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of her position. He had been satisfied with the
proofs of returning health which he saw in her, and
with the knowledge that she was going to stay with a
friend so congenial to herself (though not to him) as
Mrs. Dalton; and he had treated her with that
careful and considerate tenderness which bodily ail-
ments seldom fail to win from those who love us.
The sickly and drooping soul is generally left to
shift for itself, or shaken and scolded into a healthier
state, if so be. Why can we not bestow upon it
the same delicate handling that we should readily
award to the broken or injured limb? Is it a thing of
stronger and more intelligible constitution-or of less
consequence? Thus did Frank write :-
"My dearest Edith,

At breakfast, on the third morning after Mr. | so that she actually did not know what view he took Thornton's arrival, two letters were placed in Edith's hands, and it was with a fluttering heart that she examined the handwriting on the envelopes. One was from Aunt Peggy; the other from Frank. She opened Aunt Peggy's first, and read a most cordial and affectionate acquiescence in her proposal. Miss Forde welcomed with delight the idea of again receiving Edith as an inmate, delicately abstained from any allusion to her peculiar circumstances beyond a strong expression of sympathy and interest, and added the information that Enmore Hall was again vacant, and that Edith's letter had decided her upon engaging it for the winter, instead of occupying the small cottage in its neighbourhood where she had been passing the last few months and at which Edith had addressed her. She needed no further notice, but would be ready to receive her beloved guest at any day and hour after the date of her present note. Why did tear after tear drop slowly from Edith's eyes as she ended the perusal of words so kind and consolatory? Was it that she shrank from again seeing a place where so many happy hours had furnished so many bitter recollections? not exactly; that soft memorial sorrow does not excite the imagination and so come upon us by anticipation. A thrill passes over us, it is true, whensoever we read the name of a

place where we have once been happy, but it is the privilege of a tranquil state of melancholy to people the mind with quiet visions of the past, and to embody, as it were, and localise the picture by particular features of landscape or even forms and dispositions of furniture-the new bitterness of an unmellowed grief leaves no leisure, no power for such embellishments of sorrow. Those who voluntarily dwell upon unhappy thoughts have either become callous, or were never alive to their acutest painfulness. They know not the sensation of utter powerlessness which has no alternative but escape cr prostration-the cowardice of a bleeding and undefended heart. Every tree or stone that we see has perhaps the power of calling up a phantom from the accusing past; but we do not think of the trees or stones till we see them-we are too much occupied by the unwilling contemplation of the shapes which are ever present before us, whether with or without them. So Edith did not weep at the thought of once more becoming an inmate of Enmore Hall, much and long as she wept afterwards at the eloquent memorials of the place when she was actually its inmate. She wept, because in that kind letter she had received the fullest consolation which her grief was capable of receiving, and because she felt its utter impotence to soften that grief; because the thought passed slowly through her heart, "Now everything has been done that can be done, and you are still desolate."

She broke the seal of Frank's letter somewhat listlessly; she had written to him once since her illness, but had not yet received an answer. They had parted just before she left Selcombe Park; she had then been convalescent for some days, but had carefully avoided all private conversation with him,

"I was delighted to receive such an improved account of you. I thought, when I saw you last, that you were just in the state for change of air to do wonders.-[Edith paused here, and reflected a little on the wonderful potency of change of air, ere she proceeded.]-I hope you take immense care of yourself as the winter comes on; we have had cold winds lately, and I thought of you a thousand times.

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You are very reserved with me, and unnecessarily so, for I know all about it. Surely, my darling sister, you must be aware that I should never seriously oppose any step in which your happiness was concerned. I have my opinions-fancies, if you please— and I have had my wishes, but no one of them, nor all of them put together, could ever be entertained by me for a moment in such a manner as to interfere with your happiness. Having thus broken the ice, you won't be surprised at my mentioning Mr. Thornton, and I shall go at once to the point and wish you all possible joy. I believe him to be an excellent fellow; and though I know but little of him, I have no doubt we shall soon be better acquainted; I would commission you to give him my warmest congratulations, but I suppose that would not exactly do. Write to me openly, and don't let there be any more concealments between us. Had I known how it really was, I would never have annoyed you for a moment. I am most anxious to hear from you; and I hope now you will have no scruple in giving me your confidence: there never can be any feeling that should separate you and me from each other. Good-bye, darling, God bless you, and give you every happiness which this world

can afford.

