 | CHAPTER XIX.
THE VOICE OF PUBLIC OPINION. Haunted hearts |  |
19. CHAPTER XIX.
THE VOICE OF PUBLIC OPINION.
The neighbors, even from their distant point of view,
had prophesied truly. Every thing had long been going
to rack and ruin at the Cousin farm, and a general breaking
up was now inevitable. Diedrich Stein, as a matter
of course, was in at the dividing of the spoils. He did
not openly appear as holder of the mortgage on the
estate, which was foreclosed the very day after the old
Frenchman's death, but somehow he had a hand in the
proceeding, and, as it proved, reaped the profits. He
made out the inventory of personal property too; practice
had rendered him an adept in that sort of thing. He
knew how to put a light appraisal on every thing that
could possibly be made serviceable at the tavern; and
although Mr. Cousin's floating debts must have been
inconsiderable, and there were still articles of value on
the place, it so happened that between Stein and an attorney
who had the setting of the estate, nothing was left
for Angie except the meagre furniture of her own room;
which was respected less from courtesy than from a
from her mother, and could not be meddled with.
Hers was now a case either for charity or the workhouse,
and the former prevailed; though it could not
be said to be charity alone which threw open a door to
the orphan. Self-interest gave it a slight push. Hannah
Rawle liked Angie; she had detected her capability
the first time she saw her put on the tea-kettle; she
recognized in her none of the faults of which she had
been accused in the neighborhood. She acquitted her,
as we have seen, of all blame in Geordie's case, just as
she acquitted herself and Baultie. Instinctively she had
become a sort of champion of the girl. She saw the need
of her too, for Margery's remnant of energy was gone,
her own limbs were getting stiff and rheumatic, and she
shrewdly calculated on the gain an infusion of young life
would be to the household. “S'posen you come an' stop
with us a spell?” was the way in which she worded her
invitation. Margery's silent face said “Do!” And
Angie came — the spell was never broken; it lasted,
with only slight interruptions — to the end of their lives.
That the nearest relations of George Rawle should
thus open their doors to Angie Cousin was a crying
aggravation to the gossip of the neighborhood. Eventually
it told greatly in Angie's favor; — but at first the
old women were pronounced the “victims o' that gal's lyin'
arts,” were abused for their indifference to Geordie's
misfortune, or, among the more charitably-disposed, were
declared to be in their dotage. Only after time had
them harmonious, did the public condescend to approve
the arrangement which gave Angie and the two widows
a home together.
They were poor — very poor. Stein, that long-fingered
Stein, had virtually robbed them all. The law had
helped him; somehow the law always seemed to be on
his side. He had inherited, through his wife (who,
though otherwise a mere kitchen hand, was a convenient
link here) the better part of what remained of Baultie's
property. If there was a will, it had disappeared with
the other papers, and every thing but the widow's thirds
— a mere pittance, as it proved, under Stein's management
— went to the family at the tavern. Van Hausen
tried to interfere here, to persuade Margery that George's
death took place later than that of his uncle; that she
herself could prove him to have been living until half
past two o'clock on the morning after the murder, and
that she might yet establish a claim as her son's heir —
but Margery shrank from the subject, shook her head in
a way that forbade legal inquiry into those dreadful particulars,
and was altogether so shattered and distressed
by any allusion to the subject, that Dick dropped the
matter, and forbore alluding to it again, though he and
Hannah indulged themselves in vehement invectives
against Stein and his covetous practices. To crown his
other grasping acts, this unnatural brother began even to
demur regarding Margery's rights to the continued occupation
of her cottage and the adjacent land, claiming it to
of George's life, became vested in Peter and Polly Stein;
and this question, which involved the very roof over the
old women's heads, was only compromised by their
consenting to pay to Stein an annual tribute of half the
wood cut on the piece of timber-land which constituted
the only remnant of the farm.
