In thy rude moods and irritable: more,
Beware lest round him wind of words rave free.
Refrain thee; see thy speech be sweet and rare:
Thy ways, consider’d; and thine aspect, fair.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] “Bits of Talk about Home Matters,” by Helen Hunt Jackson.
CHAPTER VI
MRS. SEDLEY’S TALE
It is very strange how a moral weakness in her child gives a mother the same sense of yearning pity that she has for a bad bodily infirmity. I wonder if that is how God feels for us when we go on year by year doing the thing we hate? I think a mother gets to understand many things about the dealings of God that are not plain to others. For instance, how it helps me to say, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” when I think of my poor little Fanny’s ugly fault. Though there is some return of it nearly every day, what could I do but forgive?
But forgiveness that does not heal is like the wretched ointments with which poor people dress their wounds. In one thing I know I have not done well; I have hardly said a word to John about the poor little girlie’s failing, though it has troubled me constantly for nearly a year. But I think he suspects there is something wrong; we never talk quite freely about our shy pretty Fanny. Perhaps that is one reason for it. She is such a nervous timid little being, and looks so bewitching when the long lashes droop, the tender mouth quivers, and the colour comes and goes in the soft cheek, that we are shy of exposing, even to each other, the faults we see in our graceful fragile little girl. Perhaps neither of us quite trusts the other to deal with Fanny, and to use the knife sparingly.