"And if I could believe it, Henrietta, would not that be the greatest cause of all for this healing study that I want to give you?"
"Perhaps so, Rosalind; but my mind, my intellect, is weak and wayward. If there be a possibility that I should ever again turn my eyes to seek for light where I have long believed that all was darkness, it must be even when and where my sickly fancy wills.—Here let the subject drop between us. Perhaps, sweet girl! I dread as much the chance of my perverting you, as you can hope to convert me."
Rosalind was uttering a protest against this idle fear, when Henrietta stopped her by again saying, and very earnestly, "Let the subject drop between us; lay the books you speak of in my room, where I can find them, but let us speak no more."
Satisfied, fully satisfied with this permission, Rosalind determined to obey her injunction scrupulously, and silently pressing her arm in testimony of her acquiescence, they returned to the house without uttering another word.
CHAPTER VII.
THE WILL.
It was about this time that Mr. Cartwright, for reasons which will be sufficiently evident in the sequel, set about convincing his wife that there was a very pressing necessity, from motives both temporal and spiritual, that her son Charles should be immediately ordained. There are many ways of convincing a woman and a wife besides beating—and Mr. Cartwright employed them all by turns, till his lady, like a bit of plastic dough, took exactly the impression he chose to give,—as evanescent too as it was deep, for he could make her act on Monday in direct opposition to the principles he had laid down on Saturday, yet leave her persuaded all the while that he was the wisest and best, as well as the most enamoured of men.
But though living with the wife of his bosom in the most delightful harmony, and opening his heart to her with the most engaging frankness on a thousand little trifling concerns that a less tender husband might never have thought it necessary to mention, Mr. Cartwright nevertheless did not deem it expedient to trouble her with the perusal of his letter to Charles on the subject of his immediate ordination.
The especial object of this letter was to obtain a decided refusal to the command it contained, and, like most of the Vicar of Wrexhill's plans, it answered completely. Mowbray's reply contained only these words: