"Of course. He says he is to take Linnet around the world. Now study, please. _Via Lactea_" he exclaimed, bending forward and taking the book out of her hand. "What do you know about the Milky Way?"

"I never shall know anything unless you give me the book."

"As saucy as ever. You won't dare, some day."

Marjorie studied, Morris kept his eyes on a book that he did not read; neither spoke for fully three quarters of an hour. Marjorie studied with no pretence: Master McCosh had said that Miss West studied in fifteen minutes to more purpose than any other of her cla.s.s did in an hour. She did not study, she was absorbed; she had no existence excepting in the lesson; just now there had been no other world for her than the wondrous Milky Way.

"I shall have Miss West for a teacher," he had told Miss Prudence.

Marjorie wondered if he ever would. Mrs. Browning has told us:

"Girls would fain know the end of everything."

And Marjorie would fain have known the end of herself. She would not be quite satisfied with Miss Prudence's lovely life, even with this "compensation" of Prue; there was a perfection of symmetry in Miss Prudence's character that she was aiming at, her character made her story, but what Marjorie would be satisfied to become she did not fully define even to Marjorie West.

"Now, I'm through," she exclaimed, closing the book as an exclamation point; "but I won't bother you with what I have learned. Master McCosh knows the face of the sky as well as I know the alphabet. You should have heard him and seen him one night, pointing here and there and everywhere: That's Orion, that's Job's coffin, that's Ca.s.siopeia! As fast as he could speak. That's the Dipper, that's the North Star!"

"I know them all," said Morris.

"Why! when did you see them?"

"In my watches I've plenty of time to look at the stars! I've plenty of time for thinking!"

"Have you seen an iceberg?"

"Yes, one floated down pretty near us going out--the air was chillier and we found her glittering majesty was the cause of it."

"Have you seen a whale?"

"I've seen black fish; they spout like whales."

"And a nautilus."

"Yes."

"And Mother Carey's chickens?"

"Yes."

"Morris, I won't tease you with nonsense! What troubles you this morning?"

"My mother," he said concisely.

"Is she ill? Miss Prudence wrote to her last week"

"Does she ever reply?"

"I think so. Miss Prudence has not shown me her letters."

"Poor mother. I suppose so. I'm glad she writes at all. You don't know what it is to believe that G.o.d does not love you; to pray and have no answer; to be in despair."

"Oh, dear, no," exclaimed Marjorie, sympathetically.

"She is sure G.o.d has not forgiven her, she weeps and prays and takes no interest in anything."

"I should not think she would. I couldn't."

"She is with Delia now; the girls toss her back one to the other, and Clara wants to put her into the Old Lady's Home. She is a shadow on the house--they have no patience with her. They are not Christians, and their husbands are not--they do not understand; Delia's husband contends that she is crazy; but she is not, she is only in despair. They say she is no help, only a hindrance, and they want to get rid of her. She will not work about the house, she will not sew or help in anything, she says she cannot read the Bible--"

"How long since she has felt so?"

"Two years now. I would not tell you to worry you, but now I must tell some one, for something must be done. Delia has never been very kind to her since she was married. I have no home for her; what am I to do? I could not ask any happy home to take her in; I cannot bear to think of the Old Lady's Home for her, she will think her children have turned her off. And the girls have."

"Ask Miss Prudence what to do," said Marjorie brightly, "she always knows."

"I intend to. But she has been so kind to us all. Indeed, that was one of my motives in coming here. Between themselves the girls may send her somewhere while I am gone and I want to make that impossible. When I am captain I will take mother around the world. I will show her how good G.o.d is everywhere. Poor mother! She is one of those bubbling-over temperaments like Linnet's and when she is down she is all the way down.

Who would have anything to live for if they did not believe in the love of G.o.d? Would I? Would you?"

"I could not live; I would _die_," said Marjorie vehemently.

"She does not live, she exists! She is emaciated; sometimes she fasts day after day until she is too weak to move around--she says she must fast while she prays. O, Marjorie, I'm sorry to let you know there is such sorrow in the world."

"Why should I not know about sorrow?" asked Marjorie, gravely. "Must I always be joyful?"

"I want you to be. There is no sorrow like this sorrow. I know something about it; before I could believe that G.o.d had forgiven me I could not sleep or eat."

"I always believed it, I think," said Marjorie simply.

"I want her to be with some one who loves her and understands her; the girls scold her and find fault with her, and she has been such a good mother to them; perhaps she let them have their own way too much, and this is one of the results of it. She has worked while they slept, and has taken the hardest of everything for them. And now in her sore extremity they want to send her among strangers. I wish I had a home of my own. If I can do no better, I will give up my position, and stay on land and make some kind of a home for her."

"Oh, not yet. Don't decide so hastily. Tell Miss Prudence. Telling her a thing is the next best thing to praying about it," said Marjorie, earnestly.

"What now?" Miss Prudence asked. "Morris, this girl is an enthusiast!"

She was standing behind Marjorie's chair and touched her hair as she spoke.

"Oh, have you heard it all?" cried Marjorie, springing up.

"No, I came in this instant; I only heard that Morris must not decide hastily, but tell me all about it, which is certainly good advice, and while we are at breakfast Morris shall tell me."

"I can't, before Prue," said Morris.

"Then we will have a conference immediately afterward. Deborah's m.u.f.fins must not wait or she will be cross, and she has made m.u.f.fins for me so many years that I can't allow her to be cross."

Morris made an attempt to be his usual entertaining self at the breakfast table, then broke down suddenly.

"Miss Prudence, I'm so full of something that I can't talk about anything else."

"I'm full of something too," announced Prue. "Aunt Prue, when am I going to Marjorie's school."