WHEN Mrs. Marvyn began to amend, Mary returned to the home cottage, and
resumed the details of her industrious and quiet life.
Between her and her two best friends had fallen a curtain of silence.
The subject that filled all her thoughts could not be named between
them. The Doctor often looked at her pale cheeks and drooping form with
a face of honest sorrow, and heaved deep sighs as she passed; but he
did not find any power within himself by which he could approach her.
When he would speak, and she turned her sad, patient eyes so gently on
him, the words went back again to his heart, and there, taking a second
thought, spread upward wing in prayer.
Mrs. Scudder sometimes came to her room after she was gone to bed,
and found her weeping; and when gently she urged her to sleep, she
would wipe her eyes so patiently and turn her head with such obedient
sweetness, that her mother’s heart utterly failed her. For hours Mary
sat in her room with James’s last letter spread out before her. How
anxiously had she studied every word and phrase in it, weighing them
to see if the hope of eternal life were in them! How she dwelt on
those last promises! Had he kept them? Ah! to die without one word
more! Would no angel tell her?—would not the loving God, who knew
all, just whisper one word? He must have read the little Bible! What
had he thought? What did he feel in that awful hour when he felt
himself drifting on to that fearful eternity? Perhaps he had been
regenerated,—perhaps there had been a sudden change;—who knows?—she had
read of such things;—_perhaps_——Ah, in that perhaps lies a world of
anguish! Love will not hear of it. Love _dies_ for certainty. Against
an uncertainty who can brace the soul? We put all our forces of faith
and prayer against it, and it goes down just as a buoy sinks in the
water, and the next moment it is up again. The soul fatigues itself
with efforts which come and go in waves; and when with laborious care
she has adjusted all things in the light of hope, back flows the tide,
and sweeps all away. In such struggles life spends itself fast; an
inward wound does not carry one deathward more surely than this worst
wound of the soul. God has made us so mercifully that there is no
_certainty_, however dreadful, to which life-forces do not in time
adjust themselves,—but to uncertainty there is no possible adjustment.
Where is he? Oh, question of questions!—question which we suppress, but
which a power of infinite force still urges on the soul, who feels a
part of herself torn away.
Mary sat at her window in evening hours, and watched the slanting
sunbeams through the green blades of grass, and thought one year ago
he stood there, with his well-knit, manly form, his bright eye, his
buoyant hope, his victorious mastery of life! And where was he now? Was
his heart as sick, longing for her, as hers for him? Was he looking
back to earth and its joys with pangs of unutterable regret? or had a
divine power interpenetrated his soul, and lighted there the flame of
a celestial love which bore him far above earth? If he were among the
lost, in what age of eternity could she ever be blessed? Could Christ
be happy, if those who were one with Him were sinful and accursed?
and could Christ’s own loved ones be happy, when those with whom they
have exchanged being, in whom they live and feel, are as wandering
stars, for whom is reserved the mist of darkness for ever? She had
been taught that the agonies of the lost would be for ever in sight of
the saints, without abating in the least their eternal joys; nay, that
they would find in it increasing motives to praise and adoration. Could
it be so? Would the last act of the great Bridegroom of the Church be
to strike from the heart of his purified Bride those yearnings of
self-devoting love which His whole example had taught her, and in which
she reflected, as in a glass, His own nature? If not, is there not
some provision by which those roots of deathless love which Christ’s
betrothed ones strike into other hearts shall have a divine, redeeming
power? Question vital as life-blood to ten thousand hearts,—fathers,
mothers, wives, husbands,—to all who feel the infinite sacredness of
love!
After the first interview with Mrs. Marvyn, the subject which had so
agitated them was not renewed. She had risen at last from her sick-bed,
as thin and shadowy as a faded moon after sunrise. Candace often shook
her head mournfully, as her eyes followed her about her daily tasks.
Once only, with Mary, she alluded to the conversation which had passed
between them;—it was one day when they were together, spinning, in the
north upper room that looked out upon the sea. It was a glorious day.
