an exhorting prophet.
Their natural parts were reversed; the young eyes declared that they
could see nothing but an horizon of blackest cloud, whilst those
enfeebled by years bore ceaseless witness to the raying forth of dawn.

And so it was with a sensation of surprise that Sidney first became
aware of light-heartedness in the young girl who was a silent hearer of
so many lugubrious discussions. Ridiculous as it may sound--as Sidney
felt it to be--he almost resented this evidence of happiness; to him,
only just recovering from a shock which would leave its mark upon his
life to the end, his youth wronged by bitter necessities, forced into
brooding over problems of ill when nature would have bidden him enjoy,
it seemed for the moment a sign of shallowness that Jane could look and
speak cheerfully. This extreme of morbid feeling proved its own cure;
even in reflecting upon it, Sidney was constrained to laugh
contemptuously at himself. And therewith opened for him a new world of
thought. He began to study the girl. Of course he had already occupied
himself much with the peculiarities of her position, but of Jane
herself he knew very little; she was still, in his imagination, the
fearful and miserable child over whose shoulders he had thrown his coat
one bitter night; his impulse towards her was one of compassion merely,
justified now by what he heard of her mental slowness, her bodily
sufferings. It would take very long to analyse the process whereby this
mode of feeling was changed, until it became the sense of
ever-deepening sympathy which so possessed him this evening. Little by
little Jane's happiness justified itself to him, and in so doing began
subtly to modify his own temper. With wonder he recognised that the
poor little serf of former days had been meant by nature for one of the
most joyous among children. What must that heart have suffered, so
scorned and trampled upon! But now that the days of misery were over,
behold nature having its way after all. If the thousands are never
rescued from oppression, if they perish abortive in their wretchedness,
is that a reason for refusing to rejoice with the one whom fate has
blest? Sidney knew too much of Jane by this time to judge her
shallow-hearted. This instinct of gladness had a very different
significance from the animal vitality which prompted the constant
laughter of Bessie Byass; it was but one manifestation of a moral force
which made itself nobly felt in many