Lily Hope and her Friends: a tale

Preface

. ' Lily Hope and her Friends ' was originally con tributed to the pages of the Christian Treasury, where it was received and read with much acceptance. Since that time the gifted authoress has passed away to her rest, after long and patient suffering ; and the present publication of the work in a complete form is suggested, as a loving memorial of one whose own experience is largely shadowed forth in its pages. Edinburgh, October 1S72. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Light Fading And Growing

CHILD was alone in a small parlour, her forehead pressed against the latticed windowpanes, while a pair of wistful eyes, within which lay a world of questions, looked up to the quiet evening sky. The room itself was in shade ; — so was the village street into which it looked, but a gleam of warm light crept slowly up a row of elms opposite ; — and a spire which rose behind them was tinted with gold. Higher, higher rose the line of sunset brightness, and softly the shade stole after it, silent and grey. The child watched till the last ray had faded, and then, turning away from A the window, she threw herself full length on the floor, her fingers twisted together in an agony she struggled hard to control. Then came a burst of tears, passionate, but not with anger, rather with the yearning which, in later years, becomes for most of us a guest but too fa miliar, though its first touch fell upon the child-heart with a chill.

For another shadow was in the house, colder and deeper than the twilight. Slowly, gently, in the quiet room above, a human life was drawing to its close ; dying out, as the sunbeams died, but, like them, only to be ' lifted higher.' Oh mamma, mamma ! don't go away and leave me!' The ' going away ' was an indefinite mystery to the little one, and so was the dim beyond, the ' being with God,' which seemed darkened over with such a terrible want of meaning. The storm passed, however, and the child raised her self, and resumed her old watch by the window, crouch ing close beside it, and shivering now and then. Only a few moments she sat there, but they seemed to her a blank dreary space, stretching on and on till she almost felt as if the cold twilight shadow had hung always over her life, and would wrap itself ever closer, closer till the end.

For perhaps even for her the end must come. ' People all die and go away,'— but, beyond that, the struggling thought would not penetrate. ' Lily ! Lily ! It was a gentle voice that called, and a smile lighted up the grave little face, as Lily bounded upstairs in answer to it. Too early yet for any sorrow to linger there ! One glance towards the wasted form on the bed, and then Lily rushed up to the lady who sat beside it, to give and receive more kisses than might be safely chronicled. Then, from some unexplained impulse, she drew herself up and stood quiet, playing with her friend's soft brown curls, and looking just what she was generally taken to be, an ordinary child enough, rather unimpressible than otherwise. ' Lily, darling ? ' ' Yes, mamma,' and Lily turned towards the bed. ' Come here to me ;' and the white hands rested lovingly on her head as she knelt. ' Do you know that mamma is going away ? ' ' Yes,' said Lily, but the indifferent voice gave no token of that choking lump in the child's throat, which made it difficult to speak at all.

The mother sighed. Was the bitter ness of parting to be borne by her only? Better so, perhaps, and yet it was hard ! ' Lily has not been quite good to-day.' ' No mamma,' and Lily's conscience gave a sharp prick, for she knew well that she had been exceedingly naughty, and that the quiet of the sick-room had been more than once disturbed by her disobedient restless ways. She was near throwing her arms round her mother's neck, and sobbing out confession and penitence, but the witness of other eyes was not to be borne, so she checked herself. ' Lily, darling, perhaps sometime when you grow up and think of your mother, you may be sorry for what has happened to-day. But remember, remember Lilias, if ever this thought should make you sad, remember that your mother forgave you before she died. Will you, Lilias, my own, my own ? ' 'Yes, mamma.' Nothing more, though a flood of tears was just ready to break loose, if, in her pride and shyness, the child had not kept them resolutely back.

Oh, Lilias, Lilias, how many have yearned to shed them where you might shed them now ? ' You need not stay, Lily ? There was a touch of pain in the words, which Lily's ears were quick to catch, and have been but too faithful to recal. Her lips parted to speak, but her mother had turned away, and the proud seal was on them again. Naughty little Lilias ! But she has had her punishment. Is any so sad as the si lence which alone answers words spoken too late ? But an hour afterwards, when she was left alone in the darkness, which, if it conceals some disguises, effect ually strips off others, there came over her such a torrent of self-reproach as broke down all barriers of repression. Her pillow was wet with tears, — most perverse and unac countable tears they were, which would never come when they might have been reasonably expected, leaving of course all sorts of wrong conclusions to be drawn from their absence.

