“I think I shall go to-morrow. I am at
my grandfather’s.”
“If I can be of use to you, let me know.”
“I will, sir; and I thank you heartily.
There’s nothing a man is so grateful for as
friendliness.”
“The obligation is mutual,” said Wingfold.
MR., MRS., AND MISS WYLDER.
A new experience had come to Mrs. Wylder. Her
passion over the death of her son; her constant and
prolonged contention with her husband; her protest
against him whom she called the Almighty; the public
consequence of the same; these, and the reaction from
all these, had resulted in a sudden sinking of the
vital forces, so that she who had been like a burning
fiery furnace, was now like a heap of cooling ashes
on a hearth, with the daylight coming in. She
had not only never known what illness was, she did
not even know what it was to feel unfit. Her consciousness
of health was so clear, so unmixed, so unencountered,
that she had never had a conception, a thought, a
notion of what even that health was. Power and
strength had so constantly seemed part of her known
self, that she never thought of them: they were
never far enough from her to be seen by her; she did
not suspect them as other than herself, or dream that
they could be disjoined from her. She could think
only in the person of a strong woman; she was aware
only of the being of a strong woman. Even after
she had been some time helpless in bed, as often as
she thought of anything she would like to do, it was
the act of trying to get up and do it that made her
aware afresh that she was no more the woman corresponding
to her consciousness of herself. For her consciousness
had never yet presented her as she really was, but
always through the conditional and non-essential,
so that by accidents only was she characterized to
herself. Now she was too feeble even to care for
the loss of her strength; her weakness went too deep
to be felt as an oppression, for it met with no antagonism.
Her inability to move was now no prison, and her attendant
was no slave with tardy feet, but an angel of God.
For her Bab was now the mother’s one delight.
Her love for her lost twin had been in great part
favouritism, partisanship, defence, opposition; her
love for Barbara was all tenderness and no pride.
In her self-lack she clung to her—as lordly
dame, who had taken her castle for part of herself,
and impregnable, but, its walls crumbling under the
shot of the enemy, found herself defenceless before
her captors, might turn and clasp her little maid,
suppliant for protection. Good is it that we are
not what we seem to ourselves “in our hours
of ease,” for then we should never seek the
Father! The loss of all that the world counts
first things is a thousandfold repaid in the
mere waking to higher need. It proves the presence
of the divine in the lower good, that its loss is so
