Politics of Uncertainty: The United

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Politics of Uncertainty
OXFORD STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY

James J. Sheehan, series advisor

THE WILSONIAN MOMENT
Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism
Erez Manela
IN WAR’S WAKE
Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order
Gerard Daniel Cohen
GROUNDS OF JUDGMENT
Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan
Pär Kristoffer Cassel
THE ACADIAN DIASPORA
An Eighteenth-Century History
Christopher Hodson
GORDIAN KNOT
Apartheid and the Unmaking of the Liberal World Order
Ryan Irwin
THE GLOBAL OFFENSIVE
The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Making of the
Post–Cold War Order
Paul Thomas Chamberlin
MECCA OF REVOLUTION
Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order
Jeffrey James Byrne
SHARING THE BURDEN
The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of
Global Order
Charlie Laderman
THE WAR LORDS AND THE DARDANELLES
How Grain and Globalization Led to Gallipoli
Nicholas A. Lambert
FEAR OF THE FAMILY
Guest Workers and Family Migration in the Federal Republic of Germany
Lauren Stokes
POLITICS OF UNCERTAINTY
The United States, the Baltic Question, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union
Una Bergmane
Politics of Uncertainty
The United States, the Baltic Question, and the
Collapse of the Soviet Union

Una Bergmane
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and
certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under
terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above.
Portions of Chapter 4 are adapted from Una Bergmane, “‘Is This the End of Perestroika?’
International Reactions to the Soviet Use of Force in the Baltic Republics in January 1991,”
Journal of Cold War Studies (2020) 22 (2): 26–57. Used with permission of MIT Press.
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bergmane, Una, author.
Title: Politics of uncertainty : the United States, the Baltic question,
and the collapse of the Soviet Union / Una Bergmane.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] |
Series: Oxford studies in international history |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022053641 (print) | LCCN 2022053642 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197578346 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197578360 (epub) |
ISBN 9780197578377 (oso)
Subjects: LCSH: Baltic States—Foreign relations. | United States—
Foreign relations—Baltic States. | Baltic States—Foreign relations—
United States. | Soviet Union—Foreign relations—United States. |
United States—Foreign relations—Soviet Union. | Baltic States—History—1940–1991.
Classification: LCC DK502.715 .B47 2023 (print) | LCC DK502.715 (ebook) |
DDC 947.9084—dc23/eng/20221109
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053641
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053642
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197578346.001.0001
To Ukrainian scholars and students
who became soldiers,
who became refugees,
who continued to work and study
despite the war that Russia waged against their country.
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction
1. The Origins of the Baltic Question
2. “Have you not noticed our absence?”: The Baltic Question
during the Annus Mirabilis of 1989
3. Building a New World Order?: The Lithuanian Crisis of Spring
1990
4. The End of Perestroika?: The Baltic Quest for Visibility and the
Soviet Crackdown
5. The Rise of the Republics, the Fall of the Center: The Baltic
Exception and the Collapse of the USSR
Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I want to thank Mario del Pero for his long-term
mentorship, his interest in my work, and his support for my
academic career.
This book originates from a doctoral dissertation that I wrote at
Sciences Po under the supervision of Maurice Vaïsse and Anne de
Tinguy. I’m thankful to both of them for agreeing to supervise my
thesis and for their feedback on my work. I’m also grateful to the
Fondation nationale des sciences politiques for funding the first three
years of my doctoral studies.
Over the past ten years I benefited from the support of the
Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies. Aina Birnitis
Dissertation-Completion Fellowship, Mudīte I. Zīlīte Saltups
Fellowship, and AABS Emerging Scholars Grant have allowed me to
conduct crucial research in the American archives and finish my
dissertation. In 2020, Oxford University Press received the AABS
Book Publication Subvention for the publication of this book. Beyond
financial assistance, AABS has also provided a framework for
exchanges with the vibrant community of Baltic Studies scholars
worldwide. I’m especially grateful to Andres Kasekamp for being part
of my thesis committee and for his ongoing interest in my work.
One of the highlights of my doctoral studies was the year I spent
at Yale University as a Fox International Fellow. I’m very thankful to
late Joseph Carrère Fox, whose commitment to international
knowledge exchange made this experience possible. Julia Adams,
who served as director of the Fox International Fellowship, continued
to support my academic endeavors long after I left New Haven. I
appreciate her kindness more than I have had a chance to express.
After defending my PhD, I left Paris and spent a wonderful year as
