 | CHAPTER XI. A New England tale, and Miscellanies |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.
Julius Cæsar.
Jane, exhausted by the agitations of the night, contrary to
her usual custom, remained in bed much longer than the
other members of the family, and did not awake from deep
and unquiet slumbers, till the bell called the household to
prayers.
Mrs. Wilson was scrupulous in exacting the attendance of
every member of her family at her morning and evening devotions.
With this requisition Jane punctually and cheerfully
complied, as she did with all those that did not require
a violation of principle. But still she had often occasion
secretly to lament, that where there was so much of the form
of worship, there was so little of its spirit and truth; and she
sometimes felt an involuntary self-reproach, that her body
should be in the attitude of devotion, while her mind was following
her aunt through earth, sea, and skies, or pausing to
wonder at the remarkable inadaptation of her prayers to
the condition and wants of humanity in general, and especially
to their particular modification in her own family.
Mrs. Wilson was fond of the bold and highly figurative
language of the prophets; and often identified herself with
the Psalmist, in his exultation over his enemies, in his denunciations,
and in his appeals for vengeance.
We leave to theologians to decide, whether these expressions
from the king of Israel are meant for the enemies of the
church, or whether they are to be imputed to the dim light
which the best enjoyed under the Jewish dispensation. At
any rate such as come to us in `so questionable a shape,'
ought not to be employed as the medium of a Christian's prayer.
When Jane entered the room, she found her aunt had begun
her devotions, which were evidently more confused than
usual; and when she said (her voice wrought up to the highest
pitch) “Lo! thine enemies, O Lord! lo, thine enemies shall
perish: all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered; but
my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn: I shall
be anointed with fresh oil: mine eye also shall see my desire
on my enemies, and my ears shall hear my desire of the
wicked that rise up against me;” Jane perceived, from her
unusual emotion, that she must allude to something that
touched her own affairs, and she conjectured that she had already
discovered the robbery. Her conjectures were strengthened
when she observed, that, during the breakfast, her aunt
seemed very much agitated; but she was at a loss to account
for the look she darted on her, when one of the children said,
“How your hair looks, Jane; this is the first time I ever saw
you come to breakfast without combing it.”
Jane replied, that she had overslept.
“You look more,” said Elvira, “as if you had been watching
all night, and crying too, I should imagine, from the redness
of your eyes—and now I think of it,” she added, regardless
shut in the night, and you walking about your room.”
Jane was more confused by the expression of her aunt's
face, than by her cousin's observations. What, thought she,
can I have done to provoke her? I certainly have done
nothing; but there is never a storm in the family, without
my biding some of its pitiless pelting.
After breakfast, the family dispersed, as usual, excepting
Mrs. Wilson, David, and Jane, who remained to assist her
aunt in removing the breakfast apparatus. Mrs. Wilson,
neither wishing nor able any longer to restrain her wrath,
went up to her desk, and taking hold of a pocket handkerchief
which appeared to lie on the top of it, but which, as she
stretched it out, showed one end caught and fastened in the
desk—“Do you know this handkerchief, Jane Elton?” she
said, in a voice choking with passion.
“Yes, ma'am,” replied Jane, turning pale—“it is mine.”
She ventured, as she spoke, to look at David. His eyes were
fixed on a newspaper, he seemed to be reading; not a muscle
of his face moved, nor was there the slightest trace of emotion.
“Yours,” said Mrs. Wilson; “that you could not deny,
for your name is at full length on it; and when did you have
it last?”
“Last night, ma'am.”
“And who has robbed me of five hundred dollars? Can
you answer to that?”
Jane made no reply. She saw, that her aunt's suspicions
rested on her, and she perceived, at once, the cruel dilemma
in which she had involved herself by her promise to David.
“Answer me that,” repeated Mrs. Wilson, violently.
“That I cannot answer you, ma'am.”
“And you mean to deny that you have taken it yourself?”
“Certainly I do, ma'am,” replied Jane, firmly, for she
had now recovered her self-possession. “I am perfectly innocent;
and I am sure that, whatever appearances there may
be against me, you cannot believe me guilty—you do not.”
