She went to Mass the next day in the little chapel that had been desecrated. The picture-frames still hung on the walls, with the rags of the stations in them. There was enough left to show how Christ the Lord had suffered, and this new insult was but a freshening of the original text. Mr. Yorke sat on the bench beside his niece, and she stood, or knelt, or sat with the rest, not in the least understanding what it all meant, but impressed by the gravity and earnestness of those around her. When Mass was over, the priest, who had seen them, sent for them into the sacristy. He had some books for Edith, and wanted to point out the lessons she was to learn first.
"And I have a present for you," he said, giving her an ormolu crucifix, with a broken foot that showed marks of violence. "This is the crucifix that was torn from our tabernacle. I want you to keep it; and whenever you are called upon to suffer, and feel disposed to complain, look at this, and remember that our Lord was not even allowed to hang upon his cross in peace."
She took the crucifix from his hand silently, and held it against her breast as she went out. She did not propose to endure suffering; she desired and looked for happiness; but something in this relic stirred her to a strange pity, mingled with anger. The idea that lay behind it was to her dim and vague; but, failing to grasp that, she would have defended with her life the symbol of that monstrous wrong and that heart-breaking patience. Reaching home, she went directly to her own chamber and hung the crucifix beneath the picture of her father, then stood and looked at it awhile. There was a wish in her heart to do something—to offer some reparation to the real Sufferer behind this image of pain. She kissed with soft lips the broken foot of the cross, and a tear fell where she kissed. She took it down, and pressed the rough edge against her bosom till the sharp points pierced the skin and brought a stain of blood. Then, hearing some one call her, she hastily replaced it, and brought as an offering to it a precious bouquet of ribbon-grasses, that Carl had gathered that morning to fasten in her hair. She had meant to keep it because of some sweetness with which it was offered, but now she gave it up to that unseen Patience and Love. Her instinctive action proved that the feeling and precept of the church only sanctifies, but does not change the impulse of a pure and tender nature.
Meantime, the child was being discussed down-stairs.
"I observe that Edith has an inclination to stay alone a good deal," Mr. Yorke said, "and I do not wish to have that encouraged. It is not a wholesome disposition. Her father was a visionary, her mother was a visionary, and she is—"
"A vision!" concluded Mrs. Yorke, as Edith appeared, with the thoughts of the last few hours still in her eyes and on her lips.
About that time, Carl received a letter from Miss Mills which he read many times. "You ask my advice," she wrote, "and you tell me that I know better than you know yourself. I would not claim so much as that, but I think I may tell you something more clearly than you yourself perceive it, or confirm you in some thought which you doubt or wish to doubt. As to your choice of a profession and staying in Seaton for the present, you might well try the experiment; but I cannot express any great confidence as to the result. It is almost a disadvantage to you that your powers are so various. There are a good many things which, with application, you could do excellently; whether you have any specialty remains to be proved, and will be hard to prove; for, in order to find that out, you must concentrate your powers, and that you hate to do. If this world were but a playground, then you would have nothing to do but follow in the trail of every new beauty which calls you; but life is earnest, and you must work, or you not only lose what you might accomplish, but you lose yourself. You are one of those whom the devil finds worth fighting for, and, lacking faith to your armor, you have all the more need of labor. Qui laborat orat, might have a sort of truth even for one without faith.
"Let me warn you against two dangers: one is, that you may be injured by flatterers. Not that you like flattery in itself, but it will soothe your painful sense of not having reached your own ideal. It will seem to you that your best must have transpired at least, and that you must have done better than you thought. Not so; receive that soothing praise only when you have striven hard, even though you failed, but never when you have tried weakly or not at all. What the flatterers like in you is not your best, but your worst. They have no wish for you to rise above them; they praise you to keep you low.
"I warn you, too, against your excessive love for the beautiful, in which you are an ultra-pagan. The infinite beauty is alone worthy of that passion with which you seek and admire; and infinite beauty is infinite truth. Seek truth first, and you will always be rewarded by the vision of beauty; but, if you seek beauty first, you will find to your sorrow, possibly to your ruin, that it is often but the mask of falsehood.
"Lay aside some of your fastidiousness, my dear friend, and take up your life strongly with both hands. Do something, even if it should prove to be the wrong thing. Wrong work done honestly prepares us for right work. Strengthen your will, and be manly, as a man should be. Discipline yourself, and you will escape much pain and loss of time, for, let me assure you, Carl, you need either an immensity of resolution or an immensity of suffering.