Shirley

redress!«
    »Take comfort, mother: it is over now.«
    »It is over, and not fruitlessly. I tried to keep the word of His patience: He kept me in the days of my anguish. I was afraid with terror – I was troubled: through great tribulation He brought me through to a salvation revealed in this last time. My fear had torment – He has cast it out: He has given me in its stead perfect love. ... But, Caroline –«
    Thus she invoked her daughter after a pause.
    »Mother!«
    »I charge you, when you next look on your father's monument, to respect the name chiselled there. To you he did only good. On you he conferred his whole treasure of beauties; nor added to them one dark defect. All
you
derived from him is excellent. You owe him gratitude. Leave, between him and me, the settlement of our mutual account: meddle not: God is the arbiter. This world's laws never came near us – never! They were powerless as a rotten bulrush to protect me! – impotent as idiot babblings to restrain him! As you said, it is all over now: the grave lies between us. There he sleeps – in that church! To his dust I say this night, what I have never said before, ›James, slumber peacefully! See! your terrible debt is cancelled! Look! I wipe out the long, black account with my own hand! James, your child atones: this living likeness of you – this thing with your perfect features – this one good gift you gave me has nestled affectionately to my heart, and tenderly called me »mother.« Husband! rest forgiven!‹«
    »Dearest mother, that is right! Can papa's spirit hear us? Is he comforted to know that we still love him?«
    »I said nothing of love: I spoke of forgiveness. Mind the truth, child – I said nothing of love! On the threshold of eternity, should he be there to see me enter, will I maintain that.«
    »Oh, mother! you must have suffered!«
    »Oh, child! the human heart
can
suffer. It can hold more tears than the ocean holds waters. We never know how deep – how wide it is, till misery begins to unbind her clouds, and fill it with rushing blackness.«
    »Mother, forget.«
    »Forget!« she said, with the strangest spectre of a laugh. »The north pole will rush to the south, and the headlands of Europe be locked into the bays of Australia ere I forget.«
    »Hush, mother! rest! – be at peace!«
    And the child lulled the parent, as the parent had erst lulled the child. At last, Mrs. Pryor wept: she then grew calmer. She resumed those tender cares agitation had for a moment suspended. Replacing her daughter on the couch, she smoothed the pillow and spread the sheet. The soft hair whose locks were loosened, she rearranged, the damp brow she refreshed with a cool fragrant essence.
    »Mamma, let them bring a candle, that I may see you; and tell my uncle to come into this room by-and-by: I want to hear him say that I am your daughter: and, mamma, take your supper here; don't leave me for one minute to-night.«
    »Oh, Caroline! it is well you are gentle. You will say to me go, and I shall go; come, and I shall come; do this, and I shall do it. You inherit a certain manner as well as certain features. It will be always ›mamma‹ prefacing a mandate: softly spoken though, from you, thank God! Well,« (she added, under her breath), »he spoke softly too, once, – like a flute breathing tenderness; and then, when the world was not by to listen, discords that split the nerves and curdled the blood – sounds to inspire insanity.«
    »It seems so natural, mamma, to ask you for this and that. I shall want nobody but you to be near me, or to do anything for me; but do not let me be troublesome: check me, if I encroach.«
    »You must not depend on me to check you: you must keep guard over yourself. I have little moral courage: the want of it is my bane. It is that which has made me an unnatural parent – which has kept me apart from my child during the ten years which have elapsed since my husband's death left me at liberty to claim her: it was that which first unnerved my arms and permitted the infant I might have retained a while longer, to be snatched prematurely from their embrace.«
    »How, mamma?«
    »I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and I feared your loveliness; deeming it the stamp of perversity. They sent me your portrait, taken at eight years old; that portrait confirmed my fears. Had it shown me a sunburnt little rustic – a heavy, blunt-featured, commonplace child – I should have hastened to claim you; but