“And do you think to face me down in this way? I have
evidence enough to satisfy any court of justice. Was not you
heard up in the night—your guilty face told the story, at
breakfast, plainer than words could tell it. David,” she continued
to her son, who had thrown down the paper and walked
to the window, where he stood with his back to his mother,
affecting to whistle to a dog without; “David, I call you to
witness this handkerchief, and what has now been said; and
remember, she does not deny that she left it here.”
One honest feeling had a momentary ascendency in David's
bosom; and he had risen from his seat with the determination
to disclose the truth, but he was checked by the recollection
that he should be compelled to restore the money,
which he had not yet disposed of. He thought, too, that his
mother knew, in her heart, who had taken the money; that
she would not dare to disclose her loss, and if she did, it
would be time enough for him to interpose when Jane should
be in danger of suffering otherwise than in the opinion of his
mother, whose opinion, he thought, not worth caring for.
Therefore, when called upon by his mother, he made no reply,
but turning round and facing the accuser and the accused, he
looked as composed as any uninterested spectator.
Mrs. Wilson proceeded, “Restore me my money, or
abide the consequences.”
“The consequences I must abide, and I do not fear them,
me.”
At this moment they were interrupted by the entrance of
Edward Erskine; and our poor heroine, though the instant
before she had felt assured and tranquil in her panoply divine,
burst into tears, and left the room. She could not endure
the thought of degradation in Erskine's esteem; and she
was very sure that her aunt would not lose such an opportunity
of robbing her of his good opinion. She did not mistake.
Mrs. Wilson closed the door after Jane; and seating herself,
all unused as she was to the melting mood, gave way to a
passion of tears and sobs, which were, as we think, a sincere
tribute to the loss she had experienced.
“For Heaven's sake, tell me what is the matter?” said
Erskine to young Wilson; for his impatience for an explanation
became irrepressible, not on account of the old woman's
emotion, for she might have wept till she was like Niobe, all
tears, without provoking an inquiry, but Jane's distress had
excited his anxiety.
“The Lord knows,” replied David; “there is always a
storm in this house;” and he flung out of the room without
vouchsafing a more explicit answer.
Erskine turned to Mrs. Wilson: “Can you tell me,
madam, what has disturbed Miss Elton?”
Mrs. Wilson was provoked that he did not ask what had
disturbed her, and she determined he should not remain
another moment without the communication, which she had
been turning over in her mind to get it in the most efficient
form.
“Oh! Mr. Erskine,” she said, with the abject whine of a
hypocrite; “oh! my trial is more than I can endure. I
could bear they should devour me and lay waste my dwelling-place;
heavy for me to reveal to you the sin, and the disgrace, and
the abomination, of one that I have brought up as my own—
who has fed upon my children's bread.”
“Madam,” interrupted Erskine, “you may spare yourself
and me any more words. I ask for the cause of all this excitement?”
Mrs. Wilson would have replied angrily to what she
thought Erskine's impertinence; but, remembering that it
was her business to conciliate not offend him, she, after again
almost exhausting his patience by protestations of the hardship
of being obliged to uncover the crimes of her relation, of
the affliction she suffered in doing her duty, &c., &c., told him
with every aggravation that emphasis and insinuation could
lend to them, the particulars of her discovery.
With unusual self-command he heard her through; and
though he was unable to account for the suspicious circumstances,
he spurned instinctively the conclusion Mrs. Wilson
drew from them.
Her astonishment, that he neither expressed horror, nor
indignation, nor resentment towards the offender, was not at
all abated when he only replied by a request to speak alone
with Miss Elton.
Mrs. Wilson thought he might intend the gathering storm
should burst on Jane's head; or, perhaps, he would advise her
to fly; at any rate, it was not her cue, to lay a straw in his
way at present. She even went herself and gave the request
to Jane, adding to it a remark, that as she “was not very
fond of keeping out of Erskine's way, she could hardly refuse
to come when asked.”