a postdoc at the Mario Einaudi Center at Cornell University. My
biggest thanks go to Matthew Evangelista not only for his comments
on my work but also for his unwavering support for my career.
Large parts of this book were written during my two-year teaching
fellowship at LSE. I would like to thank Matthew Jones and Piers
Ludlow for creating a work setting that was truly enjoyable and
productive. Kristina Spohr was on a sabbatical year during my time
at LSE, but as I was teaching her courses, those two years felt like a
long intellectual exchange with her. As one of the very few scholars
who has worked on the Baltic question at the end of the Cold War
before me and has served as a member of my thesis committee, she
has a special place in my academic trajectory. I also had a chance to
teach the Soviet history course of Vladislav Zubok and to discuss our
perspectives on Soviet history during long lunch and coffee breaks
and I’m thankful for these exchanges. A special thanks go to my
fellow LSE teaching fellows Pete Millwood, Tom Ellis, and Anna Cant,
as their support and friendship were crucial in fighting the workload
and as well as the angst of the first London lockdown. Pete and
Tom, Anita Prazmowska, Dina Gusejnova, Molly Avery, Marral
Shamshiri-Fard, and Tom Wilkinson kindly read one of the last drafts
of this book and/or my book proposal, and I am forever grateful for
their insightful comments. A heartfelt thanks go to Alexandra
Medzibrodszky not only for being a fantastic teaching assistant but
also for becoming such a good friend.
This book would have been impossible to write without the
support and feedback of my Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian
colleagues Daina Bleiere, Violeta Davoliūtė, Mārtiņš Kaprāns, Mart
Kuldkepp, Gustavs Strenga, and Kaspars Zellis. As I finish this book,
my thoughts are with Vilius Ivanauskas, the young, brilliant
Lithuanian historian who tragically passed away in 2018. During the
early years of this project in Paris I greatly benefited from the
support of Philippe Perchoc, Céline Bayou, Eric Le Bourhis, Sabine
Dullin, Katerina Kesa, Emilija Pundziūtė-Gallois, and Eglė
Rindzevičiūtė. Special thanks go to Kaarel Piirimäe, my Estonian
comrade in so many academic adventures. I am very thankful to
Diana T. Kudaibergenova, Botakoz Kassymbekova, and Anna
Whittington for our exchanges on Central Asian and Soviet history.
 I have to thank my current academic home Helsinki University, the
Academy of Finland, Juhana Aunesluoma, and all my colleagues at
the Political History Department and Aleksanteri Institute, for the
opportunity to continue building my academic career in an
intellectually stimulating, productive, and welcoming work
environment.
The long road between the dissertation and the book was traveled
in the company of my friends. My time at Sciences Po wouldn’t have
been the same without the inhabitants of the salle des doctorants
224 boulevard Saint-Germain, especially Sibylle Duhautois, Anna
Konieczna, Charles Lenoir, and Paul Lenormand. I thank them for our
many coffee breaks and their years-long support. The often-
daunting task of navigating doctoral and postdoctoral academic life
has been made easier by the comradeship of Gaetano Di Tommaso,
Michele Di Donato, Andreas Mørkved Hellenes, and Bruno Settis.
Marine Guillaume, Silvia Sorescu, and Camilo Umana Dajud, whom I
met during my MA studies at Sciences Po, were the ones who made
Paris feel like home, and they were the ones who make me long for
it. In 2011 I met Cecilia Asperti, Katharina Gnath, and Charu Singh
during our Fox Fellowship at Yale. Since then, we have kept being by
each other’s side despite often living on opposite sides of the world.
The writing of this book has regularly been interrupted, made
bearable, and relativized in its importance by the sound of an
incoming group chat message. The never-ending conversation that
started in the corridors of the Riga French Lycée has become the
background rhythm of my life, and I thank Ilze Dalbiņa, Zanda
Gajevska, Marta Elīna Martinsone, Anastasija Mežecka, Daina
Pravorne, Elīza Simsone, and Sigita Zosule for that and so much
more.
I’m deeply grateful to my editor at the Oxford University Press,
Susan Ferber, for believing in this project, for her advice and
guidance, and for the careful edits of this book. I thank the two
anonymous reviewers for their constructive and stimulating
feedback.
Last but not least, I have to thank my family. My parents-in-law
Sandra and Simi, my belles-soeurs Marie and Nora, my goddaughter
Paula, and my godmother Ināra for all the kindness, joy and
encouragements they bring to my life. To my best friend Zuzanna,
for what I can describe only by paraphrasing what Montaigne said
about his friendship with Etienne de La Boétie: “because it is her,
because it is me.” To my siblings Marta and Toms, for being my
friends and my teachers, my partners in crime, and my soulmates.
To my mother Ieva for raising three kids through the tumultuous
years of Soviet collapse and post-independence transition, for always
beliving in me and for always being my true North. To my husband
Lucas for being my love and my rock. For his immense support and
help. For the life we have built together.
And finally, to those who have left us—my beloved grandparents
Arnis and Jana—for having been with us.
Politics of Uncertainty
Introduction

