"I saw it walk into your pocket; that's a very different thing from putting it in," the girl frankly explained.

Instead of the mother seeing any fun in the situation, and quietly pointing out where fun ends and unkindness begins, and forgetting the many practical jokes Bessie herself had good-naturedly endured at the hands of her brother, she literally stormed at Bessie, declaring she should leave home at once and be put to some business.

Phebe hearing of all this, offered to take Bessie, to which the mother readily agreed. So it was a very short journey indeed Bessie took from home.

Deep down in her heart the girl was very grieved at the way she had left home, but outwardly kept her usual brightness, and was indeed truly delighted at now really being "one of the company."

"If ever I get rich," she exclaimed, "and have a coat-of-arms, I shall have a black-beetle on my quarterings, for it was a black-beetle which carried me here; a fine old ebony coachman! Oh, Mrs. Waring," and a sad note came into the girl's voice just then, "life often seems to me such a tangle and jingle!"

"Does it, dear? It has often seemed the same to me." Just then she caught sight of the star--she must not lose an opportunity--"but we must do our best to turn it into a song. We'll try together, won't we?"

A squeeze of the hand was all the answer Bessie was able to give.

It is strange that though we stand as units before G.o.d, the soul's progress can only be definitely marked by its relationship to others. By the way Phebe treated those who came under her influence was one test of her advance.

The only objection Nanna raised to this addition to the family was the fear lest Bessie and Jones should be thrown too much together.

"You must have noticed how she has ceased calling him 'Darling.'"

"They are less likely to come together if they are constantly in each other's society than if they only saw each other occasionally," was all Phebe said.

"I really think," remarked Nanna, "this house ought to be called a hospital for sick souls. First of all, you take this lonely soul in----"

"Why, it was you who took me in," interrupted Phebe.

"All lonely and forlorn," calmly continued Nanna, unheeding the interruption; "then Jones comes along, sore wounded in the battle, and now there's this poor young thing taken in with a broken wing. It's really nothing short of a hospital."

"Well, then," replied Phebe, "we'll call it Love's Hospital."

CHAPTER XIV

AN UNFORTUNATE ENCOUNTER

Jim Coates, the sick man whom Phebe Waring was called to visit, did not die; on the contrary, from the hour of her first visit he began to mend.

Very often of an afternoon, when business was slack, she would go and have a talk with him, and nothing pleased him better than for her, instead of reading the Bible to him, to tell the stories out in her own words and with her own comments. No child ever drank in fairy stories more eagerly, and Phebe even discussed some infidel notions he had got hold of, overcoming many of his difficulties. If she had been told two months before that she could even attempt such things the firm answer would have been "Impossible!"

After Jim had regained strength to a certain measure, came the difficult question of getting work for him. Phebe at once thought of the ganger at the railway-works, and drove over to enlist his sympathies on behalf of Jim, frankly telling him all the story. The man listened respectfully, and then said, "Yes, I'll put him on; but he'd better keep his mouth shut as to how he got here, or the men will give him a lively time, I bet. And if he keeps true blue among this crew, then he's a Briton, I can tell yer, for they're the rummiest lot I've ever had. I go to chapel myself with the missis, but I don't let on to them I do."

"Do you think then, it is impossible to be a Christian and work with these men?" asked Phebe anxiously.

"I don't say as much as that," answered the man, nervously grinding his heel into the soil as he spoke, "only you have to keep your religion to yourself."

"Do you think that is possible?"

The talk was getting a little too personal, and the ganger, with an extra red face and a muttered "Don't know," turned away.

Jim Coates was delighted when Phebe took him the news. The distance from the town was no obstacle, he being the happy possessor of a "bone-shaker" bicycle.

"But," said Mrs. Waring, in a serious tone, "the ganger says you must keep your religion to yourself. Are you going to do that?"

"Not I; why should I?"

"Because they will give you a lively time."

"Well, let them; I'm not made of sugar."