“I have no wish to refuse;” replied Jane, who, ashamed
of having betrayed so much emotion, had quite recovered her
hear me, ma'am,” said she to her aunt, who had turned and
was leaving the room—“all connection between us is dissolved
for ever; I shall not remain another night beneath a
roof where I have received little kindness, and where I now
suffer the imputation of a crime, of which I am certain you
do not believe me guilty.”
Mrs. Wilson was for a moment daunted by the power of
unquestionable innocence.—“I know not where I shall go, I
know not whether your persecutions will follow me; but I am
not friendless—nor fearful.”
She passed by her aunt, and descended to the parlour.
`No thought infirm altered her cheek;” her countenance was
very serious, but the peace of virtue was there. Her voice
did not falter in the least, when she said to Edward, as he
closed the door on her entrance into the parlour—“Mr. Erskine,
you have no doubt requested to see me in the expectation
that I would contradict the statement my aunt must have
made to you. I cannot, for it is all true.”
Edward interrupted her—“I do not wish it, Jane. I believe
you are perfectly innocent of that and of every other
crime—I do not wish you even to deny it. It is all a devilish
contrivance of that wicked woman.”
“You are mistaken, Edward; it is not a contrivance; the
circumstances are as she has told them to you: Elvira did
not mistake in supposing she heard me up in the night; and
my aunt did find my handkerchief in her desk. No, Edward:
she is right in all but the conclusion she draws from these
unfortunate circumstances; perhaps,” she added after a moment's
pause, “a kinder judgment would not absolve me.”
“A saint,” replied Edward cheeringly, “needs no absolution.
No one shall be permitted to accuse you, or suspect
so that even your aunt, malicious—venomous as she is, will
not dare to breathe a poisonous insinuation against you, angel
as you are.”
“Ah,” replied Jane, with a sad smile, “there are and there
ought to be, few believers in earthborn angels. No, Mr. Erskine,
I have no explanation to make: I have nothing but
assertions of my innocence, and my general character to rely
upon. Those who reject this evidence must believe me
guilty.”
She rose to leave the room. Erskine gently drew her
back, and asked if it were possible she included him among
those who could be base enough to distrust her; and before
she could reply he went on to a passionate declaration of his
affections, followed by such promises of eternal truth, love,
and fidelity, as are usual on such occasions.
At another time, Jane would have paused to examine her
heart, before she accepted the profession made by her lover,
and she would have found no tenderness there that might
not be controlled and subdued by reason. But now, driven
out from her natural protectors by suspicion and malignant
accusation, and touched by the confiding affection that refused
to suspect her; the generosity, the magnanimity that
were presented in such striking contrast to the baseness of
her relations—she received Edward's declaration with the
most tender and ingenuous expression of gratitude; and
Erskine did not doubt, nor did Jane at that moment, that
this gratitude was firmly rooted in love.
Edward, ardent and impetuous, proposed an immediate
marriage: he argued, that it was the only, and would be an
effectual, way of protecting her from the persecutions of her
aunt.
Jane replied, that she had very little reason to fear that
her aunt would communicate to any other person her suspicions.
“She had a motive towards you,” she added, “that
overcame her prudence. I have found a refuge in your heart,
and she cannot injure me while I have that asylum. I have
too much pride, Edward, to involve you in the reproach I
may have to sustain. I had formed a plan this morning,
before your generosity translated me from despondency to
hope, which I must adhere to, for a few months at least. An
application has been made to me to teach some little girls
who are not old enough for Mr. Evertson's school: my aunt,
as usual, put in her veto; I had almost made up my mind
to accept the proposal in spite of it, when the events of the
morning came to my aid, and decided me at once, and I have
already announced to my aunt my determination to leave her
house. I trust that in few months something will occur, to
put me beyond the reach of suspicion, and reward as well as
justify your generous confidence.”
Edward entreated—protested—argued—but all in vain;
he was obliged at length to resign his will to Jane's decision.
Edward's next proposal was to announce the engagement
immediately. On this he insisted so earnestly, and offered
for it so many good reasons, that Jane consented. Mrs.
