Shirley

I have such a grief as I never had before. I wish it could be relieved in some way: I can hardly bear it.«
    »Who knows but, if we talk it over, we may relieve it? What is the cause? Whom does it concern?«
    »The cause, sir, is Shirley: it concerns Shirley.«
    »Does it? ... You think her changed?«
    »All who know her think her changed: you, too, Mr. Moore.«
    »Not seriously, – no. I see no alteration but such as a favourable turn might repair in a few weeks: besides, her own word must go for something: she says she is well.«
    »There it is, sir: as long as she maintained she was well, I believed her. When I was sad out of her sight, I soon recovered spirits in her presence. Now. ...«
    »Well, Harry, now ...? Has she said anything to you? You and she were together in the garden two hours this morning: I saw her talking, and you listening. Now, my dear Harry! if Miss Keeldar has said she is ill, and enjoined you to keep her secret, do not obey her. For her life's sake, avow everything. Speak, my boy!«
    »
She
say she is ill! I believe, sir, if she were dying, she would smile, and aver ›Nothing ails me.‹«
    »What have you learned, then? What new circumstance ...?«
    »I have learned that she has just made her will.«
    »Made her will!«
    The tutor and the pupil were silent.
    »She told you that?« asked Moore, when some minutes had elapsed.
    »She told me quite cheerfully: not as an ominous circumstance, which I felt it to be. She said I was the only person besides her solicitor, Pearson Hall, and Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, who knew anything about it; and to me, she intimated, she wished specially to explain its provisions.«
    »Go on, Harry.«
    »›Because,‹ she said, looking down on me with her beautiful eyes, – oh! they
are
beautiful, Mr. Moore! I love them, – I love her! She is my star! Heaven must not claim her! She is lovely in this world, and fitted for this world. Shirley is not an angel; she is a woman, and she shall live with men. Seraphs shall not have her! Mr. Moore – if one of the ›sons of God‹ with wings wide and bright as the sky, blue and sounding as the sea, having seen that she was fair, descended to claim her, his claim should be withstood – withstood by me – boy and cripple as I am!«
    »Henry Sympson, go on, when I tell you.«
    »›Because‹, she said, ›if I made no will, and died before you Harry, all my property would go to you; and I do not intend that it should be so, though your father would like it. But you,‹ she said, ›will have his whole estate, which is large – larger than Fieldhead; your sisters will have nothing, so I have left them some money: though I do not love them, both together, half so much as I love one lock of your fair hair.‹ She said these words, and she called me her ›darling,‹ and let me kiss her. She went on to tell me that she had left Caroline Helstone some money, too; that this manor-house, with its furniture and books, she had bequeathed to me, as she did not choose to take the old family place from her own blood; and that all the rest of her property, amounting to about twelve thousand pounds, exclusive of the legacies to my sisters and Miss Helstone, she had willed, not to me, seeing I was already rich, but to a good man, who would make the best use of it that any human being could do: a man, she said, that was both gentle and brave, strong and merciful; a man that might not profess to be pious, but she knew he had the secret of religion pure and undefiled before God. The spirit of love and peace was with him: he visited the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and kept himself unspotted from the world. Then she asked, ›Do you approve what I have done, Harry?‹ I could not answer, – my tears choked me, as they do now.«
    Mr. Moore allowed his pupil a moment to contend with and master his emotion: he then demanded: –
    »What else did she say?«
    »When I had signified my full consent to the conditions of her will, she told me I was a generous boy, and she was proud of me: ›And now,‹ she added, ›in case anything should happen, you will know what to say to Malice when she comes whispering hard things in your ear, insinuating that Shirley has wronged you; that she did not love you. You will know that I
did
love you, Harry; that no sister could have loved you better, my own treasure.‹ Mr. Moore, sir, when I remember her voice, and recall her look, my heart beats as if it would break its strings.