“We are unknown men from an unknown country.”

—Kaarel Robert Pusta, head of the Estonian delegation to the
Paris Peace Conference, 1919

“After all, if we make a mistake, we will destroy the state.”

—Nikolai Ryzhkov, Soviet prime minister during a Politburo
meeting, July 14, 1989

“Who’s the enemy? I keep getting asked . . . it’s the inability to predict accurately;
it’s a dramatic change that can’t be foreseen, and its events that can’t be
predicted.”
—George Bush, diary entry on February 24, 1990

“You have chosen the Baltics over me and let’s leave it at that,” an
angry Mikhail Gorbachev said to George Bush on June 1, 1990.1
Three months earlier, on March 11, Lithuania had become the first
Soviet republic to declare its independence. On March 30 and May 4,
the two other Baltic states, Estonia and Latvia, announced the
beginning of a transition period toward full sovereignty. The USSR,
which considered the Baltic declarations illegal, harshly condemned
them and imposed an economic blockade against Lithuania. Fearing
an outbreak of violence in the region, the United States tried to de-
escalate the crisis, pressuring all sides to engage in dialogue. When
the Soviet and American presidents met during the Washington
summit in June, Gorbachev, to his great surprise, realized that Bush
was seriously considering not signing the newly negotiated Soviet
American trade treaty because of the Baltic situation. The idea that
the United States could refuse to support the Perestroika effort
because of events in the Soviet periphery outraged Gorbachev. To
him, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were an integral part of the
USSR, and their secessionist tendencies were a distraction from what
actually mattered—the monumental opportunity for change that the
Perestroika project offered to his country and the world.
The Soviet president was not the only one whose hierarchies of
importance were challenged by the sudden re-emergence of the
Baltic question on the international agenda. George Bush, France’s
François Mitterrand, and Germany’s Helmut Kohl were equally
exasperated by the events at the margins of the Soviet empire that
risked destabilizing Gorbachev and souring East-West relations at the
time of German Reunification. Yet, for various reasons, the big
powers were unable to keep the Baltic question out of international
politics.
First and foremost, most Western states had not recognized the
1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic countries as legal, and thus
from 1989 to 1991, the White House had to perform a highly
challenging balancing act: affirming their full support for the
reformer Mikhail Gorbachev while claiming that in principle the three
Baltic states deserved their independence. Furthermore, the Baltic
question was not just an American foreign policy issue; domestic and
transnational actors such as the US Congress and Lithuanian,
Latvian, and Estonian diasporas actively pushed for a stronger US
stand on Baltic independence. Finally, there was general uncertainty
about how to deal with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The
rapidly changing situation in the USSR prevented the US government
from having a coherent policy toward Soviet collapse, making it the
object of endless hesitations and improvisations. Between 1989 and
1991, Washington and its European allies moved from extreme
prudence regarding the Baltic claims to unconditional support for
their independence. However, this change was reluctant and driven
much more by domestic pressures and last-minute decisions than by
realpolitik calculations and long-term strategy.
Moscow’s problem with the Baltic countries can be best described
in the words of Anatolijs Gorbunovs, a high-ranking Latvian
communist who came to fully embrace the independence project
between 1988 and 1990: “Gorbachev had no plan: neither how to let
us free, nor how to keep us.”2 The Soviet leader indeed had no plan
of how to deal with center-republic relations in general and the Baltic
situation in particular. At first, around 1987, it seemed that there was
no need to worry about Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; the three
republics were relatively rich and relatively calm, there were no
outbreaks of ethnic violence, and their leadership supported
Perestroika. Then suddenly, starting from 1990, it was too late.
Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius pushed for independence and engaged in
an active foreign policy. Baltic officials traveled to the West and were
received at the White House, Élysée Palace, and Downing Street. In
reality, of course, the pro-independence shift in the Baltic countries
was not at all instantaneous. It had both historical and structural
causes, but the Soviet power caught in the tremendous effort of
implementing Perestroika reforms had no time, no plan, and no
expertise to address grievances in the periphery. Since the early
days of the Soviet state, relations between the Soviet center and the
republics had been imperial: they were rooted in a system of
interaction in which the dominant metropole exerted political control
over the internal and external policy—the effective sovereignty—of
the subordinate periphery.3 When, after 1985, both the
democratizing rationale of Perestroika and actors in the periphery
pushed for reform in center-republic relations that would reduce the
power asymmetry at the heart of the Soviet federal system, Moscow
was caught unready, hesitant, and overwhelmed by other seemingly
more urgent issues.
First and foremost, this book tells the story of how Moscow and
Washington tried to deal with independence movements at the
Soviet periphery, namely the Baltic countries. This problem at first
seemed minor, but as it started to gain more and more international
visibility, it risked derailing “the real issues” that actually mattered in
the eyes of both Soviet and American leaders—the transformation of
the Soviet state and transformation of international order. Second, it
is an account of how, at times of profound historical change,
marginal actors defy their marginality and find strategies for gaining
visibility on the international stage.
 In other words, this is a book about superpower struggles with
uncertainty and Baltic struggles with invisibility. Through them, it
tells a broader story of the Soviet collapse.