"That's splendidly said; and you'll show your colours from the very first, won't you?"

"I should be a sneak if I didn't."

That same day at the tea-table Phebe gave an account of her day's mission. Meal-times were always made as interesting as possible. Nanna remarked that she wondered what the men camped out there did with themselves on Sundays.

Bessie suggested it would be a splendid thing if Mrs. Waring went over there on Sunday afternoons and talked to the men, adding, "I am sure she could do it splendidly, and they'd listen to her like anything; but there, that will never come to pa.s.s, because the Bible says women mustn't do that sort of thing."

Nanna was on the war-path instantly. "In what part of the Bible do you find that, I should like to know? That's nothing but the teaching of the evil one, just to hinder the Lord's work. I'd think twice, if I were you, before I'd do that sort of dirty work."

"It says women are not to speak in church; I'm sure it does," stammered Bessie, getting red and feeling uncomfortable.

"It says they are not to chatter in the church, and nothing more; and that's what they still do in the east, so they say, both men and women.

You forget that the Bible gives particulars as to how women should dress when they pray or prophesy, that Jesus Himself told women to spread the news about Him, that G.o.d told Joel his daughters should prophesy, that Phillip's daughters were prophets and Deaconess Phebe a foreign missionary! You forget all that; but there, you are no worse than lots of other women. Women run women down just as much as men do. Often and often when women might have done a good piece of work for G.o.d they got behind that bit of bad translation, and, like dying ducks, gurgle something about it 'not being modest.' It's a good deal more immodest to aid Satan in his work! I've no patience with the majority of women, and I do hope, Bessie, you won't become one of the brainless sort that think a good deal more about the fit of a skirt and the cut of a sleeve than they do about G.o.d's Kingdom!"

Poor Bessie did not know what to answer. Fortunately the group broke up just then, and she followed Phebe out into Sunshine Patch, where little Jack was rolling in the gra.s.s, and where there was quite a show of spring's yellow and violet tints.

"Life doesn't seem to get any easier," said Bessie, as they seated themselves in the little arbour; "seems impossible to know sometimes what is exactly right to do. But Mrs. Colston never seems at a loss, everything seems pretty straightforward to her."

Phebe had been wondering how much of Nanna's speech had been intended for her own benefit. "You see," she answered, "Nanna is so much older than we are; her longer experience enables her to see more quickly through things, and on so many points she has fought her way to clear conclusions. We must not get discouraged. If we are willing to be trained by G.o.d all will come right in the end."

"Yes; but I want things to come right now, and I want to be always able to know at once what is right."

"I am afraid we all do, Bessie, dear; but we have to learn to curb our impatience. If we more constantly remembered that this life is only a training-time we should become more patient, and I find if I give myself time for a few moments of prayerful waiting I am taught which is the right thing to do."

"Ah, you're sweet and patient, that's it, and I am not."

"If it was a question of sweetness, dear heart, I think you'd gain the prize. I think it is more a question of being perfectly willing to let G.o.d train us."

"And do you think Mrs. Colston is right about women doing things just like men?"

"I think she is, though I never heard it put so forcibly before. You know it says we are 'all one in Christ Jesus.'"

"I love to hear you talk, and I love to hear Mrs. Colston, too. I do believe I shall be real good some day; but I must rush in now, or Reynolds will be up a tree and it will take me a whole day to get him down again," and off the impulsive Bessie ran.

If Bessie found it difficult to know what was the right thing to do Jim Coates did not. Right from the very first he had a plan ready, and carried it successfully through. The first thing he did was to write out the following notice with a pencil on a piece of tea-paper, and during the first dinner-hour he tacked it on to the end of one of the sheds.

"This is to give notice that Jim Coates, who is a Christian, has come here to work, and he thinks it would be so much easier for him to keep straight if he had a mate going the same way as he's trying to go. If there is another Christian in any of the gangs do find me out and give me a word. You'll know me by a piece of red ribbon in my waistcoat-b.u.t.tonhole.