What remained after the ravages thus made on their
property, was so little that they were at all times sadly
pinched, and occasionally suffered from want. The first
winter after Angie came to live with them was one of
scarcely less privation and anxiety than she had lately
endured in her own home. But for the share of Van
Hausen's earnings, which found its way, in one form or
another, into their dwelling, and relieved the case, and
one other source of aid hereafter to be mentioned, these
poor women might have frozen or starved. The next season
things went better with them, and the event justified
Hannah Rawle's expectations from Angie. Laboring under
the direction of the old woman, whose mental energies
were unimpaired, and whose limbs were less cramped than
they had been the preceding season, the youthful member
of the household wrought willingly and to good purpose;
and such was the result of their mutual perseverance and
thrift, that they not only secured daily subsistence, but
laid by a little store for the necessities of the coming
winter. Between them they cultivated a kitchen-garden,
raised vegetables and herbs, and prepared dried apples
and peaches for the market. Angie kept bees, turkeys,
she exchanged the produce of poultry-yard, garden, and
hive for family necessaries, or sometimes a little hard
cash. A few sheep, which fed in their only bit of pasture-land
by day, and were carefully folded by Angie
every night, furnished the wool which kept Margery's
spinning-wheel going all the summer-day, and gave occupation
to all their knitting-needles during the long winter
evenings. Thus united in their labors, and sharing the
same round of petty cares, these three women, thrown
together less by choice than by the shock of calamities,
drifted, as it were, by whirlwinds upon the same shoal,
had now one home, one purse, one lot.
And so they lived in each others' sight by day, and sat
round the same fireside at night, familiar to each other's
gaze, acquainted, as each believed, with the experiences
that had moulded the other's destiny. And yet the
knowledge they possessed was the merest fraction of
the whole. There were depths in each heart which
none but God could know, much less could sound.
Look at them; look closely at these three lives,
apparently so blended into one, in reality so isolated.
Margery Rawle, moving about like an automaton,
silent, calm, seemingly resigned, but dying, by degrees,
of the terrible thought that she was the mother of darkness,
mystery, and crime; that the life she had given
had murdered life, — more than one life, — another's —
its own — hers.
Angie, scorned and pitied by the world as the breaker
bearing this obloquy and shame, if so she might help to
shield her dead lover from a more terrible name than
that of a suicide.
And the widow of the murdered man, stern, erect,
determined, — a bitter mourner for the dead, whom she
now never named, — often wearying of her own life, and
secretly wishing to be at rest, but bearing up in the
belief that she was destined some day to be the instrument
of a righteous retribution, and clinging to the
other two, as in some sort capable of corroborating her
testimony, and insuring the gallows its victim, while they
saw in her hand the uplifted sword that might any day
smite the last stronghold of their affections, and often
trembled at the sound of that voice which was to them
the trump of the avenger.
For while all other horrors were laid away among the
things of the past, that one possibility of the future —
discovery — continued always to haunt the hearts of these
three sufferers from the crime; to the one an eager hope,
— to the other two a mortal dread. The one cherished
her life that she might aid in laying bare the guilt, and
condemning the guilty; either of the other two would have
died to save poor Geordie's name from further infamy.
And the thought of each heart was secret.
Types of mortality! God setteth the solitary in
families, and gives man a social sphere to move in. But
each soul still dwells alone with God. Deep down in
its own consciousness is a world no friend nor foe can
so, what loves, what hates, what memories, what fears,
what mistakes, what sorrows, what secret sins will flash
their light on the mysterious past, and lay heart bare to
heart!
Meanwhile God knows all. All this sin of ours? O,
terrible thought! How shall we escape his wrath?
How? Because he knows all, — the conflicts, the
temptations, the agony, the tears, the repentance. Therefore
he loves and spares; and hence, as one has touchingly
said, “Redemption is the charity of God.”
And the price of this redemption — this charity? At
what cost shall it be ours? The answer is written in
the Book, — “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” God,
who knows all, pardons all. Pardon, then, short-sighted
mortal, the things that you know, for the sake of things
that you know not.
