“Of course I love her! I do my duty by her.”
“You have done your duty--of that I have no doubt. But how have you done it? Do you know, Mrs. Pepperill, there are two ways in which everything may be done--as a duty to God, in the spirit of bondage or in the spirit of love? So with regard to the image of God in this innocent and suffering child. You may do your duty perfunctorily or in charity.”
“I do it in charity. Her father has not paid a penny for her keep.”
“That is not what I mean; charity is the spirit of love. There are two minds in which man may stand before God, to everything, to everyone--there is the servant mind and the filial mind, the duty mind, and the mind of love. And with what mind have you treated this child?” The parson put his hand to Kate’s brow and drew back from it the dark hair, sweeping the locks aside with his trembling fingers.
“Look,” said he. “What a forehead she has got--what a brow! full, full, full of thought. This is no common head--there is no vulgar brain in this poor little skull.”
“Wilmot had a head and brains,” said Mrs. Pepperill, “and her forehead was higher and whiter.”
Zerah’s conscience was stinging her. What the rector said was true, and the consciousness that it was true made her angry.
Would she have sent Wilmot across the water insufficiently protected against the east wind? would she have done this without weighing the chances of the atmospheric railway breaking down? If death were to snatch this child from her, she would ever feel that some responsibility had weighed on her. However much she might shift the blame, some of it must adhere to her.
She had not been kind to the motherless girl. It was true she had not been unkind to her; but then Kate had a right to a share of her heart. She had valued her niece chiefly as a foil to her daughter; and when the latter died, her feelings toward Kate had been dipped in wormwood.
Zerah was not a bad woman, but she was a disappointed woman. She was disappointed in her husband, disappointed in her child. Her heart was not congealed, nor was her conscience dead, but both were in a torpid condition.