But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without
one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o'clock:
he did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was:
but he looked happier than when he set out. He had performed
an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and
deny, and was on better terms with himself.
I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It
was Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent
it in a sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors,
the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and
Mary's spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from
morning till noon, and from noon till night. They could always
talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms
for me, that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing
anything else. St. John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped
from it: he was seldom in the house; his parish was large, the
population scattered, and he found daily business in visiting the
sick and poor in its different districts.
|