Wilson was summoned to the parlour, and informed of the
issue of the conference, of which she had expected so different
a termination. She was surprised—mortified—and most
of all, wrathful—that her impotent victim, as she deemed
Jane, should be rescued from her grasp. She began the
most violent threats and reproaches. Edward interrupted
her by telling her that she dare not repeat the first, and from
the last her niece would soon be for ever removed; as he
should require they should in future be perfect strangers.
lash herself to fury, but no one heeded her.
Edward left the room, saying, that he should send his
servant to convey Jane's baggage wherever she would order
it to be sent. Jane went quietly to her own apartment,
to make the necessary arrangements; there she soon overheard
the low growlings of Mrs. Wilson's angriest voice,
communicating, as she inferred from the loud responsive exclamations
and whimpering, her engagement to Elvira. Mrs.
Wilson's perturbed spirit was not quieted even by this outpouring;
and after walking up and down, scolding at the
servant and the children, she put on her hat and shawl, and
sallied out to a shop, to pay a small debt she owed there.
No passion could exclude from her mind for any length of
time the memory of so disagreeable a circumstance as the
necessity of paying out money. After she had discharged
the debt, and the master of the shop had given her the
change, he noticed her examining one of the bills he had
handed her with a look of scrutiny and some agitation. He
said, “I believe that is a good bill, Mrs. Wilson; I was a
little suspicious of it too at first; I took it, this morning,
from your son David, in payment of a debt that has been
standing more than a year. I thought myself so lucky to
get any thing, that I was not very particular.”
Mrs. Wilson's particularity seemed to have a sudden
quietus, for she pushed the bill into the full purse after the
others, muttering something about the folly of trusting boys
being rightly punished by the loss of the debt.
The fact was, that Mrs. Wilson recognized this bill the
moment she saw it, as one of the parcel she had received the
day before, and which she had marked, at the time, for she was
eagle-eyed in the detection of a spurious bill. There is nothing
was not to the world alone that Mrs. Wilson played the hypocrite,
but before the tribunal of her own conscience she appeared
with hollow arguments and false pretences. From the
moment she had discovered her loss in the morning, she had,
at bottom, believed David guilty; she recollected the threats
of the preceding day, and her first impulse was to charge
him with the theft, and to demand the money; but then, she
thought, he was violent and determined, and that without
exposing him (even Mrs. Wilson shrunk from the consequences
of exposure to her son), she could not regain her
money. She was at a loss how to account for the appearance
of Jane's handkerchief; but neither that, nor Jane's subsequent
emotion at the breakfast table, nor her refusal to make
any explanation of the suspicious circumstances, enabled Mrs.
Wilson to believe that Jane had borne any part in the dishonesty
of the transaction. Such was the involuntary tribute
she paid to the tried, steadfast virtue of this excellent being.
Still she could not restrain the whirlwind of her passion;
and it burst, as we have seen, upon Jane. She was at a loss
to account for Jane's refusal to vindicate herself. It was
impossible for her to conceive of the reasons that controlled
Jane. She could not see up to such an elevation. She felt
so fearful, at first, that any investigation would lead to the
discovery of the real criminal, that she had not communicated
the fact of the handkerchief to any one, even to Elvira;
whose discretion, indeed, she never trusted; but, after
she found that Jane was in a dilemma, from which she
would not extricate herself by any explanations, she thought
herself the mistress of her niece's fate; and the moment she
saw Erskine, she determined to extract good out of the evil
that had come upon her, to dim the lustre of Jane's good
secure for her daughter the contested prize. But Mrs. Wilson,
it seems, was destined to experience, on this eventful day,
how very hard is the way of the transgressor. Her niece's
fortunes were suddenly placed beyond her control or reach;
and nothing remained of all her tyranny and plots, but the
pitiful and malignant pleasure of believing, that Jane thought
herself in some measure in her power, though she knew that
she was not.
After the confirmation of her conjecture at the shop, she
saw that secrecy was absolutely necessary; and she was too
discreet to indulge herself with telling Elvira any of the particulars,
about which she had been so vociferous to the young
lovers.