A ship was coming in under full sail, with white gleaming wings. Mrs.
Marvyn watched it a few moments,—the gay creature, so full of exultant
life,—and then smothered down an inward groan, and Mary thought she
heard her saying, ‘Thy will be done!’
‘Mary,’ she said, gently, ‘I hope you will forget all I said to you
that dreadful day. It had to be said, or I should have died. Mary, I
begin to think that it is not best to stretch our minds with reasonings
where we are so limited, where we can know so little. I am quite sure
there must be dreadful mistakes somewhere.
‘It seems to me irreverent and shocking that a child should oppose a
father, or a creature its Creator. I never should have done it, only
that, where direct questions are presented to the judgment, one cannot
help judging. If one is required to praise a being as just and good,
one must judge of his actions by some standard of right,—and we have
no standard but such as our Creator has placed in us. I have been told
it was my duty to attend to these subjects, and I have tried to,—and
the result has been that the facts presented seem wholly irreconcilable
with any notions of justice or mercy that I am able to form. If these
be the facts, I can only say that my nature is made entirely opposed
to them. If I followed the standard of right they present, and acted
according to my small mortal powers on the same principles, I should
be a very bad person. Any father, who should make such use of power
over his children as they say the Deity does with regard to us, would
be looked upon as a monster by our very imperfect moral sense. Yet I
cannot say that the facts are not so. When I heard the Doctor’s sermons
on “Sin a Necessary Means of the Greatest Good,” I could not extricate
myself from the reasoning.
‘I have thought, in desperate moments, of giving up the Bible itself.
But what do I gain? Do I not see the same difficulty in Nature? I see
everywhere a Being whose main ends seem to be beneficent, but whose
good purposes are worked out at terrible expense of suffering, and
apparently by the total sacrifice of myriads of sensitive creatures.
I see unflinching order, general good-will, but no sympathy, no
mercy. Storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, sickness, death, go on
without regarding us. Everywhere I see the most hopeless, unrelieved
suffering,—and for aught I see, it may be eternal. Immortality is a
dreadful chance, and I would rather never have been.—The Doctor’s
dreadful system is, I confess, much like the laws of Nature, about what
one may reason out from them.
‘There is but just one thing remaining, and that is, as Candace said,
the cross of Christ. If God so loved us,—if He died for us,—greater
love hath no man than this. It seems to me that love is shown here in
the two highest forms possible to our comprehension. We see a Being who
gives himself for us,—and more than that, harder than that, a Being
who consents to the suffering of a dearer than self. Mary, I feel
that I must love more, to give up one of my children to suffer, than
to consent to suffer myself. There is a world of comfort to me in the
words, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us
all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” These
words speak to my heart. I can interpret them by my own nature, and I
rest on them. If there is a fathomless mystery of sin and sorrow, there
is a deeper mystery of God’s love. So, Mary, I try Candace’s way,—I
look at Christ,—I pray to Him. If he that hath seen Him hath seen the
Father, it is enough. I rest there,—I wait. What I know not now I shall
know hereafter.’
Mary kept all things and pondered them in her heart. She could speak
to no one,—not to her mother, nor to her spiritual guide, for had she
not passed to a region beyond theirs? As well might those on the hither
side of mortality instruct the souls gone beyond the veil as souls
outside a great affliction guide those who are struggling in it. That
is a mighty baptism, and only Christ can go down with us into those
waters.
Mrs. Scudder and the Doctor only marked that she was more than ever
conscientious in every duty, and that she brought to life’s daily
realities something of the calmness and disengagedness of one whose
soul has been wrenched by a mighty shock from all moorings here below.
Hopes did not excite, fears did not alarm her; life had no force strong
enough to awaken a thrill within; and the only subjects on which she
ever spoke with any degree of ardour were religious subjects.