"Your affectionate brother,

"FRANK KINNAIRD.

"Oxford, October 18th.
"Everard is with me here; he has had a small
property left him, and is going to pass the winter
at Oxford during the matriculation of his youngest
brother, who is just come up to Oriel. In the
spring we shall make a short tour together before
he rejoins his regiment. I am doubtful whether you
will approve of my mentioning the subject, but Í
wish just to tell you that you need not give yourself
any pain on his account. We are intimate here
with a very charming family-the Bracebridges; and

I should not be surprised if Miss Emily, the youngest, | watcher by a new-made grave, whose life was spent who has the prettiest blue eyes and the archest tongue in decking the low mound with flowers, and kneeling that ever I encountered, were to take upon herself thereupon to offer prayers, had been suddenly emthe charge of consoling him; she is a good girl too-powered to look beneath the coffin-lid and see a vacant and rather an uncommon style of character, I fancy. space where the body of the beloved should be, She first caught Everard's attention by her perfect how should he believe that the form now gone indifference to all the gaieties that were going on here; had ever been there at all? how should he repay his and then her brother (who is a boy at Winchester heart for its wasteful love,-for its meaningless piety? and came here for the holydays), a very com- Is there any anguish like that of losing love by a municative youth, told us that she doated upon balls, fault?-any pain like that slow bitterness which but had given her whole year's allowance, except what comes upon the heart when the certainty of its she wanted for absolute necessaries, and all her actual loss becomes fully perceptible to it? Reason ornaments, towards a new painted window for -- said it must be so, imagination anticipated it, fear Chapel. And so she assumed this carelessness of all shrank from it, but love itself stood still, tremulous amusements, for fear her abandonment of them should and unbelieving, till that certainty fell upon it and seem like ostentation-I like the trait uncommonly." crushed it; and then it lay still beneath the weight, Frank fancied this letter a masterpiece of diplostunned and motionless, but yet alive, and living for macy. He thought it would at once disperse all ever, though living only to suffer. Edith's fears of his disapproval of her marriage with Thornton (which he believed to be a settled thing); relieve her from any lurking self-reproaches which she might be feeling on Everard's account, and pave the way, without offence, for a continuance of a friendship which was far too precious to him to be resigned even for the sake of his darling sister.

Moreover he flattered himself that the cordial tone which he had taken about Thornton, and the cool manner in which he had spoken of Everard, would effectually conceal his own keen disappointment in the matter, and the condemnation which he still could not help secretly passing upon Edith's conduct. His kind heart could not bear the idea of giving pain to one whom he loved so dearly after the first interval of natural irritation at her behaviour; and

the supposition that her three years' separation had entirely worn out her affection for Everard, and that Thornton had stepped into his place, was in no wise inconsistent with his opinion of women in general and of her in particular.

Edith put down the letter in a tumult of feelings which almost prevented her from appreciating its full import. This, then, was the interpretation which Frank, and doubtless Captain Everard also, placed upon her conduct; and how could she enlighten the one without seeming to wish also to undeceive the other? Indignation, shame, sorrow, arose in her heart by turns, and mounted even to agony. And she was forgotten! And her place already filled! "I deserve it! I deserve it!" said she to herself again and again, but there was neither strength nor comfort in that thought, and she knelt down and wept all the more bitterly for her punishment because she deserved it. The whole past had become as nothing to him, and to her it was, simply, her LIFE. How should this be? How should the thoughts, and words, and actions, which had moulded themselves into eternal memories for one, have broken as mere bubbles for the other? How was it possible for any future, how ruthless and profane soever, to desecrate that holy and beloved past? Even that was now taken from her-it was no longer a possession to her-she had not the privilege of weeping over it. It was as though some tender

