‘Your visions may have vanished, but you did your work faithfully, and it has not been fruitless.’
‘Ay, in shipwrecked lives. Mischiefs wherever I meant to do best! Why, I let even my own Maurice grow unmanageable while I was nursing poor grandmamma. The voluntary duty choked the natural one, and yet—’
‘And yet,’ interrupted her brother, ‘that was no error.’
‘Oh, no! I would not have done it for anything.’
‘Nor do I think the boy the worse for it. I may venture now on saying he was intolerable, and it hastened school, but though your rein was loose, you never let it fall; and maybe, the self-conquest was the best thing for him. If you had neglected him wilfully for your own pleasure, nothing but harm could have been expected. As you were absorbed by a sacred act of duty, I believe it will all be made up to you in your son.’
‘Oh, Maurice, if I might trust so! I believe I am doubly set on that boy doing well, because his father must not, must not have another pang!’
‘I think he knows that. I do not imagine that he will never be carried astray by high spirits; but I am sure that he has the strength, honour, and sweetness that are the elements of greatness!’
‘Nothing we did so changed him as the loss of his brother. Oh, Maurice! there was my most earnest wish to do right, and my most fatal mistake!’
‘And greatest success. Gilbert owed everything to you.’
‘Had I but silenced my foolish pride, he might have been safe in India now.’