“Tipps,” he said, one day, “you are the only man I ever could make a confidant of. To say truth I’m not given to being very communicative as to personal matters at any time, but I must tell you that the remark you made about my soul the other day has stuck to me, and I have tried to lead a Christian life, but without much success.”
“Perhaps,” said Tipps, timidly, “it is because you have not yet become a Christian.”
“My dear fellow!” exclaimed Edwin, “is not leading a Christian life becoming a Christian?”
“Don’t you think,” said Tipps, in an apologetic tone, “that leading a Christian life is rather the result of having become a Christian? It seems to me that you have been taking the plan of putting yourself and your doings first, and our Saviour last.”
We need not prolong a conversation referring to the “old, old story,” which ran very much in the usual groove. Suffice it to say that Edwin at last carefully consulted the Bible as to the plan of redemption; and, in believing, found that rest of spirit which he had failed to work out. Thenceforward he had a higher motive for labouring at his daily toil, yet the old motive did not lose but rather gained in power by the change—whereby he realised the truth that, “godliness is profitable for the life that now is as well as that which is to come.”
At last the painting became so successful that Edwin resolved to trust to it alone—said good-bye to the Clearing-House with regret—for he left many a pleasant companion and several intimate friends behind him—and went to Clatterby, in the suburbs of which he took and furnished a small villa.
Then it was that he came to the conclusion that the time had arrived to make a pointed appeal to the nut-brown hair and lustrous eyes. He went off and called at Captain Lee’s house accordingly. The captain was out—Miss Lee was at home. Edwin entered the house, but he left all his native courage and self-possession on the doorstep outside!
Being ushered into the drawing-room he found Emma reading. From that moment—to his own surprise, and according to his own statement—he became an ass! The metamorphosis was complete. Ovid, had he been alive, would have rejoiced in it! He blushed more than a poor boy caught in his first grievous offence. The very straightforwardness of his character helped to make him worse. He felt, in all its importance, the momentous character of the step he was about to take, and he felt in all its strength the love with which his heart was full, and the inestimable value of the prize at which he aimed. No wonder that he was overwhelmed.
The reader will observe that we have not attempted to dilate in this book on the value of that prize. Emma, like many other good people, is only incidental to our subject. We have been obliged to leave her to the reader’s imagination. After all, what better could we have done? Imagination is more powerful in this matter than description. Neither one nor other could, we felt, approach the reality, therefore imagination was best.
“Emma!” he said, sitting down on the sofa beside her, and seizing her hand in both of his.