Edith answered Frank's letter and denied her supposed engagement, but could not command herself sufficiently to touch on other subjects. And when she announced to Amy her wish to go, her face and manner were so expressively miserable, that her friend could only pity her, and acquiesce in any scheme that seemed likely to procure her comfort. Moreover, strange to say, the involuntary confidence now established between them was rather a bar than a stimulus to their intimacy; for there was painful consciousness on both sides, accompanied by the strongest possible repugnance to the subject which occasioned it. Mr. Thornton was very gallantly sorry her as minutely concerning the roads by which she to wish Edith good-bye, and Mr. Dalton instructed

Alice

was going to travel as though she had been on a
Brown shed some genuine tears, and smiled through
government commission to survey them.
them when Edith promised to correspond with her;

and poor

dumb Paul stood at the carriage-window with a choice bouquet of chrysanthemums, and the behind her and carried flowers away with her: alas, last heliotrope from his garden. So Edith left tears for her heart the flowers were all gone and the tears ever present!

CHAPTER VI.

"And now, my dear Aunt Peggy, I have told you all," said Edith, lifting her tearful face to the kind eyes that were bent so sympathizingly upon her. “I think I shall not feel quite so unhappy now. All my sorrow is my own fault, and so, you know, I must needs take it patiently."

"I don't believe one word of his being in love with that young lady!" was Aunt Peggy's consolatory answer.

Poor human nature! Those were the words that comforted Edith. Prayers, tears, efforts, resolutions, all were feeble beside the might of that one little hope. Often afterwards when she fancied that she was recovering from her heart-sickness, she was unconsciously relying upon those unforgotten words. It was as though she had been labouring for hours to revive a heap of cold ashes, and suddenly one came with a taper and kindled them. Condemn her not!

She was but a beginner in the toil of duty-we must | points. So did dark memories bar her from the not look for great achievements from inexperienced beautiful past; so did a few faint and scattered lights hands and untried weapons. It is much when begin to glimmer in the future. There was a shadow irregular impulse has grown into steady effort-it is beneath the trees like the figure of a man, and she the work of a lifetime to mature the effort into a gazed and gazed as though she could have given it habit. The pilgrim, as he draws near the end of his life by looking at it, till a gust shook the boughs and journey, can look fearlessly at the flower-girt abyss swept it away for the moment, showing its unreality. on either side of his path, and turn from it to the Edith sighed aloud; for she felt that this fleeting quiet skies and the dim opening in the far East shadow symbolized all that she should ever possess before him; the child, at first starting, has no choice of the presence of her beloved. but to shut his eyes against the fair temptations, if he would not find his destruction in the attempt to gather them. Gradual progress seems to be the law of all human advancement; the exceptions to that law are only exceptions, and are consequently so many witnesses to its existence. But patience, in its true and full sense, implying a patience of the heart as well as of the outward life, seems to be the last duty that we learn,-nay, blind that we are, it is almost the last gift that we truly covet. We ask for it upon our knees, and then we rise up and forget it. Oh, that we could feel the light touch of those angel hands upon our own shoulders, and give ourselves up wholly and without reserve to the safety of their soft guidance!

Edith had been a fortnight at Enmore ere she could summon courage to revisit the shrubbery in which she had last walked with Everard; and then she stole out in the twilight, and as she came under the leafless trees she clasped her hands over her eyes, and stood still, as if in sudden shame before some rebuking presence. Yet she did not turn away, for it seemed to her as though in every voluntary pang she underwent she were making some reparation for the wrongs she had done him. No one can be fully sensible of a fault who does not at the same time feel the insufficiency of all possible atonement that he can make, together with a burning and unconquerable desire to atone as far as he can, -a desire this, which leaves the penitent no rest day or night till it is accomplished, although its accomplishment may bring but a partial and painful relief. So Edith slowly retraced all the steps of that memorable walk, and stopped at each to weep in fresh repentance over the breaking of pledged faith,— over the waste of love and the loss of happiness. And then, earnestly resolving to take her punishment meekly, considering it as a punishment, and so not shrinking from the bitterness of the life left to her, but rather encountering it bravely and drawing from it what sweetness she could, she went back to the house. She thought much of Alice Brown, to whom she now looked up with a genuine reverence very much out of character with her former self; she thought of that life of gentle, unselfish humility, and wondered how soon she could even begin to copy it. And then she paused in the doorway, and looked back to the wood-walk which she had just left, cold and dark in the greyness of the deepening evening: the stars had now risen and the bare branches of the elms stood like sable bars against the clear sky, and the tips of the laurel-leaves glistened like silver

