At the end of three weeks James and Isabel returned to their home, and to their new way of life; and Fitzjocelyn had only time to see that they were beginning their struggle with good courage, before the meeting of Parliament summoned him to London.

Isabel fully justified Miss Faithfull’s prediction.  She was too truly high-minded to think any task beneath her; and with her heart in, not out of her immediate work, she could not fail to be a happier woman.  Success gave as much pleasure in a household duty as in an accomplishment—­nay, far more when it was a victory over herself, and an increase to the comfort of her husband.  Her strength was much tried, and the children often fatigued and harassed her; but there was unspeakable compensation in their fondness and dependence on her, and even in the actual services themselves.  The only wonder began to be how she could have ever trusted them in any hands but her own.  Her husband’s affection and consideration were sources of joy ever renewed; and though natural irritability and pressing anxieties might now and then betray him into a hasty word, his penitence so far surpassed the momentary pain it might have cost her, that she was obliged to do her utmost to comfort him.  She sometimes found herself awkward or ignorant, and sometimes flagged from over-exertion; yet throughout, James’s approval, and her own sense that she was striving to do her best, kept her mind at rest.  Above all, the secret of her happiness was, that the shock of adversity had awakened her from her previous deadness and sluggishness of soul, and made her alive to a feeling of trust and support, a frame of mind ever repenting, ever striving onwards.  Thus she went bravely through the very class of trials that she would once have thought merely lowering, inglorious, and devoid of poetry.  What would have been in itself sordid, gained a sweetness from the light of love and duty, and never in all her dreamy ease had she been as cheerful and lighthearted as in the midst of hardship and rigid economy.  Her equable temper and calm composure came to her aid; and where a more nervous and excitable woman would have preyed upon herself, and sunk under imaginary troubles, she was always ready to soothe and sustain the anxious and sensitive nature of her husband.  After all, hers was the lightest share of the trial.  To her, the call was to act, and to undergo misfortunes occasioned by no fault of hers; to him, the call was the one most galling to an active and eager man—­namely, to endure, and worse, to see endured, the penalty of his own errors.  In vain did he seek for employment.  A curacy, without a fair emolument, would have been greater poverty than their present condition, as long as the house was unlet; and, though he answered advertisements and made applications, the only eligible situations failed; and he knew, among so many candidates, the last to be chosen would be a person of violent temper, unable to bear rebuke.  Disappointment came upon disappointment, and the literary work, with which, through Louis’s exertions, he had been supplied, was not likely to bring in any speedy return.