It seemed as if these three women comprehended in
some degree the mystery, for by tacit consent they lived
together in an unquestioning faith. Calamity had fallen
on them all, and silence was its handmaid. Each had
her spectral thought, and shuddered at it; but each
accepted her destiny, bowed beneath it, and complained
not. And time wore on.
Their household life being such as I have described it,
one may well conceive that they had little time or inclination
for intercourse with their neighbors. Although
Angie's repugnance to society was but partially overcome,
it was chiefly through her that social relations
and the world outside. Occasionally Van Hausen made
them brief visits, and now and then some market-gardener
or travelling pedler called at the door, and
had occasion to transact some small matter of trade
with Hannah, who always proved herself, as report
said, smart as ever at a bargain. But, as Angie went
frequently to market, and purchased whatever was required
from the country grocery-store, and, ever since
the appeal made to her by the dominie, went regularly to
church, it was inevitable that her former familiarity with
the neighborhood should be to some degree resumed, or
new and different relations be established on the basis of
her altered character and circumstances.
It was hard for poor Angie at first, however, and
awkward and trying even for the best-intentioned of her
neighbors. The Stein's Plains people were not the most
hard-hearted or censorious people in the world. It was
love and pity for poor Geordie, after all, which made
them so bitter against her who had been, as they believed,
his ruin. Had the cases been reversed, they
would have remembered her with tenderness, and scorned
and hated him as the destroyer. Nor did Angie expect
or claim any more lenient treatment at their hands; did
they know all that she knew, they might shudder more
at the thought of George; but they would scarcely fear
any the less the moral contagion of her presence. As one
secretly tainted with disease secludes himself, from dread
of polluting the surrounding atmosphere, so she shrank
alien. Her former associates had no need to flee from
her; she instinctively avoided them.
So it happened that for several Sundays after she
resumed her attendance at church, she went and came
speechless, and unspoken to by any one. Several had
intended to make a point of bowing to her; a few, moved
either by kindness or curiosity, had prepared something
to say; but she gave them no opportunity, slipping into
her place after most of the congregation were assembled
for the service, and at its close escaping in advance of
her own sex, and gliding through the little crowd of men
outside the porch without looking to right or left, her
cold, reserved expression forbidding any one to address
her.
There was no embargo, however, upon the eyes and
ears of the congregation; and their tongues, when
loosened for one another's benefit, in the porch or on
the homeward drive, were not slow in making their
comments upon an object so open to gossip as Angie
had become.
“Did you see Angie Cousin?” whispers one.
“My! ain't she changed, though?” is the prompt
reply.
“She takes good care to keep out of the way,” cries a
third.
“Well she may — she ought to,” affirms a fourth.
“Who pities her?” exclaims an implacable voice.
“She needed to be taken down,” is the moral conclusion
flung out at this.
“Her beauty's all gone,” says Susan Rycker, triumphantly,
to Joel Beck.
“Looks as yeared as a young calf, what with her pale
face and them short curls o' hern,” responds the honest
youth, who has had the reputation of “gawking round
after Angie” all through his boyhood, but who scorns
her now for poor Geordie's sake.
“I allers said she'd come out at the little end o' the
horn,” remarks Dame Rycker, glancing complacently at
Susan, who has just arrived at the great end, Joel having
yesterday proposed.
“I bless the Lord no darter o' mine ever made herself
such a town warnin'!” is the pious thanksgiving
of the chief of the Pharisees.
