The room to which she was led was vacant, and she sat down to meditate over the past and the future, both of which had a world of absorbing thoughts and feelings to engage her attention. But yet her eyes wandered round the small chamber, which she had not visited for many years, and she remarked that to the crucifix and missal which usually lay upon a table near the window, marking the faith of the occupier of that apartment, were now added the grinning skull and mouldy bones, which may well serve as mementos of our mortality.
She had not been there long, however, when the slow stately step of Mistress Bertha was heard near the door, and the next moment she entered the room, gazing upon Alice with a calm, but somewhat sad, expression of countenance, as she answered her salutation.
"Good morrow, Mistress Bertha," said the young lady; "I hope you have been well since we last met, which is now a long time ago."
"Well, quite well, lady," replied Mistress Bertha; "it is a long time ago; and many things have happened in the space between, which should not have happened. Fate, however, has had its way. We must all fulfil our destiny; and you and I, as well as others, are but working out what is to come to pass."
"If you mean, Mistress Bertha," said Alice, "that I have not been here of late so frequently as I used to be, I think, when you remember all that has happened, you will not judge that I acted wrongly in making my visits scarce at Danemore, where my father's reception has long been cold."
"I blame you not, Mistress Alice: I blame you not," replied the housekeeper. "What right have I to blame you? You liked him not; you loved him not. That was not your fault, nor the poor boy's either. You were fated for another, and that other fated to snatch from him that which he held dearest. We cannot control our liking and dislikings; they are the work of destiny. There have been those who loved me that I could never love, those who have treated me well and kindly, who through long years befriended me, and with tenderness and affection did all to win regard; and yet when they had done all, they failed; and, seizing gladly on some rash word, some hasty burst of passion, I have cast their benefits behind me, and left them, because I could not love them. What right, then, should I have to blame others for feeling as I have felt, and doing even less than I have done?"
"I am sure, Mistress Bertha," replied Alice, gently, "I am quite sure, from what I know of you, that, though you might act sharply, you would never act unjustly, and never be guilty of any degree of ingratitude, though you almost accuse yourself of being so."
"You do not know, you do not know," replied the other; "I have been guilty of ingratitude. I know, and acknowledge, and feel, that to her who was kind to me from her youth, whose fathers had protected my fathers, and whose generosity had raised me from low estate, I know and feel that I was ungrateful; that I could not, that I did not, return her love for love, and that I quitted her at the first rash and thoughtless word. So far I did wrong, and felt evil: but I did no more; my heart was not made, as many another is made, to hate because I knew that I had wronged. I went upon my way and she upon hers, but I sought for no opportunity of doing her ill. On the contrary, I would willingly have atoned for what I had done by serving her in those matters where she felt most deeply. I did serve her as far as I could; but there are things which I must not do--no, not even now."
"I know not to what your words allude," replied Alice, speaking to her gently and kindly, wishing to soothe rather than in any degree to irritate one towards whom she had always experienced feelings of great kindness, and even respect; for although Mistress Bertha, on many occasions, had given way in her presence to the sharp and unruly temper which evidently existed within her heart, yet the occasions on which it had been exercised, Alice had always remarked, were those where there was either an open and apparent, or a concealed but no less certain cause, for the contempt or anger to which she yielded such unbridled sway. "I know not to what your words allude, but I doubt not that you judge of yourself harshly--too harshly. Mistress Bertha, as I have often seen you do in regard to yourself before."
Bertha gave a melancholy smile, and shook her head, as she replied, "Young lady, clear your mind of that great error; the greatest, the most pernicious of the poisonous dainties with which human vanity feeds itself in all this world of vain things! We never judge of ourselves too harshly. The brightest and the best, the noblest and the most generous, if they could but look into their own bosoms with eyes as clear and righteous as those that gaze upon them from the sky, would find therein a thousand dark forms and hideous errors, of which their hearts accuse them now but little. Ay; and if in the whole course of human actions we could see the current of our various motives separated from each other, how much that is vile and impure should we find mingling with all that we fancy bright and clear! No, no! man never judges himself too harshly, let him judge as harshly as he will. God sees and judges, not harshly, we hope, but in mercy; and yet, what sins does not his eye discover, what punishments will he not have to inflict!"