did. Oh, he was a shrewd 
 man, Cousin Daffy, and a credit to the family! When 
 your poor mother died, I wanted your father to buy 
 a grave for her close to this monument. I'm sure it
 
 208 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 would have done him good in his business if he had 
 kept his marriage connection with Cousin Daffy 
 well under the world's eyes. But he had his ways, 
 poor man, and you seem to take after him, Chrissy.' 
 
 Chrissy drew herself up proudly. Those words, 
 uttered in scoff, atoned for all the pain. Our highest 
 praise is sometimes given us in the form of blame. 
 
 The aunt moved on towards the gate of the 
 cemetery. The two girls followed behind. 
 
 ' I have not seen much of the Ackroyds lately, 
 Helen,' said Chrissy. 'When did you see them last ? ' 
 
 'Not for some weeks,' answered Helen. 'James 
 has not come to Aunt Kezia's lately. Have you 
 heard anything about him, Chrissy ? ' 
 
 ' No," answered Chrissy, surprised. ' Have you ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, only a sort of vague rumour the gossip 
 which always goes about,' replied Helen shortly. 
 She evidently did not care to be questioned, and 
 Chrissy, mystified, dropped the subject. 
 
 At the gate of the cemetery Miss Daffy gave 
 Chrissy a careless invitation to spend the rest of 
 the day with her ; but Chrissy was not sorry that 
 her promise to Esther Gray enabled her to plead 
 previous engagement. 
 
 She walked home to Shield Street with a burning 
 heart. Yes, it was quite true that people had lost 
 by her father. The claim on his share in the Great 
 Metropolitan Bank was four thousand pounds, and
 
 AN ANN1 VERSAR Y. 209 
 
 the whole of his property had only amounted to two 
 thousand five hundred. It was quite true that he had 
 given his life with it. It was equally true that he 
 had taken the share in the dark, off the hands of a 
 man whose property would not have been worth 
 nearly so much. But Chrissy could remember none 
 of these things at this moment. There would run 
 in her head the lines from the familiar song 
 
 ' He looks the whole world in the face, 
 For he owes not any man.' 
 
 And was her father one of whom that could not 
 be said ? Oh, what would he have done if he had 
 lived ! Ah ! she knew. He would have begun 
 life again, and set himself to toil, no longer for his 
 own future or the well-being of those he loved, but 
 to repay to the uttermost farthing the debt in which 
 a moment's want of caution had involved him. He 
 had lain down to his last rest with his Bible open 
 at the fifteenth Psalm ; and among its traits of the 
 just man was one which his daughter was sure he 
 would have acted out ' He that sweareth to his 
 own hurt, and changeth not.' 
 
 Then Chrissy must herself take up the task which 
 God had taken from her father by removing him to 
 Himself. But to her the task would mean carrying 
 a burden all her days, and leaving it unfulfilled at 
 last. One thousand five hundred pounds ! And 
 
 Aunt Kezia said women never made fortunes! And 
 
 o
 
 2io EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 truly Chrissy had not aspired to making so much 
 money as this, but only to amass such a sum as 
 might buy some little business, and secure herself 
 a competent independence thereby. 
 
 ' I must do what I can,' said Chrissy, with the hot 
 tears in her eyes. ' Perhaps it is good for me to feel 
 what it is to have to live under a shame and blame 
 which can never be wiped away. If they are so 
 hard to bear when they are not one's fault, what 
 must it be when they are ? ' 
 
 And her heart yearned towards Esther Gray no 
 longer in mere pity, but in that fellowship of pain 
 and loss on which alone Divine Law has ordained 
 that help and redemption can come. 
 
 ' I suppose I ought not to have lent those ten 
 pounds to Hans Krinken,' she asked herself. ' One 
 must be just before one is generous, I know. And 
 yet those ten pounds are not lost. Hans will pay 
 me again, if he lives. [Little did she dream of the 
 precautions he had taken.] And surely one has a 
 right to make such a venture as that ! I think I 
 recollect Bishop Jeremy Taylor said something on 
 that matter. I shall look it up in his " Holy 
 Living " directly I get home. I do hope I shall not 
 have to feel I was wrong in lending that to Hans ! ' 
 
 And when she went home, she was comforted. 
 Bishop Taylor's opinion was as follows. For though 
 the good bishop said sternly enough ' He that gives
 
 AN ANN1VERSAR Y. 211 
 
 to the poor what is not his own, makes himself the 
 thief and the poor the receiver ; ' yet he went on 
 ' This is not to be understood as if it were un- 
 lawful for a man that is not able to pay his debts 
 to give smaller alms to the poor. He may not give 
 such portions as can in any sense disable him to do 
 justice ; but such as, if they were saved, could not 
 advance the other duty, may retire to this.' 
 
 ' I have only lent,' mused Chrissy ; 'all I have 
 really given is the very small risk of some accident 
 preventing my being repaid/ 
 
 She knew, of course, that the law set her free 
 from her father's debt ; that if she gained a million 
 on the morrow, not a penny could be claimed from 
 her for a Metropolitan Bank creditor, though he 
 might be starving. But law is made for lak of 
 love. Love knows no law, being above and beyond 
 all law. Chrissy saw that the law was just, in so far 
 protecting the innocent from suffering for the sins 
 and follies of those whose very name and blood 
 they would cheerfully surrender if they might. 
 Only the law which was just enough for such as 
 those, was absolutely unmeaning to one who, like 
 her, longed for nothing so much as utter unity with 
 her father, owing all to him, and longing to bear his 
 burdens, and to suffer and conquer in his cause. 
 
 She spent the evening with Esther Gray. She 
 did not wonder now that Esther could not hope she
 
 2i2 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 had not been guilty of the worst could not joy- 
 fully believe in God's forgiveness even if she had. 
 It was the simple goodness of her father which had 
 bound a weight on Chrissy's dutiful life, but it 
 sufficed to give her sympathy with that sense of 
 hopeless struggle that realisation of 'nevermore' 
 which was crushing Esther to the earth. 
 
 The woman felt that the girl was nearer to her, 
 even, than she had been in the morning ; and as they 
 sat together in the dusk in the dull room, watching 
 the dim city sunlight fade over dreary back walls, 
 she spoke out from the depths of her misery 
 
 ' I wish I'd been found guilty. I believe capital 
 punishment is mercy to such as I am. A life for a 
 life. It seems the natural thing. And I begin to 
 think there's no peace for them as miss it.' 
 
 ' Esther,' said Chrissy suddenly, scarcely knowing 
 her own words before she uttered them, ' Esther, 
 perhaps it is so. You may owe your life. But you 
 needn't throw it away in waste. Lives are wanted. 
 Lives are always being risked for good ends. Find 
 some duty, which somebody must do, in which life 
 is always in danger, and then, Esther, do it ! If 
 God takes your life from you in that way, you will 
 have redeemed with your life the life of the person 
 who must otherwise have done that duty. It will 
 be a life for a life, Esther, after all ! ' 
 
 Esther sprang to her feet. Yes, as Chrissy looked
 
 AN ANNIVERSAR Y. 213 
 
 up at her, she could now believe that in her youth 
 she had been beautiful ! 
 
 ' That's it ! ' she cried. ' That's the very thing ! 
 Dear, how clear puzzles always are when they're 
 found out! But then,' and a shadow of fear darkened 
 her brightened face, ' it is the right thing ; but how 
 is it to be done? Women are not let do dangerous 
 work in mines nowadays.' 
 
