innocence on paper, and I will sign it. Do as I tell you, Godfrey, or I'll write it to the newspapers--I'll go out, and cry it in the streets!'
We will not say this was the language of remorse--we will say it was the language of hysterics. Indulgent Mr. Godfrey pacified her by taking a sheet of paper, and drawing out the declaration. She signed it in a feverish hurry. `Show it everywhere--don't think of me,' she said, as she gave it to him. `I am afraid, Godfrey, I have not done you justice hitherto, in my thoughts. You are more unselfish--you are a better man than I believed you to be. Come here when you can and I will try and repair the wrong I have done you.'
She gave him her hand. Alas, for our fallen nature! Alas, for Mr. Godfrey! He not only forgot himself so far as to kiss her hand --he adopted a gentleness of tone in answering her which, in such a case, was little better than a compromise with sin. `I will come, dearest,' he said, `on condition that we don't speak of this hateful subject again.' Never had I seen and heard our Christian Hero to less advantage than on this occasion.
Before another word could be said by anybody, a thundering knock at the street door startled us all. I looked through the window, and saw the World, the Flesh, and the Devil waiting before the house-- as typified in a carriage and horses, a powdered footman, and three of the most audaciously dressed women I ever beheld in my life.
Rachel started, and composed herself. She crossed the room to her mother.
`They have come to take me to the flower-show,' she said. `One word, mamma, before I go. I have not distressed you, have I?'
(Is the bluntness of moral feeling which could ask such a question as that, after what had just happened, to be pitied or condemned? I like to lean towards mercy. Let us pity it.)
The drops had produced their effect. My poor aunt's complexion was like itself again. `No, no, my dear,' she said. `Go with our friends, and enjoy yourself.'
Her daughter stooped, and kissed her. I had left the window, and was near the door, when Rachel approached it to go out. Another change had come over her--she was in tears. I looked with interest at the momentary softening of that obdurate heart. I felt inclined to say a few earnest words. Alas! my well-meant sympathy only gave offence. `What do you mean by pitying me?' she asked in a bitter whisper, as she passed to the door. `Don't you see how happy I am? I'm going to the flower-show, Clack; and I've got the prettiest bonnet in London.' She completed the hollow mockery of that address by blowing me a kiss--and so left the room.
I wish I could describe in words the compassion I felt for this miserable and misguided girl. But I am almost as poorly provided with words as with money. Permit me to say--my heart bled for her.
Returning to my aunt's chair, I observed dear Mr. Godfrey searching for something softly, here and there, in different parts of the room. Before I could offer to assist him he had found what he wanted. He came back to my aunt and me, with his declaration of innocence in one hand, and with a box of matches in the other.
`Dear aunt, a little conspiracy!' he said. `Dear Miss Clack, a pious fraud which even your high moral rectitude will excuse! Will you leave Rachel to suppose that I accept the generous self-sacrifice which has signed this paper? And will you kindly bear witness that I destroy it in your presence, before I leave the house?' He kindled a match, and, lighting the paper, laid it to burn in a plate on the table. `Any trifling inconvenience that I may suffer is as nothing,' he remarked, `compared with the importance of preserving that pure name from the contaminating contact of the world. There! We have reduced it to a little harmless heap of