The girl chose the fourteenth chapter of John, and over and over again,
whenever the restless nerves tormented their victim, she would read those
words, "Let not your heart be troubled" until the selfish soul, who had
lived all her life to please the world and do her own pleasure, came at
last to hear the words, and feel that perhaps she did believe in God, and
might accept that invitation, "Believe also in me."
One day Elizabeth had been reading a psalm, and thought her grandmother
was asleep. She was sitting back with weary heart, thinking what would
happen if her grandmother should not get well. The old lady opened her
eyes.
"Elizabeth," she said abruptly, just as when she was well, "you've been a
good girl. I'm glad you came. I couldn't have died right without you. I
never thought much about these things before, but it really is worth
while. In my Father's house. He is my Father, Elizabeth."
She went to sleep then, and Elizabeth tiptoed out and left her with the
nurse. By and by Marie came crying in, and told her that the Madam was
dead.
Elizabeth was used to having people die. She was not shocked; only it
seemed lonely again to find herself facing the world, in a foreign land.
And when she came to face the arrangements that had to be made, which,
after all, money and servants made easy, she found herself dreading her
own land. What must she do after her grandmother was laid to rest? She
could not live in the great house in Rittenhouse Square, and neither could
she very well go and live in Flora Street. O, well, her Father would hide
her. She need not plan; He would plan for her. The mansions on the earth
were His too, as well as those in heaven.
And so resting she passed through the weary voyage and the day when the
body was laid to rest in the Bailey lot in the cemetery, and she went back
to the empty house alone. It was not until after the funeral that she went
to see Grandmother Brady. She had not thought it wise or fitting to invite
the hostile grandmother to the other one's funeral. She had thought
Grandmother Bailey would not like it.
She rode to Flora Street in the carriage. She felt too weary to walk or go
in the trolley. She was taking account of stock in the way of friends,
thinking over whom she cared to see. One of the first bits of news she had
heard on arriving in this country had been that Miss Loring's wedding was
to come off in a few days. It seemed to strike her like a thunderbolt, and
she was trying to arraign herself for this as she rode along. It was
therefore not helpful to her state of mind to have her grandmother remark
grimly: "That feller o' yours 'n his oughtymobble has been goin' up an' down this
street, day in, day out, this whole blessed summer. Ain't been a day he
didn't pass, sometimes once, sometimes twicet. I felt sorry fer him
sometimes. Ef he hadn't been so high an' mighty stuck up that he couldn't
recognize me, I'd 'a' spoke to him. It was plain ez the nose on your face
he was lookin' fer you. Don't he know where you live?"