 ' There is the small - pox hospital,' suggested 
 Chrissy timidly. 'You are not a trained nurse, but 
 they always want strong, capable, willing women.' 
 
 ' That will do,' said Esther, sitting down with a 
 sigh of intense relief. ' Only I'll have to get you or 
 Miss Griffin to write and tell some of the head people 
 who I am, for I won't go in under any false pretences. 
 Oh dear, what a blessed help it will be to have some- 
 body to be kind to ! And when the poor souls are 
 raving, maybe they'll fancy I'm their mother, or 
 some good friend ! Oh, Miss Chrissy, your father 
 was one of God's saints, and isn't it odd that it should 
 be on the very anniversary of his death that you 
 should come and give me a new hope ? For I could 
 not have held out much longer. Despair had nigh 
 got hold of me, and I mind hearing an old minister 
 say, " Despair was the devil's fishing-rod." ' 
 
 ' Yes, it was strange,' thought Chrissy, sitting 
 silent. ' Her father's death-day was it not rather 
 his new birth-day? And was not any service done
 
 2i4 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 to this poor soul, the one gift which could surely 
 reach him where he stood among those angels of 
 God, who rejoice over the repenting sinner?' 
 
 They had a little more quiet talk. They spoke 
 together of Mr. Bentley's sermon on that summer 
 night in St. Cecilia's-in-the-Garden. 
 
 ' That was the first uplift I got,' Esther narrated. 
 ' Do you remember how he said Jesus called each 
 of us " brother " " sister " ? That stuck by me for 
 a long while. I think he must be a good man, that 
 Mr. Bentley. And he's got troubles of his own, too. 
 I reckon.' 
 
 ' Most people have,' said Chrissy ; ' but what 
 makes you think so in Mr. Bentley's case ? ' 
 
 ' There is a son of his who is very wild,' replied 
 Esther. ' I used to see him at taverns and gaming- 
 places when I w r ent hanging about such, waiting for 
 my poor husband. I happened to hear his name, 
 and that he was the son of a clergyman in the 
 country. He was a clerk in the Great Metropolitan 
 Bank before it failed, you know. And the very 
 night after I was acquitted, I went out after dark to 
 get some food, and I met him, half-intoxicated, in 
 charge of your old neighbour Mr. Ackroyd. On the 
 day of your papa's death, I saw the same young 
 man in company with the Mr. Bentley who had 
 preached that beautiful sermon. So you may be 
 sure he is his son, and a heartbreak to him. I see
 
 AN ANN1 VERSAR Y. 215 
 
 him sometimes now, and he is fast sinking into an 
 utter reprobate. And oh ! Miss Chrissy, I don't like 
 that Mr. Ackroyd. We poor outcast wretches know 
 the truth of many a one that their better neighbours 
 think fairly good and respectable ; and there's 
 nothing makes us feel more bitter and lost, than to 
 see how some who are as bad as we are, but better 
 hypocrites, and maybe richer and better born, are 
 tolerated and accepted, while we are scouted and 
 rejected. We get to blame Christianity for it ; but 
 I own I've always felt that if there is anything 
 ivhich is not Jesus' way, it is just this.' 
 
 Perhaps Chrissy did not hear all "Esther's words. 
 She sat silent and absorbed. But Esther was now too 
 assured of her real sympathy to mistrust this silence. 
 
 Of what was Chrissy thinking ? 
 
 She was thinking that she had found the clue to 
 the one question which had puzzled her and Hans 
 Krinken how Mr. Ackroyd had acquired informa- 
 tion which had led him to rid himself of his Great 
 Metropolitan shares. What more likely than that, 
 knowing this poor prodigal lad in the confidence 
 of the Bank, he had taken advantage of his intoxi- 
 cation to worm its secrets from him ? 
 
 When Chrissy returned to Miss Griffin's apart- 
 ments she found supper awaiting her, and also a 
 letter from Hans Krinken. It was not the first, the 
 second, nor the third which had arrived since his 
 departure, but it was by far the bulkiest.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS. 
 
 EAR MISS CHRISTINA/ wrote 
 Hans Krinken, ' I have already told 
 you of our voyage and our arrival, 
 and our journeying onward, drop- 
 ping first one and then another 
 group of our party at their chosen 
 destinations. I have told you in 
 other letters about the country 
 and its people and their ways. 
 But this time I am going to write a letter about 
 ourselves and our own business. 
 
 ' I shall begin with yours. I have sold every one 
 of your beautiful careful little studies of English 
 places. I have kept an exact account of the money I 
 have received for each, which you will find enclosed. 
 The whole amounts to the sum of twenty-five pounds. 
 I have sold them in out-of-the-way places, where 
 few pictures are ever seen to homely farmers and 
 
 216
 
 TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS. 217 
 
 rough miners and shrewd housewives. And you 
 should have heard the talk over them, and seen the 
 looks which husbands and wives and parents and 
 children exchanged when they saw your representa- 
 tions of places they had once known so well, and 
 will never see again. And they whispered together, 
 and tears came into their eyes, and I think their 
 voices were softer, and I was treated like a friend 
 who had brought back a bit of the past. And, better 
 than this sale, I have a great order for work of yours. 
 The proprietor of a paper here wishes you to do for 
 him two pictures in every month, of London houses 
 famous in fiction, anecdote, or history.' And here 
 Hans enumerated the length of the engagement and 
 the terms offered. 
 
 And Chrtssy jumped up and danced about the 
 room, crying 
 
 'And I shan't even have to give up the shop the 
 dear old shop for early morning will be the quietest 
 and best time for sketching, and a little of " early to 
 bed and early to rise " will do it all, and I can sketch 
 just as I always did, as if it was for pure love, and 
 all the extra money can go to paying off that terrible 
 Metropolitan.' 
 
 ' And now I will go on to some affairs of my own,' 
 wrote Hans, 'and they are not so altogether sun- 
 shiny as yours, at least not to my mind. You 
 remember my German schoolfellow, to whom I wrote
 
 2 i8 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION, 
 
 some time ago, and who answered me, after a long 
 delay, from America, and related that some stranger 
 had put in an appearance in my native village, and 
 had been making inquiries about me. 
 
 ' Well, during my travels, I found, by referring to 
 my schoolfellow's letter, that I must be rather near 
 his home, and so, for the sake of old times, and 
 because my grandfather had rather liked the lad, in 
 spite of his wild ways, I made up my mind to pay 
 him a visit. 
 
 ' I found him in a beautiful lonely district in the 
 Canadian backwoods. He is married already. Miss 
 Christina, it is strange to see the first married among 
 one's contemporaries ; it reminds one that one has 
 reached the foremost rank of life ! Besides his wife, 
 he has her sister with him, and they all live in a 
 little wooden house, whose timbers he cut down and 
 sawed himself. They have made the furniture too, 
 nearly everything. The little piece of land on which 
 they live is entirely their own, and yields them all 
 their sustenance, with enough over for exchange for 
 clothing, and for little savings. It seems to me a 
 good way of life a safe road to real prosperity, 
 with peace and pleasure all the way along. 
 