As an analytical concept, uncertainty carries multiple implications in

international relations. It has been conceptualized either as fear or
ignorance due to the lack of information or as confusion and
indeterminacy arising from the ambiguity of information.4 For the
Bush administration, the problem was not a lack of information
about the situation in the USSR but rather its abundance and
ambiguity. The unexpected rise of a reformist leader in the USSR left
Americans in uncharted waters, and they struggled to ascribe
meaning to Gorbachev’s actions and untangle the complexity of the
Soviet internal struggles. In 1989 the incoming Bush administration
mistrusted the Soviet leader and blamed President Reagan for not
seeing the iron fist hidden in the velvet glove.5 The US initiated
pause in Soviet-American relations that lasted from Bush’s
inauguration day until the autumn of 1989 was directly due to
American uncertainty about Soviet intentions. Two key questions
preoccupied the American decision makers: was Gorbachev a
genuine reformer, and would he be able to survive politically? Both
had direct implications for US Baltic policy.
While after the fall of the Berlin Wall it seemed clear that the
Soviet Union would not resort to violence to stop the
democratization of Eastern Europe, the White House continued to
fear a military crackdown in the Baltic republics. Constant American
requests not to use force in Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania were among
the few consistent elements in US dealings with the Baltic question.
At the same time, American leadership worried that the Baltic drive
for independence could destabilize Gorbachev and thus tried
different and often contradictory approaches to ease the tensions
between Moscow and the Baltic capitals. Yet, Gorbachev’s survival
was not an end in itself. While cautioning the Estonians, Latvians,
and Lithuanians not to put too much pressure on Gorbachev with
their claims for independence, the White House did not hesitate to
pressure him towards accepting full NATO membership for reunited
Germany.6
Gorbachev’s ambitious reforms pushed the Soviet society into an
unknown territory, making uncertainty the everyday experience of all
Soviet citizens. The Soviet leader and his advisors had a vision of a
new, reformed Soviet Union, but they did not have a clear plan for
how to handle the economic and social forces that were unleashed
by the reforms. The routines and practices of center-periphery
relations in the USSR were established for an authoritarian
framework and shaped according to the imperial paradigm in which
Moscow had the final say over the republics’ affairs. However, the
democratizing effect of Perestroika completely changed these
dynamics. Starting from 1988, central power had to face something
it had not seen before: an increasingly pluralistic and democratic
periphery. On the one hand, Gorbachev and his entourage struggled
to adapt to the new situation, in which it was not clear whom they
could trust and to whom they should talk in the rapidly changing
Baltic political landscape. On the other hand, Gorbachev’s willingness
to dwell upon this problem was limited, as his agenda was already
oversaturated with seemingly more urgent issues including failing
economic reforms, Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict over the Nagorno-
Karabakh region, and international arms negotiations. Gorbachev’s
liberal advisors were proposing considerable autonomy or even
independence for the Baltic republics. At the same time, the
conservative forces gradually grew into the idea that force was the
only answer to the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian drive for
independence. Caught between the two, Gorbachev hesitated and
procrastinated, while the three Baltic republics progressed from
demands of larger autonomy toward a determined push for
independence.
The dynamics surrounding the Baltic question can be better
understood by taking a broader perspective on Perestroika and what
it meant for both Soviet society and the international community.
This book relies on scholarship that conceptualizes Perestroika not
just as a project of political and economic reforms but also as an