Perhaps few ladies, old or young, were ever less encumbered
with baggage than Jane Elton, and yet, so confused
was she with the events of the night and morning, that the
labour of packing up, which at another time she would have
despatched in twenty minutes, seemed to have no more tendency
to a termination than such labours usually have in
dreams. In the midst of her perplexities one of the children
entered and said Mr. Lloyd wished to speak to her. She
was on the point of sending him an excuse, for she felt an
involuntary disinclination to meet his penetrating eye at this
moment, when recollecting how much she owed to his constant,
tender friendship, she subdued her reluctance, and obeyed his
summons. When she entered the room, “I am come,” said
he, “Jane, to ask thee to walk with me. I am an idler and
have nothing to do, and thou art so industrious thou hast time
to do every thing. Come, get thy hat. It is `treason against
nature' sullenly to refuse to enjoy so beautiful a day as this.”
Jane made no reply. He saw she was agitated, and leading
is much worse, not happy.”
Jane would have replied, “I am not;” but she checked
the words, for she felt as if the sentiment they expressed, was
a breach of fidelity to Erskine; and instead of them she said,
hesitatingly, “I ought not to be perfectly happy till my best
(I should say one of my best) friends knows and approves
what I have done this morning.”
“What hast thou done, Jane?” exclaimed Mr. Lloyd,
anticipating from her extraordinary embarrassment and
awkwardness the communication she was about to make;
“hast thou engaged thyself to Erskine?”
She faltered out, “Yes.”
Mr. Lloyd made no reply: he rose and walked up and
down the room, agitated, and apparently distressed. Jane
was alarmed; she could not account for his emotion; she
feared he had some ground for an ill opinion of Edward, that
she was ignorant of. “You do not like Edward?” said she;
“you think I have done wrong?”
The power of man is not limited in the moral as in the
natural world. Habitual discipline had given Mr. Lloyd
such dominion over his feelings, that he was able now to say
to their stormy wave, `thus far shalt thou come, and no
farther.' By a strong and sudden effort he recovered himself,
and turning to Jane, he took her hand with a benignant expression—“My
dear Jane, thy own heart must answer that
question. Dost thou remember a favourite stanza of thine?
Could make us happy lang;
The heart aye's the part aye
That makes us right or wrang.”
Jane imagined that Mr. Lloyd felt a distrust of her motives.
“Ah!” she replied, “the integrity of my heart will
fail to make me happy, if I have fallen under your suspicion.
If you knew the nobleness, the disinterestedness of Erskine's
conduct, you would be more just to him, and to me.”
“It is not being very unjust to him, or to any one, to think
him unworthy of thee, Jane. But since these particulars
would raise him so much in my opinion, why not tell them to
me? May not `one of your best friends' claim to know, that
which affects, so deeply, your happiness?”
Jane began a reply, but hesitated, and faltered out something
of its being impossible for her to display to Mr. Lloyd,
Erskine's generosity in the light she saw it.
“Dost thou mean, Jane, that the light of truth is less
favourable to him than the light of imagination?”
“No,” answered Jane; “such virtues as Edward's, shine
with a light of their own; imagination cannot enhance their
value.”
“Still,” said Mr. Lloyd, “they shine but on one happy
individual. Well, my dear Jane,” he continued, after a few
moments' pause, “I will believe without seeing. I will believe
thou hast good reasons for thy faith, though they are
incommunicable. If Erskine make thee happy, I shall be
satisfied.”
Happily for both parties, this very unsatisfactory conference
was broken off by the entrance of Erskine's servant, who
came, as he said, for Miss Elton's baggage. Jane explained,
as concisely as possible, to Mr. Lloyd, her plans for the
present, and then took advantage of this opportunity to retreat
to her own apartment, which she had no sooner entered than
she gave way to a flood of tears, more bitter than any her
aunt's injustice had cost her. She had, previous to her interview
Mary Hull, the disagreeable affair of the robbery. She
wished to spare them the pain which the knowledge of a perplexity
from which they could not extricate her, must give to
them. She was sure Mary, whose discrenment was very
quick, and who knew David well, would, at once, suspect him;
and therefore, she thought, that in telling the story, she should
violate the spirit of her promise; and, at bottom, she felt a
lurking apprehension that Mr. Loyd might think there was
more of gratitude than affection in her feelings to Erskine;
she thought it possible, too, he might not estimate Edward's
magnanimity quite as highly as she did; for “though,” she
said, “Mr. Lloyd has the fairest mind in the world, I think
he has never liked Erskine. They are, certainly, very different”—and
she sighed as she concluded her deliberations.