 ' Well, my old friend was very pleased to see me. 
 He had been very glad indeed to hear of me when I 
 wrote to him from Shield Street, and had written 
 back to our old neighbourhood, saying that he had
 
 TWE-NTY-FIVE POUNDS. 219 
 
 heard from me, and that I was in London and doing 
 well. But he did not give anybody my address, 
 having a feeling that if I wanted that done, I ought 
 to do it myself. 
 
 ' And so, only two or three days before I suddenly 
 appeared at the door of his shanty, almost making 
 him think that he beheld a ghost, he had had 
 another letter from Germany, asking definitely for 
 my address, as there was important news for me. 
 
 ' Miss Christina, you are the daughter of a good 
 man. I find I am the son of a very bad one. Your 
 father died ruined. My father has died as he was 
 born rich and honoured. I would not say one word 
 against him, but that he deceived and deserted my 
 mother, and left her to die of a broken heart while I 
 was in my cradle. My grandparents her father 
 and mother asked nothing from him for me; they 
 asked only to rear their daughter's child in their own 
 godly fashion. My poor father had no legal claim 
 on me : the same artifice by which he gave my 
 mother no legal claim on him, served at least to set 
 me free from his authority; but the terror of my 
 grandparents' life was, lest it should please him, as I 
 grew up, to assert his relationship to me, exert its 
 natural influence over me, and lead me into paths 
 which they knew could only end in ruin both for 
 this life and the next. This was why they desired 
 me to leave Germany.
 
 220 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 It appears that it was my father himself who came 
 in his carriage to our village, asking after me. Pro- 
 bably he came directly he heard of my grandparent's 
 death. I can well understand that he must have 
 shrank wealthy and well-born as he was from 
 meeting my poor honest old grandfather, whose 
 only daughter he had cruelly deceived and heartlessly 
 disgraced. I can't help hoping that it was some 
 feeling of regret for her sake which made him think 
 of seeking me out. It seems his health had been 
 failing for some time, though he died suddenly at 
 last ; so perhaps he had had quietness and leisure 
 to think over the past, and see it in its true light, 
 and be sorry for it. In those last days he made a 
 will, and though, of course, his estates and revenues 
 go to those to whom they justly belong to those 
 who bear his name he has yet remembered me. 
 
 ' For his own sake, I am glad he did so. 
 
 'Of course I shall never touch a farthing of his 
 money. To me, it is tainted with the blood of my 
 mother's broken heart. My old schoolfellow here 
 thinks me Quixotic in this, but my mind is made 
 up. I am sure even you could not change it. I 
 believe I am sure of this, because I am certain you 
 will never try. 
 
 ' I have written to Germany, and as soon as my 
 first sojourn here is over, and I return to England, 
 I shall go on to the Continent and get this little
 
 TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS. 221 
 
 matter settled, and pay a farewell visit to the graves 
 of my mother and my grandparents. 
 
 c My old schoolfellow fancies I am making a great 
 sacrifice. But really I don't feel it to be so. I am 
 enamoured of the thought of hammering out my 
 own fortune from the rock of circumstance. One 
 does not want much for true happiness. One wants 
 only clean hands and a brave heart and a bright 
 hope ; and these one must have, and it is the worst 
 of follies to risk any of these for something else 
 which can never supply its place. 
 
 ' Perhaps it is easier for me to think thus because 
 I feel sure you will agree with me/ 
 
 And then the letter closed with a few inquiries 
 after ' Miss Helen,' and some affectionate messages 
 for ' Miss Griffin.' 
 
 Chrissy dropped the letter on her knee, and sat 
 thoughtful. What a strange world it was ! How 
 singular it was that this new possibility of her pay- 
 ment of her father's innocent liabilities, and setting 
 his name free from casting any shadow over other 
 lives, had come to her by the hand of the worse 
 than fatherless youth, whom her father had clothed 
 and sheltered, and started in prosperous ways ! And 
 how strange it was that her father, who had given 
 her everything else love and joy, sweet memories 
 and inspiring hopes had left her, for her portion in 
 this world, a burden to lift and carry for his sake ;
 
 222 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 while Hans Krinken's father, who had given his 
 boy nothing who had, indeed, given him all that 
 was evil, if that evil had not been wrought into good 
 by other hands had yet endowed him with a share, 
 be it small or great, of this world's wealth ! At 
 first there was a little bitterness in the thought ; but 
 that was soon past, for Chrissy could not hesitate 
 for a moment which lot was to be chosen. Nay, 
 she could rejoice with Hans that his poor father had 
 given this one possible sign of some remembrance 
 and regret ; though she could fully sympathise with 
 the son's feeling, that he must not soften the condi- 
 tions of his own life by accepting a gift from one 
 who had embittered his mother's existence, and 
 driven her into an early grave. And Hans himself 
 needed no pity. Chrissy would not have liked to have 
 to pity Hans. We may pity those whose losses and 
 trials have made them less than they might have 
 been ; we may rather envy those whose losses and 
 trials have only raised them higher. In heaven we 
 shall not pity those who wear the martyr's crown ; 
 we shall keep our pity for those who builded the 
 martyr's pile. Hans had never known a father, but 
 the very lack of the earthly type seemed but to 
 have taught him the directness of his relation with 
 the Father-God. If we weighed the realities of loss 
 and gain, we might mete out the indignity of pity 
 in far different quarters; and if we sometimes said
 
 TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS. 225 
 
 'poor millionaire/ 'poor spoilt child,' 'poor glutton,' 
 instead of ' poor struggler,' ' poor orphan/ or ' poor 
 invalid/ we might set up a more wholesome state of 
 feeling among those who profess to believe that this 
 life is only the beginning of life. 
 
 Something of all this floated through Chrissy's 
 mind that night as she lay sleepless in her little bed. 
 For though pain and sorrow are often slumbrous, 
 a rapid current of new ideas and fresh images 
 bears sleep away. Chrissy could not rest until her 
 mind settled on one certain duty, to be instantly 
 discharged. To-morrow she must take her newly 
 acquired twenty-five pounds to the office of the 
 trustees of the Great Metropolitan Bank. Only 
 how little it seemed now ! and yet yesterday, as 
 she had walked home, forlornly, from that dreary 
 cemetery, it would have seemed so much as to be 
 incredible. It was true, it did not much reduce the 
 deficiency left by her father's ' estate ; but when we 
 have set our shoulders to push forward some heavy 
 weight, the first sign of movement thrills us with an 
 ecstasy of hope and joy, which can scarcely be 
 matched on that day of triumph when the burden is 
 finally shifted to its place and left at rest for ever. 
 
 Chrissy and her errand were somewhat pheno- 
 menal in the dry business office where she presented 
 herself with her twenty-five pounds. There was 
 some little difficulty as to what ledger should
 
 226 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 be brought into requisition, or what form of receipt 
 employed. 
 
 'Was the sum something farther realised from 
 Mr. Miller's estate ? ' asked an incredulous clerk, 
 half wondering whether he might not hint to the 
 pretty girl that if she kept the matter quiet, nobody 
 was likely to trouble her about it. 
 
 ' No,' Chrissy said. 
 
 ' From whom did it come, then ? ' 
 
 ' From Mr. Miller's daughter, Christina Miller,' she 
 answered simply. 
 
 She did not even add, ' That is me.' 
 
 The clerks whispered together, and went to an 
 inner office and fetched out a superior. He looked 
 sharply at Chrissy, and by a few well-aimed questions 
 elicited the fact of the case, on which he made no 
 comment, only wrote out a receipt, and walked 
 across the office before her and let her out himself. 
 
