‘Not quite,’ said Mr. Ferrars. ’He
knows that your low spirits are the effect of temperament
and health, and that you are not able to prevent yourself
from feeling unhappy and aggrieved. And perhaps
you reckoned on too much sensible effect from Church
ordinances. Now joy, help, all these blessings
are seldom revealed to our consciousness, but are
matters of faith; and you must be content to work
on in faith in the dark, before you feel comfort.
I cannot but hope that if you will struggle, even
when you are hurt and annoyed, to avoid the expression
of vexation, the morbid temper will wear out, and
you will both be tempted and suffer less, as you grow
older. And, Sophy—forgive me for asking—do
you pray in this unhappy state?’
‘I cannot. It is not true.’
’Make it true. Take some verse of a Psalm.
Shall I mark you some? Repeat them, even if
you seem to yourself not to feel them. There
is a holy power that will work on you at last; and
when you can truly pray, the dark hour will pass.’
‘Mark them,’ said Sophy.
There was some space, while she gave him the book,
and he showed her the verses. Then he rose to
go.
‘I wish I had not spoilt the visit,’ she
said, wistfully, at last.
‘We shall see you again, and we shall know each
other better,’ he said, kindly. ’You
are my godchild now, Sophy, and you know that I must
remember you constantly in prayer.’
‘Yes,’ she faintly said.
’And will you promise me to try my remedy?
I think it will soften your heart to the graces of
the Blessed Comforter. And even if all seems
gloom within, look out, see others happy, try to rejoice
with them, and peace will come in! Now, goodbye,
my dear godchild, and the God of Peace bless you,
and give you rest.
Mr. Dusautoy had given notice of the day of the Confirmation,
when Mr. Kendal called his wife.
‘I wonder,’ he said, ’my dear, whether
Sophia can spare you to take a walk with me before
church.’
Sophy, who was well aware that a walk with him was
the greatest and rarest treat to his wife, gave gracious
permission, and in a few minutes they were walking
by the bright canal-side, under the calm evening sunshine
and deep blue sky of early autumn.
Mr. Kendal said not a word, and Albinia, leaning on
his arm, listened, as it were, to the stillness, or
rather to the sounds that marked it—the
gurgling of the little streams let off into the water-courses
in the meadows; the occasional plunge of the rat from
the banks, the sounds from the town, softened by distance,
and the far-off cawings of the rooks, which she could
just see wheeling about as little black specks over
the plantations of Woodside, or watching the swallows
assembling for departure sitting in long ranks, like
an ornament along the roof of a neighbouring barn.
Long, long it was before Mr. Kendal broke silence,
but when at length he did speak, his words amazed
her extremely.
