“Yes; it is that which has ruined me,” said Anna at length. “For years my chief motive has been praise, human praise; and now I cannot act against my inclinations from any other. And I have lost all power over my thoughts: they wander away at all times: the attempt to restrain them made me miserable; and now that I have given it up, I am more miserable still.”
“No doubt, my child; and the only way to recover your peace is to resume your efforts—not with a vague wish merely, or an unassisted resolution to govern yourself better. You must gather motives from a renewed study of your Bible; you must obtain strength from prayer; and you must also exercise yourself perpetually in action. Circumstances occur every hour which may afford you an opportunity of breaking in upon your reveries, and doing something which your inclination would prompt you to leave undone. There is more efficacy in attempts to act, in a case like yours, than you have any idea of.”
Anna knew this, but doubted her own power. Her father suggested various helps to her own feeble resolution, of which she might make use; the chief of which was an increased confidence in her sister. From this, her father saw with anguish that she recoiled: there was no use in arguing against so unnatural a feeling; he could only pray that it might be changed into a more kindly and generous emotion, by the discipline to which he hoped his unhappy child would henceforth subject herself.
He perceived that, painful as this conversation was, it had been a relief to Anna, who had not for many long months opened her griefs to any one. Her emotions had, however, so totally enfeebled her, that her father found it necessary to assist her to her room, where he laid her on her bed, and saw her fall asleep almost instantly, thus proving that the exhaustion of her body was greater than the disturbance of her mind.
When Mary and M. Mesnil entered the cell, they found Mr. Byerley leaning over the table, his face covered with his hands. They made no very close enquiries respecting the cause of his grief; but as, at the end of an hour, Anna was still asleep, Mary proposed that she should not be disturbed, and that they should both remain through the day and night. In answer to all objections about want of accommodation, she declared, that if there was not room for both to rest, she would watch, as she had done before. Any thing, she said, for the sake of their passing a day together once more.
This arranged, Mary told her father how she had enjoyed the preceding day and this morning.
“It is a fine morning, I see,” said he, looking up to the high grated window which admitted—not sunshine—but such light as told that there was sunshine abroad.
“A fine, fragrant, summer morning,” said Mary, taking from her bosom some field-flowers which she had gathered in the meadows: “I have brought you these; I wish I could bring you the sunshine which painted them.”
As her father looked fondly at her, he thought within himself, that to him she had ever brought sunshine.
Anna awoke refreshed, and, to her sister’s relief, appeared to have no objection to remain another day and night where she was. They spent the day in greater comfort and confidence than had been their wont of late, and at night slept and watched in turn; Anna managing to control her fears while her sister was beside her, though asleep.