Martha is greatly absorbed in her own household, its cares and its pleasures.She brings her little Underhills to see us occasionally, when they put my children quite out of countenance by their consciousness of the fine clothes they wear, and their knowledge of the world.Even I find it hard not to feel abashed in the presence of so much of the sort of wisdom in which I am lacking.As to Lucy she is exactly in her sphere: the calm dignity with which she reigns in her husband's house, and the moderation and self-control with which she guides his children, are really instructive.She has a baby of her own, and though it acts just like other babies and kicks, scratches, pulls.and cries when it is washed and dressed, she goes through that process with a serenity and deliberation that I envy with all my might.Her predecessor in the nursery was all nerve and brain, and has left four children made of the same material behind her.But their wild spirits on one day, and their depression and languor on the next, have no visible effect upon her.Her influence is always quieting; she tones down their vehemence with her own calm decision and practical good sense.It is amusing to see her seated among those four little furies, who love each other in such a distracted way that somebody's feelings are always getting hurt, and somebody always crying.By a sort of magnetic influence she heals these wounds immediately, and finds some prosaic occupation as an antidote to these poetical moods.I confess that I am instructed and reproved whenever I go to see her, and wish I were more like her.
But there is no use in trying to engraft an opposite nature on one's own.What I am, that I must be, except as God changes me into His own image.And everything brings me back to that, as my supreme desire.Isee more and more that I must be myself what I want my children to be, and that I cannot make myself over even for their sakes.This must be His work, and I wonder that it goes on so slowly; that all the disappointments, sorrows, sicknesses I have passed through, have left me still selfish, still full of imperfections.
MARCH 5, 1852.-This is the sixth anniversary of James' death.
Thinking it all over after I went to bed last night, his sickness, his death, and the weary months that followed for mother, I could not get to sleep till long past midnight.Then Una woke, crying with the earache, and I was up till nearly daybreak with her, poor child.Igot up jaded and depressed, almost ready to faint under the burden of life, and dreading to meet Helen, who is doubly sad on these anniversaries.She came down to breakfast dressed as usual in deep mourning, and looking as spiritless as I felt.The prattle of the children relieved the sombre silence maintained by the rest of us, each of whom acted depressingly on the others.How things do flash into one's mind.These words suddenly came to mine, as we sat so gloomily at the table God had spread for us, and which He had enlivened by the four young faces around it--"Why should the children of a King Go mourning all their days?"Why, indeed? Children of a King? I felt grieved that I was so intent on my own sorrows as to lose sight of my relationship to Him.And then I asked myself what I could do to make the day less wearisome and sorrowful to Helen.She came, after a time, with her work to my room.The children took their good-by kisses and went off to school;Ernest took his, too, and set forth on his day's work, whi1e Daisy played quietly about the room.
"Helen, dear," I ventured at last to begin "I want you to do me a favor to-day.""Yes," she said, languidly.
"I want you to go to see Mrs.Campbell.This is the day for her beef-tea, and she will be looking out for one of us.
"You must not ask me to go to-day," Helen answered.
"I think I must, dear.When other springs of comfort dry up, there is one always left to us.And that; as mother often said, is usefulness.""I do try to be useful," she said.
"Yes, you are very kind to me and to the children.If you were my own sister you could not do more.But these little duties do not relieve that aching void in your heart which yearns so for relief.""No," she said, quickly, "I have no such yearning.I just want to settle down as I am now.""Yes, I suppose that is the natural tendency of sorrow.But there is great significance in the prayer for 'a heart at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize.'""Oh, Katy!" she said, "you don't know, you can't know, how I feel.
Until James began to love me so I did not know there was such a love as that in the world.You know our family is different from yours.
And it is so delightful to be loved.Or rather it was!""Don't say was," I said."You know we all love you dearly, dearly""Yes, but not as James did!"
"That is true.It was foolish in me to expect to console you by such suggestions.But to go back to Mrs.Campbell.She will sympathize with you, if you will let her, as very few can, for she has lost both husband and children.""Ah, but she had a husband for a time, at least.It is not as if he were snatched away before they had lived together."If anybody else had said this I should have felt that it was out of mere perverseness.But dear little Helen is not perverse; she is simply overburdened.
"I grant that your disappointment was greater than hers," I went on.
"But the affliction was not.Every day that a husband and wife walk hand in hand together upon earth makes of the twain more and more one flesh.The selfish element which at first formed so large a part of their attraction to each other disappears, and the union becomes so pure and beautiful as to form a fitting type of the union of Christ and His church.There is nothing else on earth like it."Helen sighed.
"I find it hard to believe," she said, "there can be anything more delicious than the months in which James and I were so happy together.""Suffering together would have brought you even nearer," I replied.
