“And she’s true and aefauld, but she’s wiser than the like o’ you,” said the mother through her tears, “I see what she meant now; but she wadna tell me this, for fear I did hope, and my hope was vain. Oh, wha kens—wha kens but the Lord? but if it happened to ane, it might happen to twa, and His mercy has nae measure. It wadna be merciful to send him to his grave wi’ his faither’s wrath upon him.”
The old man’s harsh, stern voice was broken at every word, by the convulsive sob which he could not restrain.
“Haud your peace, Marget; say ony ill o’ me; but if He slew your dearest ten times ower, dinna daur to malign the Lord.”
When they left these old, agitated, sorrowful people alone with their grief and their hope, the banker did not venture to reprove his child for her want of wisdom. His own mind was full. This youthful faith and boldness—this clear uplooking to the heavens—rash as it might be, and inconsistent with worldly prudence, was a higher wisdom than his. He felt that the girl at his side had met in her simplicity, difficulties with which he dared not measure his strength—that the grand, sublime, original emotions were fitter for the handling of the child than for the man. It made him humble and it made him proud; for the fearless girl’s voice of Hope speaking to the desolate had touched him to the heart.
“Should I not have said it, father?” said Hope, after a considerable silence. “Do you think it was wrong?”
“I cannot tell, Hope,” said the subdued strong man, “it may turn out the best and wisest thing. It may—I cannot tell, Hope—you have got beyond the regions of expediency.”
He was not able to cope with these things—he confessed it involuntarily.
“Because Helen did not tell them, father,” said Hope. “If Helen had thought it was right, she would have told them.”
“Does Helen visit them, Hope?”
Hope had forgotten for the moment the antagonism of Helen and her father.