Meta sighed, and shook her head slightly, as she said, “She is so gentle and considerate. I think this has been no fresh pain to her to-day, but I cannot tell. The whole day has been a strange intermixture.”
“The two strands of joy and grief have been very closely twisted,” said Norman. “That rose is shedding its fragrant leaves in its glory, and there is much that should have chastened the overflowing gladness of to-day.”
“As I was thinking,” whispered Meta, venturing nearer to him, and looking into his face with the sweet reliance of union in thought. She meant him to proceed, but he paused, saying, “You were thinking-”
“I had rather hear it from you.”
“Was it not that we were taught to-day what is enduring, and gives true permanence and blessedness to such—to what there was between Ernescliffe and Margaret?”
Her dewy eyes, and face of deep emotion, owned that he had interpreted her thought.
“Theirs would, indeed, be a disheartening example,” he said, “if it did not show the strength and peace that distance, sickness, death, cannot destroy.”
“Yes. To see that church making Margaret happy as she lies smiling on her couch, is a lesson of lessons.”
“That what is hallowed must be blest,” said Norman; “whatever the sundry and manifold changes.”
Each was far too humble to deny aloud any inequality with the goodness of Alan and Margaret, knowing that it would be at once disputed, trusting to time to prevent the over-estimate, and each believing the other was the one to bring the blessing.