Poor human nature! This is our delusion. The two portions cannot be ours. If God is our inheritance, He must be all in all to us. If He gives us Christ, He freely with Him gives us all things. "All this and Christ!"--yes, but in the sense that God in Christ is everything. Never can it mean that our inheritance is partly God and partly this world, that we lean, one arm on Him and the other on uncertain earthly riches.
Therefore the choice lies before us all. Can we choose Him as our portion, can we pray and trust Him to maintain our lot? Can we renounce the arm of flesh as weakness and vanity, can we disregard the alluring securities of what is considered here real property? If so we may have real property indeed: God will be ours, an inexhaustible mine of life and love, of interest and beauty, of peace and joy.
[Illustration: Miss Crane was too much astonished to speak.]
Miss Crane lived in No. 13, King's Parade. Doubtless at some remote period King's Parade was a street of fashion and celebrity, but at the time we speak of its chief characteristic was that air of shabby gentility inseparable from houses in whose windows at intervals appear cards announcing "Furnished Apartments."
Miss Crane was teacher of music by profession, and had what is termed "a good connection." By turns, music was her chief pleasure and pain. During the day she patiently listened to endless varieties of mistakes in the same exercises and scales; in the evening, seated at her own piano, she forgot all the cares and worries of her daily round of duty.
Everyone has a sacred ambition, as well as a secret romance, hidden in his heart. Miss Crane's ambition was to save up enough money to ensure independence, and she believed that to possess an income of £100 per annum would be the realisation of her dreams. For many years she had steadily saved and worked for this purpose, and now, at the age of forty-five, was not very far from having her desire fulfilled.
Miss Crane was a little woman, with very pretty hands, small and white. Years of patient drudgery had left some lines on her forehead and had taken the colour from her cheeks, but had not been able to spoil the sweet kindliness of her eyes and smile. She usually wore black gowns, made simply of soft, fine materials, her lace frill fastened by a small silver brooch, which she always pinned in with loving care.