“I HOPE, aunt, that you did not mind my knocking up the house at twelve o’clock last night,” said Eddy Burns, as he sat down one Monday morning to the breakfast which had been kept waiting for him nearly an hour.
“I own, my dear boy,” replied Mrs. Burns, a gentle looking woman with silvery hair smoothly braided beneath the whitest of caps, “I must own that I should much rather have had you going with me to church, and spending Sunday evening quietly here, than wandering off I know not where, and never returning till midnight.”
“Oh, if I were always living in London it would be different,” cried Eddy, as he emptied the plate of grilled bacon; “but, you know, when I’m only up on a visit, I must see all that’s to be seen, and make the most of my time. What a whirl I was in all last week! sights and shows of all kinds—amusement from morning till night—hither—thither—everywhere.”
“Where were you yesterday, Eddy?” asked his aunt.
“Well, if the truth must be told, I was off to Brighton by an excursion train to have a sniff of the sea air, and somehow or other we did not manage to get back till late.”
“I was very uneasy and anxious about you,” said Mrs. Burns, in a tone of gentle reproach.
“Oh, I’m sorry that I worried you!” exclaimed Eddy; “you’re the best of good aunts, and I owe more to you I know than to any one else in the world. I may be a wild, thoughtless young fellow, but I’m not ungrateful—no; there’s nothing I hate like ingratitude!”
Mrs. Burns’ only answer was a kindly smile. She might have upbraided Eddy for his selfishness, his want of consideration, his neglect of all religious duties, but she felt that this was not the time for doing so.
“Where are you going to-day?” asked the aunt.
“Well, I’m off to the Pantheon to see if my photo is ready,” said the lad.
“You did not tell me that you had been sitting for your likeness.”
“Oh, everybody sits now-a-days,” laughed Eddy, “you would not have me behind the rest of the world. If the photo turn out good you shall have it, aunt;” and the boy passed his hand through his light brown hair with a very self-satisfied look, which seemed to say, “I’m sure they’ll make a good picture of a handsome young fellow like me!”
Off started Eddy for the Pantheon, not a little curious to see his own face for the first time on paper. Eddy Burns was by no means free from personal vanity. He had dressed very carefully for his sitting, put on his best waist-coat and his bright new studs for the occasion, and had spent nearly ten minutes in fastening his opera tie. Eddy was now impatient to see the result of all his dressing and study, and hurried up the Pantheon staircase with all the eagerness of a child. When he reached the photograph stall, the youth could not wait until those who had come before him were served; he pushed himself forward, and kept demanding his picture as if every moment of his time were precious.
“What an age the woman takes in looking over her little packets,” muttered Eddy.
“This is yours,” said the person behind the stall, handing a carte de visite to the impatient lad.
Eddy almost snatched it from her hand, and then, drawing back a few steps, looked at it with angry disappointment, almost tempted to fling it down on the counter in disgust.
“Ugh I what a fright they’ve made me,” growled the youth as he descended the staircase at a slower pace than he had mounted. “I’ve half a mind to toss it into the fire; but I’ll show it first to my aunt, and see what she says of the likeness.”
“Is it like?”
About an hour afterwards Eddy entered the parlour of Mrs. Burns.
“Have you brought back your likeness, my dear boy?” was the aunt’s first question when she saw him.
“Here it is, aunt; what do you think of it?” said Eddy, seating himself on an easy chair, and drawing the little carte from his pocket. He watched the face of his aunt as she closely examined the picture, and rather wondered at the tender expression in her gentle grey eyes, and the smile which rose to her lips.
“How like it is!” was her first exclamation.
“I’m surprised that you think so,” cried Eddy, rather mortified by her words; “I did not fancy myself to be so ugly a dog; but I suppose that no one knows his own face.”
“The sun will not flatter,” said his aunt with a smile, “he is too truthful often to please. May I keep your photo?” added Mrs. Burns. “I shall value it dearly, for it will so remind me of you.”
“Oh, you’re welcome to keep it, or light the fire with it!” cried Eddy, “I never wish to see it again. I wonder whether,” he continued, half laughing, “if the sun could draw our characters as he draws our faces in such a dreadfully truthful way, we should recognise ourselves at all.”
“I rather doubt that we would,” said Mrs. Burns, with her eyes thoughtfully fixed upon the photograph, which, though by no means a pleasing, was a very faithful likeness of her nephew.
“Well, aunt, some time or other you shall play the part of the sun, and make a photograph of my character. I should like to know what I really am like, and I’ve heard that you’re so sharp at finding out all that folk are feeling and thinking, that you’ll hit me off to a hair.” Eddy’s eye twinkled as he spoke, and his manner was so careless and gay that it was clear that he was not much afraid that any very unfavourable opinion could be formed of himself. Indeed, he considered himself, on the whole, a very pleasant, kind, good-hearted sort of a fellow.
“You must give me a little time for reflection and observation, Eddy, before I attempt to take your likeness; and you must not be angry when I have done if my picture does not flatter.”
“Oh, I like plain truth,” cried Eddy; “I don’t think that you’ll have much worse to say of me than that I like play better than work, and am always up to a lark.”
Nothing more was said on the subject at that time. Eddy went out to some place of amusement, and did not return till the evening. He then looked heated and flushed, and flung himself down on a chair by his aunt with an air of indignant displeasure.
“He’s the most ungrateful dog that ever I met with!” muttered Eddy between his teeth.
“Of whom do you speak?” asked his aunt.