One who should have seen moving about the daily ministrations of the
cottage a pale girl, whose steps were firm, whose eye was calm, whose
hands were ever busy, would scarce imagine that through that silent
heart were passing tides of thought that measured a universe; but it
was even so. Through that one gap of sorrow flowed in the whole awful
mystery of existence, and silently, as she spun and sewed, she thought
over and over again all that she had ever been taught, and compared and
revolved it by the light of a dawning inward revelation.
Sorrow is the great birth-agony of immortal powers; sorrow is the great
searcher and revealer of hearts, the great test of truth; for Plato has
wisely said, sorrow will not endure sophisms; all shams and unrealities
melt in the fire of that awful furnace. Sorrow reveals forces in
ourselves we never dreamed of. The soul, a bound and sleeping prisoner,
hears her knock on her cell-door, and wakens. Oh, how narrow the walls!
oh, how close and dark the grated window! how the long useless wings
beat against the impassable barriers! Where are we? What _is_ this
prison? What _is_ beyond? Oh for more air, more light! When will the
door be opened? The soul seems to itself to widen and to deepen; it
trembles at its own dreadful forces; it gathers up in waves that break
with wailing, only to flow back into the everlasting void. The calmest
and most centred natures are sometimes thrown by the shock of a great
sorrow into a tumultuous amazement. All things are changed. The earth
no longer seems solid, the skies no longer secure; a deep abyss seems
underlying every joyous scene of life. The soul, struck with this
awful inspiration, is a mournful Cassandra; she sees blood on every
threshold, and shudders in the midst of mirth and festival with the
weight of a terrible wisdom.
Who shall dare be glad any more, that has once seen the frail
foundations on which love and joy are built? Our brighter hours, have
they only been weaving a network of agonizing remembrances for this
day of bereavement? The heart is pierced with every past joy, with
every hope of its ignorant prosperity. Behind every scale in music,
the gayest and cheeriest, the grandest, the most triumphant, lies
its dark relative minor; the notes are the same, but the change of a
semitone changes all to gloom; all our gayest hours are tunes that have
a modulation into these dreary keys ever possible; at any moment the
key-note may be struck.
The firmest, best-prepared natures are often beside themselves with
astonishment and dismay, when they are called to this dread initiation.
They thought it a very happy world before,—a glorious universe. Now
it is darkened with the shadow of insoluble mysteries. Why this
everlasting tramp of inevitable laws on quivering life? If the wheels
must roll, why must the crushed be so living and sensitive?
And yet sorrow is god-like, sorrow is grand and great, sorrow is wise
and far-seeing. Our own instinctive valuations, the intense sympathy
which we give to the tragedy which God has inwoven into the laws
of Nature, show us that it is with no slavish dread, no cowardly
shrinking, that we should approach her divine mysteries. What are the
natures that cannot suffer? Who values them? From the fat oyster, over
which the silver tide rises and falls without one pulse upon its fleshy
ear, to the hero who stands with quivering nerve parting with wife and
child and home for country and God, all the way up is an ascending
scale, marked by increasing power to suffer; and when we look to the
Head of all being, up through principalities and powers and princedoms,
with dazzling orders and celestial blazonry, to behold by what emblem
the Infinite Sovereign chooses to reveal himself, we behold, in the
midst of the throne, ‘a lamb as it had been slain.’
Sorrow is divine. Sorrow is reigning on the throne of the universe, and
the crown of all crowns has been one of thorns. There have been many
books that treat of the mystery of sorrow, but only one that bids us
glory in tribulation, and count it all joy when we fall into divers
afflictions, that so we may be associated with that great fellowship of
suffering of which the Incarnate God is the head, and through which He
is carrying a redemptive conflict to a glorious victory over evil. If
we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.