 ' What a strange world it would be if everybody 
 did business in that way ! ' he mused as he returned 
 to his sanctum. ' But I think it would be a better 
 world. I even think we should all be richer in the 
 long run.'
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE TWO SISTERS. 
 
 STHER GRAY remained firm to 
 her purpose. It puzzled Miss 
 Griffin somewhat. That good 
 woman's calm innocent con- 
 sciousness could scarcely fathom 
 the troubled waters which seethe 
 about a never - to - be forgotten 
 history of sin and crime. Why 
 could not Esther Gray find con- 
 solation in helping her with her work in the offices? 
 Esther had proved herself steady and reliable, * and 
 Esther might not realise the trouble which unsteady 
 and unreliable workers sometimes give,' said Miss 
 Griffin, almost reproachfully. 
 
 ' Oh, I am not ungrateful, ma'am,' said Esther ; 
 'but there's better people than me fit for your work. 
 There's a dock-labourer's widow I know of, a nice 
 decent young woman, with two little children. She 
 
 227
 
 228 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 can't be a nurse in the small-pox hospital, ma'am, 
 and I can. And that will leave my place for her.' 
 And Esther had her way. And when Miss Griffin 
 found how pleasant it was to see the little widow 
 brighten under the same kind words and services 
 which had seemed but to gall and torture Esther's 
 sore soul, then she began to think that Esther and 
 Chrissy had been right. 
 
 Hans' return to England was delayed much longer 
 than had at first seemed likely. Yet those were 
 happy days for both him and Chrissy. Labour in 
 the hands and love in the heart make about the 
 best which life has to give. And Chrissy was indeed 
 very busy. All that autumn she rose with the 
 dawn, that she might get far ahead with her sketch- 
 ing work before the tardy light and hastening gloom 
 of winter should make it impossible, except during 
 those hours which she intended to keep for Mr. 
 Bisset's service. She must adhere to her mechanical 
 labour at counter and desk to secure her own honest 
 maintenance ; her talent her bright little genius, 
 if she had any should toil for pure love in the 
 service of her dead father. 
 
 In those sweet silver-grey mornings, when she 
 trotted forth with camp-stool and portfolio, the sky 
 above her clear from smoke, the pavement beneath 
 clean and white, all sounds hushed except the 
 hastening steps of some early workman, and the
 
 THE TWO SISTERS. 229 
 
 twitter of the awakening sparrows, did it ever cross 
 Chrissy's mind that, but for human fraud but for a 
 neighbour's treachery her toil might have been still 
 for pure love, but for love living in joy and hope, 
 for love in the present, love in the future ? 
 
 It did. Once or twice, she even wondered to her- 
 self how a girl might feel whose labour was to help 
 to rear a new home to plenish a household nest. 
 But a voice within her answered that God's days are 
 long, that He has His own appointed times and 
 ways, and that He will not mock His children who 
 trust in Him. One thing remained clear. Without 
 dojng the right there could be no blessedness ; the 
 best blessedness was in the very doing of the right ; 
 and the Almighty Power who makes so clear the 
 way to the best blessedness, will^ not readily grudge 
 us aught else that is good for us. 
 
 Yes, in those days Chrissy was happy, except that 
 there was somebody who did not seem so, even her 
 sister Helen. Helen came oftener to visit Miss 
 Griffin's home, but she never seemed to take any 
 happy interest in anything she found going on 
 there. When she heard of Chrissy's drawings, she 
 only wondered why Chrissy need burden herself 
 with so much work. ' There was no good in money- 
 making of that kind,' she said, ' there was so little to 
 show after years of it just a few hundreds of pounds 
 at most and one's youth and good looks worn out
 
 230 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 into the bargain.' Chrissy scarcely liked to tell her 
 sister to what object she was devoting all her extra 
 earnings, past and future. To her delicate conscious- 
 ness, to state her sole undertaking of such filial task 
 seemed like conveying a reproach to Helen. But it 
 had to be told, sooner or later. And Chrissy need 
 not have shrunk from the telling. Helen regarded 
 her sister's ambition only as the fond whim of a 
 harmless kind of lunatic. 'Nobody expected such 
 Quixotic honesty, even from men,' she said. 'And 
 from women, it was absolutely absurd. Why, 
 marriage settlements were an invention to save 
 women from being compelled to share the losses 
 and misfortunes of even their husbands.' 
 
 'But because law furnishes possible protection 
 against those who may have become our enemies, 
 and from whom our only wish might be to detach 
 ourselves, we are not compelled to use its protection 
 against our friends against those with whom our 
 one ardent desire is to be united for ever,' said 
 Chrissy. 
 
 'Oh, well,' said Helen, 'each can do as each likes, 
 but women have quite enough to do for themselves, 
 and can scarcely provide for their own old age, 
 except by scrimping themselves all their lives, of 
 all that makes life worth having.' 
 
 ' Is that the duties of love and honour, or a few 
 silk dresses?' asked Chrissy, a little mischievously.
 
 THE TWO SISTERS. 231 
 
 But she looked up at Helen's face as she spoke, 
 and its expression checked her. It was not sad 
 it was scarcely what one would call suffering it 
 ' was rather the face of one weary, defeated ; above 
 / all, embittered. There comes a thrill of self-reproach 
 to loyal hearts like Chrissy's when first they realize 
 that sense of separation which separate duties and 
 separate aims are sure to bring, sooner or later, 
 to those born beside one hearth. How had she 
 and Helen got so far apart, that she could not even 
 guess whence fell the shadow which darkened her 
 sister's face ? 
 
 She had a vague intuition. Standing sideways at 
 her little toilet-table, so that she could not watch 
 Helen's face, and allow her sister to betray herself 
 by any unguarded expression, she asked, 
 
 ' Do you see the Ackroyds often now ? ' 
 
 ' No/ said Helen sharply. 
 
 There was a pause ; then Helen asked, 
 
 ' Do you see much of them in Shield Street? ' 
 
 ' Very little indeed,' answered Chrissy. ' I have 
 an impression that both James and Sophia have 
 been visiting from home a great deal.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes,' said Helen, with a rasping torture-tone 
 in her voice ; ' Sophia told me they were going 
 away, the last time she saw me. They go to stay 
 with the people who have taken James into the 
 stockbroking firm. As soon as he is competent
 
 232 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 to be a partner, he is to marry the daughter of the 
 house.' 
 
 So this was the end of Helen's advice to the 
 youth as to the line of life he should choose ! Chrissy 
 did not know what to say. It was not the time for 
 moralizing, and there was no appeal for sympathy. 
 Chrissy said nothing. 
 
 ' They say she is very ugly,' observed Helen, 
 with an unhappy laugh ; ' and I suppose it is true, 
 since Sophia admitted that she was not pretty, but 
 was rather distinguished-looking, and, though very 
 reserved, was truly charming to the few people who 
 ever really got to know her. Poor James ! I don't 
 blame him ; only it does seem hard that beauty and 
 loveliness and one's own inclination should be so 
 seldom on the side of fortune.' 
 
 ' I do blame James, if he is to marry without 
 love,' said Chrissy ; ' and I pity the poor girl if 
 she is deceived into believing herself beloved.' 
 
