ous. I was faithless about Hester
as long as it was possible to have an uneasy thought for her; and now I
am afraid I shall sin in the same way about you."

"And why should you, Margaret? If I were without object, without hope,
without experience, without the power of self-rule which such experience
gives, you might well fear for me. But why now? It is not reasonable
towards the Providence under which we live; it is not just to me."

"That is very true. But though it is not too much for your faith, that
you are infirm and suffering in body, poor, solitary, living by toil,
without love, without prospect--though all this may not be too much for
your faith, Maria, I own it is at times for mine."

"Of all these evils, there is but one which is very hard to bear. I
_am_ solitary; and the suffering from the sense of this is great. But
what has been borne may be borne; and this evil is precisely that which
has been the peculiar trial of the greatest and best of their race--or
of those who have been recognised as such. You will not suppose that I
try to flatter my pride with this thought; or that the most insane pride
could be a support under this kind of suffering. I mean only that there
can be nothing morally fatal in a trial which many of the wisest and
best have sustained."

"But it is painful--very painful."

"For the mere pain, let it pass; and for the other _desagremens_ of my
lot, let us not dare to speak evil of them, lest we should be slandering
my best friends. If infirmity, toil, poverty, and the foibles of people
about us, all go to fortify us in self-reliance, God forbid that we
should quarrel with them!"

"But are you sure, quite sure, that you can stand the discipline? that
your nerves, as well as your soul, can endure?"

"Far from sure: but my peril is less than it was; and I have, therefore,
every hope of victory at last. In my wilderness, some tempter or
another comes, at times when my heart is hungry, and my faith is
fainting, and shows me such a lot as yours--all the sunny kingdoms of
love and hope given into your hand--and then the desert of my lot looks
dreary enough for the moment; but then arises the very reasonable
question, why we should demand that one lot should, in this exceedingly
small section of our immortality, be as happy as another: why we cannot
each husband our own life and means without wanting to be all equal.
Let us bless Heaven for your lot, by all means; but why, in t