"Thank you!" said Hope, smiling. "I like to see people reasonable! I am to see you sorrowing in this way, and for very sufficient cause, and I am neither to mind your troubles nor my own, but to be as merry as if nothing had happened! Is not this reasonable, Margaret?"

"For very sufficient cause!" said Hester, eagerly.

"Yes, indeed; for very sufficient cause. It must be a painful thing to you to find my neighbours beginning to dislike me; to have the tradespeople impertinent to you on my account; to see my patients leave me, and call in somebody from a distance, in the face of all Deerbrook.

It must make you anxious to think what is to become of us, if the discontent continues and spreads: and it must be a bitter disappointment to you to find that to be my wife is not to be so happy as we expected.

Here is cause enough for tears."

In the midst of her grief, Hester looked up at her husband with an expression of grat.i.tude and tenderness which consoled him for her.

"I will not answer for it," he continued, "but that we may all three sit down to weep together, one of these days."

"And then," said Margaret, "Hester will be the first to cheer up and comfort us."

"I have no doubt of it," replied Hope. "Meantime, is there anything that you would have had done otherwise by me? Was I right or not to vote? and was there anything wrong in my manner of doing it? Is there any cause whatever for repentance?"

"None, none," cried Hester. "You have been right throughout. I glory in all you do."

"To me it seems that you could not have done otherwise," observed Margaret. "It was a simple, unavoidable act, done with the simplicity of affairs which happen in natural course. I neither repent it for you, nor glory in it."

"That is just my view of it, Margaret. And it follows that the consequences are to be taken as coming in natural course too. Does not this again simplify the affair, Hester?"

"It lights it up," replied Hester. "It reminds me how all would have been if you had acted otherwise than as you did. It is, to be sure, scarcely possible to conceive of such a thing,--but if you had not voted, I should have--not despised you in any degree,--but lost confidence in you a little."

"That is a very mild way of putting it," said Hope, laughing.

"Thank Heaven, we are spared that!" exclaimed Margaret. "But, brother, tell us the worst that you think can come of this displeasure against you. I rather suspect, however, that we have suffered the worst already, in discovering that people can be displeased with you."

"That being so extremely rare a lot in this world, and especially in the world of a village," replied Hope, "I really do not know what to expect as the last result of this affair, nor am I anxious to foresee. I never liked the sort of attachment that most of my neighbours have testified for me. It was to their honour in as far as it showed kindness of heart, but it was unreasonable: so unreasonable that I imagine the opposite feelings which are now succeeding may be just as much in excess. Suppose it should be so, Hester?"

"Well, what then?" she asked, sighing.

"Suppose our neighbours should send me to Coventry, and my patients should leave me so far as that we should not have enough to live on?"

"That would be persecution," cried Hester, brightening. "I could bear persecution,--downright persecution."

"You could bear seeing your husband torn by lions in the amphitheatre,"

said Margaret, smiling, "but..."

"But a toss of Mrs Howell's head is unendurable," said Hope, with solemnity.

Hester looked down, blushing like a chidden child.

"But about this persecution," said she. "What made you ask those questions just now?"

"I find my neighbours more angry with me than I could have supposed possible, my dear. I have been treated with great and growing rudeness for some days. In a place like this, you know, offences seldom come alone. If you do a thing which a village public does not approve, there will be offence in whatever else you say and do for some time after.

And I suspect that is my case now. I may be mistaken, however; and whatever happens, I hope, my love, we shall all be to the last degree careful not to see offence where it is not intended."

"Not to do the very thing we are suffering under ourselves," observed Margaret.

"We will not watch our neighbours, and canva.s.s their opinions of us by our own fireside," said Hope. "We will conclude them all to be our friends till they give us clear evidence to the contrary. Shall it not be so, love?"

"I know what you mean," said Hester, with some resentment in her voice and manner. "You cannot trust my temper in your affairs: and you are perfectly right. My temper is not to be trusted."

"Very few are, in the first agonies of unpopularity; and such faith in one's neighbours as shall supersede watching them ought hardly to be looked for in the atmosphere of Deerbrook. We must all look to ourselves."

"I understand you," said Hester. "I take the lesson home, I a.s.sure you.

