Judith herself had rejuvenated, or brightened, perhaps, since we saw her first, with hair and clothing severely plain, and a look of reproving superiority to all things pleasant. She was an old young woman in those days, and now she was a young old one. Then, leanness and the tight-drawn skin prevented the crows' feet round the eyes from being strongly marked, and the low-toned colouring harmonized in its way with the grizzling of the hair; now, with some gain of adipose tissue, and the relaxed tension incident to a mind relieved from the imaginary reproach of spinsterhood, the lines and creases showed quite clearly, like ripple marks on the sand left by the ebbing waves of time. The hair, too, with its faded browns sympathizing with the greyness of the flesh tints was changed; for now the lady shone in a new capillary outfit, and seemingly, when buying it, she had chosen to revert to the livelier colouring of her youth. The "front," "bang," "fringe," or whatever she may have called it, was of a cheerful gingerbread hue, which quenched any lingering lustre of the eye, or aspiration toward pinkness in the cheek, and gave her somewhat the look of a mummy, which, after ages wasted in darkness, comes forth again to taste the happiness of life, and the warmth of the upper world.
The love tale of these two had no doubt been as thrilling an idyl to themselves as that of any pair of nightingales in all Arcadia, but it appeared rather a drab-coloured romance, or, better, no romance at all, to their friends, who opened their eyes in blank amaze when the project of marriage was announced, and vowed the strangely-assorted couple had lost their wits. Judith, the severely Protestant virgin of St. Silas, to the High Church--the very high--curate of St. Wittikind's! It seemed incredible. It was true that for some time she had visited a good deal among the poor of St. Wittikind's parish, frequented its schools, guilds and sisterhoods, where things were conducted not precisely as the good people of St. Silas thought best; but still that was "Church work," and as she continued to distribute tracts as copiously as ever in the Catholic neighbourhood selected by the St. Silas' ladies as their experimental farm of controversy, they had agreed to regard the vagary as only showing great breadth of view, and a largely comprehensive charity, which they hoped would lead to reciprocity, and bring some darkling wanderer from the other pen to their own better-lighted fold.
The reality of the case was far otherwise. Miss Judith had a leisure and energy ravenous of occupation, and which would not be filled up, and appeased with fancy-work, and dispensing printed leaves to French people who could not understand what she said. These are pleasing occupations, but they grow monotonous after a time. She had tried improving her mind, too, a good work, but it postulates a mind capable of being improved by printed matter, and the minds of many who have done the world's work, and done it well, have not been of that kind. Miss Judith's mind was practical rather than contemplative, and her studies did not go great lengths, while nature had blessed her with a sustaining self-content. When her book wearied her she laid it down and sought some other occupation--somebody else to improve, when her own mind had had enough of it. Her sister Susan declined her offices, knowing the teacher too well to set much store by the lessons, and therefore she had to carry her instructions farther afield.
Such is the sad lot of spinsterhood in modern life, when woman misses her natural vocation of house-mother, and fortune exempts her from the need to earn her living. The instincts and traits which society for its own entertainment encouraged and cultivated in youth lose their power to please when bloom and sprightliness have vanished. Then the love of applause and excitement so attractive in the youthful beauty turn like famished hounds on their forsaken mistress, and rend her own heart when she can furnish them no other game. She has been taught to think highly of herself, and to claim much, and she may have learned the world and its lessons well, but the world has grown weary of her, and goes its way in search of a fresher plaything. There is tragedy in this of the unspoken kind, but it is so common, and it drags its course so slowly--for people do not easily die of spinsterhood--that we fail to note the restless gnawing of hearts and brains condemned to inaction, and only laugh at the bizarrerie, when, growing intolerable, it breaks out into lady-doctors of divinity, law, or physic.
When Judith made the acquaintance of the Rev, Dionysius Bunce, it was with something of the trepidation with which an explorer clambers up the side of an unknown volcano. "Could he be a Jesuit in disguise, as some people said?" she wondered, "or was he a well-meaning but uninstructed person who had lost his way, and now unwittingly was travelling the broad and flowery road, whose course is ever downward, and which leads, we all know whither?" What an achievement it would be could she lead back the wanderer, if indeed he were astray! Or if he were, as she had been taught to think, a wolf in sheep's clothing, what a privilege to unmask him and save true Protestantism from his insidious wiles!
