Agnes's ill-humor was growing rapidly into misanthropy, and her sorrow seemed never likely to be of that kind which "forgets to weep, and learns to pray;" but Marion's more happily gifted mind clung to every natural source of enjoyment which offered itself, being resolute, even when she was not happy, for the sake of Agnes, to appear so. Marion's sorrows taught her to feel tenfold for others; but the sympathies of Agnes were concentrated entirely on herself.
There is not merely piety, but good humor also, in being happy; and much ill-humor is invariably associated with that grief which refuses to be consoled. Agnes had strewed her own path with thorns, and would not be comforted; her heart had now the frozen coldness of an ice-bound stream, on which the breeze might play, or the sun might shine, while it still continued cold and cheerless as before; but Marion, resisting all the selfish supineness of sorrow, found out many around to whom her time could be made useful. With no schemes of worldly ambition, she felt that there must be, in every heart, some object to live for; and in her solitary walks, the very trees and flowers became her companions, while the brightness of nature's coloring, the hum of bees, the chirping of birds, the ripple of a pebbly stream, or the daisy she picked on the grass, reminded her that there are simple pleasures she was born to enjoy, and of which she had formerly been deprived during the long years when her best feelings had been heartlessly wasted in the tumult of education at Mrs. Penfold's. On first beholding any sign of human life and enjoyment, it seemed to Marion strange and unnatural. The joyous laugh of children at play in the fields grated harshly on her ear; but before long, she pleased herself with listening to the milk-girls gaily singing as they passed along the road, and was ready to feel for that most desolate of all beings, the blind fiddler, playing his melancholy tune on a rainy night. Religion was to Marion now like the sun behind a fog. She knew that it would before long warm, cheer, and revive her; yet for a time it seemed shorn of its brighter beams, and, in the words of a Christian poet, she was ready to say,
"Give what Thou can'st, without Thee I am poor,
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away."
The emotion which Agnes felt on first returning home, had been only like the last quiver of molten lead before it becomes cold and hard for ever. She now grew daily more peevish and discontented, and, far from affording any relief to Marion only aggravated her distress; for if there were any subject more disagreeable than another to be harped upon, she fastened on it with ceaseless irritability, continually prophesying evil, and recollecting injuries. She took the most teazing view of all subjects, attributed the worst motives to everybody's conduct, and spoke with incessant and bitter invectives against all those by whom she thought herself ill-treated. Far from forgiving injuries, she seemed never, even for a moment, to forget them, while the effect of her tedious vituperation was like that of a file upon velvet, to the gentle Marion, who tried often to give a more Christian, as well as a more cheerful turn, to their tete-a-tete conversation.
It was singular that Agnes still evidently found a mysterious pleasure in exercising to the utmost her powers of torturing; and in nothing did she so deeply wound the feelings of Marion, as by constantly comparing the conduct of Richard Granville to that of Captain De Crespigny, speaking coldly of both, as being selfish, hypocritical, and deceitful. Marion's whole heart shrank from allowing any resemblance, while once or twice she spoke warmly and eloquently in defence of her absent lover; but finding that this only lifted the veil which concealed her own inmost feelings, and exposed them to one who made no generous use of her confidence, she at length passively allowed Agnes to follow the bent of her humor, and kept their discussions as much as possible on indifferent topics, taking always as cheerful and contented a view as she could of life.
"You know, Agnes," observed Marion one day, in answer to some peevish lamentations of her sister's, "we might as well attempt to carry the ocean in an oyster-shell, as to satisfy our immortal souls with anything in this life. Christians must not let their imaginations run wild after every fancy, but put on the strait-waistcoat of reason and religion, to curb their inclinations. We should not only expect, but desire the correction which is necessary, as much for us as for others. You cannot expect all our years to be summers!"
"No!" replied Agnes, discontentedly; "but they need not all be winters! You seem to think we are like the Indian savages, who must carry a weight on their heads to make them upright."
"Yes, Agnes, I do!" added Marion, gently. "It often occurs to my mind what a character mine must naturally have been, which has required so much discipline to correct it; for every sorrow or anxiety I feel is absolutely necessary for my good, I know, or it would not be sent. Though the blossoms of hope lie withered at our feet, however, let us reap the fruit hereafter, and who could wish to be fed with the promises of spring, rather than with the fulfilment of autumn?"