"How far from me! — how very far I am from it! 'Do no iniquity,' — and I suppose I am always doing it — 'They walk in his ways,' and I don't even so much as know what they are. — I wish Mr. Winthrop had said a little more yesterday!" —
She pondered this verse a little, feeling if she did not recognize its high and purified atmosphere; but at the next she sprang up and went back to her window.
"THOU HAST COMMANDED US TO KEEP THY PRECEPTS DILIGENTLY."
Elizabeth and the Bible were at issue.
She could heartily wish that her character were that fair and sweet one the first three verses had lined out; but the command met a denial; or at the least a putting off of its claim. She acknowledged all that went before, even in its application to herself; but she was not willing, or certainly she was not ready, to take the pains and bear the restraint that should make her and it at one. She did not put the case so fairly before herself. She kept that fourth verse at arm's length, as it were, conscious that it held something she could not get over; unconscious what was the precise why. She rushed back to her conclusion that the Bible teaching was unsatisfactory, and that she wanted other; and so travelling round in a circle she came to the point from which she had begun. With a more saddened and sorrowful feeling, she stood looking at Winthrop's character and at her own; more certified, if that had been wanting, that she herself was astray; and well she resolved that if ever she got another chance she would ask him to tell her more about her duty, and how she should manage to do it.
But how was she to get another chance? Winthrop never came, nor could come, to Mr. Haye's; all that was at an end; she never could go again to his rooms. That singular visit of yesterday had once happened, but could never happen again by any possibility. She knew it; she must wait. And weeks went on, and still her two wishes lived in her heart; and still she waited. There was nobody else of whom she chose to ask her questions; either from want of knowledge, or from want of trust, or from want of attraction. And there were few indeed that came to the house whom she could suppose capable of answering them.
One evening it happened that Mr. Satterthwaite came in. He often did that; he had never lost the habit of finding it a pleasant place. This time he threw himself down at the tea- table, in tired fashion, just as the lady of the house asked him for the news.
"No news, Mrs. Haye — sorry I haven't any. Been all day attending court, till I presume I'm not fit for general society. I hope a cup of tea 'll do something for me."
"What's taken you into court?" said Rose, as she gave the asked-for tea.
"A large dish of my own affairs, — that is to say, my uncle's and fathers and grandfather's — which is in precious confusion."