“No, indeed, papa. I have not gained what I expected; but I have gained something much better—something,” she continued, smiling, “which it is your boast cannot be had in England.”
“What good thing cannot be found in England, my dear?”
“I do not know that you will call it a good thing, though I have found it so; I mean, the experience of such gross injustice as has been done to you. I have often wondered how we could endure—how we could preserve our composure—whether we could keep our charity entire, and our peace unbroken under grievous wrong.”
“And what is the answer you have found?”
“Father! I would not exchange the experience of the last fortnight, with all its suffering, all its humiliation, for the best advantages of Paris, and the divinest delights of Switzerland. Do not think me proud; for, God knows, it has humbled me not a little to discover how feeble one may be in action, how cowardly in suffering, when one means the best; but yet—what we have felt together and apart will make us happier as long as we live: will it not? And could any thing at Paris have done more?”
“My child,” said her father, “my only child!”
Mary saw that tears trickled through his fingers as his hand covered his eyes. She could not allow him to suppose that she assented to the expression which a moment of strong feeling had wrung from him. Hers was a soul to hope against hope, and she yet trusted that Anna’s restoration was probable. She had never flattered her sister, or striven to deceive herself; but, clear-sighted as she was to the difficulties of the case, it was one of which she never despaired. She now reasoned with her father upon it, and ended by inspiring him with something of her own cheerful faith, and thus disposing him to join the names of his children in his thanksgivings as well as in his prayers.
When the evening star had risen high, Mary returned from receiving her father’s nightly blessing, to watch yet awhile for the influences which came to the wakeful spirit from the sky and from the deep. To such as she, these influences impart fervour without enthusiasm, and a confidence in which presumption has no part; and her steadfast soul looked abroad on the temporary agitations of human life, as calmly as her eye surveyed the rise and fall of the billowy expanse before her. If it be true that “to the pure all things are pure,” it is equally true that to the peaceful all things breathe peace.
THE END.
Joseph Rickerby, Printer, Sherbourn Lane.