Such was the burden of the murmur through which
Angie flitted, ghostlike, for half a dozen successive Sundays;
a manœuvre on her part which was instinctive,
almost involuntary, disappointing not only those among
her former friends, who, instigated perhaps by the dominie's
example at the funeral, had meant to have a neighborly
chat with her, but disappointing the dominie, who
looked vainly for her among the crowd gathered around
the porch, disappointing even Angie herself, who yearned
for a kind word from the good pastor, but still could not
resist the impulse to escape from the church before he
had time to reach the foot of the pulpit stairs. She
had the refreshment of seeing his eye turn always in her
direction when she took her seat, with a look that was
benediction; her single drop of dew for the week — the
in coming, but she thirsted for more. At last circumstances
befriended her. A thunder-shower came up
during service time, and settled into a steady rain. The
roads were flooded, the rain still pouring heavily when
the congregation were dismissed. As usual on such
occasions, the men and boys, who were accustomed to
take their station outside, crowded the porch and blocked
up the passage, and the women thronging down the aisle
were squeezed into narrow quarters. For a while
Angie's exit was forbidden, and she found herself involved
with the crowd, who were too busy pinning up
dresses, covering bonnets with handkerchiefs, and otherwise
preparing to meet the storm, to take much notice of
her. Some who lived at a distance were inviting others
to take seats in their wagons; sons and brothers were
elbowing their way in to announce these rustic equipages;
sisters and mothers, well pinned up and prepared, were
making their way out, beckoning to other members of
their households to follow. Few lived farther from the
church than Angie, but no one invited her to ride even
any portion of the way. There was some excuse for
them. The minister had just been preaching about separating
one's self from sinners. He had drawn terribly
sharp lines, had painted eternal fires, and warned the
virtuous against guilty contagion. And Angie was
about the guiltiest person they knew of just now, the
most marked subject for avoidance. One or two, indeed,
looked at her askance; there was a whispered consultation
name, did not await the result of the conference. She
saw a gap in the crowd, darted through, and set out for
home in spite of the rain, just before Dominie Van
Zandt, for whom every body made way, gained the door,
and looked anxiously up and down the road. She
had no umbrella, and was thinly clad; it was almost impossible
to avoid the puddles; in a few moments she
must inevitably be drenched with the rain; one wagon,
driven carelessly past, nearly ran over her; another bespattered
her with mud. There is something pitiful in
being wet through, something mortifying in being drabbled
with mud, something forsaken in being on foot and
exposed to the storm when every body else is protected
and comfortable. Angie has pride enough left to be more
conscious of the neighbors' wagons coming up behind
than she is of the rain; sensitiveness enough to feel the
familiar eyes looking down upon her more acutely than
she feels the cold east wind that is blowing. So she walks
fast, and gets the more spattered and wet for doing so,
and cannot hope to outstrip the carriages after all. Even
now, there is one coming up at full speed; how the old
vehicle rattles! every spoke in its wheels seems alive!
now it is alongside — ah, it stops! It is the dominie's
antique “shay.”
“Jump in! my dear, jump in out of the rain!” cries
the old man, who has himself alighted, and whose broadcloth
is exposed to the torrent, while he assists Angie
into the vehicle with the gallantry of a century ago.
is right; now we are snug!” and he chirrups to his old
nag.
The dominie is going quite out of his way this rainy
afternoon, too! Fie on you, farmer this and deacon that,
who are coming up just behind! You, who live near,
might have given the orphan a lift so easily, and saved
your old parson the trouble.
But he does not seem to think it a trouble. How
kindly he talks to her! How careful he is not to notice
that she is dripping at all points like a wet umbrella!
How fast he drives, so as to deposit his damp passenger
at her home as quickly as possible!
“I have watched for you every Sunday, my child,”
he says. “It has done my heart good to see you in
your old seat. But you have never given me a chance
to speak to you. Why do you run away so?”
“I don't run from you, sir,” Angie answers, with
emphasis.
“Ah, yes, I understand; you don't like to meet the
congregation. Ah, yes; well, that's natural, I suppose,
but not a good thing for you, though. No, not a good
thing. You live too much alone, and with the old people.
