"True, ma'; but I often wish to hear him again. Is he not a good man?"
"My dear Matilda, you alarm me. You wish to hear him again, when his first sermon made you so unhappy! You must not cherish such an idea. Indeed, you must make some effort to raise your spirits, and drive all these gloomy thoughts out of your head, or there is no knowing what may happen."
"But, ma', if I could drive them out of my head, I could not drive them out of my heart. They have penetrated too deeply."
"My dear Matilda, you must rouse yourself. It won't do to give way to your melancholy ideas. Why, if you don't take care, you will become as religious as any of them; and then, as I have told you before, we should never have another happy day."
"My dear ma', I am unhappy, and cannot help it. With everything to make me happy—perfect health, affectionate parents, kind friends, the prospect of a union with the man I love—and yet I am not happy. That fearful question, which impressed me so much when I heard it, is perpetually sounding in my ears."
"What question do you refer to?"
"It is this, which I have repeated to you before—Should you like to pass from the theatre to the judgment-seat of Christ?"
"But that, my dear, was in his sermon, and he could not help reading it. He did not mean you, and I wonder why you should recollect it so. You should forget it."
"But I can't forget it. It is always returning. I hear it now. I hear it in company. I hear it in solitude. And in the dead of the night, when I awake, as I often do, I hear it then."
"Your papa has spoken to me several times lately about you. He says he is sure, from your melancholy looks and absence of mind, that there is something the matter with you. He thought, till I satisfied him to the contrary, that there was likely to be some rupture between you and Mr. Ryder. He is urging me to grant you every indulgence in our power."