Lily's sleep the next morning was early broken. Had papa come ? for she knew he was expected the night before. Dr Hope was a physician of some eminence at Arlingford, the fashionable suburb, itself a winter resi dence for invalids, of a large city in the west of England. For the sake of her failing health, Mrs Hope and her two children had been for some weeks at Alveston, a little village in Gloucestershire. Her husband came to her when he was able, and a sister was with her constantly. This morning there was an unusual bustle in the house, a sound of hurrying steps, and voices that seemed to end in tears, and then stillness, stillness Lily could almost hear,— as she sat up in bed and listened. Winnie was beside her, but she slept on and heard nothing, and if she had, she was too tiny even to wonder.

Through the window opposite, the morning sunbeams glinted into the room, but somehow they did not seem so bright as usual. Lily held her breath in a strange awe. Was the shadow of the Death-Angel upon the child's heart ? Who can tell, for the little ones know many things that are hidden from our blunted sense ! After a while, however, she fell asleep again, and when she woke a second time she found the nurse by her bedside waiting to dress her. 'How's mamma this morning?' The girl hesitated a minute. ' She's better, miss. It's time for you to be > up. ' Oh, I'm so glad,' and Lily began to dress with much glee and bustle, to a song without words, made up of happy thoughts. 'Perhaps mamma isn't going away after all; perhaps by-and-by she'U be able to go out again, perhaps ' — and Lily's fancy added story after story to its fairy castle, till her face grew hot with eager hope.

But all at once the bright look faded. A lady entered the room, a friend of her mother, and a frequent nurse during her illness, of whose somewhat stern opinions as to the conduct of little girls, Lily stood in considerable awe. She greeted the child with a warm kiss, however, which was very demurely returned, for Lily had her own theories about kisses, considering them ahvays as favours granted rather than received. ' Mamma's better this morning, Mrs Clay,' she said, when her tangled hair was being coaxed into some sort of order. Mrs Clay and the nurse exchanged mysterious looks, of which Lily could make nothing. 'Doesn't she know?' whispered the former. ' No, ma'am, I couldn't ' — - 'Come here, Lily dear;' and Lily was lifted very tenderly, and told, in gentlest, kindest tones, that her mother had 'gone to be with God.' A day or two afterwards, the two children were again in the small sitting-room where we saw Lily first.

It looked very dismal, she thought. Why must the blinds be always down ; and why must she be called a naughty child if she tried to peep past them into the summer brightness ? She was playing with her doll in a subdued, half-frightened fashion, for she could not help an uncertain consciousness that this was a proceeding at which everybody wondered. In fact there were several jarring elements in Lily's world just now, introducing confusion which she could by no means harmonize. Altogether life seemed very difficult, and no one could help her to understand it. Her doll might have done, she seemed to think, by the confidences poured into her patient ears, but she only smiled in return, — that calm smile with which some human beings are apt to put down questions they could never ask, much less answer.

Wherefore Lily threw her down in a fit of im patience, and betook herself to the history of the ' Fair child Family, ' for already the world of books' was to her a refuge from the more perplexing world of men and women. And so absorbed was she in the doings of those wonderful children, who will never grow old, that she did not hear a step in the room, or see that her papa had been for some minutes watching her. ' Would you like to see mamma again, my dear ?' he asked, as he took her tiny hand in his. ' Mamma ! ' Lily was confounded beyond words. Had not mamma gone away, gone to be with God, and could any one ever come back, whom He had once taken to that far-off world of His ? 'Oh dear,' she sighed to herself, ' I wish I could understand!' She glanced up at her papa, but he only concluded she was ready to go with him, and led her out ofthe room without further explanation.

They went upstairs together. Lily's step nearly as slow as the one which was heavy with so great a grief, for her brain was in a maze too hopeless for her usual dance. And then into the very room where those fare well words of love and forgiveness had been spoken, which she kept laid up in her heart of hearts as a treasure whose worth she hardly knew. Something was there, she had been told, something about which she had wondered and pondered, and ventured once to ask a timid question ; but that was not mamma ! Still, she was to see her, and, as the door was slowly opened, her breath came fast in a mixture of awe and hope, and she glanced eagerly round the darkened room, half thinking to see some angel figure which would bend over her with the same smile she had loved so well to watch. Poor child !