 ' Probably she herself is agreeable enough to the 
 match,' returned Helen, 'and so needs no pity. 
 Everybody does not see things with your eyes, 
 Chrissy. See what a different standpoint Aunt 
 Kezia takes ; and I believe there are more people 
 in the world like her than like you. I think Aunt 
 Kezia has made her will lately, Chrissy,' she added, 
 after a pause. 
 
 ' Has she ? ' said Chrissy calmly.
 
 THE TWO SISTERS. 233 
 
 ' And I don't believe she has put down your 
 name,' Helen went on. ' She said to me there 
 would be no comfort in leaving Chrissy anything ; 
 it would be sure to go on some queer idea. And 
 besides, she had heard of the pictures you had sold 
 and were to sell, and she said, " Chrissy will be able 
 to get for herself as much as is good for her." ' 
 
 ' I hope it is true,' said Chrissy quietly. 
 
 'My name is down, I know,' Helen went on ; 'but 
 I do not know for how much or even for what. I 
 hope it is not for her cumbrous old furniture, which 
 she thinks so much of, and values at three times 
 what it would really fetch. And I'm sure if it 
 came to me I should sell it off at once, for I couldn't 
 bear the sight of the old things. I wish I did know 
 what Aunt Kezzy means to give me the expectation 
 of it might make more difference to me now than 
 the possession of it when I am an old woman. She 
 may live for years and years yet till I'm too old 
 to get married, and when I might be shelved as 
 comfortably in a workhouse almost as Aunt Kezzy 
 herself is now in her own establishment.' 
 
 Chrissy could bear it no longer. Was this Helen ? 
 sister Helen, whose old faults of thoughtlessness 
 and carelessness had seemed to have a wild beauty 
 of their own ? Sister Helen, who had always been 
 so lavish of her kisses and soft words and gifts 
 whose chronic difficulty had been that her pocket-
 
 234 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 money would burn a hole in her pocket ? Chrissy 
 had not had a long experience of life, or she would 
 have known that thoughtlessness and carelessness, 
 thriftlessness and extravagance, are the very blossoms 
 which presently develop into selfishness and sordid- 
 ness and greed, whether such development takes 
 place slowly under the influence of advancing years, 
 or swiftly under the pressure of the stresses and 
 storms of life. 
 
 ' Helen,' she cried, ' I cannot hear you talking 
 thus ! What are you living for ? Are not the 
 service of our God and the love of our fellow- 
 creatures before these things ? We do not live by 
 bread alone, Nellie. I think the text might come 
 more home to us if we took out the simple symbolic 
 word " bread," and put in literally some of the things 
 we make too much of. We do not really live by 
 dainty raiment, or grand rooms, or legacies, or pro- 
 visions for our old age, but by every word of God ; 
 that is, by every true thought and every generous 
 deed which urges ourselves and helps others towards 
 Him. We have souls as well as bodies, Nellie, and 
 there is generally no need that either shall be starved 
 for the sake of the other; but if one or the other 
 must suffer, let it be the temporal, and not the 
 eternal that which is sure to die, not that which 
 must live for ever.' 
 
 Chrissy caught her sister's hands, and looked
 
 THE TWO SISTERS. 235 
 
 yearningly into the familiar face. There were 
 already one or two lines which had not been there 
 in the old days lines which brought out something 
 which had not been visible before. Yes, Helen was 
 going to be like Aunt Keziah Daffy ! 
 
 Helen looked down into Chrissy's face, for she was 
 much the taller of the two, and her lips parted with 
 a smile which did not mount to her eyes. Chrissy's 
 heart sank within her, for she knew what was 
 coming, and she would have infinitely preferred if 
 her sister had argued against her arguments, or even 
 been angry with her for urging them, or had said or 
 done anything except meeting her, as she did, with 
 the sweet soothing indifference of one astonished and 
 amused to see energy thrown away for inadequate 
 reasons ; such a manner as mothers or nurses might 
 use to tumultuous children or deluded invalids. 
 
 ' People see things differently, Chrissy,' she said, 
 'and I daresay you would be as glad as anybody to 
 be comfortably off, if you could see your way to it. 
 I am sorry to have to fancy that you rather grudge 
 me Aunt Keziah's possible bequest. Console your- 
 self ; it is far off, and uncertain into the bargain.'
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A LOAN AND A LEGACY. 
 
 ANS KRINKEN'S absence was 
 prolonged far beyond expecta- 
 tion ; more than two years passed 
 before he came back. If he and 
 Chrissy had known how long it 
 would last when they parted from 
 each other on the crowded dock 
 it might have seemed too hard 
 to bear, and courage and faith 
 might have failed them. 
 
 It did seem very hard, often ; but all the sicken- 
 ing hope-deferred, all the fears, and all the pain, 
 only made their joy the greater on that evening 
 when a strong manly step was heard hastily 
 mounting Miss Griffin's staircase, and she dropped 
 her work, and Chrissy suspended her pencil for just 
 one moment till the door opened, and Chrissy 
 sprang up with the cry 
 
 236
 
 237
 
 2 3 8 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 'It is Hans!' 
 
 ' Chrissy ! ' 
 
 They were Hans and Chrissy ever after. They 
 had lost nothing in that long parting ; they had 
 been growing nearer all the while. There came a 
 time when they talked it over together. 
 
 ' Everybody says I am so changed,' said Hans. 
 
 ' You are not changed one whit/ said Chrissy ; 
 ' you have only gone on into more of all you used 
 to be. I expect that is how we shall feel when we 
 meet those whom God has called home before us. 
 I have often felt that I have grown to know my ( 
 father better since he went away.' 
 
 ' Ah ! you loved each other so/ said Hans ; ' and 
 love is but the prisoner of these mortal bodies ; and 
 on your father's side, you see, the prison-house is 
 already broken down. Love is beyond time and 
 space. But me ! I believe you like me ; but liking 
 is not love. And can love on one side onlyj still 
 conquer time and space, Chrissy? I shall have to 
 call you "Miss Chrissy" again, I suppose/ 
 
 ' You can't be quite sure it is only on one side, 
 Hans/ whispered Chrissy. 
 
 Never mind what he said next, or what she 
 answered him, or what he said in reply. Only, 
 when the little dialogue was over, the two were 
 seated hand in hand, and there were roses and dew 
 on Chrissy's face.
 
 A LOAN AND A LEGACY. 239 
 
 But all of a sudden the fingers lying in Hans' 
 hand tightened their clasp, and the girlish face grew 
 still and strong. A little pain was on it too. How 
 had she let herself forget, even for a moment? If 
 she had been loyal to her duty, then she would not 
 have touched this treasure of love and happiness, 
 and so would not have needed to lay it down again. 
 And O how hard this was to do when one had 
 caught such a glimpse of what might have been ! 
 
 ' Hans,' she said hastily, ' this will not do. Don't 
 you remember all I wrote you about my father's 
 debt to the Metropolitan Bank, and how I was pay- 
 ing the bank all I get for my drawings. It will 
 take me all my life to do that task. And I must 
 do it, Hans.' 
 
 ' I know you must,' said Hans. * I'm not sure 
 I'd have found out that " must " for you. It makes 
 me feel like a savage when I think of it, while I 
 know other people are securing themselves every 
 comfort by all sorts of assignments and settlements 
 and valuations, and then paying compositions of 
 half-a-crown in the pound, and getting so much 
 help and pity for their " misfortunes " that they are 
 as good as a fortune ! But then, they are they, 
 and you are you, and that is_ all the difference. 
 And I like you, and I'd rather stand on your side 
 of the matter. Whatever you mean to do, I mean 
 to help in, Chrissy.'
 