attempt to both forge domestically and project internationally a new
Soviet identity.7 The scope and depth of reforms in both domestic
and foreign policy envisioned by the Soviet liberal thinkers required
no less than a reconceptualization of key ideas about the nature of
the Soviet state and its place in the world. In domestic policies, it
meant gradual embrace of such international norms as human
rights, free speech, and democracy.8 As Eduard Shevardnadze put it:
“If we want to be a civilized country, we must have the same laws
and regulations as the rest of the civilized world.”9 In foreign policy,
it demanded the abandonment of what Alexander Yakovlev, one of
the key Perestroika thinkers, called the “psychology of the besieged
fortress.”10 The encircled revolutionary state was to become a
member of a larger Western (and/or European) community, sharing
values more important than class interests.11 A key element in this
Soviet paradigm shift was the refusal to use force both
internationally and domestically. Although excessive state violence
had been one of the pillars of the Soviet system since its inception,
Gorbachev initially refused to see it as an option for solving
international disputes and internal problems. At the same time the
changes that Perestroika brought were never supposed to entail a
dismantelemnt of the Soviet empire. While Gorbachev and his allies
were willing to recosinder some of the imperial practices and reduce
the power assimietry between the center and the republics, they
planed to reform not to destroy the Soviet Union. Thus the story of
Gorbachev’s relations with Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia is not just a
story about the relations between the Soviet centre and the
periphery at the time of Perestroika, it is also a story of a deep
tension at the heart of the Perestroika project: the incompatibility
between the democratisation of Soviet society and the preservation
of the Soviet empire.12
The United States and its allies were pleased about and
responsive to these developments but constantly wary that the
window of opportunity opened by Gorbachev’s reforms might close.
The West’s fears of a military coup, civil war, or general collapse of
the USSR that could disturb the favorable international situation
have often been mentioned in memoirs and scholarly literature.13
Much less has been written about the fears of Westerners and Soviet
liberal forces that Gorbachev himself could halt the reforms and sour
East-West relations by starting a crackdown in the Baltics. This book
demonstrates how, in the eyes of many, the state of the relations
between the rebellious republics and Gorbachev was closely linked to
the state of Perestroika. When Gorbachev drifted toward the
conservatives and force was used in Vilnius and Riga, Soviet
supporters of Perestroika, as well as Western policymakers, became
alarmed about the future of Soviet reforms.
These dynamics show the role that norms and normative
expectations played during the Perestroika years, both
internationally and domestically. Norms, as collective expectations
for the proper behavior of actors of a given identity, play both
constitutive and regulative roles.14 In the first case, they define
actors’ identities, while in the second, they function as standards
prescribing behavior. Both Soviet liberal democratic circles and the
international community expected the leadership of the newly
reformed Soviet Union to find a peaceful solution to the Baltic
problem. For the Soviet liberals, rejection of violence as a tool for
achieving political goals was part of the larger enterprise of defining
a new Soviet identity. Meanwhile, for the West, the Soviet refusal to
use force in Eastern Europe was one of the main elements in
overcoming the Cold War alienation and recognizing sameness in the
former Soviet “other.” In other words, while in Soviet internal politics
abstention from excessive state violence played a constitutive role,
on the international stage it had a regulative function: Soviet
compliance with this norm reinforced the image of the new Soviet
identity, shaped by the values of liberal democracies.15