Come and see us some day, my dear. Come and see
Mrs. Van Zandt. She'll be very glad to see you. But
she's old too,” he continued, as if the thought took him
by surprise. “Yes, and paralytic — poor, dear soul!
it's hard for me to realize that. But never mind,” he
added encouraginly, “she's cheerful and patient. It
always. We're both old. I didn't think of that when I
asked you to come; but it will be a change. We'll
make it as pleasant to you as we can, and perhaps your
young fingers can do a good turn for Mrs. Van Zandt, so
be sure and come;” and, to make the matter sure, he
named a day.
How this adroit hint that she might be of use wrought
upon Angie, how she accepted the invitation, how it
opened the door to that influence of the old couple, which
was, henceforth, like summer showers to the dry ground
of her life, belongs to that sacred history of friendship
which can never be written. Like God's fountain in the
desert, it is often mysterious in its source, small in its
beginnings, but steals into the heart of existence, wanders
through all its mazes, widening as it goes, waters
and enriches at every step of its progress, and never
pauses in its work of beneficence until it is merged at
last in that sea of boundless love which rounds the
universe.
What the old couple were to Angie was best shown
by the fruits of the renovation to which their kindness
proved the life-spring.
The most tangible of these fruits, and those which
appealed most directly to the material mind of Hannah,
were the profits of the needlework which the parson and
his wife contrived, out of the poverty of the parsonage, to
pay Angie liberally for doing, and the superfluities from
the annual donation party which helped the inmates of
their united experience. A less substantial but not less
marked effect of the countenance bestowed on Angie at
the parsonage was the growing charity for her which it
excited in the neighborhood, as well as an increasing
confidence on her part in the general good will. It never
again happened that she was exposed to rain, snow, or
sun-stroke for want of invitations to take a seat in somebody's
vehicle on Sundays, and on market-days the farmers,
living farther up the cross-road, frequently offered
her a place in their wagons either in going or returning.
At first Angie was chary of accepting these hospitalities,
but hers was not a nature to resist kindness or harbor
suspicion. With the children especially, among whom
she, like her father, or perhaps partly for his sake,
had always been a prime favorite, her former relations
were easily resumed; their eager petition, “Ride with us,
Angie — ride with us?” or their contentions for the place
next her either in pew or wagon, were too coaxing to be
resisted. The aged friends of Margery and Hannah too,
with their weekly anxiety concerning the old widows'
health, were sure to be pleased with her grateful acknowledgment
of their inquiries, and all, of every age,
softened in their judgment of her as time threw past
events into the background, and brought virtues of hers,
both old and new, into prominence.
I have made the voice of common gossip a rough
index to her social standing at various points in my
story. Hear now what public opinion had to say of
upon. The dialogue I quote took place between Briny
Rycker and the mother of six boys before-mentioned.
“Was Angie Cousin to meetin'?” was (the opening
remark from the latter
“Yes; but she looked real dragged out.”
“And no wonder; I think they've imposed upon her
up at Beck's. She's most killed herself nussin' that
baby.”
“Law, she didn't seem to think it any hardship. She
happened in there sort of by accident, just as the baby
was taken bad with the snuffles. Hannah sent her to
see Joel about killing their pig, but when she saw how
bad on't the baby was, she took right hold, jest as she
always does.”
“Poor little feller! how many days was that afore he
died?”
“Three — three days and nights that Angie Cousin
never had her clothes off.”
“Why, where was his mother, I want to know?”
“Susin? Why, between you and me, she gave out,
and went to bed. She cried, and said she couldn't bear
to see him suffer so; and she managed to bring on the
dysterics, and her mother and Miss Beck had just as
much as they could do to keep her quiet.”
“And left poor Angie to do all the tendin' o' that sick
child?”
“Wal! it didn't matter much; after the first day he
wouldn't go to nobody else. She tended him handy-like,
our Susin, — wal, p'raps, I ought not to say so, but she's
about the shiftlessest piece ever I did see.”
“So Angie was the only one that could quiet that
dyin' child! I declare, she's jest like her dear old
father. How he did use to pet my boys! There's
Sam remembers him now jest as if it was only yesterday
that he used to coax him with candy, and such
like.”