She heard voices in the drawing-room, and her impulse was to retreat without encountering visitors. But this was an indulgence, and suited not the strenuous penitence of her search after duty. How could she better learn to be unselfish than by denying herself all luxury of grief, trying to be cheerful for dear Aunt Peggy's sake, and dwelling upon her undeserved blessings rather than upon her deserved sorrow? She was ready to repent as keenly of the languor and apathy of her recent life as of the follies and faults which had cost her so dear before. So she entered the room courageously, and found there Mr. Verner, who was the recognised intimate of the household, and to whom she was getting accustomed to look for counsel and guidance, and Mrs. Alvanley, whom she had not yet seen and who greeted her with much empressement-we use the French word advisedly, for it exactly describes Mrs. Alvanley's manner, which was neither cordial, earnest, nor affectionate, but so exceedingly empressé that it passed for all three with most people.

"Three years since I saw you last, dear Miss Kinnaird!" cried she. "How well I remember the ball at Lady Vaughan's, and the whole of that pleasant time! Now that we are all assembled together again in the same old room, I could almost fancy that I had been dreaming of the months which have passed since. Mr. Verner will do very well for a representative of my good friend Mr. Forde, and I keep expecting to see the door open, and that severe, solemn-looking Captain Everard marching in to complete the illusion. Your charming brother, too-I must not forget him-have you heard from him lately?"

What burning plough-shares do we tread amongst in the common ordeal of society! Edith answered quietly in the affirmative; but her cheeks and lips were pale, and Aunt Peggy, who had been unobtrusively busied in removing her shawl and bonnet, securing her a seat next the fire, and providing her with a cup of coffee, now came to relieve her from worse than a mere bodily chill.

"I think you know the friends from whom Miss Kinnaird has just come," said she; "Mr. and Mrs. Dalton, of Beechwood?"

"Oh, yes," returned Mrs. Alvanley, with animation, and drawing her chair close to Edith's. "It is so refreshing to hear about old friends; do let us talk! them over thoroughly.”

"Is that one of the privileges of old friendship? inquired Mr. Verner, with a touch more of sarcasm than was usual to him.

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other name for life. But the misery of an ill-sorted marriage can scarcely be called discipline, can it? because it is not sent for our profit, but comes by our own fault."

"Oh! don't be afraid," returned the lady; are not going to be satirical. I have not an atom of Mrs. Candour in my composition.-But, now, do tell me about those dear people! Is Mr. Dalton as friendly and hospitable as ever?" "He was very kind,” said Edith: “he seems to be Mr. Verner's face; but if so, it was speedily supa most good-hearted, benevolent man."

"The best creature in the world!" cried Mrs. Alvanley. "One forgives all his little quizzicalities for the sake of his goodness; but, to be sure, he is rather heavy on hand sometimes. One wonders how that brilliant, fascinating woman could ever make up her mind to like him; though, to be sure, her marrying him does not necessarily imply that she liked him. Indeed, I believe that (between ourselves) it was entirely an affair of convenience; and she be haves admirably to him, considering how completely she looks down upon him."

Edith felt inexpressibly pained. She could not, consistently with truth, undertake her friend's defence, yet she could not endure to listen to this cool proclamation of her faults. Her knowledge of Mr. Verner's secret, too, increased her embarrassment; she felt that his eyes were upon her face, as if waiting to hear from her a confirmation or contradiction of the slander; and she blushed deeply as she answered, I love Mrs. Dalton dearly, and I think very few people do her justice. Her nature is so noble and so tender; and whatever faults she may have arise only from want of discipline."