Even in the very making up of our physical nature, God puts suggestions
of such a result. ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in
the morning.’ There are victorious powers in our nature which are all
the while working for us in our deepest pain. It is said, that after
the sufferings of the rack, there ensues a period in which the simple
repose from torture produces a beatific trance; it is the reaction of
Nature, asserting the benignant intentions of her Creator. So, after
great mental conflicts and agonies must come a reaction, and the Divine
Spirit, co-working with our spirit, seizes the favourable moment, and,
interpenetrating natural laws with a celestial vitality, carries up the
soul to joys beyond the ordinary possibilities of mortality.
It is said that gardeners, sometimes, when they would bring a rose to
richer flowering, deprive it for a season of light and moisture. Silent
and dark it stands, dropping one fading leaf after another, and seeming
to go down patiently to death. But when every leaf is dropped, and the
plant stands stripped to the uttermost, a new life is even then working
in the buds, from which shall spring a tender foliage and a brighter
wealth of flowers. So, often in celestial gardening, every leaf of
earthly joy must drop, before a new and divine bloom visits the soul.
Gradually, as months passed away, the floods grew still; the mighty
rushes of the inner tide ceased to dash. There came first a delicious
calmness, and then a celestial inner clearness, in which the soul
seemed to lie quiet as an untroubled ocean, reflecting heaven.
Then came the fulness of mysterious communion given to the pure in
heart, that advent of the Comforter in the soul, teaching all things
and bringing all things to remembrance; and Mary moved in a world
transfigured by a celestial radiance. Her face, so long mournfully
calm, like some chiselled statue of Patience, now wore a radiance,
as when one places a light behind some alabaster screen sculptured
with mysterious and holy emblems, and words of strange sweetness
broke from her, as if one should hear snatches of music from a door
suddenly opened in heaven. Something wise and strong and sacred gave an
involuntary impression of awe in her looks and words; it was not the
child-like loveliness of early days, looking with dove-like, ignorant
eyes on sin and sorrow; but the victorious sweetness of that great
multitude who have come out of great tribulation, having washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. In her eyes there
was that nameless depth that one sees with awe in the Sistine Madonna;
eyes that have measured infinite sorrow and looked through it to an
infinite peace.
‘My dear madam,’ said the Doctor to Mrs. Scudder, ‘I cannot but think
there must be some uncommonly gracious exercises passing in the mind
of your daughter; for I observe, that, though she is not inclined to
conversation, she seems to be much in prayer; and I have of late felt
the sense of a Divine Presence with her in a most unusual degree. Has
she opened her mind to you?’
‘Mary was always a silent girl,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘and not given to
speaking of her own feelings; indeed, until she gave you an account
of her spiritual state, on joining the church, I never knew what her
exercises were. Hers is a most singular case. I never knew the time
when she did not seem to love God more than anything else. It has
disturbed me sometimes, because I did not know but it might be mere
natural sensibility, instead of gracious affection.’
‘Do not disturb yourself, madam,’ said the Doctor. ‘The Spirit worketh
when, where, and how He will; and, undoubtedly, there have been cases
where His operations commence exceedingly early. Mr. Edwards relates a
case of a young person who experienced a marked conversion when three
years of age, and Jeremiah was called from the womb. (Jeremiah i. 5.)
In all cases we must test the quality of the evidence without relation
to the time of its commencement. I do not generally lay much stress on
our impressions, which are often uncertain and delusive; yet I have
had an impression that the Lord would be pleased to make some singular
manifestations of His grace through this young person. In the economy
of grace there is neither male nor female; and Peter says (Acts ii. 17)
that the Spirit of the Lord shall be poured out, and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy. Yet, if we consider that the Son of God, as
to His human nature, was made of a woman, it leads us to see that in
matters of grace God sets a special value on woman’s nature and designs
to put special honour upon it. Accordingly there have been in the
Church, in all ages, holy women who have received the Spirit, and been
called to a ministration in the things of God—such as Deborah, Huldah,
and Anna the prophetess. In our own days most uncommon manifestations
of divine grace have been given to holy women. It was my privilege to
be in the family of President Edwards at a time when Northampton was
specially visited, and his wife seemed and spoke more like a glorified
spirit than a mortal woman, and multitudes flocked to the house to hear
her wonderful words. She seemed to have such a sense of the Divine love
as was almost beyond the powers of nature to endure. Just to speak
the words, “Our Father who art in heaven,” would overcome her with
such a manifestation that she would become cold and almost faint; and
though she uttered much, yet she told us that the divinest things she
saw could not be spoken. These things could not be fanaticism, for
she was a person of a singular evenness of nature, and of great skill
and discretion in temporal matters, and of an exceeding humility,
sweetness, and quietness of disposition.’
