Mr. Yorke shrugged his shoulders, and made one of his favorite quotations: “Il y a à parier que toute idée publique, toute convention reçue, est une sottise, car elle a convenue au plus grand nombre.”
But, though forced to resign his position, Carl is not without a vocation. He speaks and writes; and, such is the charm of his tongue and pen, persons most severely castigated by them listen and read with a sort of pleasure. If one must be dissected, there is surely a certain satisfaction in finding the hand skilful and the scalpel bright.
There is, indeed, danger that Carl might be too sharp, were it not for his wife. But Edith is his first reader, and often, through her influence, a sentence is softened, a sarcasm struck out.
“Love is stronger than hate,” she would say. “You have done only half the good you might do, if, in convincing a man’s reason, you at the same time inflame his will against you. You may make him hate a truth of which he was before ignorant.”
This is one of the couples which rests the heart to see in this world of discordant matches. Every taste and instinct is so in harmony that all the smaller business of life goes on without that jar which, in so many lives, makes a wrangle of pettinesses, and withdraws the attention from all that is noble. And, in higher characteristics, there is only that difference which enables each one to correct the mistakes of the other.
Edith Yorke, at thirty-one, has not yet lost, she probably never will lose, the simple earnestness of her childhood. It is the same bud blossomed, and so fresh and lovely is she, they call her the Rose of Yorke. She was much admired abroad. No other lady had combined so sweet a stateliness, and such wit, with incorruptible piety.
“I think,” she said, “that the reason why, while I kept my place in society, I never once yielded to any pernicious dissipation or extravagance, was because I was constantly afraid that I should.”
The evening shuts in, the curtains are drawn, and the room is in a glow. The wind has risen suddenly, and the snow is coming down, beating sharply with its tiny lances on the window-panes. But the family only feel more keenly the delight of being all together and at home.
“How cosy it is!” exclaims Clara, with a sigh of immense content, as she hears the doors and windows rattle. “One feels so comfortable in-doors when one knows that everybody out-doors is uncomfortable.”
Mrs. Yorke, seated in her own especial chair, with Captain Cary beside her, talks over housekeeping affairs with him, commends his wish to live in the suburbs instead of the city, and does not doubt that he will find fanning a delightful occupation.