Poor motherless Lily ! It was dreadful to see instead that narrow coffin, with the still white face within it, no smile, no answering look to Lily's wistful gaze. She did not cry, of course not, — no tears would come under the spell of that terrible fear, and it seemed, to undiscerning eyes, that she stood there perfectly in different. Indeed, in the midst of it all, some indefinite instinct told her she was being experimented upon, brought there to see whether she would cry or not. Wherefore in the pride and contradiction of her small heart, Lily would rather have endured anything than give the least sign of feeling. So she waited by her papa's side, very pale and quiet, till he asked if she would like to go ? Yes, indeed, she was only too thankful ! One more glance ! It was her mother surely, and yet, oh ! why did she look so cold and white, and why, if she knew Lily was beside her, why did she not speak !

The child turned away and walked down stairs, slipping softly through the front door, and out into the air and sunshine, for she felt as if another moment in the house would suffocate her. Once outside, her steps quickened to a run. Through the garden, over the fence, across the field, till she reached a large sycamore, whose shade was often her summer nursery, and then, at last, safe from sight or comment, the pent-up feeling of the child's heart found expression 'Oh, mamma, mamma ! ' and the waving branches overhead sighed softly, as if in answer to her call. But Lily did not hear them. She only lay and sobbed, her arms stretched upon the grass, half clasping it in the sheer necessity of having something to cling to. One or two sunbeams fell through the dark leaves above her, and rested caress ingly upon the slight prostrate figure.

But they could not reach or brighten the grieved perplexed little heart. A human touch might have done it, but none near her was tender enough to give it, or quick enough to guess its need. But in God's own time and way, there came to her unconscious soothing. His hand comforted her, though she knew it not.

Chapter II. Looking Onwards

WENTY to-morrow! How strange it seems !' and the young writer looked up from the page with a dreamy happy light in her eyes, which seemed to tell that past and future lay in equal sunshine. It was a fair face, sweet and true, changeful, but not restless, a face you would turn again to watch, ' It is only like yesterday since I stood at mamma's knee for my first Bible lesson, and now, childhood and girlhood are over, and womanhood is opening out, — the dim unknown ! That Bible lesson, — what makes me think of it so much to-night, unless that I wish I could read the Bible now as I did then, with the same sweet sense of freshness and wonder. I do read it, of course, but I think I should be glad if I need not. It has grown familiar, without growing dear. Perhaps if mamma had lived she might have taught me to love it as she loved.

She always looked happy when she read it ; whereas most of the good people I know sigh over it as if it made them uncomfortable. It certainly makes me uncomfortable, but then I am not good ; I only wish I were ! At any rate, I am incomplete. Something is want ing to me, and I am looking and waiting for it. I feel as if my life had not yet been set to its key-note. I said that once to Miss Winter, and she replied, ' My dear, I'm sure you have everything to be thankful for.' And so I have. But the reminder only made me cross. I have seen one person to-day who seems to be living out the harmony which my ears only catch now and then, — far off and dim. I was crossing the hall in the morning, when I saw a lady coming out of the consult ing-room, whom for a wonder I happened to know. It was Mrs Leigh, whom papa brought in to luncheon one day awhile since, with her little girl, a fragile-looking child of four, as pure and pale as a snowflake.

I remember being struck with her at the time, — there was some thing so rested about her, — a kind of contented calm. Yet she wore mourning, and papa told us that her husband, who was a missionary, had died abroad. I have often thought of her since, and wished to see her, but papa allows no questions about patients, and as she did not appear, I could make no inquiries. However, when I saw her this morning, I went forward at once to ask after her little girl. ' She is not with me now,' she said quietly, while the clear brown eyes grew dim. I was so shocked, and hardly knew what to say. ' Nay, don't mind it,' and she spoke in such real feeling for my distress, that it might have seemed as if I were the mourner; 'you could not know, and I am so glad you remembered my darling.' I drew her into the drawing-room, and she told me how her pet blossom had drooped and faded, till the angel reaper bore it to the fields above. ' Have you any left ?' I asked. ' None,' she answered softly ; ' I think sometimes of Henry Vaughan, — ' They are all gone into a world of light, And I alone sit lingering here. ' Just then papa came, and asked her again to stay to luncheon, which she did.

I found that she is living in furnished apartments near us, devoting herself to the poor and the sick. It seems such a beautiful life, full of self forgetful love and sacrifice, — so different from mine ! And yet if I could choose, I would not do many things I do. The housekeeping, for instance, which Miss Winter has very contentedly resigned to my charge, that I would gladly be excused, for it involves con tact with cook, and sometimes collision — a thing to be dreaded ! And some thinking and planning are re quired too, though we live very quietly, at least we have done till lately. But now that Winnie is at home, we are beginning to visit more, and I suppose next winter we shall be fairly ' out.' She enjoys parties greatly ; no wonder she is so full of spirit and grace. It is an untold delight to me to see how she wins her way with every one, my beautiful bright sister.

