And the old lady laid her hand on her niece’s shoulder with a not unkindly gesture.
Wise old ladies occasionally take fancies to such stupid, simple young geese as Heather Dudley; and Miss Hope, who knew Arthur better, perhaps, than anybody in the world, felt sorry for the wife, whose lot, it was impossible for her to avoid seeing, had not been cast in pleasant places.
But what, you may ask, did that matter, if Heather herself were unconscious of the fact?
My reader, do you think the blind man, born blind, can yet remain ignorant for ever that others are able to look on the blue heavens and the green earth? Do you think the mute comes in due time to have no comprehension that his fellows enjoy a gift withheld from him? Do you imagine the deaf have no understanding of all which has been denied to them? Do you suppose the childless never listen for the sound of little feet that God has decreed shall patter across no floor towards their arms outstretched to greet them? Do you believe the spinster never considers what her lot might have been, when she looks around and sees other women happily married, and sitting by no lonely fires, as she is doomed to do, through the years, the long, solitary, uneventful years? Do you not understand that in due time the eye must behold, and the heart long—that the fruit eaten so many thousand years ago by our common mother, must be tasted sooner or later in its bitterness by all who are born of woman, and who would attain to the full stature of man?
On the branches of the tree still hangs that which gives knowledge of good and evil; and till the hand have grasped, and the mind received, no life can be called perfect, no human being become as a god, comprehending, not merely the mystery of good and evil, but also all the joy and all the sorrow which that mystery involves.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN HEATHER’S DRESSING-ROOM.
Taken as a whole, the incongruous ingredients brought together at Berrie Down Hollow did not form a peculiarly agreeable social dish. In one respect it might have been called a kind of haggis, but the result proved that what may be made palatable in cookery, cannot always be tried domestically.
The oatmeal and the vegetables, the mincemeat and the savoury stuffing, refused to amalgamate at the daily dinner-table, and, as is usual in such cases, each guest thought the absence of his neighbours the only thing needed to ensure perfect comfort and happiness at the board.
It is a way people have—this of thinking all God’s creatures bores excepting themselves—of imagining, certain pleasant places on earth were made for their especial delectation, and that every other man, woman, or child, who sets foot within the enclosure, should be ousted out, and prosecuted for trespass.
There are common lands on which the majority of mankind may browse if they will, but they must leave the sunny green slopes, the sweet clover-fields, the well-fenced paddock, for the gratification and comfort of the elect; and perhaps the most curious social problem of the day is to notice how, amongst saints and sinners alike, one common idea prevails,—the former believing they have a right to heaven, the latter that they have a right to earth.