CHAPTER XII.

"Wave high your torches on each crag and cliff.

Let many lights blaze on our battlements; Shout to them in the pauses of the storm, And tell them there is hope."

--_Maturings "Bertram."_

The evening was cool, and our whole party were gathered in the parlor of the cottage occupied by the Dinsmores and Travillas--games, fancy-work, reading, and conversation making the time fly.

Edward and Zoe had drawn a little apart from the others, and were conversing together in an undertone.

"Suppose we go out and promenade the veranda for a little," he said, presently. "I will get you a wrap and that knit affair for your head that I think so pretty and becoming."

"Crocheted," she corrected; "yes, I'm quite in the mood for a promenade with my husband; and I'm sure the air outside must be delightful. But you won't have to go farther than that stand in the corner for my things."

He brought them, wrapped the shawl carefully about her, and they went out.

Betty, looking after them, remarked aside to her Cousin Elsie, "How lover-like they are still!"

"Yes," Elsie said, with a glad smile: "they are very fond of each other, and it rejoices my heart to see it."

"And one might say exactly the same of the captain and Violet," pursued Betty, in a lower tone, and glancing toward that couple, as they sat side by side on the opposite sofa--Violet with her babe in her arms, the captain clucking and whistling to it, while it cooed and laughed in his face--Violet's ever-beautiful face more beautiful than its wont, with its expression of exceeding love and happiness as her glance rested now upon her husband and now upon her child.

"Yes," Elsie said again, watching them, with a joyous smile still wreathing her lips and shining in her eyes; "and it is just so with my dear Elsie and Lester. I am truly blest in seeing my children so well mated and so truly happy."

"Zoe, little wife," Edward was saying, out on the veranda, "can you spare me for a day or two?"

"Spare you, Ned? How do you mean?"

"I should like to join the boys--Bob, Harold, and Herbert--in a little trip on a sailing vessel which leaves here early to-morrow morning and will return on the evening of the next day or the next but one. I should ask my little wife to go with us, but, unfortunately, the vessel has no accommodations for ladies. What do you say, love? I shall not go without your consent."

"Thank you, you dear boy, for saying that," she responded, affectionately, squeezing the arm on which she leaned; "go if you want to; I know I can't help missing the kindest and dearest husband in the world, but I shall try to be happy in looking forward to the joy of reunion on your return."

"That's a dear," he said, bending down to kiss the ruby lips. "It is a great delight to meet after a short separation, and we should miss that entirely if we never parted at all."

"But oh, Ned, if anything should happen to you!" she said, in a quivering voice.

"Hush, hush, love," he answered, soothingly; "don't borrow trouble; remember we are under the same protection on the sea as on the land, and perhaps as safe on one as on the other."

"Yes; but when I am with you I share your danger, if there is any, and that is what I wish; for oh, Ned, I couldn't live without you!"

"I hope you may never have to try it, my darling," he said, in tender tones, "or I be called to endure the trial of having to live without you; yet we can hardly hope to go together.

"But let us not vex ourselves with useless fears. We have the promise, 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be.' And we know that nothing can befall us without the will of our Heavenly Father, whose love and compa.s.sion are infinite. 'We know that all things work together for good to them that love G.o.d.'"

"But if one is not at all sure of belonging to Him?" she said, in a voice so low that he barely caught the words.

"Then the way is open to come to Him. He says, 'Come unto me.' 'Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.' The invitation is to you, love, as truly as if addressed to you alone; as truly as if you could hear His voice speaking the sweet words and see His kind eyes looking directly at you.

"It is my ardent wish, my most earnest, constant prayer, that my beloved wife may speedily learn to know, love, and trust in Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!"

"You are so good, Ned! I wish I were worthy of such a husband," she murmured, half sighing as she spoke.

"Quite a mistake, Zoe," he replied, with unaffected humility; "to hear you talk so makes me feel like a hypocrite. I haves no righteousness of my own to plead, but, thanks be unto G.o.d, I may rejoice in the imputed righteousness of Christ! And that may be yours, too, love, for the asking.

"'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.'

"They are the Master's own words; and He adds: 'For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.'"

Meanwhile the contemplated trip of the young men was under discussion in the parlor. "Dear me!" said Betty, who had just heard of it, "how much fun men and boys do have! Don't you wish you were one of them, Lulu?"

"No, I don't," returned Lulu, promptly. "I'd like to be allowed to do some of the things they do that we mustn't, but I don't want to be a boy."

"That is right," said her father; "there are few things so unpleasant to me as a masculine woman, who wishes herself a man and tries to ape the stronger, coa.r.s.er s.e.x in dress and manners. I hope my girls will always be content, and more than content, to be what G.o.d has made them."

"If you meant to hit me that time, captain," remarked Betty, in a lively tone, "let me tell you it was a miserable failure, for I don't wish I was a man, and never did. Coa.r.s.e creatures, as you say--present company always excepted--who would want to be one of them."

"I'd never have anything to do with one of them if I were in your place, Bet," laughed her brother.

"Perhaps I shouldn't, only that they seem a sort of necessary evil," she retorted. "But why don't you invite some of us ladies to go along?"

"Because you are _not_ necessary evils," returned her brother, with a twinkle of fun in his eye.

"You should, one and all, have an invitation if we could make you comfortable," said Harold, gallantly: "but the vessel has absolutely no accommodations for ladies."

"Ah, then, you are excusable," returned Betty.

The young men left the next morning, after an early breakfast. Zoe and Betty drove down to the wharf with them to see them off, and watched the departing vessel till she disappeared from sight.

Zoe went home in tears, Betty doing her best to console her.

"Come, now, be a brave little woman; it's for only two or three days at the farthest. Why, I'd never get married if I thought I shouldn't be able to live so long without the fortunate man I bestowed my hand upon."

"Oh, you don't know anything about it, Betty!" sobbed Zoe. "Ned's all I have in the world, and it's so lonesome without him! And then, how do I know that he'll ever get back? A storm may come up and the vessel be wrecked."

"That's just possible," said Betty, "and it's great folly to make ourselves miserable over bare possibilities--things which may never happen."

"Oh, you are a great deal too wise for me!" said Zoe, in disgust.

"Oh," cried Betty, "if it's a pleasure and comfort to you to be miserable--to make yourself so by antic.i.p.ating the worst--do so by all means. I have heard of people who are never happy but when they are miserable."

"But I am not one of that sort," said Zoe, in an aggrieved tone. "I am as happy as a lark when Ned is with me. Yes, and I'll show you that I can be cheerful even without him."

She accordingly wiped her eyes, put on a smile, and began talking in a sprightly way about the beauty of the sea as they looked upon it, with its waves dancing and sparkling in the brilliant light of the morning sun.

"What shall we do to-day?" queried Betty.