 2 4 o EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' Oh, Hans ! ' she cried, ' I could not weight your 
 life with this burden to begin with. It is my 
 father's burden, and I have no right to impose it' 
 
 ' Hush, dearest,' said Hans, ' or I shall think this 
 is a hint that I have no right to ask your saintly 
 father's daughter to share the lot of my unhappy 
 father's nameless son. If you won't let me share 
 your father, Chrissy, I shall really have had no father. 
 My father gave me physical life, which, but for the 
 care of others, must have grown into a curse and 
 misery to myself and the world. Your father took 
 rne in, a stranger, and cared for me, and spoke good 
 words to me, and started me in the ways of honour- 
 able life.' 
 
 ' You would have found them somehow for your- 
 self,' pleaded Chrissy. ' My father said so : he told 
 me so.' 
 
 ' Then God bless him for the prophecy ! ' returned 
 Hans. ' God bless all good souls who make happy 
 prophecies, and then work for their fulfilment ! ' 
 
 A glad smile was certainly lighting up behind 
 Chrissy's tears, but still she whispered 
 
 ' A charge like this at the beginning of your life 
 will weigh you down and keep you down, and I shall 
 have to see you careworn and weary, and to know 
 it is all through me.' 
 
 ' Chrissy,' said Hans, with manly calmness, ' I 
 have something to say to you, and I want you to
 
 A LOAN AND A LEGACY. 241 
 
 hear me out altogether, before you raise any objec- 
 tion to what I say. Will you promise ? ' 
 
 She looked up at him with gentle assent There 
 was such re-assurance in the knowledge that under 
 this burden of hers he would at least stand beside 
 her, whether she would let him share its load or no. 
 
 ' You were told by me that my poor father had 
 left me a legacy,' said Hans ; ' and I added that 
 after all that had happened to my mother, I could 
 not take his money to soften or sweeten my own life. 
 And you believed me so implicitly, my Chrissy, that 
 you never even asked what that legacy was, feeling 
 that it signified nothing more to you or me.' 
 
 ' I thought there might be pain for you in the very 
 mention of it,' whispered Chrissy. 
 
 ' I think I told you that when I should come back 
 to Europe I should go over to Germany and make 
 arrangements about it,' Hans went on. ' Well, when 
 I found that my return was so long delayed, I 
 opened a correspondence with my father's lawful 
 heir his nephew. I found him to be an excellent 
 man, who fully entered into my feelings on my own 
 side, but on his side was equally determined that 
 the money should not return to his coffers. He 
 wrote me that my father had spoken with much 
 remorse concerning my poor deceived mother, and 
 with much regret concerning myself, and that my 
 rejection of the little gift by which he had striven to
 
 242 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION, 
 
 express his repentance, might seem like the rejection 
 of his repentance itself. " The money is yours," he 
 wrote, "yours to do with as you will. I can under- 
 stand your shrinking from devoting it to selfish 
 purposes ; "but is there no good work you would like 
 to forward, no wrong you would like to mitigate ? 
 If there is none such within your ken at present, 
 keep this money until the time comes. To let your 
 poor father's gifts aid you in making the rough 
 smooth, or the crooked straight, will be the noblest 
 form of retributive justice a sweet vengeance of 
 forgiveness, in which your mother in heaven, herself, 
 will be able to join." Chrissy, I saw there was 
 wisdom in his words. I shall set my father's legacy 
 to pay your father's debt It shall be my father's 
 thankoffering to those who befriended his child.' 
 
 ' Oh, Hans ! ' cried Chrissy, springing up and clasp- 
 ing her hands in ecstasy of delight ' Oh, Hans ! all 
 my life I shall never have ended my thanks to you ! ' 
 
 ' A great deal of thanks for a very small matter, 
 little lady,' smiled Hans. 
 
 ' Only I should have liked to have paid that debt 
 myself almost,' said Chrissy wistfully, and yet 
 aware that possibly a little subtle selfishness lurked 
 in the wish. 
 
 'Perhaps you will have had more to do with the pay- 
 ing of it than you think just now,' answered Hans 
 ' My father's legacy is only five hundred pounds.'
 
 A LOAN AND A LEGACY. 243 
 
 Chrissy stood still, serious. But the sunshine did 
 not fade from her face. It was more than money 
 which had been devoted to her father's service. 
 
 ' But that is a great deal ! ' she said. ' Father's 
 estate left fifteen hundred owing to the Bank I 
 have paid off about ninety this money of yours 
 will bring it up to nearly six hundred there will 
 remain only nine hundred. Oh, Hans ! if I could 
 have only imagined this a year ago !' 
 
 'But gently,gently,'said Hans. ' Has it ever occurred 
 to you that if sickness, or misfortune, or death occurred 
 to you (and to me also, now that we are to be one), 
 then this debt must remain for ever unpaid ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, Hans !' she cried. ' You ask if this has ever 
 occurred to me ! Why, I have had to try to forget 
 it, lest it should bring on the evils I feared. But we 
 can but do our best, and, if God's will crosses that, 
 then I think He takes our duties upon Himself.' 
 
 ' True, my darling/ answered Hans ; ' but suppose 
 we had it in our power to secure that the whole of 
 this money shall be certainly paid not very soon, 
 perhaps, but certainly paid, whether we prospered or 
 not. Would you not think it was a wise and right 
 course which could insure that ? ' 
 
 ' Of course I should,' said Chrissy, with attentive 
 eyes ; ' but how could that be done ? ' 
 
 ' Listen,' returned Hans. And then he expounded 
 to her the mysteries of life insurance, and how, by
 
 244 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 the immediate payment of some such sum as his 
 father's legacy, they could secure that the whole of 
 Mr. Miller's debt to the Metropolitan Bank should 
 be paid at a certain given date, or on the occasion of 
 Chrissy's death, should that happen before such date. 
 
 'And you will have had a greater share in paying 
 your father's debt than may seem to you just now,' 
 Hans went on, ' for I should never have known how 
 this could be done but for something you did. You 
 remember the ten pounds you lent me when I first 
 went into Mr. Bilderdyk's service?' 
 
 And then he told her the story of how that gentle- 
 man had overcome his scruples about taking the loan 
 by showing him how he could protect its lender from 
 loss. And he showed the deed of assignment and 
 the pathetic little will, both of which he had that 
 morning taken into his own possession out of the 
 custody of Dr. Julius. 
 
 ' I shall never return you that ten pounds now,' 
 he said, sagely shaking his head. 
 
 ' That ten pounds ! ' cried Chrissy. ' How absurd to 
 mention them when you have given me five hundred!' 
 
 ' I have given you myself and all that I have or 
 shall have,' said Hans playfully. ' I hope you will 
 not find you have made a bad investment.' 
 
 Let us leave them. There are moments on which 
 even that dear friend 'the courteous reader' should 
 not intrude.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WHERE THE SERMON ENDED. 
 
 T was soon decided that Hans must 
 presently return to America, to 
 take charge of a branch establish- 
 ment which Mr. Bilderdyk was 
 about to start in one of the new 
 western cities. The worthy mer- 
 chant, who had not forgotten the 
 pretty wistful face of her whom 
 he had set down in his mind as 
 ' Miss Miller's young friend,' began to throw out hints 
 to his protegt that a young man in a new country 
 was the better for a settled home, and that the 
 salary Hans was to receive, though modest, was 
 sufficient, and would be always on the increase. 
 
