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relations and trials of life, or which had called on her for some little effort of forbearance, or of painful adherence to an imagined or real dutyasking herself continually whether she had been in any respect blamable. This excessive rumination and self-questioning is perhaps a morbid habit inevitable to a mind of much moral sensibility when shut out from its due share of outward activity and of practical claims on its affectionsinevitable to a noble-hearted, childless woman when her lot is narrow. I can do so littlehave I done it all well? is the perpetually recurring thought; and there are no voices calling her away from that soliloquy, no peremptory demands to divert energy from vain regret or superfluous scruple. There was one main thread of painful experience in Nancys married life, and on it hung certain deeplyfelt scenes, which were the oftenest revived in retrospect. The short dialogue with Priscilla in the garden had determined the current of retrospect in that frequent direction this particular Sunday afternoon. The first wandering of her thought from the text, which she still attempted dutifully to follow with her eyes and silent lips, was into an imaginary enlargement of the defence she had set up for her husband against Priscillas implied blame. The vindication of the loved object is the best balm affection can find for its woundsA man must have so much on his mind, is the belief by which a wife often supports a cheerful face under rough answers and unfeeling words. And Nancys deepest wounds had all come from the perception that the absence of children from their hearth was dwelt on in her husbands mind as a privation to which he could not reconcile himself. Yet sweet Nancy might have been expected to feel still more keenly the denial of a blessing to which she had looked forward with all the varied expectations and preparations, solemn and prettily trivial, which fill the mind of a loving woman when she expects to become a mother. Was there not a drawer filled with the neat work of her hands, all unworn and untouched, just as she had arranged it there fourteen years agojust, but for one little dress, which had been made the burial-dress? But under this immediate personal trial Nancy was so firmly unmurmuring that years ago she had suddenly renounced the habit of visiting this drawer, lest she should in this way be cherishing a longing for what was not given. Perhaps it was this very severity towards any indulgence of what she held to be sinful regret in herself that made her shrink from applying her own standard to her husband. It is very differentit is much worse for a man to be disappointed in that way; a woman can always be satisfied with devoting herself to her husband, but a man wants something that will make him look forward moreand sitting by the fire is so much duller to him than to a woman. And always, when Nancy reached this point in her meditationstrying, with predetermined sympathy, to see everything as Godfrey saw itthere came a renewal of self- questioning. Had she done everything in her power to lighten Godfreys privation? Had she really been right in the resistance which had cost her so much pain six years ago, and again four years agothe resistance to her husbands wish that they should adopt a child? Adoption was more remote from the ideas and habits of that time than of our own; still Nancy had her opinion on it. It was as necessary to her mind to have an opinion on all topics, not exclusively masculine, that had come under her notice as for her to have a precisely marked place for every article of her personal property; and her opinions were always principles to be unwaveringly acted on. They were firm, not because of their basis, but because she held them with a tenacity inseparable from her mental action. On all the duties and proprieties of life, from filial behaviour to the arrangements of the evening toilet, pretty Nancy Lammeter, by the time she was three-and-twenty, had her unalterable little code, and had formed every one of her habits in strict accordance with that code. She carried these decided judgments within her in the most unobstrusive way; they rooted themselves in her mind, and grew there as quietly as grass. Years ago, we know, she insisted on dressing like Priscilla, because it was right for sisters to dress alike, and because she would do what was right if she wore a gown dyed with cheese-colouring. That was a trivial but typical instance of the mode in which Nancys life was regulated. It was one of those rigid principles, and no petty egoistic feeling, which had been the ground of Nancys difficult resistance to her husbands wish. To adopt a child because children of your own had been denied you was to try and choose your lot in spite of Providence. The adopted child, she was convinced, would never turn out well, and would be a curse to those who had wilfully and rebelliously sought what it was clear that, for some high reason, they were better without. When you saw a thing was not meant to |
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