But there was a single-minded earnestness in this young man which interested her from the first, and soon assured her he was no Jesuit; and he was so strangely willing to listen, to discuss, and even to admit that there might be much in her view of a question. This was new to Judith, whose guides hitherto, knowing all about everything, had tolerated no differences of opinion, and had shown her the path of orthodoxy laid down with square and compass from which no one must venture to diverge under pain of running up against some text of Scripture, set like a curbstone by the wayside, to the peril of unwary wheels meandering off the track. Dionysius was self-denying in his charity, too. He would give his dinner to the poor any day, instead of dining first and bestowing the leavings, as is more usual; and self-denial is a virtue which enthusiastic women delight in. Enthusiasm is catching, and when it has caught, it makes scattered units run together and cohere like drops of quicksilver. Judith had caught it from him as had the members of his guilds; and they worked away with a happy feeling of earnestness which made things very pleasant, and over-rode all misgivings as to whether the dance were worth the candle, or at least as to the usefulness or wisdom of what they were about.
Judith was drawn by the fervour of St. Wittikind's curate into visiting his poor, and even decorating his sanctuary--a Low Church lady actually embroidering crosses and polemical symbols!--and yet in her new frame of mind it did not occur to her she had at first discussed with disapproval the use of papistical emblems. He had treated her view with every respect while differing from it, and then had talked round the point to the other side, and shown the amiable and pious feeling in which such things may be done when looked at the other way, till Judith, won by his toleration, could not but be tolerant too, and actually joined in the work.
It must have been this mixture of docility and independence which won on Dionysius, and recalled the sacred feelings with which in his boyhood he had regarded a venerable aunt and a saintly mother both deceased. He was a young man of a pre-eminently earnest cast of mind, which turned churchwards. He greatly admired and fain would have copied the saints and heroes of early times. Had the Church of Canada kept a wilderness for retiring into, like the Thebæid of antiquity, he would have turned hermit; or had there been some real genuine pagans within its confines he would have been a missionary; but the Indian of the North-West, part horse-thief, part fur-trader, and altogether indifferent, offers no opening to aspirants to the rank of martyr or confessor; so he was forced to do like the rest, and stay at home.
He did what he could in St. Wittikind's, but it was discouraging work. The men there were mostly wealthy, and all engrossed in business. They could not be induced to attend either daily matins or evensong, and though scrupulously polite when he approached them, were sure to have an important appointment somewhere, and forced to hurry away. The young ladies of course were ready, nay charmed, to attend matins or anything else, provided the hour was reasonable and there had been no ball overnight. Evensong he found unpopular with them, as interfering with "home duties," to wit afternoon tea; but they were eager for "Church work," at least in the shape of elaborate embroideries in gold thread and ecclesiastical patterns. If Dionysius would have interested himself in croquet or lawn tennis, or if he would have nourished a taste for music of a form less severe than Gregorians, he would have come to have influence; but the young man at that stage of his growth was too single-minded to have any mistress but Religion; and Mrs. Silvertongue, his rector's worldly-minded wife, was heard to compare him to a shaggy young Baptist broke loose from the desert, when Judith rushed to the rescue by declaring that he seemed to be a very sound Churchman indeed, and everybody laughed at both the ladies.
As years went on, the intimacy grew closer. Judith found it delightful to be busy and of importance--to be authorized to interfere with people too poor to dare resent it; telling them what they must do, scolding and physicking them as seemed best, and really being kind, though in a provoking way; consulting with a clergyman, talking and being listened to by a gentleman with interest and respect. It was so very long ago since any gentleman had shown interest in her conversation, or anything but weariness, and now this ordained pastor sometimes even consulted her. It made her feel that she was not yet all of the past, that there was something to live for still, and afforded some of the old time satisfaction in being minded by one of the stronger sex, mixed at once with the reverence she owed a spiritual guide, and motherly interest in one so much her junior.