‘I have observed of late,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘that in our praying
circles Mary seemed much carried out of herself, and often as if she
would speak, and with difficulty holding herself back. I have not
urged her, because I thought it best to wait till she should feel full
liberty.’
‘Therein you do rightly, madam,’ said the Doctor, ‘but I am persuaded
you will hear from her yet.’
It came at length, the hour of utterance. And one day, in a praying
circle of the women of the church, all were startled by the clear
silver tones of one who sat among them and spoke with the unconscious
simplicity of an angel child, calling God her Father, and speaking
of an ineffable union in Christ, binding all things together in
one, and making all complete in Him. She spoke of a love passing
knowledge—passing all love of lovers or of mothers—a love for ever
spending, yet never spent—a love ever pierced and bleeding, yet ever
constant and triumphant, rejoicing with infinite joy to bear in its
own body the sins and sorrows of a universe—conquering, victorious
love, rejoicing to endure, panting to give, and offering its whole self
with an infinite joyfulness for our salvation. And when, kneeling,
she poured out her soul in prayer, her words seemed so many winged
angels, musical with unearthly harpings of an untold blessedness.
They who heard her had the sensation of rising in the air, of feeling
a celestial light and warmth descending into their souls; and when,
rising, she stood silent and with downcast drooping eyelids, there were
tears in all eyes, and a hush in all movements as she passed, as if
something celestial were passing out.
Miss Prissy came rushing homeward, to hold a private congratulatory
talk with the Doctor and Mrs. Scudder, while Mary was tranquilly
setting the tea-table and cutting bread for supper.
‘To see her now, certainly,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘moving round so
thoughtful, not forgetting anything, and doing everything so calm, you
wouldn’t ’a’ thought it could be her that spoke those blessed words and
made that prayer! Well, certainly, that prayer seemed to take us all
right up and put us down in heaven; and when I opened my eyes, and saw
the roses and asparagus-bushes on the manteltree-piece, I had to ask
myself, “Where have I been?” Oh! Miss Scudder, her afflictions have
been sanctified to her! And really, when I see her going on so, I feel
she can’t be long for us. They say dying grace is for dying hours; and
I’m sure this seems more like dying grace than anything that I ever yet
saw.’
‘She is a precious gift,’ said the Doctor; ‘let us thank the Lord for
His grace through her. She has evidently had a manifestation of the
Beloved, and feedeth among the lilies (Canticles vi. 3); and we will
not question the Lord’s further dispensations concerning her.’
‘Certainly,’ said Miss Prissy, briskly, ‘it’s never best to borrow
trouble; “sufficient unto the day” is enough, to be sure. And now, Miss
Scudder, I thought I’d just take a look at that dove-coloured silk of
yours to-night, to see what would have to be done with it, because I
must make every minute tell, and you know I lose half a day every week
for the prayer-meeting. Though I ought not to say I lose it, either,
for I was telling Miss General Wilcox I wouldn’t give up that meeting
for bags and bags of gold. She wanted me to come and sew for her one
Wednesday, and says I, “Miss Wilcox, I’m poor and have to live by my
work, but I a’n’t so poor but what I have some comforts, and I can’t
give up my prayer-meeting for any money—for you see, if one gets a
little lift there, it makes all the work go lighter, but then I have to
be particular to save up every scrap and end of time.”’