“Of Arthur Knox, to be sure; who was my school fellow, and to whom I lent half my pocket money one quarter—which, by the by, he has never returned to me. There’s no saying how many scrapes I’ve helped that Arthur out of, for he was always getting into scrapes. And now—would you believe it—he passed me to-day in the street as if he had quite forgotten me. A dead cut, if ever there was one.”
“Perhaps he did not see you,” suggested Mrs. Burns.
“Oh, but he did though,” cried Eddy, quickly, “I caught his eye as we met. But he has lately come in to some money, and that has turned his head, I suppose; and he was walking with some grandly dressed folk; I fancy he did not choose they should know that I was an acquaintance of his. Oh, I hate ingratitude of all things. A man may be honest, pleasant, kind—anything that you like, but once show me that he’s ungrateful, and I would not care ever to set eyes upon him again.”
“Ingratitude is hateful, Eddy, and yet—”
“Oh, don’t you try to defend Arthur Knox!” exclaimed the lad, with increased impatience of manner; “why, I once sat up a whole night to nurse him, and that’s not what every one would do, I can tell you. I really cared for the fellow, and that makes his conduct the harder to bear. To cut me dead in the streets! Did you ever know any being so ungrateful?”
“I know a youth,” replied Mrs. Burns, “who has, I think, shown himself to be quite as ungrateful as Arthur.”
“I can hardly believe it,” said Eddy.
“You shall hear and judge for yourself. A youth—I need not give you his name—had incurred a very heavy debt, which no efforts of his own would ever enable him to pay. There was nothing before him but, utter ruin, when a friend, who knew and pitied his distress, before he had even been asked to relieve, came forward and freely offered to pay not a part only, but the whole of the debt. But the sacrifice was great to him who made it; the generous Friend who had once been possessed of great wealth brought himself to poverty and want, and for years endured the greatest hardships, on account of his kindness to another.”
“What wonderful goodness!” cried Eddy.
“Nor was this all,” continued Mrs. Burns. “The Benefactor adopted the youth as his son, gave him his own name; provided him with food, clothing, lodging, all that he really required; and when the lad was old enough, placed him in a situation in which he would be able comfortably to earn his living.”
“Now that was a friend!” exclaimed Eddy. “And what return did this youth make for such unheard of kindness?”
“I grieve to say,” replied Mrs. Burns, “that I believe that the youth almost entirely forgot the Benefactor to whom he owed everything. His Friend desired him to come to his house—but that house appeared to be the very last place which the lad cared to enter. Months, perhaps years, would pass without his crossing the threshold. Letters received from his Benefactor were never opened by the youth, he thought it a weariness even to read them.”
“What a heartless wretch!” exclaimed Eddy.
“He never did any one thing to please the Friend who had paid his debt at such vast cost, and who had cared for him from childhood. He loved the company of those who were enemies to his Benefactor; he did not, indeed, like them, speak openly against him—”
“I should think not,” interrupted the indignant Eddy, “it was hateful enough to forget him.”
“Nay, but I have not told you all. You have heard how freely and lovingly the Friend had bestowed many goods on the youth: he had, however, as he had a perfect right to do, reserved a portion for himself. Even this portion he was laying up to increase the future wealth of his adopted son; but, he forbade the youth, in the mean time, to do what he pleased with this portion.”
“No one could complain of that,” observed Eddy.
“But the youth did complain,” said his aunt, “and he did not content himself with murmurs, he resolved to spend all as he pleased. Against right, conscience, and gratitude, he wasted on idle follies what his generous Friend had reserved. Eddy, what say you now to this youth?”
“Say?” repeated her nephew, “I say that he is the most ungrateful, despicable, good for nothing being in the world. Is he living still?”
“Living—yes, and not far hence,” replied Mrs. Burns, with a glance of meaning; “is not my photograph like?”
“What on earth do you mean?” exclaimed the astonished Eddy, opening his eyes wide, and fixing them on his aunt.
“Is not the likeness that of every soul that forgets and neglects the greatest of Benefactors—the best and kindest of Friends? Oh, Eddy what hath God done for us, can we number up a thousandth part of the benefits received from His love? Think of the heavy debt of sin, that sin which, unpardoned, is death! Did not the Lord of glory leave the throne of heaven to live in poverty and want, and then endure the scourge and the cross, that our heavy debt might be paid? Was not that the proof of most wonderful love? And think how, from our feeble infancy, God has watched over, cared for, and blessed us. For the sight of our eyes, the strength of our limbs, for the faculties of memory and reason, we have to thank our great Benefactor. For the home in which we dwell, the food which we eat, the friends whom we love—we must thank him. For all that we have in this world, and for all that we hope for in the next, we must bless and praise our Redeemer.”
Eddy looked more thoughtful than usual, and, after a pause, his aunt went on: “And what return do many of us make for all this goodness and love? What is the conduct of many of those who bear the name of Christians? Do they care to please the Lord, or only to please themselves? When God invites them to His house of prayer, do they not neglect his invitation, and prefer any place of amusement? Would they not rather read any light book than the Bible, which is the word of God, and contains His gracious message? And to mention but one thing more, that precious portion of time, the Lord’s Day, which God has reserved in His wisdom to be an especial blessing to the soul, the time which he commands us to hallow—do not many rob him of it lot their own purposes; their business, their trade, their amusement? If ingratitude be hateful towards man—oh, what must it be towards God!”
“Aunt, you are hard upon me,” said Eddy.
“Since you take the picture for yourself, dear boy, I can only say—Is it not like?”