It is clear to me through your cautious phrase,--the 'we,' and 'all of us,' and 'ourselves.' But remember this,--that people are not made alike, and are not able, and not intended to feel alike; and if some have less power than others over their sorrow, at least over their tears, it does not follow that they cannot bear as well what they have to bear. If I cannot sit looking as Margaret does, peeling oranges and philosophising, it may not be that I have less strength at my heart, but that I have more at stake,--more--"

Hope started from her side, and leaned against the mantelpiece, covering his face with his hands. At this moment, the boy entered with a message from a patient in the next street, who wanted Mr Hope.

"Oh, do not leave me, Edward! Do not leave me at this moment!" cried Hester. "Come back for five minutes!"

Hope quietly said that he should return presently, and went out. When the hall door was heard to close behind him, Hester flung herself down on the sofa. Whatever momentary resentment Margaret might have felt at her sister's words, it vanished at the sight of Hester's att.i.tude of wretchedness. She sat on a footstool beside the sofa, and took her sister's hand in hers.

"You are kinder to me than I deserve," murmured Hester: "but, Margaret, mind what I say! never marry, Margaret! Never love, and never marry, Margaret!"

Margaret laid her hand on her sister's shoulder, saying,--"Stop here, Hester! While I was the only friend you had, it was right and kind to tell me all that was in your heart. But now that there is one nearer and dearer, and far, far worthier than I, I can hear nothing like this.

Nor are you fit just now to speak of these serious things: you are discomposed--"

"One would think you were echoing Miss Miskin, Margaret,--'You are warm, ma'am.' But you must hear this much. I insist upon it. If you would have heard me, you would have found that I was not going to say a word about my husband inconsistent with all the love and honour you would have him enjoy. I a.s.sure you, you might trust me not to complain of my husband. I have no words in which to say how n.o.ble he is. But, oh! it is all true about the wretchedness of married life! I am wretched, Margaret."

"So I see," said Margaret, in deep sorrow.

"Life is a blank to me. I have no hope left. I am neither wiser, nor better, nor happier for G.o.d having given me all that should make a woman what I meant to be. What can G.o.d give me more than I have?"

"I was just thinking so," replied Margaret, mournfully.

"What follows then?"

"Not that all married people are unhappy because you are."

"Yes, oh, yes! all who are capable of happiness: all who can love. The truth is, there is no perfect confidence in the world: there is no rest for one's heart. I believed there was, and I am disappointed: and if you believe there is, you will be disappointed too, I warn you."

"I shall not neglect your warning; but I do believe there is rest for rational affections--I am confident there is, if the primary condition is fulfilled--if there is repose in G.o.d together with human love."

"You think that trust in G.o.d is wanting in me?"

"Do let us speak of something else," said Margaret. "We are wrong to think and talk of ourselves as we do. There is something sickly about our state while we do so, and we deserve to be suffering as we are.

Come! let us be up and doing. Let me read to you; or will you practise with me till Edward comes back?"

"Not till you have answered my question, Margaret. Do you believe that my wretchedness is from want of trust in G.o.d?"

"I believe," said Margaret, seriously, "that all restless and pa.s.sionate suffering is from that cause. And now, Hester, no more."

Hester allowed Margaret to read to her; but it would not do. She was too highly wrought up for common interests. The reading was broken off by her hysterical sobs; and it was clear that the best thing to be done was to get her to bed, under Morris's care, that all agitating conversation might be avoided. When Mr Hope returned, he found Margaret sitting alone at the tea-table. If she had had no greater power of self-control than her sister, Edward might have been made wretched enough, for her heart was full of dismay: but she felt the importance of the duty of supporting him, and he found her, though serious, apparently cheerful.

"I have sent Hester to bed," said she, as he entered. "She was worn out. Yes: just go and speak to her; but do not give her the opportunity of any more conversation till she has slept. Tell her that I am going to send her some tea; and by that time yours will be ready."

"Just one word upon the events of to-day," said Hope, as he took his seat at the tea-table, after having reported that Hester was tolerably composed:--"just one word, and no more. We must avoid bringing emotions to a point--giving occasion for--"