Meditating upon this thought and variations of it, she sat until far in the night.
It was several days before the two girls heard anything of Jerome, and meantime they were able to become better acquainted with one another. Sara was predisposed to love Avice, first because of her charming appearance, and next because she was Jerome’s sister. As time went on, the qualities, mental and moral, of her new sister made her love her for herself. Avice at first stood in a little awe of Miss Ford, of her grand manner, and of her indifferent way of speaking of things which many persons, and most women especially, thought of the first importance. But very soon Sara’s great heart and large benevolent woman’s nature fascinated the younger girl. The whole character of this new friend was so utterly different from the character which had hitherto overshadowed and stunted hers, that very soon the joy of the new influence pervaded her whole nature. Here every power was encouraged to expand to its utmost—here the cold question, ‘What will persons of judgment say to it?’ was never asked; only the question, ‘Is it right or wrong?’ or, by preference, ‘Is it good and noble, or bad and base?’ Things were looked at as they were, not as the world preferred to see them. Here was liberty in the most alluring guise—that of a beautiful woman who loved all things pure and of good report. Avice very soon began to worship her new guardian.
When at last the first letter from Jerome arrived, there was little in it of actual news. He wrote from the house of Mr. Netley, his father’s solicitor, and said he had only just arrived there.
‘I found one of his clerks waiting for me with an invitation to go to his house, and stay there until this business is settled and the worst known. I therefore drove straight up to his place, which is three or four miles out of town; and I am writing this before dinner, while I wait for his return from business. But I could not wait when once there was a chance of writing to you.
‘This Cottonopolis is a dismal hole—but such a rush along the streets. Such earnest, intent, money-making faces; shrewd, hard and ugly for the most part. As their owners bustle along the streets, I feel as if I were a member of an extinct species, suddenly resuscitated and plunged into the whirl of the working half of the nineteenth century—and I look the thing every inch, I don’t doubt. I will write to-morrow as soon as ever I have had a conversation with Mr. Netley, and know my way a little better.’
He asked her to address everything for the present to Mr. Netley’s offices, at 57, Canongate. And he added that he had rejoiced every hour since his arrival in England, to know that Avice was where she was. ‘Not here—I do not know what would have become of her here. I think of you both, constantly, and the thought is as it were a light unto my feet and a lamp unto my path. With it, Sara, there may be poverty and sorrow to contend with, but there will always be something to live for and something to hope for. And I say again, “God bless you!”’
With the receipt of this letter it was as if one stage of a journey had come to an end. The door of a former life of luxury and careless ease had been closed and barred, and before them all lay a rugged path to be travelled, and moreover the light that shone upon it was so vague and uncertain that it was difficult to follow in its windings.
STAGE II.