Colonel Schuyler’s love and admiration for his wife had been steadily increasing ever since the morning when he first called her his own, and if there had been in his mind a lingering doubt as to the wisdom of his choice, it had been dispelled by the sight of her in her evening dress, sitting at his table, and performing her duties so gracefully and in a quiet, matter of course way, as if she had sat there all her life, with that array of silver, and cut glass, and flowers before her.
How fair, and self-possessed, and ladylike she was, and how the pink coral and the soft lace trimmings of her gray dress became her, and how proud he was of her, as he watched her in the drawing-room, talking to his daughters and Miss Creighton, who, compared with her, lost fearfully in the balance of beauty, and grace, and culture.
Usually in the olden days, when Emily trailed her silken robes over the costly carpets, or reclined in her easy-chair, or reposed upon the couch, he had found the atmosphere of the parlors a little tiresome, and had seized the earliest opportunity for stealing away to his private room. But now it was different, and only the knowing that his letters must be read had availed to take him from Edith’s side; and even while he sat reading them his thoughts were with her continually, and hurrying through them as soon as possible he joined her as we have seen. Pausing a moment in the door he looked admiringly at her as she stood in the deep window with her white dressing-gown falling in graceful folds around her, and her brown hair rippling over her shoulders. She was beautiful, and she was his, and he loved her, and fain would know if she was happy, so he asked her the question, “What do you think of your new home, and can you be happy in it with me?”
“Yes, Howard, very happy;” and Edith’s hand stole into his, and her fair head drooped upon his shoulder as she continued: “It is a beautiful place, and I am glad you brought me to it, that when you came in just now and surprised me as you did, I was thanking God for it, and asking Him to make me worthy of it. Howard, do you ever pray?”
It was a singular question, and it sent the hot blood quickly to Colonel Schuyler’s face, while a feeling of shame and remorse took possession of him. Years ago he had with other young men of his age been confirmed as a matter of course, and because it was the right thing to do, but he had never reaped any benefits from the confirmation, or given heed to that without which the laying on of hands is of no avail. When Emily died, and he saw what religion could do for her, he set about trying to work out his salvation himself, and by acts alone. Every feast and fast day was for a time observed, while he gave largely to the church and the poor, and insisted that his daughter should be confirmed, and expressed a wish that Godfrey would do so, too. But Godfrey answered “No.” He was not going to renounce the world, the flesh and the devil, he said, when he liked them first-rate, and should lie if he said he didn’t! So Godfrey was given up, but the colonel saw his daughters confirmed, and encouraged them in their Sunday-school teaching, and never allowed them to read light literature on Sunday if he knew it. He asked a blessing at the table, the shortest he could find; kept the Sabbath day strictly, so far as dinners, and drives, and company were concerned: but there was nothing real about it, nothing which in the other world would have weighed a straw with Him through whom alone we go to God, and when Edith startled him with the question, “Do you ever pray?” he answered her truthfully, “Not often, no.”
“Then let us begin now,” and Edith held his hand in both hers. “I’ve never prayed either as I ought, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve so much to be thankful for, and need help so much to make me what I should be. Let us begin together, to-night.”
He could not resist her, and there in the moonlight, with their faces toward Emily’s grave and Abelard s, they knelt down side by side; and though the Lord’s Prayer was all they said, it was praying just the same, and God heard and blessed them, for He knew the wish there was in their hearts, and sent to Edith at least the peace she so desired. And so, with a great happiness and feeling of rest and quiet in her heart, she laid her head upon her pillow, and sleep fell softly upon her in her new home at Schuyler Hill.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ONE DAY IN HAMPSTEAD.
Edith was very sweet and beautiful in her white cambric dress when she descended to the breakfast-room next morning, and took her seat at the table. Miss Rossiter was not present. She had not slept at all for thinking of poor Emily, she said, and was suffering from the combined effects of brandy and morphine and headache, and had her coffee in her room, and felt as if she was resenting something, she hardly knew what, and that if ever there was a martyr she was one now.