"Open it now, then, and see."
"I can't just at this moment," I answered; for I had my back hair half twisted in my hands. "There it is on the chimney-piece."
He came in, took it, and opened it, while I went on with my toilet.
Suddenly his arms were round me, and I felt his cheek on mine.
"Read that," he said, putting the letter into my hand.
It was from a lawyer in Shrewsbury, informing him that his god-mother, with whom he had been a great favorite when a boy, was dead, and had left him three hundred pounds.
It was like a reprieve to one about to be executed. I could only weep and thank God, once more believing in my Father in heaven. But it was a humbling thought, that, if he had not thus helped me, I might have ceased to believe in him. I saw plainly, that, let me talk to Percivale as I might, my own faith was but a wretched thing. It is all very well to have noble theories about God; but where is the good of them except we actually trust in him as a real, present, living, loving being, who counts us of more value than many sparrows, and will not let one of them fall to the ground without him?
"I thought, Wynnie, if there was such a God as you believed in, and with you to pray to him, we shouldn't be long without a hearing," said my husband.
There was more faith in his heart all the time, though he could not profess the belief I thought I had, than there ever was in mine.
But our troubles weren't nearly over yet. Percivale wrote, acknowledging the letter, and requesting to know when it would be convenient to let him have the money, as he was in immediate want of it. The reply was, that the trustees were not bound to pay the legacies for a year, but that possibly they might stretch a point in his favor if he applied to them. Percivale did so, but received a very curt answer, with little encouragement to expect any thing but the extreme of legal delay. He received the money, however, about four months after; lightened, to the great disappointment of my ignorance, of thirty pounds legacy-duty.
In the mean time, although our minds were much relieved, and Percivale was working away at his new picture with great energy and courage, the immediate pressure of circumstances was nearly as painful as ever. It was a comfort, however, to know that we might borrow on the security of the legacy; but, greatly grudging the loss of the interest which that would involve, I would have persuaded Percivale to ask a loan of Lady Bernard. He objected: on what ground do you think? That it would be disagreeable to Lady Bernard to be repaid the sum she had lent us! He would have finally consented, however, I have little doubt, had the absolute necessity for borrowing arrived.