But what a big “if” that was! And what weakened will can ever raise itself effectually, save by its first effort placing it in the good grasp of a stronger will? Yet Lucy could urge no more. She could only remind Mrs. Morison that if she really meant to keep her word and to struggle on in honest sobriety, Lucy would stand her friend, so far as she could, in truth and uprightness, would even recommend her as a worker to any whose circumstances and sense of duty might incline them to extend another chance to her, after hearing of her failing and its possible recurrence.
Mrs. Morison thanked Lucy for so much “kindness.” But, even as she did so, Lucy felt sadly sure that it would never be claimed. Then Mrs. Morison said “good-bye,” and she and her cousin went away together. It had been arranged that her boxes should be sent after her by a carrier. Despite the acerbity the widow had shown towards her relative, and despite the fact that one or the other of the pair had been telling grievous untruths of the other, Lucy saw that they went down the street laying their heads together in mutual confidences as if nothing had come between them.
She turned from the window, so weary and disheartened that she felt as if she had been beaten, body and soul. It was her first close experience of the baffling contest with natures lacking all bottom of truth and principle—natures like bogs, greened over with sentiment and seeming, luring us to trust our foot upon them only to plunge us in depression and defilement. It seemed to Lucy as if the fruitless arguments and pleas of the last hour had taken more energy out of her than even the long strain of yesterday. She did not yet realise that where the nerves are concerned the whole of the back bill is always added on to each fresh item.
As Lucy turned from the window she felt something at her feet. Stooping in the twilight, she picked up the bright little ball, which Jessie Morison had brought in for Hugh on Christmas Eve!
It was but a trifle, yet it finally overcame the weary lady. Oh, the pity of it! Oh, the waste of poor human nature that still had so many good qualities in it! Oh, the awful mixture of good and evil, of selfishness and kindliness. Talk of the good in evil, and the evil in good—as if there was some compensation in that weird mingling—why, it is this very mingling which tries our fortitude and faith more than anything else, and God sees more of this mingling than any human eye can see. And God can bear it because He is God and is all goodness, and knows the end. We can but lean our staggering strength against His everlasting arm, assured that it can gather up what mortal powers must drop.
Miss Latimer came into the parlour presently and found Lucy sitting in the gathering darkness. The old governess was a wise little woman, and instead of lighting the gas, she stirred the fire into a ruddy, dancing blaze. Then she called Hugh, and sent him in “to talk to mamma.” By-and-by she reappeared again, with the tea-tray and a delicious smell of toast.
That recalled Lucy to her duties. She sprang up, protesting against Miss Latimer having gone to work by herself, and she lit the gas and closed the curtains. They had a cosy little meal, at which, for Hugh’s sake, not a word was said of the recent domestic catastrophe.
When his mother took him off to bed, and heard him—though not without a significant pondering pause—join “Mrs. Morison’s” name in his prayer “for papa and mamma,” she remembered all Charlie had said to her, and felt that the child’s simple affection in its ignorance and blindness may reflect the heart of God more clearly than ours, blurred with inevitable criticisms and repulsions.
When she had kissed him and was leaving the room, he called her back.
“Mamma!”