Free GI Brides by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

when it suited her purposes, Angelica went on her way with her retort, and gave it forth with embellishments according to her own sharp little tongue. As the hour of Lexie’s absence lengthened into two, there drew up at the little white house a costly car, shining in chromium, polished to the last degree, and the hovering neighbors, from furtive hiding places, identified the fat, pompous man who got out as none other than Bettinger Thomas himself. They shook their heads and murmured sorrowful comments to one another on what “poor, dear Mrs. Kendall” would say if she could only know.
    “And it’s a mercy they can’t know such things in heaven,” exclaimed the neighbor who knew the least about it, “because she certainly couldn’t be happy knowing it. She was
such
a good woman!”
    Lexie, on her way, would have hurried even faster than she did if she had known what was going on back in the little white house. For though she had known her sister well for years, it never entered her head that Elaine would go to the length of getting up from her sickbed and taking things in her own hands to get that reprobate of a lawyer. Trouble, trouble, there seemed to be trouble on every side, and somehow she must go through it and work out a sane and wise solution to all these difficulties. If only God was here to tell her what to do!
    Then it came to her suddenly that of course God was here, and He knew all about her troubles. He would know the wise way to work it out. He would know whether she ought to insist on going back to college to finish her course and get her good job, or whether she ought to stay here and look after this unreasonable, unpleasant sister and her three naughty children.
    Oh, God, won’t You please show me what to do?
her discouraged young heart cried out as she walked down the pleasant street and wondered that it could seem so pleasant when she was having so much trouble. “God, please help me!”
    Her mother had taught her to believe in God. She did, of course, but she had never really done much about it—only said her prayers religiously every night, and gone to church when it was convenient. But she knew in her heart that that wasn’t really being even just polite to God. If He were a neighbor, or a mere acquaintance, she would feel that she had to have more of a pleasant contact than just that in order to be really polite. These thoughts condemned her as she walked along.
Please, God, forgive me! I didn’t realize that I was being rude and indifferent to You. But now, I’ve nobody else to go to. Won’t You forgive, and help me, please? Should I give up everything and let my selfish sister manage my life? Oh, but I can’t do that! We wouldn’t have any money if I have no job. I’m almost sure Elaine hasn’t any money. And anyway, I wouldn’t want to live on her money. Not even if I worked for her. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t, dear God! And what shall I do about a nurse? They cost a great deal of money, I’m sure. And it isn’t likely Elaine has enough money for that. Even if she gets a little from her husband’s pay in the army, she wouldn’t have enough for that, and to run the house. If she had had enough money for all her needs, I’m sure she never would have come to me, back to the little house that she always despised. Oh, dear God, what shall I do?
    Softly this prayer was going over and over in her heart with a longing and a kind of wonder that had never come to her before when she was trying to pray. This was just something that breathed from her inner being, from a newborn trust that had come from her great need—a kind of a desperate feeling that she was appealing to the only possible source of help. And if He wouldn’t help her, she was done.
    These thoughts filled her mind as she went swiftly on her way. She was not thinking of the immediate mission before her, for in the hard watches of the night she had settled definitely, step by step, just what that would be.
    First,