Emily coaxed from her
permission to have a fire in the bookroom, and there we three had a
memorably happy time. We read our psalms and lessons, and our
Christian Year, which was more and more the lodestar of our
feelings. We compared our favourite passages, and discussed the
obscurer ones, and Clarence was led to talk out more of his heart
than he had ever shown to us before. Perhaps he had lost some of
his reserve through his intercourse with our good old governess,
Miss Newton, who was still grinding away at her daily mill, though
with somewhat failing eyesight, so that she could do nothing but
knit in the long evenings, and was most grateful to her former pupil
for coming, as often as he could, to talk or read to her.
She was a most excellent and devout woman, and when Emily, who in
youthful gaiete de coeur had got a little tired of her, exclaimed at
his taste, and asked if she made him read nothing but Pike's Early
Piety, he replied gravely, 'She showed me where to lay my burthen
down,' and turned to the two last verses of the poem for 'Good
Friday' in the Christian Year, as well as to the one we had just
read on the Holy Communion.
My father's kindness had seemed to him the pledge of the Heavenly
Father's forgiveness; and he added, perhaps a little childishly,
that it had been his impulse to promise never to touch a card again,
but that he dreaded the only too familiar reply, 'What availed his
promises?'
'Do promise, Clarry!' cried Emily, 'and then you won't have to play
with that tiresome old Mrs.
Pages:
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112