Mrs. Scudder and Miss Prissy crossed the kitchen and entered the
bedroom, and soon had the dove-coloured silk under consideration.
‘Well, Miss Scudder,’ said Miss Prissy, after mature investigation,
‘here’s a broad hem, not cut at all on the edge, as I see, and that
might be turned down, and so cut off the worn spot up by the waist,
and then, if it is turned, it will look every bit and grain as well
as a new silk. I’ll sit right down now and go to ripping. I put
my ripping-knife into my pocket when I put on this dress to go to
prayer-meeting, because, says I to myself, there’ll be something to do
at Miss Scudder’s to-night. You just get an iron to the fire, and we’ll
have it all ripped and pressed out before dark.’
Miss Prissy seated herself at the open window, as cheery as a fresh
apple-blossom, and began busily plying her knife, looking at the
garment she was ripping with an astute air, as if she were about
to circumvent it into being a new dress by some surprising act of
legerdemain. Mrs. Scudder walked to the looking-glass and began
changing her bonnet-cap for a tea-table one.
Miss Prissy, after a while, commenced in a mysterious tone:
‘Miss Scudder, I know folks like me shouldn’t have their eyes open
too wide, but then I can’t help noticing some things. Did you see the
Doctor’s face when we was talking to him about Mary? Why, he coloured
all up and the tears came into his eyes. It’s my belief that that
blessed man worships the ground she treads on. I don’t mean _worships_,
either, ’cause that would be wicked, and he’s too good a man to make
a graven image of anything; but it’s clear to see that there a’n’t
anybody in the world like Mary to him. I always did think so, but
I used to think Mary was such a little poppet—that she’d do better
for——Well, you know, I thought about some younger man—but, laws,
now I see how she rises up to be ahead of everybody, and is so kind
of solemn-like. I can’t but see the leadings of Providence. What a
minister’s wife she’d be, Miss Scudder! Why, all the ladies coming out
of prayer-meeting were speaking of it. You see, they want the Doctor to
get married: it seems more comfortable-like to have ministers married;
one feels more free to open their exercises of mind; and, as Miss
Deacon Twitchel said to me—“If the Lord had made a woman o’ purpose, as
he did for Adam, he wouldn’t have made her a bit different from Mary
Scudder.” Why, the oldest of us would follow her lead, ’cause she goes
before us without knowing it.’
‘I feel that the Lord has greatly blessed me in such a child,’ said
Mrs. Scudder, ‘and I feel disposed to wait the leadings of Providence.’
‘Just exactly,’ said Miss Prissy, giving a shake to her silk; ‘and as
Miss Twitchel said, in this case every providence seems to p’int. I
felt dreadfully for her along six months back; but now I see how she’s
been brought out, I begin to see that things are for the best, perhaps,
after all. I can’t help feeling that Jim Marvyn is gone to heaven, poor
fellow! His father is a deacon,—and such a good man!—and Jim, though he
did make a great laugh wherever he went, and sometimes laughed where
he hadn’t ought to, was a noble-hearted fellow. Now, to be sure, as
the Doctor says, “amiable instincts a’n’t true holiness;” but then
they are better than unamiable ones, like Simeon Brown’s. I do think,
if that man is a Christian, he is a dreadful ugly one; he snapped me
short up about my change, when he settled with me last Tuesday; and if
I hadn’t felt that it was a sinful rising, I should have told him I’d
never put foot in his house again; I’m glad, for my part, he’s gone out
of our church. Now Jim Marvyn was like a prince to poor people; and I
remember once his mother told him to settle with me, and he gave me
’most double, and wouldn’t let me make change. “Confound it all, Miss
Prissy,” says he, “I wouldn’t stitch as you do from morning to night
for double that money.” Now I know we can’t do anything to recommend
ourselves to the Lord, but then I can’t help feeling some sorts of
folks must be by nature more pleasing to Him than others. David was
a man after God’s own heart, and he was a generous, whole-souled
fellow, like Jim Marvyn, though he did get carried away by his spirits
sometimes and do wrong things; and so I hope the Lord saw fit to make
Jim one of the elect. We don’t ever know what God’s grace has done for
folks. I think a great many are converted when we know nothing about
it, as Miss Twitchel told poor old Miss Tyrrel, who was mourning about
her son, a dreadful wild boy, who was killed falling from mast-head;
she says, that from the mast-head to the deck was time enough for
divine grace to do the work.’
