FullReads

“You–you meant religious gifts, did you not?” faltered the faint, discouraged voice; “faith, hope and–and–the–the being resigned to God’s will, and–and endeavoring to bear the cross with patience.”

* * * * *

“I meant everything that you want,” answered the bright-eyed one with deliberate emphasis, the bright eyes softening as they took in more completely the pinched outlines and the eager child’s look shining from out the worn and faded woman’s face.

“But–but there is so much! I–I never had anything that I really wanted–things, you know, that one could hardly mention in one’s prayers.”

“Have them now. Have them all. God is all. All is God. You are God’s. God is yours!”

Then the billowing surges of silk and velvet swept the small, inquiring face into the background with the accustomed ease and relentlessness of billowing surges.

Having partaken copiously of certain “material beliefs” consisting of salads and sandwiches, accompanied by divers cups of strong coffee, Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Deuser had become pleasantly flushed and expansive. “A most unique, comprehensive and uplifting view of our spiritual environment,” she remarked to Miss Philura when the two ladies found themselves on their homeward way. Her best society smile still lingered blandly about the curves and creases of her stolid, high-colored visage; the dying violets on her massive satin bosom gave forth their sweetest parting breath.

The little lady on the front seat of the carriage sat very erect; red spots glowed upon her faded cheeks. “I think,” she said tremulously, “that it was just–wonderful! I–I am so very happy to have heard it. Thank you a thousand times, dear Cousin Maria, for taking me.”

Mrs. Van Deuser raised her gold-rimmed glasses and settled them under arching brows, while the society smile faded quite away. “Of course,” she said coldly, “one should make due and proper allowance for facts–as they exist. And also–er–consider above all what interpretation is best suited to one’s individual station in life. Truth, my dear Philura, adapts itself freely to the needs of the poor and lowly as well as to the demands of those upon whom devolve the higher responsibilities of wealth and position; our dear Master Himself spoke of the poor as always with us, you will remember. A lowly but pious life, passed in humble recognition of God’s chastening providence, is doubtless good and proper for many worthy persons.”

* * * * *

Miss Philura’s blue eyes flashed rebelliously for perhaps the first time in uncounted years. She made no answer. As for the long and presumably instructive homily on the duties and prerogatives of the lowly, lasting quite up to the moment when the carriage stopped before the door of Mrs. Van Deuser’s residence, it fell upon ears which heard not. Indeed, her next remark was so entirely irrelevant that her august kinswoman stared in displeased amazement. “I am going to purchase some–some necessaries to-morrow, Cousin Maria; I should like Fifine to go with me.”

Miss Philura acknowledged to herself, with a truthfulness which she felt to be almost brazen, that her uppermost yearnings were of a wholly mundane character.

During a busy and joyous evening she endeavored to formulate these thronging desires; by bedtime she had even ventured–with the aid of a stubbed lead-pencil–to indite the most immediate and urgent of these wants as they knocked at the door of her consciousness. The list, hidden guiltily away in the depths of her shabby purse, read something as follows:

“I wish to be beautiful and admired. I want two new dresses; a hat with plumes, and a silk petticoat that rustles. I want some new kid gloves and a feather boa (a long one made of ostrich feathers). I wish—-” The small, blunt pencil had been lifted in air for the space of three minutes before it again descended; then, with cheeks that burned, Miss Philura had written the fateful words: “I wish to have a lover and to be married.”