Mr. Lloyd, after remaining for a few moments in the posture
Jane had left him, returned to his own home, abstracted
and sad. `The breath of Heaven smelt as wooingly,' and the
sun shone as brightly as before, but there was now no feeling
of joy within to vibrate to the beauty without; and he certainly
could not be acquitted of the `sullen neglect of nature,'
that he had deemed treason an hour before.
“I knew,” thought he, “she was fallible, and why should I
be surprised at her failure? It cannot be Erskine, but the
creature of her imagination, that she loves. She is too young
to possess the Ithuriel touch that dissolves false appearances:
she could not detect, under so specious a garb, the vanity and
selfishness that counterfeit manly pride and benevolence. If
he were but worthy of her, I should be perfectly happy.”
Mr. Lloyd mistook; he would not, even in that case, have
been perfectly happy. He did not, though he was very much
of a self-examiner, clearly define all his feelings on this trying
sister; and of late he had thought if he could love another
woman, as a wife, it would be Jane Elton. But his lost Rebecca
was more present to his imagination than any living
being. He had formed no project for himself in relation to
Jane; yet he would have felt disappointment at her appropriation
to any other person, though, certainly, not the sorrow
which her engagement to Erskine occasioned him. Mr.
Lloyd was really a disinterested man. He had so long made
it a rule to imitate the Parent of the universe, in still educing
good from evil, that, in every trial of his life, it was his first
aim to ascertain his duty, and then to perform it. He could
weave the happiness of others, though no thread of his own
was in the fabric. In the present case, he resolved still to
watch over Jane; to win the friendship of Erskine, to
endeavor to rectify his principles, to exert over him an insensible
influence, and, if possible, to render him more worthy of
his enviable destiny.
In the course of the day, Mary Hull heard the rumours
that had already spread through the village, of Jane's removal
to Mrs. Harvey's, and her engagement. She ran to the
library door, and in the fulness of her heart, forgetful of the
decorum of knocking, she entered and found Mr. Lloyd sitting
with his little girl on his knee. “Mary, I am glad to
see thee,” said the child; “I cannot get a word from father;
he is just as if he was asleep, only his eyes are wide open.”
Mary, regardless of the child's prattle, announced the
news she had just heard. Mr. Lloyd coldly replied, that he
knew it already; and Mary left the room, a little hurt that
he had not condescended to tell her, and wondering what
made him so indifferent, and then wondering whether it was
indifference; but as she could not relieve her mind, she
their early lives, and her continued kindness, had given and
established the right of free intercourse.
She found Jane alone, and not looking as happy as she
expected. “You have come to give me joy, Mary,” she said,
smiling mournfully as she extended her hand to her friend.
“Yes,” replied Mary, “I came with that intention, and
you look as if joy was yet to be given. Well,” she continued
after a pause, “I always thought you and Mr. Lloyd were
different from any body else in the world, but now you puzzle
me more than ever. I expected to see your aunt Wilson look
grum—that's natural to her, when any good befalls any one
else; and Elvira, who every body knows has been setting her
cap every way for Erskine, ever since she was old enough to
think of a husband: she has a right to have her eyes as red
as a ferret's. But there is Mr. Lloyd, looking as sorrowful
as if he had seen some great trouble, and could not relieve it;
and you, my dear child, I have seen you pass through many
a dark passage of your life with a happier face than you wear
now, when you are going to have the pride of the county for
your husband, to be mistress of the beautiful house on the
hill, and have every thing heart can desire.”
