‘Yet,’ said Bertha to Cecily, ‘Phœbe is so stupidly like herself now she is engaged, that it is no fun at all. Nobody would guess her to be in love! If they cared for each other one rush, would not they have floated to bliss even on streams of gin?’
Cecily would not dispute their mutual love, but she was not one of those who could fully understand the double force of that love which is second to love of principle. Obedience, not judgment, had been her safeguard, and, like most women, she was carried along, not by the abstract idea, but by its upholder.
Intuition, rather than what had actually passed before her, showed Phœbe more than once that Cecily was sorely perplexed by the difference between the standard of Sutton and that of Beauchamp. Strict, scrupulous, and deeply devout, the clergyman’s daughter suffered at every deviation from the practices of the parsonage, made her stand in the wrong places, and while conscientiously and painfully fretting Mervyn about petty details, would be unknowingly carried over far greater stumbling-blocks. In her ignorance she would be distressed at habits which were comparatively innocent, and then fear to put forth her influence at the right moment. There was hearty affection on either side, and Mervyn was exceedingly improved, but more than once Phœbe saw in poor Cecily’s harassed, puzzled, wistful face, and heard in her faltering remonstrances, what it was to have loved and married without perfect esteem and trust.
CHAPTER XXXII
Get thee an ape, and trudge the land
The leader of a juggling band.—Scott
‘Master Howen, Master Howen, you must not go up the best stairs.’
‘But I will go up the best stairs. I don’t like the nasty, dark, back stairs!’
‘Let me take off your boots then, sir; Mrs. Stubbs said she could not have such dirty marks—’
‘I don’t care for Mrs. Stubbs! I won’t take my boots off! Get off—I’ll kick you if you touch them! I shall go where I like! I’m a gentleman. I shall ave hall the Olt for my very hown!’
‘Master Howen! Oh my!’