August was a happy month to Aunt Faith. She rejoiced in Sibyl's happiness, and she rejoiced in the triumph of unselfish love and Christian humility over the worldliness and ambition which had sullied her niece's good qualities. Sibyl was not impulsive; it was not an impulse which had led her to renounce a life of fashionable gayety and wealth for Mr. Leslie. It was a sudden realization of the truth, a sudden conviction of the strength of her own feelings, a sudden horror of the wickedness of falsifying them, and a sudden appreciation of the hollowness of worldly ambition when brought face to face with death. There was no hesitating vacillation in Sibyl's character. She had been self-deceived, but, as soon as she felt the truth, she threw aside errors with all her might, and gave herself up boldly, wholly and heartily to her new life. Aunt Faith understood her niece thoroughly, and she knew there would be no danger of a relapse into the mistakes of the past; other faults, other temptations would assail her, but these were harmless. Having once seen and realized the falsity of worldliness when compared with religion, the worthlessness of mere money, when compared with true affection, Sibyl could never forget the lesson, for firm reason and resolve were parts of her nature.
Aunt Faith saw, also, that Sibyl was very happy. She was calm as usual, but there was a new light in her eyes, and a new glow on her cheeks. She found a new pleasure in instructing the children of the Chapel Sunday School, and her scholars loved her dearly; she went about among the poor, and devoted much of her time and means to their service. She assisted in the household work; not the light graceful labors which generally fall to the daughters, but the real burden of the day, lifting it from Aunt Faith's patient shoulders with cordial good will; and in all she did there was a new charm,—the charm of a rare humility, the most difficult of all Christian graces to a proud, self-reliant spirit.
One afternoon, towards the end of August, Aunt Faith found Sibyl resting on the lounge in the sitting-room. The house was still, the children were in the garden, and Bessie and Hugh had gone up to the studio; Sibyl had been out visiting the sick all the morning, and, wearied with the walk, she had thrown herself down on the lounge for a rest before tea-time.
"Do I disturb you, dear?" said Aunt Faith, as she entered.
"Oh, no, aunt. I am not sleeping, only resting."
"I fear you are doing too much, Sibyl."
"I think not, aunt. I know how much I can bear, and I would not be so foolish as to overwork myself. It would be a poor preparation for the life to which I look forward with so much hope."
"It will be a pleasant life, I hope, my dear child."
"Oh aunt! pleasant seems too cold a word to express it! I never knew what life was before; I was blind and deaf to real beauty and real happiness. I thought of nothing but money, ease and social fame. I shudder to think how near I came to bartering my life for what I supposed would give me the most happiness; whereas, now I know how great would have been my misery, and how surely and quickly I should have discovered it. I was entirely blinded, but now I see plainly; it is as though a great ray of light had come into my heart to show me life as it really is, and myself as I really am."
"God be thanked for this—mercy, my child."