‘Heaven knows I love you dearly!’
‘And Heaven knows I prize it! Well.
If I live, you’ll find me out.’
’I shall find out that my husband has a mine
of purpose and energy, and will turn it to the best
account?’
‘I hope so, dearest Lizzie,’ said Eugene,
wistfully, and yet somewhat whimsically. ’I
hope so. But I can’t summon the vanity to
think so. How can I think so, looking back on
such a trifling wasted youth as mine! I humbly
hope it; but I daren’t believe it. There
is a sharp misgiving in my conscience that if I were
to live, I should disappoint your good opinion and
my own—and that I ought to die, my dear!’
THE PASSING SHADOW
The winds and tides rose and fell a certain number
of times, the earth moved round the sun a certain
number of times, the ship upon the ocean made her
voyage safely, and brought a baby-Bella home.
Then who so blest and happy as Mrs John Rokesmith,
saving and excepting Mr John Rokesmith!
‘Would you not like to be rich now, my
darling?’
‘How can you ask me such a question, John dear?
Am I not rich?’
These were among the first words spoken near the baby
Bella as she lay asleep. She soon proved to be
a baby of wonderful intelligence, evincing the strongest
objection to her grandmother’s society, and
being invariably seized with a painful acidity of the
stomach when that dignified lady honoured her with
any attention.
It was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby,
and finding out her own dimples in that tiny reflection,
as if she were looking in the glass without personal
vanity. Her cherubic father justly remarked to
her husband that the baby seemed to make her younger
than before, reminding him of the days when she had
a pet doll and used to talk to it as she carried it
about. The world might have been challenged to
produce another baby who had such a store of pleasant
nonsense said and sung to it, as Bella said and sung
to this baby; or who was dressed and undressed as
often in four-and-twenty hours as Bella dressed and
undressed this baby; or who was held behind doors and
poked out to stop its father’s way when he came
home, as this baby was; or, in a word, who did half
the number of baby things, through the lively invention
of a gay and proud young mother, that this inexhaustible
baby did.
The inexhaustible baby was two or three months old,
when Bella began to notice a cloud upon her husband’s
brow. Watching it, she saw a gathering and deepening
anxiety there, which caused her great disquiet.
More than once, she awoke him muttering in his sleep;
and, though he muttered nothing worse than her own
name, it was plain to her that his restlessness originated
in some load of care. Therefore, Bella at length
put in her claim to divide this load, and hear her
half of it.
‘You know, John dear,’ she said, cheerily
reverting to their former conversation, ’that
I hope I may safely be trusted in great things.
And it surely cannot be a little thing that causes
you so much uneasiness. It’s very considerate
of you to try to hide from me that you are uncomfortable
about something, but it’s quite impossible to
be done, John love.’
