'My dear George, you must let me know what is the matter. You cannot hide from me, that there is some great trouble upon you. Tell me, my dear husband, tell me what it is'—and she threw herself upon her knees before him, and clasping her arms about him, looked up with intense interest beaming from her dark hazel eyes.
'We are ruined, Mary! my property, the inheritance of my ancestors, is all, I fear, to be swept away from me.'
'And you have known this, George, a long time, and have been bearing the trouble all alone in your own breast. Why have you done this, and not let me be a sharer of your sufferings?'
'Oh, Mary, how could I do it? It was out of your power to stop the torrent I have been contending against, and I could not bear to disturb your quiet.'
'My dear George, how little do you understand of a woman's love; bright and pleasant things do not always satisfy its warm desire. I had rather suffer with you, and for you, my dear husband, the sharpest pangs, and feel the direst vicissitudes of life, if I could only prove to you, how much dearer to me is your love than all things else on earth.'
As she said this her eyes were filled with tears, and told so truly with the words she had just uttered, all the meaning of her soul, that he clasped her to his bosom.
'My love, my life, my heart's richest treasure! may God bless you for all the comfort you have been to me, and for all you are now.'
Sorrow, thou child of sin, strong and terrible as is thy power, and crushing as is the weight of thy hand when pressed on no worms of the dust, yet know thou, there is an antidote, a precious gift of Heaven, when by man's sin all blessings which his God had given were justly forfeited—this antidote is love; when fixed on God, it bows the spirit into childlike confidence, clinging closer to the heavenly hand the heavier the blow. And when two kindred souls on earth have merged their hopes, their fears, their interests, their warm desires, their whole hearts' sympathies in one strong true embrace, there is so much of heaven's own happiness in it, that spite of all the anguish under which at times they bow, this sweet and subtile charmer steals within, spreads a calm upon the bosom of the waters, hushes all to peace, and bids them still be happy.
And now she sits beside him, and he tells her all his strange trials, and how dark his prospects are.
'It must all go, Mary.'