"If to be baptized is to be a Christian, as people always say, then Helweh is a Christian. But if to be a Christian is really to know and follow the Lord Christ--and it seems to me as if the Evangel always meant that--then I do not know. I am afraid Helweh does not understand much about that."
"Oh, if she has been christened, she must be a Christian," said I. "Well, what did she say?"
"She said--'All things come to him who knows how to wait.' It is a Saracen proverb."
"Ah, let my Damoiselle pardon me, but it is true."
"Well!" said I, half laughing, "then I suppose I do not know how to wait."
"I do not think my Damoiselle does," answered Marguerite quietly.
"Ha! It takes the good God to teach that."
"I should not think it wanted much teaching."
"Let my Damoiselle bear with her servant. The good God has been teaching it to me for seventy years, and I dare not make so bold as to say I have learned it yet."
"Why, Margot, thou art as quiet, and calm, and patient as a stone."
"Ah! not _here_," she said, laying her hand upon her bosom. "Perhaps here,--and here,"--touching her eyes and lips. "But down there,--no!"
"But for what, or for whom, art thou waiting, Margot?" I asked, rather amused.
"Ha!--it ought to be only whom. But it is too often _what_. We are like the little children, waiting for the father to come home, but thinking more of the toys and bonbons he may bring than of himself. And then there is another thing: before we can learn to wait, we must learn to trust."
"I believe we all trust in something, if my Damoiselle pleases. A great many trust in themselves; and a great many more trust in circumstances,--fate, or chance, or luck,--as they call it. Some few trust in other human creatures; and their waking is often the saddest of all. But it seems as if the one thing we found it hardest to do was to trust the good God. He has to drive us away, often, from every other trust, before we will learn to trust Him. Oh, how we must grieve His heart, when He has done so much for us, and yet we _will not_ trust Him!"
I wonder what she means. I feel as if I should like to know, and could not tell how to begin.
The Lady Queen is gone back to her people. And I am so glad--Lady Judith is not gone with her. I was sadly afraid she would do. But Melisende is gone, and Messire Renaud de Montluc, for whom the Lady Queen trusts to obtain some high position at the Court of the Byzantine Cæsar.