Jane made no explanation nor reply, and after a few moments'
consideration Mary proceeded—“To be sure, I could
wish Erskine was more like Mr. Lloyd; but then he is six or
eight years younger than Mr. Lloyd, and in that time, with
your tutoring, you may make him a good deal like Mr. Lloyd
(Mr. Lloyd was Mary's beau-ideal of a man); that is, if your
endeavours are blessed. It is true, I always thought you
would not marry any man that was not religious; not but
what 'tis allowable, for even professors do it; but then, Jane,
you are more particular and consistent than a great many
hearts together like religion—that bond endures where there
is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.”
Poor Jane had listened to Mary's pros and cons with considerable
calmness; but now she laid her head in her
friend's lap, and gave vent to the feelings she had been all
day arguing down, by a flood of tears. “Ah! my dear Jane,
is it there the shoe pinches? I an't sorry to find you have
thought of it though. If the `candle of the Lord' is lighted
up in the heart, we ought to look at every thing by that light.
But now you have decided, turn to the bright side. I don't
know much about Mr. Erskine; he is called a nice young
man, and who knows what he may become, when he sees how
good and how beautiful it is to have the whole heart and life
ordered and governed by the christian rule. I often think to
myself, Jane, that your life, and Mr. Lloyd's too, are better
than preaching. Don't take on so, my child,” she continued,
soothingly; “you have Scripture for you; for the Bible says,
`the believing wife may sanctify the unbelieving husband;'
and that must mean that her counsel and example shall win
him back to the right way, and persuade him to walk in the
paths of holiness. Cheer up, my child, there is good missionary
work before you; and I feel as if you had many happy
days to come yet. Those that sow in tears, shall reap with
joy. It is a load off my mind, at any rate, that you are away
from your aunt's, and under good Mrs. Harvey's roof. I
stopped at your aunt's on my way here, and she raised a hue
and cry about your leaving her house so suddenly; she said,
your grand fortune had turned your head; `she was not disappointed,
she had never expected any gratitude from you!
but 'twas not for worldly hire she did her duty!' Poor,
poor soul! I would not judge her uncharitably; but I do
notice of her, and came away. As I was passing through the
kitchen, Sukey says to me, `Mrs. Wilson may look out for
other help, for now Miss Jane is gone out from us, I shan't
stay to hear nothing but disputings, and scoldings, and
prayers.' `But,' says I, `Sukey, you don't object to the prayers?'
`Yes,' says she, `I don't like lip prayers—it is nothing but a
mockery.”'
“Sukey has too much reason,” replied Jane. “But now,
Mary, you must not think from what you have seen that I am
not happy, for I have reason to be grateful, and I ought to be
very, very happy.”
`Ought,' thought Mary, `she may be contented, and
resigned, and even cheerful, because she ought—but happiness
is not duty-work.' However, she had discretion enough to
suppress her homely metaphysics; and patting Jane's head
affectionately, she replied, “Yes, my child, and if you wish it,
I will set these tears down for tears of joy, not sorrow.”
Jane smiled at her friend's unwonted sophistry, and they
parted: Mary, confirmed in a favourite notion, that every
allotment of Providence is designed as a trial for the character;
that all will finally work together for good; and that
Jane was going on in the path to perfection, which, though
no Methodist, she was not (in her partial friend's opinion)
far from attaining. Jane was very much relieved by Mary's
wise suggestions and sincere sympathy.
A sagacious observer of human nature and fortunes has
said, that “if there were more knowledge, there would be
less envy.” The history of our heroine is a striking exemplification
of the truth of this remark: when all was darkness
without, she had been looked upon by the compassionate as
an object of pity, for they could not see the sunshine of the
of the fickle goddess, there was not one that would have envied
her, if the internal conflict she suffered—if that most unpleasant
of all feelings, disagreement with herself, had been
as visible as her external fortunes were.
Erskine was in too good humour with himself, and with
Jane, to find fault with any thing: yet he certainly was a
little disappointed, that in spite of his earnest persuasions to
the contrary, she firmly persisted in the plan of the school;
and we fear he was surprised, perhaps slightly mortified, that
she showed no more joy at having secured a hand and a station,
to which he knew so many had aspired.
| CHAPTER XI. A New England tale, and Miscellanies | |