‘I have always had a trembling hope for poor James,’ said Mrs.
Scudder,—‘not on account of any of his good deeds or amiable traits,
because election is without foresight of any good works,—but I felt he
was a child of the covenant, at least by the father’s side, and I hope
the Lord has heard his prayer. These are dark providences; the world
is full of them; and all we can do is to have faith that the Lord will
bring infinite good out of finite evil, and make everything better than
if the evil had not happened. That’s what our good Doctor is always
repeating; and we must try to rejoice, in view of the happiness of
the universe, without considering whether we or our friends are to be
included in it or not.’
‘Well, dear me!’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I hope, if that is necessary, it
will please the Lord to give it to me; for I don’t seem to find any
power in me to get up to it. But all’s for the best, at any rate,—and
that’s a comfort.’
Just at this moment Mary’s clear voice at the door announced that tea
was on the table.
‘Coming, this very minute,’ said Miss Prissy, bustling up and pulling
off her spectacles. Then, running across the room, she shut the door
mysteriously, and turned to Mrs. Scudder with the air of an impending
secret. Miss Prissy was subject to sudden impulses of confidence, in
which she was so very cautious that not the thickest oak-plank door
seemed secure enough, and her voice dropped to its lowest key. The most
important and critical words were entirely omitted, or supplied by a
knowing wink and a slight stamp of the foot.
In this mood she now approached Mrs. Scudder, and, holding up her hand
on the door side, to prevent consequences, if, after all, she should
be betrayed into a loud word, she said, ‘I thought I’d just say, Miss
Scudder, that, in case Mary should —— the Doctor,—in case, you know,
there should be a —— in the house, you _must_ just contrive it so as to
give me a month’s notice, so that I could give you a whole fortnight
to fix her up as such a good man’s —— ought to be. Now I know how
spiritually-minded our blessed Doctor is; but, bless you, Ma’am, he’s
got eyes. I tell you, Miss Scudder, these men, the best of ’em, _feel_
what’s what, though they don’t _know_ much. I saw the Doctor look at
Mary that night I dressed her for the wedding-party. I tell you he’d
like to have his wife look pretty well, and he’ll get up some blessed
text or other about it, just as he did that night about being brought
unto the king in raiment of needle-work. That is an encouraging thought
to us sewing-women.
‘But this thing was spoken of after the meeting. Miss Twitchel and
Miss Jones were talking about it; and they all say that there would be
the best setting-out got for her that was ever seen in Newport, if it
should happen. Why, there’s reason in it. She ought to have at least
two real good India silks that will stand alone,—and you’ll see she’ll
have ’em too; you let me alone for that; and I was thinking, as I lay
awake last night, of a new way of making up, that you will say is just
the sweetest that ever you did see. And Miss Jones was saying that she
hoped there wouldn’t anything happen without her knowing it, because
her husband’s sister in Philadelphia has sent her a new receipt for
cake, and she has tried it and it came out beautifully, and she says
she’ll send some in.’
All the time that this stream was flowing, Mrs. Scudder stood with the
properly reserved air of a discreet matron, who leaves all such matters
to Providence, and is not supposed unduly to anticipate the future;
and, in reply, she warmly pressed Miss Prissy’s hand, and remarked,
that no one could tell what a day might bring forth,—and other general
observations on the uncertainty of mortal prospects, which form a
becoming shield when people do not wish to say more exactly what they
are thinking of.