The struggle for social visibility as a quest for empowerment is a key

element in social movements’ strategies and small-state foreign
policy. Marginalized groups seek recognition from the mainstream to
secure their rights: in a Hegelian perspective, freedom requires
recognition by the other for its self-realization.16 In this sense,
Another random document with
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something that Harty had said which could make her feel sure that he would
be happy in heaven, if he should die. She thought of the Sunday evening
when he had bid her "Good night" so kindly, and joined in saying the
Catechism; of the first Sunday that he had made a prayer on entering
church; and of the many times that he had listened with interest while Rosa
talked of the Saviour. But these recollections did not set her mind at rest.
She knew that God had said, "My son, give me thine heart;" and she felt
sadly sure that Harty had never, in sincerity, given his heart to God.

CHAPTER XIV.

CONCLUSION.

Rosa reached home on Wednesday morning. Her bright smile had

vanished, and her sweet eyes looked sad and tearful; yet her step was firm
and her manner calm. Lucy felt sure when she met her sister, that she had
found support in this great trouble from that God who bids us "cast all our
care on Him, for He careth for us."

When Rosa bent over Harty, and called him by name, he looked
strangely at her, and, muttering, turned away. At first this was almost too
much for her to bear; but by degrees she became accustomed to it, and
commanded herself sufficiently to relieve Mrs. Maxwell from her post as
nurse. Poor Mrs. Maxwell was quite worn out, and was very glad to take a
little rest. Lucy had darkened her room, that she might sleep the better; and
as soon as the tired woman had lain down, she stationed herself by the door
to keep the hall as quiet as possible. Lucy found that she had been unjust to
Mrs. Maxwell. She had always thought her a stern woman with a cold heart;
but when she saw how tenderly she watched by Harty's bedside, she felt
that she should always love her for it, and never call her cross again, when
she found fault about trifles.
 Mrs. Maxwell herself was surprised to find how deeply she had become
attached to Dr. Vale's children. She had met with much misfortune and
unkindness in the world; and when she came to live in Dr. Vale's family, she
resolved to do her duty faithfully, and did not expect to love those around
her or be loved by them. Although her severe manner had softened but
little, by degrees she had become so fond of the children that she was only
happy when doing something for them; and now her anxiety for poor sick
Harty knew no bounds.

Several sad days of care and nursing passed by. Dr. Vale, Mrs. Maxwell,
and Rosa, were with Harty by turns, day and night; and Lucy patiently
waited on all until evening came, when she slept soundly from pure
weariness.

Mr. Gillette was a comfort to all: he seemed truly a messenger from his
Master in heaven, for there were ever sweet words of consolation on his
lips. He daily offered prayers in the room of the sick boy; and all who knelt
with him rose up strengthened by trust in the God who "doeth all things
well."

One day, when Harty had been ill a week, Rosa was sitting by him in
silence, when, in a low, weak voice, he called her by name.

"My dear brother," she answered, very calmly, although she was much
startled.

He took the hand she placed on his, and said, in a searching manner,
"Am I very ill?"

"We hope you may get well, but you are in God's hands," was Rosa's
reply.

To be in God's hands was not an idea of peace to poor Harty. He could

not turn with loving trust in sickness to the God whom he had neglected in
health. A pang darted through his heart, a pang of fear and remorse, more
deep and painful than he had ever felt. He was to die with all the sins of his
youth upon him! In his weak state this awful thought was too much for him,
and his mind again wandered in delirium.
 Rosa continued by his bedside in silent prayer. She did not again hear
her name called, as she hoped, and she was forced to resign her place to
Mrs. Maxwell, without having another sign of consciousness from her
brother.

When it was again Rosa's turn to act as nurse, she found that there had
been a decided change in Harty. He slept more calmly, and breathed more
naturally. Dr. Vale came in when she had been sitting by the bed a few
moments: a rapid examination served to show him that there was, indeed,
cause for hope.