 So, when Hans blushingly announced that 'Miss 
 Miller' had promised to take upon herself the part 
 of helpmeet in the new Eden of the West, the old 
 gentleman exclaimed, in dismay 
 
 ' Miss Miller ! But isn't she quite an elderly lady ?
 
 246 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 Did I not see her saying good-bye to you when you 
 left England two years ago ? ' 
 
 'An elderly lady?' said Hans, forgetful of Mr. 
 Bilderdyk's former blundering, and so for one 
 moment puzzled. 'An elderly lady? Oh, I see. 
 That, sir, was our dear friend, Miss Griffin. The 
 young lady with her was Miss Miller.' 
 
 ' O oh ! ' was Mr. Bilderdyk's prolonged excla- 
 mation. ' So it was the young lady who lent you 
 the money. Indeed ! Were you engaged then ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir,' said Hans proudly. ' No, sir, I had to 
 become in some way worthy of her before that 
 could happen. She helped me for her father's sake.' 
 
 ' Well, her little dowry will do you no harm,' said 
 Mr. Bilderdyk. ' I remember you said she had not 
 much. I don't like mercenariness, but prudence is 
 an excellent quality.' 
 
 'She has no dowry but herself,' returned Hans, 
 prouder still. 'When she lent me that ten pounds, 
 it was almost all she had in the world.' He said 
 it as a man might announce that he had received 
 knighthood. 
 
 'Well, well,' said Mr. Bilderdyk, 'it has turned 
 out fortunately as yet, I will say. I do believe 
 there is something beyond prudence sometimes.' 
 And he cast a thought back over certain incidents 
 in his own life, and wondered whether he might not 
 have dared where he had hesitated. And there
 
 WHERE THE SERMON ENDED. 247 
 
 came something very like a sigh. ' It is so hard/ 
 that one sees things when it is too late ! ' As if it / 
 were ever too late ! Young people talk about ' too l 
 late ! ' much oftener than older folk do, and possibly 
 old folk say it much oftener than do the angels, and l 
 none of us all need believe it till we hear God say it. ' 
 
 Of course, there was some pain in the young 
 people's preparation for their wedding and their 
 going away. There always is. There was the 
 parting from Helen, and from Miss Griffin, and 
 from the old associations and ambitions gathered 
 round the old home in Shield Street. 
 
 But it was wonderful how difficulties solved them- 
 selves. Chrissy had felt quite remorseful about 
 leaving her old friend once more to that solitude 
 whose dreariness Miss Griffin had frankly confessed, 
 and perhaps even overrated in her delight in Chrissy's 
 companionship. What was Chrissy's surprise, when 
 Mr. Bisset, the bookseller, said to her 
 
 'As you are going away, my wife and I are 
 thinking of rearranging our household. My wife 
 thinks that nobody we could hire could replace you, 
 and she thinks of taking your place in the shop. 
 Miss Miller,' he went on, looking gravely at the 
 young girl who had earned his respect and con- 
 fidence, ' I feel it will be best so. Life is uncertain 
 with all of us, and I, in particular, am not a strong 
 man. I have seen distinctly, that if you had been
 
 248 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 a little older, and a little better off when your father 
 died, you could have carried on his business suc- 
 cessfully, and maintained your entire independence. 
 Why should not I train my little wife, so that she 
 could do likewise if I was taken from her ? Until I 
 saw this escape from my anxiety about her, I have 
 never ventured to own how much my concern for 
 her possible future has weighed me down. If I am 
 relieved from foreboding on that score, I believe it 
 will do more to lengthen my life than anything 
 else could. But we must have some thoroughly 
 trustworthy person, above the rank of a servant, to 
 look after house matters and domestic comfort in 
 Mrs. Bisset's stead. And neither I nor my wife 
 has any available aunt or cousin.' 
 
 And Chrissy joyfully suggested Miss Griffin ; and 
 after the Bissets and the good old maid had mutually 
 said that the arrangement was too good to be true, 
 it was finally made. 
 
 As for Helen, a new plan was formed for her life 
 about this time, with which, however, Chrissy and 
 her movements had nothing to do. Aunt Daffy 
 had a slight shock of paralysis, nothing which 
 endangered her life, or even seriously affected her 
 comfort, but quite sufficient to shake her nerves 
 severely, and make her dread her isolated position, 
 and long for something more than the careless 
 attentions of the temporary hirelings of her kitchen.
 
 WHERE THE SERMON ENDED. 249 
 
 She invited Helen to take up her abode with her, no 
 longer making it a secret that if the girl 'showed her 
 good sense,' and devoted her time to her till the end, 
 she would find it had been 'worth her while.' Aunt 
 Daffy did not ask or expect love or duty, and Helen 
 did not shrink from the thought of rendering such 
 service without them. 
 
 ' Aunt Daffy will live for ever ; those chronic 
 cases always do ; it means that I shall give up all 
 thought of marriage,' she said drearily. ' Well, if I 
 stay in Madame Vinet's showroom, nobody whom 
 I should care to marry would be likely to give me 
 the chance. So it comes to the same thing either 
 way, only by taking Aunt Daffy's offer, I shall have 
 ease and comfort and a secure provision. And if a 
 woman has these things, she hasn't very much reason 
 to wish to marry. Marriage cannot give her more. 
 It is not likely to give you so much, poor Chrissy. I 
 expect you will be a hard -worked slave to the end. 
 I always said that no good would come of my father's 
 taking in that Hans Krinken.' 
 
 Despite these dismal auguries, Helen intended to 
 be at her sister's wedding. ' It is a good chance for 
 getting Aunt Kezia to give me a new silk dress,' 
 she said. And as she did get this silk dress, it is 
 possible that she was not too much disappointed 
 when, on the marriage day, Aunt Kezia suddenly 
 fancied herself rather worse, and forbade her niece
 
 2 50 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 to leave her. ' It will be a little awkward if she 
 wants to shut me up entirely/ Helen mused, as she 
 folded away her finery ; ' but if I manage prudently, 
 I'll get the upper hand of her by-and-by.' 
 
 And so Hans and Chrissy were quietly married in 
 the Church of St. Cecilia-in-the-Garden, with Dr. 
 Julius to give away the bride, and Mr. Bilderdyk 
 and Miss Griffin for witnesses, and the Bissets for 
 wedding guests. It was a very quiet wedding, of 
 which few of the neighbours were much aware, most 
 of them being much more interested in another 
 event taking place in Shield Street at the very same 
 hour to wit, the removal of the Ackroyd family 
 from their old house to a grand mansion near the 
 West End parks Mr. Ackroyd having had a run of 
 luck in speculation ever since the smash of the Great 
 Metropolitan Bank, and more especially since his 
 son's initiation into the mysteries of a stockbroker's 
 office. 
 
 Chrissy now Chrissy Krinken went up to her 
 Aunt Daffy's house to say good-bye to her aunt and 
 sister there. And Chrissy felt that the sadness and 
 the parting were not in the going away not in the 
 thousands of miles which would divide them but in 
 the great gulf which yawned between them, as they 
 stood hand in hand. Chrissy even hoped forlornly,, 
 that the silent thoughts which grow in separation \ 
 might somehow bridge that gulf.
 
