The letter was indeed a sunbeam thrown upon a gloomy path. Some change was greatly wanted at home. Mr. Duncan was a man of deep and true piety, but of little judgment in worldly matters. It would not be easy to find one less fitted to guide aright four girls like his daughters: he had no idea of what was good or hurtful to them. In education, indeed, both intellectual and religious, he could safely lead them; but of their physical natures he was quite ignorant. He had no quickness of perception. He did not see that Gwyneth was becoming daily more gloomy and abstracted, yielding to fanciful terrors, all the more powerful because she dared not speak of them. He did not discover that Sybil was giving way to indolence and repining, loving to indulge in visionary dreams of future happiness, or in retrospective pictures of past bliss, but shrinking from real, actual exertion, and the toils of every-day life. Still less did he perceive that Hilary was working beyond her strength, and sinking under a weight of responsibility which she felt too vividly to endure safely.
She was keenly sensible of her sisters’ defects; she felt them
with an acuteness and a self-condemnation almost morbid in its excess; it seemed to her as if they were entirely her own fault, and she saw that, however she might guard their health, minister to their comfort, and promote their pleasures, she was still failing in the more important part of her stepmother’s charge, while these evils were allowed to increase and overshadow their characters. Yet she could do nothing to repress them by herself, and she was not seconded by her father. Not that he wished or intended to thwart her; he doted on her far too much for that; but he was quite ignorant of the best manner of training children, or of the importance due to the small points of which Hilary thought so much. He secretly attributed the stress she laid on such things to the over-anxiety of a new-made governess, precise about unnecessary particulars from the scruples of a young responsibility; and when Hilary had said as much as duty and respect permitted, and urged her opinions with the small degree of earnestness which diffidence and humility allowed her, he would reply with a kind smile and a kiss, “Very true, my love; you are a good girl to think so much about your sisters, and I hope they will be grateful. I do not know what I should do without you.” But the things to which she objected, the indulgences which she reprehended, were continued just the same.
Theoretically, he would tell the children to obey Hilary; practically, he would encourage the contrary conduct. Not that there was any positive rebellion—there was no passion, ill-will, or disobedience apparent; these would have been instantly suppressed; but these were not necessary to gain her ends, Sybil found, and her nature was too soft to use them. So when she and Hilary differed about her occupations, her manner of employing her time, or her amusements, an appeal to her father, a smile and a kiss, always won him to her side of the argument, and gained for her the right of following her own taste, rather than submitting to the act of self-denial which her sister had proposed. Mr. Duncan only saw that both acts were alike innocent, why then should she not take her choice? Hilary saw
further; for she not only reflected on the results of self-indulgence, but she felt keenly how her power was annihilated, and her actual authority annulled; all the more keenly because it was owing to an affection she could not bear to blame, even in thought.
One of Sybil’s greatest indulgences was in drawing her father into long conversations respecting her deceased mother, recapitulating her virtues, and dwelling on their own loss. Had he possessed judgment enough to turn such recollections to good effect, to increase the child’s desire of excellence by the memory of what her mother had been, to strengthen her faith and love by pointing out how these had been a support in trouble and a comfort in sickness or pain, and to incite her onward in the same course by the wish of meeting again, there might have been more reason in his conduct; but this was not the case, and every such discussion seemed only to soften and weaken her nerves, make her more indolently dreamy, and bring on floods of regretful tears, such as she ought to have checked as willful, not encouraged as amiable and affectionate.
Conversations such as these only drove Gwyneth more completely apart, and made her shudder in silence. If, when the girls were riding or walking with their father, as they did almost every day, Sybil fell into this strain, her sister would draw back, and endeavor to escape beyond hearing; or if this were impossible, her white cheeks, and firm-closed lips, and slightly knitted brows told plainly to Hilary how she was inwardly suffering.
It was too much for Hilary; the household cares, the anxiety for her sisters, the watchfulness and broken rest which Nest, the youngest, often caused her—for she had taken the little one to her room at night, and watched her as her mother had once done; and then the unwearied attention to her father, the arrangement of his books, papers, and accounts, all which she took up where Mrs. Duncan had laid them down; the superintendence of the village school; the parochial cares; all these fell heavily on her young head—on her willing but over-anxious mind. The discipline, however, was good for her, and taught
her many things; she saw much was beyond her power, and that what she could not accomplish, she must be content to leave undone; she saw many things which should not be, and from clearly ascertaining the evil, knew better what was good to seek.
And then at length, when she had taught herself to submit with patience, and to bear what she could not remedy, and to ask and look for help for what she could not supply by her own power, help and comfort were sent to her.