"I do not know whom you are talking of."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Marx. "I thought you _did_. Before I'd have you marry such a soft feller as that, I'd--I'd shoot him!"

There was some laughter, but Lois did not join in it, and with heightened colour was attending very busily to her supper.

"Was the poor man looking that way?" asked Mrs. Barclay.

"He was lookin' two ways," said Mrs. Marx; "and when a man's doin'

that, he don't fetch up nowhere, you bet. I'd like to know what becomes of him! They were all of the sort Lois has been tellin' of; thought a deal o' 'prettiness.' I do think, the way some people live, is a way to shame the flies; and I don't know nothin' in creation more useless than they be!"

Mrs. Marx could speak better English, but the truth was, when she got much excited she forgot her grammar.

"But at a watering-place," remarked Mrs. Barclay, "you do not expect people to show their useful side. They are out for play and amus.e.m.e.nt."

"I can play too," said the hostess; "but my play always has some meaning to it. Did I tell you, mother, what that lady was doing?"

"I thought you were speaking of a gentleman," said quiet Mrs. Armadale.

"Well, there was a lady too; and she was doin' a piece o' work. It was a beautiful piece of grey satin; thick and handsome as you ever see; and she was sewin' gold thread upon it with fine gold-coloured silk; fine gold thread; and it went one way straight and another way round, curling and crinkling, like nothin' on earth but a spider's web; all over the grey satin. I watched her a while, and then, says I, 'What are you doin', if you please? I've been lookin' at you, and I can't make out.' 'No,' says she, 'I s'pose not. It's a cover for a bellows.' 'For a _what?_' says I. 'For a bellows,' says she; 'a _bellows_, to blow the fire with. Don't you know what they are?' 'Yes,' says I; 'I've seen a fire bellows before now; but in our part o' the country we don't cover 'em with satin.' 'No,' says she, 'I suppose not.' 'I would just like to ask one more question,' says I. 'Well, you may,' says she; 'what is it?' 'I would just like to know,' says I, 'what the fire is made of that you blow with a satin and gold bellows?' And she laughed a little.

' 'Cause,' says I, 'it ought to be somethin' that won't soil a kid glove and that won't give out no sparks nor smoke.' 'O,' says she, 'n.o.body really blows the fire; only the bellows have come into fashion, along with the _fire-dogs_, wherever people have an open fireplace and a wood fire.' Well, what she meant by fire dogs I couldn't guess; but I thought I wouldn't expose any more o' my ignorance. Now, mother, how would you like to have Lois in a house like that?--where people don't know any better what to do with their immortal lives than to make satin covers for bellows they don't want to blow the fire with! and dish up dinner enough for twelve people, to feed a hundred?"

"Lois will never be in a house like that," responded the old lady contentedly.

"Then it's just as well if you keep her away from the places where they make so much of _prettiness_, I can tell you. Lois is human."

"Lois is Christian," said Mrs. Armadale; "and she knows her duty."

"Well, it's heart-breakin' work, to know one's duty, sometimes," said Mrs. Marx.

"But you do not think, I hope, that one is a pattern for all?" said Mrs. Barclay. "There are exceptions; it is not everybody in the great world that lives to no purpose."

"If that's what you call the great world, _I_ call it mighty small, then. If I didn't know anything better to do with myself than to work sprangles o' gold on a satin cover that warn't to cover nothin', I'd go down to Fairhaven and hire myself out to open oysters! and think I made by the bargain. Anyhow, I'd respect myself better."

"I don't know what you mean by the great world," said uncle Tim. "Be there two on 'em--a big and a little?"

"Don't you see, all Shampuashuh would go in one o' those houses Lois was tellin' about! and if it got there, I expect they wouldn't give it house-room."

"The worlds are not so different as you think," Mrs. Barclay went on courteously. "Human nature is the same everywhere."

"Well, I guess likely," responded Mrs. Marx. "Mother, if you've done, we'll go into the other."

CHAPTER XXVI.

SCRUPLES.

The next day was Christmas; but in the country of Shampuashuh, Christmas, though a holiday, was not held in so high regard as it receives in many other quarters of the earth. There was no service in the church; and after dinner Lois came as usual to draw in Mrs.

Barclay's room.

"I did not understand some of your aunt's talk last evening," Mrs.

Barclay remarked after a while.

"I am not surprised at that," said Lois.

"Did you?"

"O yes. I understand aunt Anne."

"Does she really think that _all_ the people who like pretty things, lead useless lives?"

"She does not care so much about pretty things as I do," said Lois slightly.

"But does she think all who belong to the 'great world' are evil? given up to wickedness?"

"Not so bad as that," Lois answered, smiling; "but naturally aunt Anne does not understand any world but this of Shampuashuh."

"I understood her to a.s.sume that under no circ.u.mstances could you marry one of the great world she was talking of?"

"Well," said Lois, "I suppose she thinks that one of them would not be a Christian."

"You mean, an enthusiast."

"No," said Lois; "but I mean, and she means, one who is in heart a true servant of Christ. He might, or he might not, be enthusiastic."

"And would you marry no one who was not a Christian, as you understand the word?"

"The Bible forbids it," said Lois, her colour rising a little.

"The Bible forbids it? I have not studied the Bible like you; but I have heard it read from the pulpit all my life; and I never heard, either from the pulpit or out of it, such an idea, as that one who is a Christian may not marry one who is not."

"I can show you the command--in more places than one," said Lois.

"I wish you would."

Lois left her drawing and fetched a Bible.

"It is forbidden in the Old Testament and in the New," she said; "but I will show you a place in the New. Here it is--in the second Epistle to the Corinthians--'Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers;'

and it goes on to give the reason."

"Unbelievers! But those, in that day, were heathen."

"Yes," said Lois simply, going on with her drawing.

"There are no heathen now,--not here."