“Why,” said Miss Briny, “you ought to have seen
that little feller and her the night afore he died. It was
a real touching sight, the way she'd walk up and down
with him by the hour, and he no light weight either;
and when he got kind of quiet, and she laid him on the
bed, she couldn't move an inch from him but he'd
scream out. The little thing dropped off sudden at
last. Why, 't wan't half an hour afore he drew his
last breath that Miss Beck see him a smilin' at Angie
and a twistin' one of her curls round his little fat fingers.
He had revulsions jest afterwards, and they'd hardly
time to call the folks 'fore he was stretched out like
a poor little dead bird.”
“An' she fixed him for the grave an' all, so I've
heerd!”
“Every thing. She didn't want any help she said.
She washed and dressed him, and curled his hair as
purty as could be 'fore his mother saw him again;
an' he did look like a picter, for he wan't wasted
a mite.”
“Wal! I declare she's a wonderful gal. I couldn't
do it for no child myself, and I the mother o' six.”
“She was always the capablest creetur in the world,”
remarked Briny.
“Yes, but it's a different sort o' things she turns her
hand to now from what it was once. There seems to be
nothin' but what she can bring her mind to since she see
sufferin' herself.”
“She's a real subdued character,” said Miss Briny,
“an not one o' the selfish sort, neither.”
“She jest devotes herself to those old women, they
say, and yet she finds time to tend babies, an' nuss sick
folks, an' go a nuttin' with the chil'en; every body depends
on her for 'mergencies like that at Beck's; and as
for Mis' Van Zandt, she can't seem to get along more 'n
a week to time without her.”
“I don't know what would ha' become o' poor Mis'
Stein if it hadn't been for Angie,” remarked Briny.
“'Twas winter time, you know, when she was taken
down with her last sickness, and there was nobody to do
a thing to make her comfortable. Stein had no more
consideration for her than for an old churn that was past
use. Peter was drunk as a sot all the time, and a disgrace
to the neighborhood; and as for Polly, — wal,
the Lord knows where she was or is; the least thought
or said about Polly the better.”
“Poll has never once shown herself hereabout, has
she?” spoken mysteriously.
“Never. Not even at her mother's funeral.”
“Do you s'pose they've any idea what's become of
her?”
“I don't know in the least. Stein went to York two
or three times — so I've heerd, and tried to hunt her up.
P'raps he found her — anyhow he never let on a word
about her to any body as I can learn.”
“The neighborhood was cheated for a while with the
notion that she was larnin' the millinery trade, but nobody
believes that now, I s'pose.”
“Nobody's quite such a fool, I reckon. My sister-in-law
did go to York two or three year ago, calkerlatin'
to come across Polly at some milliner's in the Bowery,
and consult her about a new bunnet. But she wasn't to
be found in any of those places. I hear, though, she has
been seen a year or two back in places a good deal less
respectable. I don't think any body doubts what has
become of her, or is much surprised either. She was
always a sarcy jade.”
“Poor Miss Stein!” said the other, with a sigh;
“what a hard time she's had on't with such a family
as hern.”
“Wal, Angie was like a darter to her,” resumed
Miss Briny. “She wan't under any obligations in that
quarter, and they say Hannah called her all the fools
in the world for slavin' herself over Mis' Stein, when
if Stein hadn't been such a wretch of a miser he might
ha' hired somebody to nuss his wife.”
“Don't you 'magine he paid her any thing for bein'
off an' on there all winter?”
