“I cannot tell you, my child, how thankful I am that this accident has happened to your work, and that you have been led to speak out bravely at last,” said her aunt, putting her arm round Dora, and drawing her tenderly towards her, so that the poor girl could weep on her bosom.
“Then you don’t despise me—you won’t give me up?” murmured Dora, crying still, but much more softly.
“Give you up—never!” cried the aunt, and she pressed a kiss upon Dora’s brow. “It may be a question, indeed, whether I had not better reserve the brooch till next birthday.”
“Oh, I never could take it, never!” cried Dora, excitedly; “let it be given to Agnes.”
“Do you think, Dora, that by giving up the brooch you are winning a claim to forgiveness—that by this sacrifice you are atoning for what you have done wrong?” asked Miss Clare. “If so, I am bound to tell you that you are mistaken.”
“No, aunt,” replied Dora, for the first time raising her eyes, heavy with weeping, and looking her godmother full in the face; “I know that nothing that I can do can atone for my sin—that there is but one Atonement; but I feel as if I could not take the brooch which you meant to give to a good girl, and which I have so little”— Dora could not finish the sentence, tears came again, and she hid her face on the bosom of her aunt.
Miss Clare hesitated no longer. She felt that it would deeply impress on the mind of Dora the painful lesson which she was learning, if she saw the brooch in the possession of her elder twin. What Theodora had heard from Mrs. Temple of the marked improvement in the character of Agnes, convinced her that she was the sister who best deserved to receive the miniature of her mother. Miss Clare made a sacrifice of her own inclination in thus deciding to follow her judgment, but she was in the habit of doing what she thought right, instead of what she thought pleasant.
“I will confess all to mamma, now, just as I have done to you—I won’t be a hypocrite any longer,” murmured Dora, as soon as she had recovered power to speak.
“And there is Another to whom my child must also confess,” said Miss Clare, still with her arm round her niece, still with Dora’s head on her breast; “there is One who is ready freely to forgive every penitent who approaches the Mercy-seat pleading the merits of Christ. We have no power to remove one spot from our souls;” the eyes of Miss Clare chanced to rest, as she spoke, on the embroidery, stained and destroyed; “but there is the Lord’s promise to comfort the broken and contrite heart, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow—though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.’”
Dora and her aunt knelt down together and together prayed, but in silence. When Dora rose from her knees, though she was still very sad and subdued, there was a peace in her heart, a sense of sin forgiven, which she had not experienced for months.