"Let me help you when those times come."

"One of the times is to-day," said Rotha in a low tone.

"Ah? What's the matter?" said he looking down kindly at her. Rotha had laid her forehead against the edge of the window frame, and was looking out with an intent grave eye which amused him, and made him curious too.

"Because I want to tell you something of how feel, Mr. Digby, and I cannot."--(He had told her not to say _can't_, and now she never did.) "It's all mixed up, and I don't know what comes first; and you will think I am--ungrateful."

"Never in the world!" said he heartily. "I shall never think that. I think I know you pretty well, Rotha."

Yet he was hardly prepared for the look she gave him; a glance only, but so intent, so warm, so laden with grat.i.tude, ay, and so burdened with a yet deeper feeling, that Mr. Digby was well nigh startled. It was not the flash of brilliancy of which Rotha's eyes were quite capable; it was a rarer thing, the dark glow of a hidden fire, true, and deep, and pure, and unconscious of itself. It gave the young man something to think of.

CHAPTER X.

L'HOMME PROPOSE.

Mr. Digby thought of it a good deal. He was obliged to recognize the fact, that this friendless child was pouring upon him all the affection of a very pa.s.sionate nature. Child, he called her in his thoughts, and yet he knew quite well that the time was not distant when Rotha would be a child no longer. And already she loved him with the intensity of a concentrated power of loving. Certainly this was not what Mr. Digby wished, or had in any wise contemplated as possible, and it seemed to him both undesirable and inconvenient; and yet, it is sweet to be loved; and he could not recall that intense look of devotion without a certain thrill. Because of its beauty, he said to himself; but it was also because of its significance. He read Rotha; he knew that she was one of those natures which have a great tendency to concentration of affection; with whom the flow of feeling is apt to be closed in to a narrow channel, and in that channel to be proportionately sweeping and powerful. What training could best be applied to correct this tendency, not happy for the possessor, nor beneficent in its effects upon others? These are the sort of natures that when untrained and ungoverned, use upon occasion the dagger and the poison cup; or which even when not untrained are in danger, in certain cases of shipwreck, of going to pieces altogether. In danger at all times of unwise, inconsiderate acting; as when such a stream meets with resistance and breaks its bounds, spreading waste and desolation where it comes. Truly, he trusted that this little girl's future might be so sheltered and cared for, that no such peril might overtake her; but how could he know? What could he do? and what anyhow was to be the outcome of all this? It was very pleasant to have her love him, but he did not want her to love him too well. At any rate, _he_ could not be her tutor permanently; he had something else to do, and if he had not, the arrangement would be inadmissible. Mrs. Busby would return to town in a few weeks, and then-- Yes, there was nothing else to do. Rotha must go under her aunt's care, for the present. How would they agree? Mr.

Digby did not feel sure; he had an antic.i.p.ation that the change would be a sore trial to Rotha. But--it must be made.

He lay in his hammock one day, thinking all this over. Rotha was sitting near him drawing. She was always near him when she could be so, though a spaniel is not more un.o.btrusive. Nor indeed half as much so; for a pet dog will sometimes try to attract attention, which Rotha never did. She was content and happy if she could be near her one friend and glance at him from time to time. And lately Rotha had become extremely fond of her pencil; I might say, of all the studies Mr. Digby put before her.

Whatever he wished her to do, she did with a will. But drawing had grown to be a pa.s.sion with her, and naturally she was making capital progress.

She sat absorbed in her work, her eyes intently going from her model to her paper and back again; nevertheless, every now and then one swift glance went in Mr. Digby's direction. No model, living or dead, equalled in her eyes the pleasantness of his face and figure. He caught one of those glances; quick, wistful, watchful, and meeting his eye this time, it softened with an inexplicable sort of content. The young man could have smiled, but that the look somehow gave him a touch of pain. He noticed Rotha more particularly, as she sat at her drawing. He noticed how she had changed for the better, even in the few weeks since they came to Fort Washington; how her face had refined, grown gentle and quiet, and her manners correspondingly. He noticed what a good face it was, full of intelligence and latent power, and present sensitiveness; and furthermore, a rare thing anywhere, how free from self-consciousness.

Full of life and of eager susceptibility as Rotha was always, she seemed to have the least recollection of herself and her own appearance. She did not forget her new dresses, for instance, but she looked at them from her own standpoint and not from that of an imaginary spectator. Mr. Digby drew an involuntary sigh, and Rotha looked up again.

"You like that work, Rotha," he said.

"Very much, Mr. Digby!" He had once told her to be moderate in her expressions, and to say always less than she felt, rather than more.

Rotha never forgot, and was sedulously reserved in her manner of making known what she felt.

"But Mr. Digby, it is very difficult," she went on.

"What?"

"To make anything perfect."

He smiled. "Very difficult indeed. People that aim so high are never satisfied with what they do."

"Then is it better to aim lower?"

"By no means! He that is satisfied with himself has come to a dead stand- still; and will get no further."

"But must one be always dissatisfied with oneself?"

"Yes; if one is ever to grow to a richer growth and bring forth better fruit. And anything that stops growing, begins to die."

Rotha gave him a peculiar, thoughtful look, and then went on with her drawing.

"Understand me, Rotha," he said, catching the look. "I am talking of the dissatisfaction of a person who is doing his best. The fact that one is dissatisfied when not doing his best, proves simply that feeling is not dead yet. There is no comfort to be drawn from that."

Rotha went on drawing and did not look up, this time. Mr. Digby considered how he should say what he wanted to say.

"Rotha--" he began, "how is it with that question you were once concerned about? Are you any nearer being a Christian?"

"I don't know, sir. I do not think I am."

"What hinders?"

"I suppose," said Rotha, playing with her pencil absently,--"the old hindrance."

"You do not wish to be a Christian."

"Yes, sometimes I do. Sometimes I do. But I--cannot."

"I should feel happier about you, if that question were well settled."

"Why, Mr. Digby?" said Rotha, answering rather something in his tone than in his words, and looking up to get the reply.

"Because, Rotha, you take hold hard, where you take hold at all; and you may take hold of something that will fail you."

Her eyes, and even a sudden change of colour, put a startled question to him. He smiled as he answered, though again with a reminder of pain which he did not stop to a.n.a.lyse. "No," he said, "I will never fail you, Rotha; never voluntarily; but I have no command over my own life. I would like you to have a trust that could never disappoint you; and there is only One on whom such a trust can be lodged. He who is resting on Christ, is resting on a rock."

"I know, Mr. Digby," said Rotha, in a subdued way. "I wish I was on such a rock, too; but that don't change anything."

"Do you think you really wish to be a Christian, Rotha?"

"Because mother was,--and because you are," she said gravely; "but then, _for myself_, I do not want it."

"What is likely to be the end?"

"_That_ don't change anything, either," said Rotha, not too lucidly.

"Most true!" said Mr. Digby. "Well, Rotha, I will tell you what I think.

I think you are your mother's child, and that you will not be left to your own wilfulness. I am afraid, though, that you may have to go through a bitter experience before the wilfulness is broken; and I want to give you one or two things to remember when it comes."

"But why should it come?" said Rotha.

"Because I am afraid nothing else will bring you to seek the one Friend that cannot be lost; and I think you are bound to find Him."

"But where will you be, Mr. Digby?" said Rotha, now plainly much disturbed.

"I do not know. I do not know anything about it."

"But I could not be so forlorn, if I had you."

"Then perhaps you will not have me."