No wonder Captain Herbert picked her up so soon, though I do think he might have left her to us a while longer. What will home, what will life be, without Winnie ? And he will be over from Ireland in two months, I suppose, to settle everything, and carry her off to India. Oh ! Winnie, Winnie, our sunbeam, there will be no brightness left when you are away ? And yet, Winnie is not all sweetness. I should tire of her if she were ; those sweet people are the greatest bores in the world. She is 'a rosebud, set with little wilful thorns,' which can prick upon occasion. But they never prick me. Papa will miss her ; oh, so sorely ! She is more like our mother than I am, and I think — but no, I am sure he loves us alike, and if he did not, I could not be jeal ous of Winnie ; only I wish I could show him my love as she does.

But whenever the fire is burning deep down in my heart, I must needs draw the curtains that no one may see it. Wherefore, I suppose, outside be holders think it has died out, if it was ever lighted. If the love would only utter itself somehow, in tender words or playful caressing ways, like Winnie's ! But it will not. It is only dumb, and true. I am rather relieved that Miss Winter has gone. Her still propriety was a kind of burden, even to me ; and the way Winnie and she rasped one another, was simply hopeless. So now we are without a chaperone, and I wish we need not have one at all. But papa thinks us too young to be left alone, and so I suppose we are, as he can so seldom be with us. I asked Mrs Leigh to come to the pic-nic to-morrow, never thinking, till the words were said, what an un likely thing it was for her to do.

But it is not a pic-nic, only a day in the woods, with the Harpers, and the Grahames, and Miss May, and when I explained this, she consented to come. I am very glad. I wish I could ask her to help me to find the key-note. It is rather strange that I never think of asking Mr Harper, though he is our clergyman. But he is always so busy, in a whirl of societies, and committees, and meetings, and visitings. Perhaps he might help me if he would only stop for half-an-hour and listen. But in the constant going on, I feel it is no use to speak. And I am not sure he would understand me if I did. We shall be going down to Alveston soon. Could I speak to Mr Thornton ? But that would be still more impossible. I feel sure his sermons are always good, only his voice sounds somehow a long way off, as if address ing an audience out of sight, not at all in the same world as the one which is to me so perplexing, and so very difficult to live in.

And whenever I think it is coming nearer, and bringing some light and help for me and my world, it seems to float away again, so that in time I get rather weary of following it, and am satisfied to let it go on over my head, saying what I know to be unexceptionably excellent, but which has no particular application. But there is Winnie !' And just then Winnie entered the room, and Lilias Hope's journalising was interrupted. You might tell at a glance that the two were sisters. There was the same light swaying grace of form in each, the same pure moulding of feature. But the brightness on Winnie's cheek and hair left Lily's almost cold beside it, for her complexion, though perfectly clear, was pale ; and her coil of brown plaits had not the gleam of gold which flashed among her sister's curls.

As soon as they were old enough, after their mother's death, the children were sent to school, where most of their life had been passed since. Many were the wonderings among Dr Hope's numerous acquaintance, as to a probable and suitable successor to his first wife. But he did not seem inclined to instal any one in that office, being probably of opinion that the place which could not be filled, should not be desecrated. And now, as years had rolled on, and his daughters had grown up to woman hood, it was less than ever to be expected that he would give them a second mother. Though, indeed, it is just when such events appear removed beyond all likelihood, that they generally happen.

Chapter III. Sunshine And Shadows

UST the day for a pic-nic, I am so glad, i Lilas !' and Winnie Hope paused to take breath, after bestowing a shower of birth day kisses, 'though ; — indeed, one can hardly call it a pic-nic, this queer little gathering which you have chosen to do yourself honour. I can't think why you didn't invite more people and make a proper thing of it.' ' I'm sorry, Winnie, that you would have enjoyed it more. But those little Harpers, it will be such a delight to them, and — it's my birthday,' she added, with a smile into Winnie's face. ' You dear old thing ! you shall enjoy yourself in your own way, and I — I enjoy myself always.' ' I believe you do, little singing-bird,' said Dr Hope, coming into the breakfast-room. He put an arm round i. each of his girls, and gazed at them with mingled love and pride.

