CHAPTER V.

SISTER BENIGNA.

On her return home Elise found Sister Benigna seated at the piano, attuning herself, as she said, after her work among the restive children of her school.

When she looked upon her friend and recalled the bitter words Albert had spoken against her, Elise felt their injustice. It was true, as she had told him, he did not understand Sister Benigna.

Sitting down beside the window, Elise began to busy herself over the dainty basket she was elaborately decorating. After a few moments Sister Benigna left the piano and stood looking at Elise and her work. She had something to say, but how should she say it? how approach the heart which had wrapped itself up in sorrow and surrounded itself with the guards of silence?

Presently Elise looked at her, but not until she had so long resisted the inclination to do so that there was something like violence in the effort. When her eyes met the gaze of Sister Benigna the warm blood rushed to her cheeks, and she looked quickly down again. Did Sister Benigna know yet about the letter Mr. Wenck had written?

A sad smile appeared on Benigna's face. She shook her head. If she did not know what had happened, she no doubt understood that some kind of trouble had entered the house.

Drawing a roll of needlework from her pocket, she quietly occupied herself with it until Elise, unable to endure the silence longer, said, "Oh, Sister Benigna, is it not time we did something about the Sisters' House? I have been reading about one: I forget where it is. What a beautiful Home you and I could make for poor people, and sick girls not able to work, and old women! We ought to have such a Home in Spenersberg. I have been thinking all day it is what we must have, and it is time we set about it."

"I do not agree with you," was the quiet answer. "There is no real need for it here, and perhaps there never will be. Work that is so unnecessary might better be avoided. In Spenersberg it is better that the poor and the old and the sick should be cared for in their homes, by their own households: there is no want here."

"Will you read what I have been reading?" said Elise, hesitating, not willing yet to give up the project which looked so full of promise.

"I know all about Sisters' Houses, and they are excellent institutions, but if you will go from house to house here you will find that you would probably keep house by yourself a long time if you opened such an establishment. No, no: you have your work all prepared for you, and I certainly have mine. There is a good deal to be done yet for the festival. Tomorrow, after five, come to the schoolroom and we will practice a while. And we might do something here tonight. The children surprise me: I seem to be surrounded by a little company of angels while they sing."

"Oh, Sister Benigna," exclaimed Elise throwing down her work in despair, "I don't in the least care about the festival. I should be glad to know it was all given up. I cannot sing at it. I think I have lost my voice: I do, indeed. I tried it this afternoon, and I croaked worse than anything you ever heard."

"Croaked? We must see to that," said Sister Benigna; but, though her voice was so cheerful, she closed her eyes as she spoke, and passed her hands over them, and in spite of herself a look of pain was for an instant visible on her always pale face. She rose quickly and walked across the room, and crossed it twice before she came again to the window.

"You don't understand me to-day," said Elise impetuously; "and I don't want you to." But Elise would not have spoken at all had she looked at Sister Benigna.

A silence of many seconds, which seemed much longer to Elise, followed her words. She did not dare to go on. What was Sister Benigna thinking? Would she never speak? Had she nothing to say? Elise was about to rise also, because to sit still in that silence or to break it by words had become equally impossible, when Sister Benigna, approaching gently, laid her hand upon her and said, "Wait one moment: I have something to tell you, Elise."

And so Elise sat down. She could not summon the strength to go with that voice in her ear and the touch of that hand arresting her.

"I once had a friend as young as you are, of whom you often remind me," said Benigna. "She had a lover, and their faith led them to seek a knowledge of the Lord's will concerning their marriage. It was inquired for them, and it was found against the union. You often remind me of her, I said, but your fortunes are not at all like hers."

"Sister Benigna, why do you tell me this?" asked Elise quickly, in a voice hardly audible. She was afraid to listen. She recalled Albert's words. She did not know if she might trust the friendly voice that spoke.

"Because I have always thought that some time it would be well for you to hear it; but if you do not wish to hear it, I will go no farther."

Elise looked at Benigna—not trust her! "Please go on," she said.

