Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
LONGFELLOW.
In less than a fortnight from the period of this interview, Mary
escorted by her brother-in-law, Mr. Gillespie, who had been in London on
business, left England for Edinburgh.
This plan was much more accordant with her state of feeling at this
period, than would have been that of accompanying her sister Agnes into
Wales, as the latter was so affectionately anxious she should have done.
It would have been melancholy for her just then to have found her dear
old home, Glan Pennant, in the hands of strangers, and there is
something still more melancholy to the feelings in revisiting familiar
scenes, associated as they may be in the mind with naught but happy
careless memories, when over the spirit of our dream has passed like a
blight some subduing change, such as was now overshadowing Mary's
happiness.
"It wrings the heart to see each thing the same,
Tread over the same steps, and then to find
The difference in the heart. It is so sad,
So very lonely to be the sole one
In whom there is a sign of change."
Besides it was very long since she had seen her sister Alice, so tied to
home by her many domestic cares and duties.
Agnes' life was one as yet all holiday enjoyment--her heart bounding
with delight at the prospect of an establishment in her beautiful
country home--in her own dear neighbourhood.
"There was no sorrow in her note"--and Mary perceived and rejoiced in
the conviction that her younger sister's happiness needed no additional
weight. Next to being happy herself, she desired most the power of
bestowing happiness on others, and a real pleasure she knew would be her
presence to that excellent elder sister. She would seek in some degree
to aid and lighten her cares and avocations. It would have been better
perhaps had she gone there, long ago. But could she bring her heart to
accede to this assumption?
Oh, no! not yet--not now--not ever could that be.
"I hold it true, what'er betide,
I feel it when I sorrow most,
'Tis better to have lov'd and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
This, rather we assume, was the language of that faithful heart, still
clinging too tenderly to the intense happiness of the past, to grudge
the anguish of its bewildering reverse.
Clouds had arisen to obscure the heaven of her certain happiness--her
once full hope had been deferred, but the day of despondency or of
sickening weariness had not yet arrived.
Her lover's explanatory interview with her brother had effectually
cleared, from her all believing mind, many a vague dread and anxious
misgiving, which at one time were beginning to disturb her spirit; and
again she could set herself to wait patiently, buoyed up by her all
enduring love--her steadfast entire trust. But this hope, and trust,
beautiful in themselves, could they be set alone on the frail and
futile creature?
"Hope in the Lord, wait patiently for Him, and he shall give thee thy
heart's desire. Commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him, and He will
bring it to pass."
Surely Mary's meek obedient soul, must have drawn its greatest strength
and patience from the dictates of this high and holy invocation.
There was too, something perhaps most providentially salutary and
effective, in the atmosphere of the home, where at this particular
moment Mary had been led to take up her abode.
Here in the example afforded by her sister Alice's adaptation, and
appropriation of herself--her tastes, and her talents, to that one
ultimate end of all, feelings and powers; the performance of her duty,
in that state of life which had been assigned to her--Mary's gentle
mind, too prone perhaps, by nature to rest in passive enjoyment, and in
the barren luxury of emotions, might receive a lesson, strengthening and
benificial for its future need.
"That life is not all poetry
To gentle measures set,"
"That Heaven must be won, not dreamed."
How a mind and character, that from amongst all her sisters, had been
the one most answering to her own, had effectually roused itself from
the shadowy Paradise of her earlier years, to meet the real demands of
life--to embrace its actual duties, and defy its uncongenial pains--and
not only this, but to find therein, more than in the pleasanter summer
paths of earlier days, or in those refined indulgences in which her
spirit still loved at times to cherish, true happiness and peace.
"I have found peace in the bright earth,
And in the sunny sky,
I have found it in the summer seas,
And where dreams murmur by.
"I find it in the quiet tone
Of voices that I love,
By the flickering of a twilight fire,
And in a leafless grove.
"I find it in the silent flow
Of solitary thought,
In calm, half-meditated dreams,
And reasonings self-taught.
"But seldom have I found such peace
As in the soul's deep joy,
Of passing onward free from harm,
Through every day's employ."
And even her brother-in-law, Mr. Gillespie, though of a less kindred
soul, and with those matter of fact and prosaic points of
character--attributes in his case, both national and professional. Even
in his companionship, she found something bracing and effectual, such as
she might not have done with more yielding and indulgent friends.
Her darling brother--it had been her former happy dream to pass her
unmarried days in his companionship; and she might have been with him
now, had it not been deemed, at present, neither convenient or
expedient.
She must in that case have shared her brother's chambers in London; and
at her age, and under her peculiar circumstances, such an arrangement
could scarcely be available, without being an interruption to her
brother's important studies and pursuits, though he would have made any
present sacrifice for his sister's sake.
Ah, yes! or why did he turn his eyes so steadily from a sight so
fascinating to his heart as was that cherub face, which often looked
down upon him from a pew of the Temple Church--or bravely resist the
flattering attention and repeated hospitalities of the eminent counsel,
that cherub's father, in whose house--
"He saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, but a woman too,"
and who seemed in every way inclined to bestow her notice on the
promising, agreeable student of the Middle Temple?
Why?--but because he determined to allow no cherub face to usurp the
foremost place in his affections, no "ladye love," with form however
beautiful, to become the reigning, mistress of his house and hearth
until that beloved sister of his youth had secured a dearer, better
home.
Besides, under any circumstances, he was not such a fool as to think of
marrying for many a year yet; a pretty business it would be if over the
dingy pages of Blackstone, and the year book, was for ever flitting the
bewitching, radiant face of Carrie Elliott.
Thus, then, for a time shall we leave our heroine, whose fortunes, like
the gentle flowing course of a glistening river, we have hitherto so
undeviatingly pursued; whilst we turn aside, not willingly, to trace
through their darker, wilder mazes, the fate and fortunes of those two
beings, whom an inscrutable Providence had ordained should hold such
important influence over her destiny.