There & Back eBook

There was, however, a little betterment in Mrs. Wylder, and her ceasing to go to church was only one of the indications of it.  She had in her a foundation of genuine simplicity, and was in essence a generous soul.  Any one who wondered at the combination of strange wild charm and honest strength in the daughter, would have wondered much less had he gained the least insight into what, beneath the ruin of earthquake and tornado, lay buried in the soul of her mother.  The best of changes is slow in most natures, and the main question is, perhaps, whether it goes slowly because of feebleness and instability, and consequent frequency of relapse, or because of the root-nature, the thoroughness, and the magnitude of what has been initiated.  But Mrs. Wylder was tropical:  any real change in her would soon reach a point where it must become swift as well as comprehensive.

Since returning to the trammels of a more civilized life, Mr. Wylder had grown self-absorbed, and from a loud, lawless man had become a sombre, sometimes morose person.  One great cause of the change, however, was, that the remaining twin, his favourite, had for some time shown signs of a failing constitution.  His increasing feebleness weighed heavily on his father.  He had had a tutor ever since they came to England, but now they did little or no work together, spending their hours mostly in wandering about the grounds, and in fitful reading of books of any sort in which the boy could be led to take a passing interest.  Barbara’s heart yearned after him, but he was greatly attached to his nurse, and did not care for Barbara.

The dissension between husband and wife about the twins, had its origin mainly with the mother, but sprang from the generosity of her nature:  the twin she favoured was sickly from infancy.  A woman such as Mrs. Wylder might have been expected to shrink from the puny, suffering creature, and give her affection and approbation to the other, as did her husband; but it was just here that the true in her, the pure womanly, came to the surface and then to the front:  the child had an appealing look, which, when first she saw him, went straight to the heart of the strong mother, and afterward roused, if not enough of the protective, yet all the defensive in her.  From herself she did not, and from death she could not save him.  He died rather suddenly, and now the strong one seemed slowly sinking.  The mother did not heed him, and the father, for very misery, could scarcely look at him:  he was to him like one dead already, only not dead enough to be buried.

CHAPTER XXXI.

WINGFOLD AND BARBARA.