Perhaps the penetrating grey eyes grew a shade softer as they rested on Winnie, but there was no lack of tenderness in the greeting to his eldest — ' God bless you my child, this day, and ever.' His voice fal tered, and the three stood in silence. The sisters clasped one another's hands, for the shadow of parting was upon them both, and for Lily there was nothing to brighten it. It could not be so dark to the young fiancie, though even to her there was pain in the law which bade her leave all for one. ' There's the postman ! ' It was rather a welcome in terruption, and Winnie rushed to the box to receive the usual allowance for her papa, numerous packages for Lily, and one letter for herself, looked for among the heap with eager fingers. ' You musn't stay to read all those, Lily, nor you Winnie, either.

Ring the bell for prayers, my dear, I have to go out early.' And accordingly, after swallow ing a hasty breakfast, the doctor was just preparing to leave the room, when Winnie stopped him. ' Papa, can't you come with us to-day ?' she asked. ' My dear child, who but yourself would ask such a thing!' 'But do; — it's so lovely, — this 21st of June. It would do you good.' ' I have to think of doing other people good.' ' But I'm sure they don't want you to-day. This B sunshine will do them good without you. Oh, do come, papa !' and Winnie jumped up to twine her arms round his neck, which she could just do by standing on tip-toe. Lily, meanwhile, sat behind the tea-urn, all the more quiet because this thing which she did not ask, would have been to her the sweetest birth-day joy. Dr Hope took possession of the little arms, and held them fast. ' Where are you going?

I forget. 'Down to Pent land. Mrs Grahame and Mrs Harper are to escort us, and I think Charlie Grahame is going too. Mr Harper can't come, he's got some kind of a horrid duty to do.' 'Most people have, except singing-birds like you. And Charlie Grahame, — if he thought a little more of duty, it would be all the better for him. I didn't take so many holidays when I was his age. But I'll tell you what I'll do, Winnie, if I can ; — only don't expect me. I'll come down by the five o'clock train. I suppose you'll have some tea going, and then I can help to bring you home, for such a set of wild creatures will be too much for the meekness of Mrs Harper, and the — well, we'll call it languor, — of Mrs Grahame, even with our staid Lily to help them.' And once more, a most un wonted thing, Dr Hope bent down to kiss his elder girl, little guessing how the token of love, which she was too timid to seek, would be treasured for many a day.

In due time the pic-nic party met at the railway. Its elements were sufficiently various. First of all, there was Miss May, an old family friend of the Hopes, who remembered the doctor in petticoats, and treasured various legends of that stage of his existence, which were delighted in by his girls. She was a genial old lady, who seemed to live in such perpetual sunshine, that she had absorbed it into her face, whence it rayed out again in smiles. And the smiles were so bright, that you forgave the chatter which accompanied them, kindly always, and full of quaint wisdom, if sometimes a little involved. Then there was Mrs Harper, the wife ofthe Vicar of St Catherine's, and the mother of numerous lit tle Harpers, who grew and multiplied in proportion to the smallness of their father's living.

She was a pale, sweet-faced woman, who looked as if life were too much for her, which probably it was, with narrow means and an annual baby, boys that would grow out of their jac kets, and girls that ' must be taught something.' There were other troubles too, in the drooping, melancholy eyes, for they held the memory ot more than one little life, broken off short here, and linked on to the Life Eternal : safe, the mother knew, but far from the yearning empty arms that would fain have held them still. For Mrs Harper by no means endorsed Miss May's sen timents on the death of babies, the latter never rising in her attempts at consolation, beyond the assurance that it was ' well for them, poor things ; if some more of them took good ways, they'd be saved a deal of sin and sorrow !' Which reflections, it must however be added, were always delivered with tears of genuine sympathy.

Beside Mrs Harper and her attendant troop, were Mrs, and Miss, and Mr Charlie Grahame. Mr Grahame had been a medical associate of Dr Hope, who had be friended his widow ever since his death, and through whose influence his son, after the usual course of medical education, had just obtained a good appointment in the City Hospital. Charlie professed profound gratitude to his patron, which he inclined to show by admiration of his eldest daughter. Lily took his homage resignedly for the most part, though she was now and then stirred into an absolute repulse of it, which, as Charlie philo sophically observed, 'meant either that she liked it or that she didn't' Between Lily and Nellie Grahame there were some attempts at intimacy, which never carried them beyond preliminaries. Both were reserved, and Nellie had the sensitive half-morbid pride, which placed an impalpable barrier between the daughter ofthe fashionable physician, and the poor daily governess, for such she was.