EVA'S NEW YEAR.
EVA stood in the bay window, looking out at the wintry landscape. Lawn, garden, and the far-away hills lay cold and gray in the twilight, fast deepening into night,—the last night of the old year.
"It will be just like all the other new years," sighed Eva, pressing her cheek against the glass, and looking wistfully into the shadows beyond; "just like all the others, beginning with so many good resolutions, as I have done so often before—and how soon I have broken them! There will be the same tiresome lessons, and I shall forget to help mother, and Tom will tease, and I shall get angry and—O dear!—" and-some slow tears stole down Eva's cheek.
Perhaps Cousin Margaret, in the bright fire-lighted parlor, half guessed what kept Eva so quiet at the window; anyhow she came gently to her side, saying in her sweet way,—
"Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells across the snow;
The year is going; let him go."
"Ah, yes, Cousin Margaret," said Eva, slipping. her hand into her cousin's, "if one could only ring
out' some old things with the old year. Everything seems just as it did last year. I resolved to be so much better, to do so many things, and here I am about to begin another year, it seems, just in the same place."
"We all have much to regret, dear Eva, when we look back over a year's life. But while we must grieve over so many lost hours, do not let us waste the little remaining to us in vain sorrow.
Let us look forward, too. For, 'if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away behold, all things are become new.' Let us take this for a New Year's verse, Eva, and try in Christ, not alone in our resolutions, to make this a new year indeed."
The bell rang just then, and there was company to see Cousin Margaret; so Eva gave her a kiss, and ran away.
On New Year's morning Eva was awakened by a loud "Happy New Year, Happy New Year!"
shouted by Tom through the halls, upstairs and down, till every one was well awake.
"If it is New Year, you needn't wake everybody up so soon," was just on the end of Eva's tongue; but like a flash came the thought, "A new creature." "How cross I am," thought Eva, "and on New Year's day, too!" So she called back merrily "Happy New Year! "Before Eva left her room, she knelt and earnestly prayed that in Christ she might be made a new creature indeed.
"You have turned over one of your new leaves, haven't you?" Was Tom's greeting as Eva appeared in the dining room; for one of her great faults was tardiness at the breakfast-hour.
"Yes," answered Eva brightly; it's New Year, you know."
Now it seemed a very small thing for Eva to answer Tom pleasantly; but mother, who knew what a tease Tom was, and how very quick was Eva's temper, knew too that those few words sweetly spoken were a little victory on the girl's part.
After breakfast, when Eva had finished her morning duties and was snugly settled in the library with such an interesting book, one of her New Year gifts, little Lulu came in with her new book, and began to beg sister to "tell the pishures."
"O I can't, said Eva; "look at them by your-self."
"But there's stories bout'em; tell me," urged Lulu.
"'Go away," began Eva; then she remembered it was one of her old ways to send Lulu off thus.
Oh!" she sighed, "it's so hard to be new; "but she put aside her book, and taking Lulu on her lap, showed her pictures and read stories until the baby-sister fell asleep. Mother looked in once, and said, "I am so glad you have her, Eva."
Just as Eva was about to return to her book, Tom's voice was heard loudly from up-stairs, "O
Eva, do lend me a strap off your skates. I'm in a hurry, and mine is broken."
Now Eva had a great aversion to lending, especially to Tom, who never was very careful of his own or others' possessions, and Eva was particularly proud and careful of her skates.
"I wonder if all the new must be done by me," she thought, as she walked slowly to the door before answering Tom; but in that short space she
recollected that it was something new for Tom to stop long enough to ask, he was too apt to help
himself, and ask pardon afterward. "Yes, Tom," she called out bravely, "but please be careful."
"Oh, to be sure! Thank 'ee;" and soon he was off, banging the doors after him.
"Eva!" called mother's voice this time. The girl rose with a frown.
"It does seem as if nobody wanted me to read a line; it's too bad, and New Year, too!
Eva went up stairs with anything but amiable feelings.
"Eva," said mother, as the young girl entered,
"Will you please direct these notes for me, and enclose the New Year cards? You can see, to
whom they are to go, and select the cards yourself. I must dress for callers."
Now Eva wrote a neat, pretty hand, and always felt pleased when any of the family called upon her services with the pen; but now she did so want to go on with the book. But she sat down to the writing-desk, while her mother proceeded with her toilet.
"Miss Hannah Selwin!" exclaimed Eva, as she took up the note nearest her. "Well, mother, I don't believe she ever got a New Year's card from anybody before."
“Very likely," said mother, quietly; "that is a very good reason why she should have one now."
Eva said nothing, but she found that nearly all the notes she was to direct were to persons who,
like Miss Hannah, were poor and lonely, and not likely to have a single Happy New Year greeting.
"Mother thinks about everybody, and how selfish I was, not to want to come when she called me,"
said Eva's quickened conscience; and aloud she said, "Can I do anything else to help you, mother?"
"Nothing just now; you have helped me very much;" and her mother bent and kissed Eva in such a gentle way that somehow the young girl felt as if mother must have known something about the struggle between the old and the new.
When the happy, merry dinner was over, and the family, were gathered in the parlor, Eva had
occasion to return to the dining-room for a drink of water. Here she found Ellen, the housemaid,
clearing the table, apparently in a great hurry.
"What makes you in such haste, Ellen?" asked Eva, smiling at the girl's rapid movements.
"Ah, Miss Eva, it's a few friends at me mother's the night, and it's in a bother I am to get off."
Eva looked at the clock. It was nearly an hour before she had to get ready for a festival the family were going to attend that evening. She thought of the gay circle she had left in the parlor. What was it to her if Ellen could not get off? It was but her usual work she had to do.
"How selfish, how hard-hearted my old ways are!" thought Eva; then she said, "Lend me a big
apron, Ellen; I'll wipe the dishes for you."
"Arrah now, it's too kind of you, but I'll thank you kindly, Miss Eva."
The dishes were soon finished, and, followed by Ellen's Irish blessings, Eva sought the parlor again, just as father called out, "Time to get ready, all who are going to the festival. "Eva was tired when they returned, but she noticed that mother sat down rather wearily too, so she said, "Mother, I'll put Lulu to bed; you sit still."
"Thank you, dear," said mother; "I am very tired."
"Has it been a Happy New Year, Eva!" said Cousin Margaret, as she kissed Eva goodnight.
"O yes; but it's so hard to do new things, Cousin Margaret. I do want to be a new creature. And I have tried today to put away some old things; but it was a fight every time, even in such simple things as reading to Lulu."
"And it will be a fight always, Eva, between the old and the new nature. But every time we gain a victory, it weakens the strength of some old habit of sin. It is only by looking unto Jesus every hour, every moment, that we shall become new creatures: And every little deed of love and self-denial (and I have seen some such deeds in your life today), no matter how small, will brighten and strengthen our life and that of others through this new year."
‘Illustrated Christian Weekly.'
THE greatest evils of life have had their rise from something, which was thought to be of too little importance to be attended to.