The joyful news spread through the household, and many thanksgivings
went up to the God who dispenses sickness and health. Rejoiced as all were
at the idea of seeing Harty once more in health, there was in every heart a
deeper cause of gratitude: they might now hope that he would not be called
to meet his Father in heaven while yet a disobedient, wandering child. Time
might yet be given him to learn, to know, and love that Father, and walk in
His holy ways.

When Harty was again conscious of what was going on around him, his
father was with him. "Don't trouble yourself to think now, my dear boy,"
said Dr. Vale, soothingly. "I hope you will soon be much better; and I pray
God that He will enable you to lead a new life. Lie still now, and you will
soon fall asleep again, to wake much refreshed, I hope."

Harty's recovery was slow and tedious. He was very weak, and little
inclined to talk. He seemed most contented when Rosa was singing to him
some pretty hymn, and Lucy was sitting by him on the bed smoothing his
hair, or fanning him gently.

His large eyes looked sunken and thoughtful, and his manner, once
boisterous, was mild and gentle.

"Don't move for me again this morning, dear Lucy," he said one day;
"your little feet must be very tired with running up and down stairs. When I
get well I shall have to wait on you all the rest of my life to repay you for
this kindness."
 This was so unlike the old, exacting Harty, that it quite overcame little
Lucy, and the tears were in her eyes as she answered, "I love to do anything
for you, my dear brother. I want nothing from you but to get well as soon as
you can, and look bright, and merry, and tease me as you used to do."

A sad smile crossed Harty's face, as he said, "I don't mean to do as I used
to do in anything, Lucy. You will forget how unkind I was to you, won't
you, pet? I don't think I shall be so any more."

Lucy's tears fell fast. Don't talk so, Harty," she said; "You were never
unkind to me. I was a foolish little thing, and let everything worry me.
Come, we won't talk any more; you look tired. Here is Rosa, she will sing,
—

'Softly now the light of day,'—

while you take a nice little nap."

By degrees the colour came again to Harty's cheeks, and his limbs
renewed their strength.

One calm Sunday evening, towards the end of June, he was sitting
between his sisters, looking out at the evening sky.

"Let us have the Catechism once more," said Lucy; "it will seem like old
times."

Rosa and Lucy began as usual together. Harty's voice was with them;
and there was a deep solemnity in his manner as he pronounced the words,
"Yes, verily, and by God's help so I will; and I heartily thank our Heavenly
Father that He has called me to this state of salvation, through Jesus Christ
our Lord; and I pray unto God to give me His grace that I may continue in
the same unto my life's end."

His sisters felt that he spoke from his heart; and there was that joy in
their hearts which the angels know over "one sinner that repenteth."
 As the summer passed away, the cottage looked cheerful once more, as
of old. The children again rambled in the woods or strolled in the orchard,
and whenever their voices were heard the tones were pleasant and kindly.

True, they all had faults of character still to overcome, and were
sometimes tempted to go astray; but there was in each heart an earnest wish
to do right, and a spirit of love and forgiveness that kept them from all
variance.

Mrs. Maxwell was still formal and particular; but she now had little
cause for complaint, for Harty was so grateful for her watchful care during
his illness, that he made many efforts to overcome his careless habits, and
in a great measure succeeded.

"The dear boy forgot for once," she would sometimes say, as she hung
his cap on the accustomed peg, or overlooked some act of heedlessness; for
she felt that he was trying to please her, and she was the more ready to
forgive him.

In the trying scenes by Harty's bedside Dr. Vale had been brought near in
heart to his children. Now there was no subject on which he could not talk
freely to them. He spoke to them of their mother, and told them anecdotes
of her blameless life that were treasured up in their young hearts for loving
imitation.

The blessed Saviour and the heaven He purchased for His faithful ones
were often subjects for conversation in that happy family circle, and the
doctor felt, as he looked into the faces of his children, that God had blessed
their mother's prayers.

Uncle Gillette's letters were always welcomed with joy, and never read
without cheering the young Christians in the path of duty.

Lucy had now nothing to fear: the sorrows of her timid childhood were
over. Loving and cheerful, she made all happy around her. She had found a
comfort for all sorrow, a Friend ever-present, a support for life and death, in
Him who saith to the children of His love, "Fear not, little flock; for it is
your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
LONDON: R. K. BURT, PRINTER, HOLBORN HILL.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIMID LUCY ***

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