‘Now YOU know it, will you not turn to Violet for advice and comfort? I know what she can be. If you could guess what she saved me from, you would fly at once to her.’
‘I cannot begin now, I cannot look anywhere that recalls past happiness!’ said Emma, murmuring low, as though the words, in spite of herself, broke from her oppressed heart. ‘Would that I could hide my head! Oh! that I had wings like a dove!’
‘Emma, you have them. They may carry you into what seems to be a wilderness, but go bravely on, and you will be at rest at last.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The wings of duty.’
‘If I only knew where it was.’
‘Your mother, your dependants, your orphans, your beautiful old plan.
Emma only groaned, and held up her hand in deprecation.
‘I have felt it,’ continued Theodora. ‘I know how vain, and vapid, and weary everything seems, as if the sap of life was gone, but if we are content to remain in the wilderness, it begins to blossom at last, indeed it does.’
‘I thought you had had no troubles,’ said Emma, with more interest. ‘They could not have been such as mine.’