Edith fancied she saw an expression of pain in

pressed, and he answered quite calmly, as if determined not to shrink from the subject, "I think we are forgetting that there are two kinds of discipline— one for improvement, the other for punishment. I believe that every fault which we commit brings with it, according to the measure of its greatness, a new state of life, which, if the culprit receives and endures it as a penance, results sooner or later in peace, though that peace can never be the same as the happiness he has forfeited. But if he persists in refusing his penance, and trying to disregard it, and to obtain all the enjoyment which he can independently of it, there can never be a cure. The first bitterness is, perhaps, less overpowering; but the final desolation is complete."

Edith fell into deep thought. These words seemed to her to suggest the key to Mrs. Dalton's character and miseries, and to supply the deficiency in her view of life. She truly had not accepted the trials of her own producing as a penance, but had rather sought to evade them, and procure herself pleasures in spite of them; and what could be farther from peace than the state of her heart? Edith began to feel that obedience was the first great duty; and she now saw

"That is the cause of the faults of most people-how much was comprehended in the word. She saw is it not?" suggested Mr. Verner, smiling.

that it implied an entire subjection of will-a per

"Is it?" said Edith; "even in the case of those petual seeking for a rule to be submitted to; a rule who have been well educated?"

"I do not mean," returned Mr. Verner, " that the discipline is not provided, even for those who reject it, but that the rejection of that appointed discipline seems to be the cause of most of the faults, and much of the unhappiness, of men. And, therefore, those who have been well educated-in which words I comprehend a great deal-have certainly a better chance than others, because they have had discipline provided for them before their will was strong enough to choose or to resist it."

"I don't think there was any fault in Amy Dalton's education," interposed Mrs. Alvanley; "she was at a first-rate school-first-rate in every sense. Madame de la Brie was a very religious woman, and used to read and explain the Scriptures to the girls, and make the most beautiful extempore prayers; and as to masters, I believe they cost her father hundreds, if not thousands."

not produced by (perhaps at first scarcely recognised by) the heart, but above it and outside of it-bowing and subduing the heart itself:

"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Alvanley, in a very spirited manner, “but I call all this philosophy, and not religion. I like a pure, simple religion which speaks to the feelings, not a cold, hard, unbending system-a religion which makes you feel comfortable at once, and teaches you that it is very ungrateful not to be as happy as you can.”

"Granted at once, that last assertion," said Mr. Verner, half laughing, "and we will leave it for the decision of each individual privately whether the test of truth be the degree of liking we feel for it.”

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Alvanley," the test of truth is of course the Bible, and that is exactly what I mean. There is not one word about all this from the beginning to the end of the Bible."

"Not one word about-I beg your pardon, about Mr. Verner looked on the ground and was silent; what?" inquired Mr. Verner, rousing a little from while Aunt Peggy and Edith exchanged a furtive and the reserved, half-absent manner in which he had momentary glance. Mrs. Alvanley continued, hap-been hitherto talking, and in which it was generally

pily unconscious of the effect she was producing,-"But I don't quite understand your notions about discipline, Mr. Verner. Do you?" turning to MissForde. "I should like to have them practically illustrated," returned Aunt Peggy, innocently recalling him to the topic he was labouring to escape. "After childhood, I suppose, the discipline is perpetual; it is only an

his habit to speak of serious subjects in mixed society, though, for the sake of Edith, who interested him much, he sometimes spoke more clearly and authoritatively.

"About discipline," said the lady, triumphantly,— "about the whole of life being a discipline to make one miserable."

"No, no, interrupted Edith, " discipline to fancy going on without arguments? make one happy in the end."

"Not exactly that, either," said Mr. Verner, "holiness is the end of discipline here-we must not think about the happiness now, though we may be very grateful for it if it comes." This was said quickly, and in a low voice to Edith, and he then turned to Mrs. Alvanley, and answered her in a lighter tone, "That is a fatal omission for my argument, is it not? But is there one word from the beginning to the end of the Bible upon some other subjects of nearly equal interest-about women, for example; are they ever said to be members of the Church?"