"I knew the poor child very well. She had grown up in an unhappy home, and had never known what it was to have comfort and peace in the house, or even plenty to eat and to wear. She was expected to go out and earn her living as soon as she had learned the use of her hands and feet. Poor child! she felt her fortune was a hard one, but God always cared for her. In one way and another she in time picked up enough knowledge of music to teach beginners. The first real friend she had was the friend who became so dear to her that—I need not try to find words to tell you how dear he was.

"She was soon skilled enough to be able to take more intelligent and advanced pupils, and in the church-music she had the leading parts. By and by the music was put into her hands for festivals and the great days, Christmas and Easter, as it has been put into mine here in Spenersberg. One day he said to her, 'It seems to us the best thing in life to be near each other. Would it might be God's will that we should never part!' She responded to that prayer from the depths of her heart, and a great gulf seemed to open before her, for she thought what would her life be worth if they were destined to part? Then he said, 'Let us inquire the will of our Lord;' and she said, 'Let it be so;' and they had faith that would enable them to abide by the decision. The lot pronounced against them. I do not believe that it had entered the heart of either of them to understand how necessary they had become to each other, and when they saw that all was over it was a sad awaking. For a little while it was with both as if they had madly thrown a birthright away; for, though they had faith, they were not yet perfect in it. Not soon did either see that this life had a blessing for them every day—new every morning, fresh every evening—and that from everlasting to everlasting are the mercies of God. But at last he said, 'I am afraid, my darling'" (Elise started at this word of endearment. It was like a revelation to think that there had been lovers in the world before her time), "'it will go harder with me than with you. I cannot stay here and go on with my work. I must go among new people, and begin again.' And so he went away, and at last, when by the grace of God they met again—surely, surely by no seeking of their own—they were no less true friends because they had for their lifetime been led into separate paths. Their faith saved them."

Low though the voice was in which these last words were spoken, there was a strength and inspiration in them which Elise felt. She looked at Sister Benigna with steady, wondering eyes. Such a story from her lips, and told so, and told now! And her countenance! what divine beauty glowed in it! The moment had a vision that could never be forgotten.

Elise did not speak, but neither, having heard this tale, did she now rise to depart. She folded her hands and bowed her head upon them, and so they sat silent until the first chords of the "Pastoral Symphony" drew the souls of both away up into a realm which is entered only by the pure in heart.

About this time it was that Leonhard Marten, while passing, heard that recitative of a soprano voice which so amazed him. Dropping quickly into the shade of the trees opposite Loretz's house, he listened to the announcement, "There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night," and there remained until he saw two men advancing toward the house, one of them evidently approaching his home.

Through the sleepless night Elise's thoughts were constantly going over the simple incidents of the story Sister Benigna had told her. But they had not by morning yielded all the consolations which the teller of the tale perceived among their possibilities, for the reason, perhaps, that Elise's sympathies had been more powerfully excited by the tale than her faith. It was not upon the final result of the severance effected by the lot that her mind rested dismayed: her heart was full of pain, thinking of that poor girl's early life, and that at last, when all the recollection of it was put far from her by the joy which shone upon her as the sun out of darkness, she must look forward and by its light behold a future so dreary. "How fearful!" she moaned once; and her closed eyes did not see the face that turned toward her full of pain, full of love.

Of all doubts that could afflict the soul of Sister Benigna, none more distracting than this was conceivable: Had she proved the best instructor to this child of her spirit? Had she even been capable of teaching her truest truth? Was it the truth or herself to which Elise was always deferring? Was obedience a duty when not impelled and sanctified by faith? In what did the prime virtue of resignation consist? Would not obedience without faith be merely a debasing superstitious submission to the will of the believing? Her reflections were not suggested by a shrewd guess. She knew that the lot had been resorted to, and that the letters had been written to Elise and Albert which acquainted them with the result; and the peace of her prayerful soul was rent by the thought that a joyless surrender of human will to a higher was, perhaps, no better than the poor helpless slave's extorted sacrifice. The happiness of the household seemed to Benigna in her keeping. If they had gone lightly seeking the oracle of God, as they would have sought a fortune-teller, was not the Most High dishonored? She could not say this to Elise, but could she say it to Albert Spener? Ought she not to say it to him? There was no other to whom it could be said. Had the coming day any duty so imperative as this? She arose to perform it, but Spener, as we know, had gone away the day before.