“Paid her? Not he. Why, he wouldn't let 'em have
a fire in his wife's chamber, nor a lamp to burn at
night, nor any kind o' nourishment that was fit for a
poor sick thing like her. Angie used to watch there
nights, to my certain knowledge, when she could hardly
keep herself from freezin', and then used to run home in
the mornin', and make some broth or cook up some little
thing or other for Mis' Stein's breakfast. Stein never
even thanked her, but she had the dyin' woman's blessin',
if that's any comfort, and the good word o' the whole
neighborhood. As I heard Miss Beck say at the funeral,
it was a real Christian deed, and the more so because
the Steins, as a family, had been no friends to her or
hern. But Angie Cousin don't stand on that; she 's a
real forgivin' disposition; amiable-like, jest as her father
was afore her, — else,” in a confidential tone, “she
wouldn't ha' patronized so with my sister Rycker an'
the Becks in the baby's sickness. I must say they used
to turn the cold shoulder on her if any body did.”
“Wal, nobody 'll ever flout at Angie Cousin again,
I reckon,” said the mother of six, determinately. “I'll
always stand up for her, anyway. I only wish she could
get up her sperits a little. What red cheeks she used
to have, and a lively word for every body, an' jaunty
kind o' ways. I can assure you, Miss Rycker, it very
often brings the tears into my eyes to think what a
shadder that poor gal is o' what the Lord meant her to
be, if things hadn't turned out jest as they did.”
“Does it?” said Miss Briny. “Now, it don't me.
hearty family, an' are used to see folks find their pleasure
in frolickin' and noise; but p'raps, if you was lonesomelike,
an' had a good deal to contend with one way an'
another (and Miss Briny sighed heavily), there 'd be
something comfortin' in her grave looks an' kind o' sympathizin'
ways. Not but what I'd like to see her happy,
an' all that,” continued the poor spinster, in a parenthesis
of disinterestedness; “but as long as there must be so
much sorrer an' misery in the world, those on us that's
seen trouble can't depreciate enough them that knows
how to meet 'em on their own ground. Angie's face
and figur' may, as you say, be shadders of what the Lord
meant 'em fur, but they're kind o' softened shadders to my
thinkin', like things you see in the moonlight; sorrer and
sufferin' have warred against the flesh, but they've
made on her a ministerin' spirit, — an' that last 's a
blessin' to humanity, and no disappintment to the Lord,
I reckon.”
A ministering spirit! That then was the calling to
which Angie was called, and in its fulfilment, so far as
she was faithful, she had already acquired a new popularity.
Not that emergencies, like those above referred
to, were frequent. They came only at wide intervals;
but the spirit of her life was nevertheless one of sympathy,
and unconsciously made itself felt. Those who
have probed life deeply at one point know better what lies
beneath the surface every where. Angie had been social
by nature; like her father, but experience now had let
knew of, she could feel. So henceforth her look, her
voice, the touch of her helping hand, were not like the
look, the voice, the touch of the uninitiated. God had
poured on her the ordaining oil, and henceforth sorrow
claimed her as its priest.
It was long before she knew her office; longer still
before she gave herself to its fulfilment. The tear of
pity was the first softening dew-drop to her rebel heart;
the friendliness, which afterwards flowed from the same
source in a wider stream, evoked gentle emotions that
had seemed crushed and dead; kindness directed their
growth and culture, and God's love at last revivified the
soul, which, buried in the deep grave of all its earthly
hopes, had found therein a well of water, and was
springing up into everlasting life.
Here then was resurrection. Not of hopes gone and
dead, not of happiness blotted out forever, not of ease,
of which there was no earthly prospect, but of the
soul to its higher life.
Even now she cannot always make duty a substitute
for joy, patience the cure of pain, or the peace
of God a rest for her troubled spirit. There is the
struggle, the battle, and often the defeat for her, as for
all who fight the fight of faith.
But she has an inheritance among the faithful. Her
sunny traits came of the paternal blood; but her
mother was of the Puritan stock, — men and women
who, with faces sternly set heavenward, weathered sea and
is fighting under the Master's banner, and on the right
side; she has taken to herself the whole armor of
God. His grace will be sufficient for her; she will
win the victory.
| CHAPTER XIX.
THE VOICE OF PUBLIC OPINION. Haunted hearts | |