Mrs. Travers was one of those sweet and gentle women, who are themselves a standing rebuke to the harsh and iron creed which they profess to hold by. Mrs. Travers had lived in an atmosphere all her life of utter indifference and neglect of even the outward observances of religion.
The clergyman of the Lincolnshire parish where the Grange stood was a fair type of the country parsons of the time. He hunted with the squire, drank freely of his wine, and was "Hail fellow! well met!" with those of his parishioners who had like tastes with himself. A service in the church when it suited him, baptisms when the parents pressed it, funerals, a necessity no one can put aside, and administration of the Holy Communion on the three prescribed festivals of the year, were the limit of his parochial labours.
Who can wonder that a sympathetic and emotional woman, brought to hear for the first time a burning and eloquent appeal to turn to God, should very soon yield herself, heart and soul, to what was indeed to her a new religion!
She accepted the doctrine of her teacher without reservation, and the offer made her in God's name of salvation—a salvation which drew a circle round the recipient, into which no worldly thing must enter—a circle narrower and ever narrower, which, as it closed like an iron band at last, round many a true-hearted man and woman, had all unawares shut in the very essence of that world they had in all good faith believed they had renounced. For "the world's" chief idol is self, and there may be worship and slavery to this idol in the closest conventual cloister, and in the hardest and most ascetic life that was ever led in this, or any other age.
But, as I said, no creed could make Mrs. Travers hard or austere. Her sweet, pale face in its widow's cap, and straight black gown with the long "weepers" and linen bands, gave her almost a saint-like appearance; and the smile with which she greeted her boy was like sunshine over the surface of a little tarn hidden in some mountain-side.
"Late—am I late, mother? I am sorry, ma'am; but I was detained at Mr. Herschel's by—by a child begging for money at the door as we were leaving. She spoke of starvation and deep distress. She had a lovely face, and it sounded like truth."
"Poor little creature! Can we help, Leslie?"
"One of the singers at the Octagon Chapel will direct me to the place—Crown Alley, a low street enough, by the Abbey churchyard."
"Ah!" and his mother sighed; "a low place, doubtless."
"The child's father is an actor—he was hired to play here—and has had a fall, and is helpless."