"Women not members of the Church!" exclaimed Mrs. Alvanley, who was wont to stand up as a most vehement champion of the rights of her sex, "you are surely not in earnest; you could not mean to assert anything so monstrous.”

"Nay, I asserted nothing," returned he, "I only asked a question, I am waiting for you to answer it." "Nothing said about women!" reiterated the lady, evidently in some alarm, and pondering with all her might. "I am quite sure something is said about widows."

"Yes, there is a very plain injunction to strictness and devoutness of life," replied Mr. Verner, with some significance. Mrs. Alvanley had just come from a gay autumn at St. Leonards' and was intending to pass the latter half of the winter at Cheltenham. She looked thoroughly discomfited for a moment, but soon rallied.

"Ah, I see you are talking ironically," she began, when Mr. Verner interrupted her.

"A little too ironically for so serious a subject, you would say," observed he, "and I am afraid I deserve the reproof. One loses one's reverence terribly in a drawing-room discussion of religion-and, perhaps, that is scarcely to be avoided."

"And where would you discuss religion, then," inquired Mrs. Alvanley, with renewed animation, “if you exclude it from drawing-rooms? Do you mean to say it is only to be discussed at Exeter Hall or in

church?"

Mr. Verner looked at Aunt Peggy in silent dismay, evidently soliciting help, and the gentle lady immediately bestirred herself in his service.

much out of tune you must be!" 2

How very

Mrs. Alvanley readily joined the laugh which was elicited by this observation; for Edith had spoken jestingly and without the slightest offensiveness of manner. After this, the conversation fell into a lighter tone, and so continued till their disputatious visitor had taken her leave.

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How very practical was that good lady's definition of religion!" remarked Mr. Verner. """Something to make you comfortable at once!' It would be curious, I think, to examine the shape in which that idea lies disguised in the depths of every erroneous system that has ever been built upon Christianity. One might almost say that all religious errors are only so many modes of escaping from necessary discomfort."

"How curious!" said Edith; "and you said before that irremediable misery was the result of an attempt to escape from discipline.”

"Exactly so," he replied. "It is worth thinking about; it is a very simple truth, of daily application; the child who will fling away his medicine cannot expect to get well."

66

May I ask you one question?" said Edith, as he rose to go away. He turned to her, and she went on hurriedly and eagerly, "I know that living in the world, and thinking with the world, does harm-that it gradually corrupts and changes, however little one may be aware of it at the time. But how is it to be avoided? How is a woman-a young woman -to avoid the evil without being canting and selfopinionated-obtruding religious topics, as I have so often heard them obtruded, and hated it, I scarcely knew why? Surely, submission and gentleness are the first duties of such a person, and how can she fulfil these and yet live in opposition to those around her?"

Mr. Verner looked at her, smiling. "The old principle," said he, "obedience."

"I don't understand," said Edith.

"You have a rule of life laid down for you," he replied, "by an authority which you are bound to obey; and, to take the lowest ground possible, one advantage, so to speak, of that rule is, that it is actually incompatible with a life of dissipation. No room is left for spiritual pride-no plea for accusing you of presumption; you are simply obeying a law. You are not to choose the details or manner of that obedience for yourself-they are settled for you, and you have only to do what you are desired, and to do it because you are desired. You are not required to argue for it-it is better that you should not talk much about it: but you have your code of laws at hand, the authority of which everybody professes to admit; and so you have only to refer all the objections to that code, and leave them to account for their disobedience to it as best they may; you, cer"But how would you go on, then?" inquired Mrs. tainly, are not called upon to give a reason for your Alvanley.

"If I were to decide," said she, "I believe I should say it was to be discussed nowhere—at least, nowhere in general society. I have a childish hatred of arguments, but especially on religious matters. The gravest and calmest book of controversy that ever was written always seems to me irreverent-it is as different from religion as tuning an instrument is from playing upon it."

"A most true distinction," said Mr. Verner, sighing; "and it is never needed save when the instrument has become discordant."

"Dear me!" interposed Edith, with something like an approach to her natural playfulness, "cannot you

obedience."

"But does anybody do this?" asked Edith, earnestly.

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