"Lady Kilrush has withdrawn herself from society. She has discovered how poor a thing a life of pleasure is when the bloom of novelty is off it."
"Aye, aye. Fashion's child has cut open the top of her drum and found nothing but emptiness in the toy. Did I not hear, by-the-bye, when I was last in London, that the poor lady had come through an attack of confluent smallpox with the loss of her beauty? If it be so, I hope she may awaken to the expectation of a kingdom where all faces are beautiful in the light that shines around the throne of God."
"No, sir, her ladyship has lost but little of her beauty. And it is not because she can no longer excel there that she has left the world of fashion."
And then Stobart took courage for the first time to speak freely of the woman he loved, and told Mr. Wesley the story of his wife's death-bed and Antonia's devotion. But when questioned as to the lady's spiritual state, he had to confess that her opinions had undergone no change.
"And can this presumptuous worm still deny her Maker? Can this heart which melts at a sister's distress remain adamant against Christ? It is a mystery! I know that the man atheist is common enough—an arrogant wretch, like David Hume, who thinks himself wiser than God who made the universe. But can a woman, a being that should be all softness and humility, set up her shallow reason against the light of nature and revelation, the light that comes to the savage in the wilderness and tells him there is an avenging God; the light that shows the child, as soon as he can think, that there is something better and higher than the erring mortals he knows, somewhere a world more beautiful than the garden where he plays? Stobart, I grieve that there should be such a woman, and that you should be her friend."
"The fabric of our friendship was torn asunder before I went to America, sir. I doubt if the ravelled edges will ever meet again."
"And you heave a sigh as you say it! You regret the loss of a friendship that might have shipwrecked your immortal soul."
"Oh, sir, why must my soul be the forfeit? Might it not be my happiness to save hers?"
"You were her friend and companion for years. Did you bring her nearer God?"
"Alas, no!"