Truly was there something high, generous, and noble in the native
composition of our poor old Hepzibah! Or else,--and it was quite as
probably the case,--she had been enriched by poverty, developed by
sorrow, elevated by the strong and solitary affection of her life, and
thus endowed with heroism, which never could have characterized her in
what are called happier circumstances. Through dreary years Hepzibah
had looked forward--for the most part despairingly, never with any
confidence of hope, but always with the feeling that it was her
brightest possibility--to the very position in which she now found
herself. In her own behalf, she had asked nothing of Providence but
the opportunity of devoting herself to this brother, whom she had so
loved,--so admired for what he was, or might have been,--and to whom
she had kept her faith, alone of all the world, wholly, unfalteringly,
at every instant, and throughout life. And here, in his late decline,
the lost one had come back out of his long and strange misfortune, and
was thrown on her sympathy, as it seemed, not merely for the bread of
his physical existence, but for everything that should keep him morally
alive.
She had responded to the call. She had come forward,--our
poor, gaunt Hepzibah, in her rusty silks, with her rigid joints, and
the sad perversity of her scowl,--ready to do her utmost; and with
affection enough, if that were all, to do a hundred times as much!
There could be few more tearful sights,--and Heaven forgive us if a
smile insist on mingling with our conception of it!--few sights with
truer pathos in them, than Hepzibah presented on that first afternoon.
How patiently did she endeavor to wrap Clifford up in her great, warm
love, and make it all the world to him, so that he should retain no
torturing sense of the coldness and dreariness without! Her little
efforts to amuse him! How pitiful, yet magnanimous, they were!
Remembering his early love of poetry and fiction, she unlocked a
bookcase, and took down several books that had been excellent reading
in their day. There was a volume of Pope, with the Rape of the Lock in
it, and another of the Tatler, and an odd one of Dryden's Miscellanies,
all with tarnished gilding on their covers, and thoughts of tarnished
brilliancy inside. They had no success with Clifford. These, and all
such writers of society, whose new works glow like the rich texture of
a just-woven carpet, must be content to relinquish their charm, for
every reader, after an age or two, and could hardly be supposed to
retain any portion of it for a mind that had utterly lost its estimate
of modes and manners. Hepzibah then took up Rasselas, and began to
read of the Happy Valley, with a vague idea that some secret of a
contented life had there been elaborated, which might at least serve
Clifford and herself for this one day. But the Happy Valley had a
cloud over it.