He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than
in the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me.
Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day
approached for leaving their brother and their home. They both
tried to appear as usual; bat the sorrow they had to struggle
against was one that could not be entirely conquered or concealed.
Diana intimated that this would be a different parting from any they
had ever yet known. It would probably, as far as St. John was
concerned, be a parting for years: it might be a parting for life.
"He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves," she said:
"natural affection and feelings more potent still. St. John looks
quiet, Jane; but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think
him gentle, yet in some things he is inexorable as death; and the
worst of it is, my conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him
from his severe decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame
him for it. It is right, noble, Christian: yet it breaks my
heart!" And the tears gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head
low over her work.
"We are now without father: we shall soon be without home and
brother," she murmured, At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by
fate purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that "misfortunes
never come singly," and to add to their distresses the vexing one of
the slip between the cup and the lip. St. John passed the window
reading a letter. He entered.
"Our uncle John is dead," said he.
Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the
tidings appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting.
"Dead?" repeated Diana.
"Yes."
She riveted a searching gaze on her brother's face. "And what
then?" she demanded, in a low voice.
"What then, Die?" he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of
feature. "What then? Why--nothing. Read."
He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed
it to Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her
brother. All three looked at each other, and all three smiled--a
dreary, pensive smile enough.
"Amen! We can yet live," said Diana at last.
"At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before,"
remarked Mary.
"Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what
MIGHT HAVE BEEN," said Mr. Rivers, "and contrasts it somewhat too
vividly with what IS."