 WHERE THE SERMON ENDED. 251 
 
 One visit to the father's lonely grave, one look at 
 the tiny granite cross which now marked it possibly 
 for some reverent pilgrimage to be made by Chrissy's 
 unborn children or those children's children and 
 then the last day came, and there was the crowded 
 dock once more, and the little group of kindly 
 kenned faces, half- tearful, half-smiling. One face 
 which Chrissy would have liked to have seen at 
 the very last was amissing, and many were the 
 kind messages for poor Esther Gray, with which 
 Miss Griffin was charged by the happy young wife. 
 For a terrible epidemic was lurking just then in 
 the by-ways of London life, and Esther could not 
 be spared from her labours in the sad lazar-house, 
 even if it would have been safe for her to risk bring- 
 ing infection into the spheres of health and joy. 
 
 Then the good ship moved off with her precious 
 cargo of new life for a new land. And at last, waving 
 handkerchief and hand faded indistinct and disap- 
 peared, and the young pair sat side by side, in the 
 first sacred solitude of a double existence. 
 
 The crowded deck, the river banks, familiar to 
 Chrissy from her earliest childhood, floated unseen 
 before her eyes. Her heart was busy with those she 
 had left behind. She could fancy what they were 
 doing, She could hear the tones of their voices as 
 they spoke of missing her. 
 
 But in reality there was one picture she could
 
 252 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 not see one scene her fancy could never have filled 
 up. 
 
 In a darkened room, in the awful abode of terrible 
 suffering and death, sat Esther Gray, watching by 
 the side of one who would be soon past all human 
 help. In that shadowy room she could not see his 
 face, even if it had not been marred beyond all 
 recognition by the ravages of disease. There was 
 no name or description on the doctor's memorandum 
 at the head of the bed ; only the note, ' Brought in 
 from a common lodging-house unknown name 
 refused.' It was one of the worst cases that had 
 ever been in the hospital, and therefore it fell to the 
 share of Esther Gray. 
 
 The agonies would be soon over now. Speech 
 might return for a little, just at the last; and Esther 
 Gray sat ready for some sign which might comfort 
 sore hearts somewhere. The hoarse question came 
 
 ' Sure to die ? ' 
 
 ' You are in God's hands,' whispered the nurse. 
 
 The poor head was shaken. 
 
 ' I had just begun to be better, and then this 
 stopped me.' 
 
 ' Nay, nay,' said Esther Gray. ' It did not stop 
 the dying thief from being better, when Christ Jesus 
 took him out of the world at the same time as 
 Himself.' 
 
 'I didn't expect to be worth much; only I'd
 
 WHERE THE SERMON ENDED. 253 
 
 stopped drinking, and got work. But I'm not fit for 
 heaven.' 
 
 'You're fit to be where Jesus is why, God Him- 
 self is with you now here,' said Esther. 
 
 'You think so, because you have been always a 
 good woman yourself.' 
 
 ' I know it, because I have been a great sinner a 
 greater sinner than it is likely you have been ; and 
 yet God has forgiven me, and even lets me work for 
 Him. Our Brother Jesus will never turn us away. 
 Our Father cares for us all the while, even while we 
 are with the swine and the husks.' 
 
 'You don't know what I have sinned against 
 what I have thrown away.' 
 
 'God 'does, and He can put all the sins away, as 
 far as the east is from the west. -We can't forget 
 them ourselves, but He can.' 
 
 ' If I got better, I can hardly believe of myself 
 that I should keep on trying to be straight.' 
 
 ' Never mind that, if God believes it.' 
 
 ' Do you believe I should go on to do well ? ' 
 
 One moment's pause. But it only served to give 
 emphasis to Esther's solemn 
 
 ' I do.' 
 
 ' That makes it easier to believe that God does.' 
 
 That whisper came very low; and there was a 
 brief silence. 
 
 ' Oh, sir ! ' said Esther, ' for I'm sure you're a
 
 254 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 gentleman, is there nobody to whom you should send 
 a message? We don't even know your name here.' 
 
 Again the dying man shook his head. 
 
 ' No,' he whispered ; ' it is too late to see them 
 now too late to show them all I mean ; and if I 
 sent them any message, they would find out all about 
 the last few months, and their hearts would break 
 with sorrow and shame. By the last they heard of 
 me, they will think I have gone abroad, and they 
 will hope for the best for me. Father and mother 
 are growing old it can't be long before they die 
 and then ^perhaps it may give them a pleasant 
 surprise to meet me.' 
 
 He turned his face on the pillow. 
 
 ' I don't think you're right, sir,' said Esther gently. 
 ' I can see your point of view, but I can feel theirs. 
 And I'm sure you're not right.' 
 
 ' Ah, poor father and mother,' he said. ' Yes 
 but then my brothers and sisters, I mustn't disgrace 
 and hurt them.' 
 
 'Can't we think of anyway to send some kind 
 message ? ' mused Esther. 
 
 Oh, she knew how she had longed for any sign, any 
 single word to break the awful doubt, the frozen fear, 
 in which the fierce passion of her own life had ended ! 
 
 ' You could do it,' he said brokenly. 
 
 ' Tell me what I could do,' she asked. 
 
 ' You could write a slip of paper so that those at
 
 WHERE THE SERMON ENDED. 255 
 
 home should not know where it came from. Will 
 you do it? ' 
 
 'Yes,' said Esther, ' but you must tell me what to 
 say.' 
 
 ' Say only, " Harold is dead. He told me to send 
 his father and mother this word, and to ask them to 
 see what the prodigal son said to his father, and 
 what the father answered. And to tell them Harold 
 had a good friend at the last." Write that, and send 
 it directly I am gone. And they'll thank God for it.' 
 
 ' I will,' said Esther. ' But where am I to send it ? ' 
 
 ' To the Vicar of St. Magnus, Manchester,' he 
 murmured after a pause. 
 
 Esther wrote it down. The name ' Harold ' had 
 never impressed her. It did not occur to her that 
 the vicar could be the young man's own father. 
 She thought he was probably a stray sheep of the 
 flock, and that the vicar was chosen as a fit person 
 to break the blow to the bereaved parents. 
 
 It was not long before word went down to the 
 hospital office that No. 52 was dead, and that 
 evening, while the sunset was still red, the strange 
 quiet nurse, Esther Gray, asked for an hour's leave 
 of absence. She spent it in a walk to the General 
 Post Office. 
 
 Hans and Chrissy sat on deck and watched that 
 same glorious sunset. Said Chrissy suddenly
 
 256 EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. 
 
 ' All this afternoon I have been thinking of the 
 clergyman who preached in St. Cecilia's the night 
 before my father died. I owe a great deal to that 
 sermon.' 
 
 'You have often told me about it,' answered Hans. 
 
 ' And I have been thinking over all that has hap- 
 pened since then,' Chrissy went on, ' and noticing 1 
 how little things grow into unexpected importance, 
 and how one action or incident develops into quite i 
 unforeseen results. And I see plainly enough, that ) 
 to do each little bit of duty that comes before us, / 
 and to choose what seems right in every tiny choice , 
 we have to make, is the only way by which we can 
 hope to be " Equal to the Occasion " in the great ' 
 events of life.' 
 
 ' Amen,' said Hans heartily. 
 
 Morrison and Git>l>, FJi'iinrgh, 
 Printers to Her Majesty's Stationery OJfict.
 
 . 
 
 '