She tried to comfort herself with the idea, that what he imagined her tobe, did not alter the fact of what she was. But it was a truism, aphantom, and broke down under the weight of her regret. She hadtwenty questions on the tip of her tongue to ask Mr. Bell, but not one ofthem did she utter. Mr. Bell thought thatshe was tired, and sent her earlyto her room, where she sate long hours by the open window, gazing outon the purple dome above, where the stars arose, and twinkled anddisappeared behind the great umbrageous trees before she went to bed.
All night long too, there burnt a little light on earth; a candle in her oldbedroom, which was the nursery with the present inhabitants of theparsonage, until the new one was built. A sense of change, of individualnothingness, of perplexity and disappointment, over-powered Margaret.
Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability,had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed forher to recognise it.
"I begin to understand now what heaven must be--and, oh! the grandeurand repose of the words--"The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."Everlasting! "From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." That skyabove me looks as though it could not change, and yet it will. I am sotired--so tired of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, inwhich nothing abides by me, no creature, no place; it is like the circle inwhich the victims of earthly passion eddy continually. I am in the moodin which women of another religion take the veil. I seek heavenlysteadfastness in earthly monotony. If I were a Roman Catholic andcould deaden my heart, stun it with some great blow, I might become anun. But I should pine after my kind; no, not my kind, for love for myspecies could never fill my heart to the utter exclusion of love forindividuals. Perhaps it ought to be so, perhaps not; I cannot decide tonight."
Wearily she went to bed, wearily she arose in four or five hours" time.
But with the morning came hope, and a brighter view of things.
"After all it is right," said she, hearing the voices of children at playwhile she was dressing. "If the world stood still, it would retrograde andbecome corrupt, if that is not Irish. Looking out of myself, and my ownpainful sense of change, the progress all around me is right andnecessary. I must not think so much of how circumstances affect memyself, but how they affect others, if I wish to have a right judgment, ora hopeful trustful heart." And with a smile ready in her eyes to quiverdown to her lips, she went into the parlour and greeted Mr. Bell.
"Ah, Missy! you were up late last night, and so you"re late this morning.
Now I"ve got a little piece of news for you. What do you think of aninvitation to dinner? a morning call, literally in the dewy morning.
Why, I"ve had the Vicar here already, on his way to the school. Howmuch the desire of giving our hostess a teetotal lecture for the benefit ofthe haymakers, had to do with his earliness, I don"t know; but here hewas, when I came down just before nine; and we are asked to dine thereto-day."
"But Edith expects me back--I cannot go," said Margaret, thankful tohave so good an excuse.
"Yes! I know; so I told him. I thought you would not want to go. Still itis open, if you would like it."
"Oh, no!" said Margaret. "Let us keep to our plan. Let us start at twelve.
It is very good and kind of them; but indeed I could not go."
"Very well. Don"t fidget yourself, and I"ll arrange it all."
Before they left Margaret stole round to the back of the Vicaragegarden, and gathered a little straggling piece of honeysuckle. She wouldnot take a flower the day before, for fear of being observed, and hermotives and feelings commented upon. But as she returned across thecommon, the place was reinvested with the old enchanting atmosphere.
The common sounds of life were more musical there than anywhereelse in the whole world, the light more golden, the life more tranquiland full of dreamy delight. As Margaret remembered her feelingsyesterday, she said to herself:
"And I too change perpetually--now this, now that--now disappointedand peevish because all is not exactly as I had pictured it, and nowsuddenly discovering that the reality is far more beautiful than I hadimagined it. Oh, Helstone! I shall never love any place like you.
A few days afterwards, she had found her level, and decided that shewas very glad to have been there, and that she had seen it again, andthat to her it would always be the prettiest spot in the world, but that itwas so full of associations with former days, and especially with herfather and mother, that if it were all to come over again, she shouldshrink back from such another visit as that which she had paid with Mr.
Bell.