“A little; his wife I have known for the last thirty years. I hear that their union is by no means a happy one; but what else could be expected when she married only for the sake of a handsome face, and he for that of a handsome fortune?”
“They say that Miss Madden made the match.”
“She certainly did,” was the reply. “Cora had lost almost all her own money in some unlucky investment, so was resolved that her brother at least should keep a carriage. But in the case of the Maddens the driving fell to the share of the ladies, and the bride found that, as two suns cannot shine in one orbit, so two sisters-in-law cannot yield one whip, and poor Cora was, metaphorically speaking, very speedily left on the road.”
Isa felt her cheeks glow at this incidental mention of those whose fates had been so closely linked with her own, and, perhaps to cover her emotion, said in a very low voice to Mr. Eardley, who was seated beside her, “Do you not count the light gossip which sports with the characters and concerns of the absent, amongst ‘the Midianites in the soul’?”
“I should count as such everything that mars the charity or spirituality of Christians,” replied the clergyman. “Such things are, indeed, like Midian, a great host; not one giant foe to be overcome once and for ever, but a legion that incessantly harass, whether in the circles of society, or in the sacred central point of home.”
The last word recalled to Isa’s mind the image of an invalid brother, left in dull loneliness; and a slight scarcely audible sigh, told of a secret emotion of self-reproach and misgiving.
