I was full of the quiet pleasure it had given me and of the thoughts it had brought me, when, as I was getting over a stile, whom should I see in the next field, coming along the footpath, but the lady who had made herself so disagreeable about Theodora. The sight was rather a discord in my feeling at that moment; perhaps it would have been so at any moment. But I prepared myself to meet her in the strength of the good humour which nature had just bestowed upon me. For I fear the failing will go with me to the grave that I am very ready to be annoyed, even to the loss of my temper, at the urgings of ignoble prudence.
“Good-morning, Miss Bowdler,” I said.
“Good-morning, Mr. Walton,” she returned “I am afraid you thought me impertinent the other week; but you know by this time it is only my way.”
“As such I take it,” I answered with a smile.
She did not seem quite satisfied that I did not defend her from her own accusation; but as it was a just one, I could not do so. Therefore she went on to repeat the offence by way of justification.
“It was all for Mrs. Walton’s sake. You ought to consider her, Mr. Walton. She has quite enough to do with that dear Connie, who is likely to be an invalid all her days—too much to take the trouble of a beggar’s brat as well.”
“Has Mrs. Walton been complaining to you about it, Miss Bowdler?” I asked.
“O dear, no!” she answered. “She is far too good to complain of anything. That’s just why her friends must look after her a bit, Mr. Walton.”
“Then I beg you won’t speak disrespectfully of my little Theodora.”
“O dear me! no. Not at all. I don’t speak disrespectfully of her.”
“Even amongst the class of which she comes, ‘a beggar’s brat’ would be regarded as bad language.”
“I beg your pardon, I’m sure, Mr. Walton! If you will take offence—”
“I do take offence. And you know there is One who has given especial warning against offending the little ones.”
Miss Bowdler walked away in high displeasure—let me hope in conviction of sin as well. She did not appear in church for the next two Sundays. Then she came again. But she called very seldom at the Hall after this, and I believe my wife was not sorry.
Now whether it came in any way from what that lady had said as to my wife’s trouble with Constance and Theodora together, I can hardly tell; but, before I had reached home, I had at last got a glimpse of something like the right way, as it appeared to me, of bringing up Theodora. When I went into the house, I looked for my wife to have a talk with her about it; but, indeed, it always necessary to find her every time I got home. I found her in Connie’s room as I had expected. Now although we were never in the habit of making mysteries of things in which there was no mystery, and talked openly before our children, and the more openly the older they grew, yet there were times when we wanted to have our talks quite alone, especially when we had not made up our minds about something. So I asked Ethelwyn to walk out with me.
“I’m afraid I can’t just this moment, husband,” she answered. She was in the way of using that form of address, for she said it meant everything without saying it aloud. “I can’t just this moment, for there is no one at liberty to stay with Connie.”
“O, never mind me, mamma,” said Connie cheerfully. “Theodora will take care of me,” and she looked fondly at the child, who was lying by her side fast asleep.
“There!” I said. And both, looked up surprised, for neither knew what I meant. “I will tell you afterwards,” I said, laughing. “Come along, Ethel.”
“You can ring the bell, you know, Connie, if you should want anything, or your baby should wake up and be troublesome. You won’t want me long, will you, husband?”
“I’m not sure about that. You must tell Susan to watch for the bell.”
Susan was the old nurse.
Ethel put on her hooded cloak, and we went out together. I took her across to the field where I had seen the hoary shadow. The sun had not shone out, and I hoped it would be there to gladden her dear eyes as it had gladdened mine; but it was gone. The warmth of the sun, without his direct rays, had melted it away, as sacred influences will sometimes do with other shadows, without the mind knowing any more than the grass how the shadow departed. There, reader! I have got a bit of a moral in about it before you knew what I was doing. But I was sorry my wife could see it only through my eyes and words. Then I told her about Miss Bowdler, and what she had said. Ethel was very angry at her impertinence in speaking so to me. That was a wife’s feeling, you know, and perhaps excusable in the first impression of the thing.
“She seems to think,” she said, “that she was sent into the world to keep other people right instead of herself. I am very glad you set her down, as the maids say.”
“O, I don’t think there’s much harm in her,” I returned, which was easy generosity, seeing my wife was taking my part. “Indeed, I am not sure that we are not both considerably indebted to her; for it was after I met her that a thought came into my head as to how we ought to do with Theodora.”
“Still troubling yourself about that, husband?”
“The longer the difficulty lasts, the more necessary is it that it should be met,” I answered. “Our measures must begin sometime, and when, who can tell? We ought to have them in our heads, or they will never begin at all.”
“Well, I confess they are rather of a general nature at present—belonging to humanity rather than the individual, as you would say—consisting chiefly in washing, dressing, feeding, and apostrophe, varied with lullabying. But our hearts are a better place for our measures than our heads, aren’t they?”
“Certainly; I walk corrected. Only there’s no fear about your heart. I’m not quite so sure about your head.”
“Thank you, husband. But with you for a head it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“I don’t know that. People should always strengthen the weaker part, for no chain is stronger than its weakest link; no fortification stronger than its most assailable point. But, seriously, wife, I trust your head nearly, though not quite, as much as your heart. Now to go to business. There’s one thing we have both made up our minds about—that there is to be no concealment with the child. God’s fact must be known by her. It would be cruel to keep the truth from her, even if it were not sure to come upon her with a terrible shock some day. She must know from the first, by hearing it talked of—not by solemn and private communication—that she came out of the shrubbery. That’s settled, is it not?”
“Certainly. I see that to be the right way,” responded Ethelwyn.
“Now, are we bound to bring her up exactly as our own, or are we not?”
“We are bound to do as well for her as for our own.”
“Assuredly. But if we brought her up just as our own, would that, the facts being as they are, be to do as well for her as for our own?”
“I doubt it; for other people would not choose to receive her as we have done.”
“That is true. She would be continually reminded of her origin. Not that that in itself would be any evil; but as they would do it by excluding or neglecting her, or, still worse, by taking liberties with her, it would be a great pain.
