How often does a sudden impulse bring to a crisis what has cost us many hours of forethought! and how often—oh! how often!—does the one great event of a life hinge upon some trifle unforeseen! A look, a word, an unexpected meeting, will often remove the doubts and agonies of years, when but for what we call accident, there might have been no meeting, no blessed exchange of look or word.
Frankfort felt that this was a crisis in his life.
“Eleanor,” said he, “whose child was this?”
“Mine, Major Frankfort,” she replied, “mine; he died, and—” she broke into a passion of tears. He drew close to her—she suffered him to take her hand. All his doubts faded at sight of those fast-falling tears,—those sobs of agony.
“Not now, not yet,” said she; “the bitterness of death is past; but you have touched a chord which has vibrated through my soul, and I must have time to recover my trembling senses.”
She took the arm offered her; they returned by an open pathway to the house, the little Fingo following, carrying his basket piled full of fresh and glittering leaves, and in his arms a quantity of arums, the large water-lilies of South Africa.
Mrs Daveney and Marion were in the entrance-rooms. Since Ormsby’s avowal of his attachment, Marion was more constantly at her mother’s side. I have shown you how Mr Trail had exerted his influence over Mrs Daveney for good; how his words, like the dew from heaven, falling on good seed, had revived her best impulses, and removed the tares of false pride and self-glorification from her heart. Ah, kind, useful man, there be many that the world calls “as good as thee;” but there are ways of ministering God’s word, “the small rain upon the tender herb,” refreshing the soil, not tearing it up and sweeping it away in the torrent of over-zeal and self-righteousness. It is such as Mr Trail who pioneer the way for the timid, and keep the ground for the weak. Verily, it is the meek-spirited who possess the earth; they consider the evil of their own nature in reproving others, and obtain concessions to their humility which would be denied to their assumption of supremacy.
How dark and unfathomable are the depths of our own hearts, till the Day-star from on high sheds its divine ray on our souls, and teaches us to guide others by conquering ourselves!
But it strikes me you may think me prosy,—too fond of dissecting people’s motives. Pardon me, it is my way, my fault, my habit,—excuse it if it does not suit you, and pass on.
“Ah!” cries the worldly-minded reader, “by Eleanor’s tact and candour, a very delicate point has been settled; confidence has been established among all; Ormsby declares he never should have known his own mind if he had not been brought to the point; he was never so happy in his life.”