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"Cotta Family" Books. 
 
 The Series to which this voltnne belongs 
 at present embraces the FOUR folloiving 
 works ^ viz, : — 
 
 THE SOHONBEEG-OOTTA FAMILY. 
 
 THE EAELY DAWN ; or, Sketches of Christian 
 Life in England in the Olden Time. 
 
 KITTY TREVYLYAN : A Story of the Times of 
 - Whitefield and the Wesleys. 
 
 WINIFEED BEETEAM : And the World she Lived 
 in. 
 
 The Author of these hooks, wliich are unexcelled in 
 popularity hy any puhlications which have lately n])- 
 peared, is engaged upon another work of great his- 
 torical interest, w^hich we shall add to the above series 
 before the close of the year. 
 
 We puhlisJi the above in four different editians : 
 
 TJie Fine Edition, tinted paper and illustrated, demi 8r(? 
 T?ie regular Standard Edition^ 12mo. 
 
 The Cabinet Edition, on tinted paper, 16m<>. 
 The Sabbath School Edition, 18mo. 
 
 By the same Author, 
 MABY THE HANDMAID OF THE LORD. 
 THE BONO VTITHOUT WORDS : Leaves from a 
 very Old Book. Dedicated to Children, 
 
Diary 
 
 OP 
 
 Kitty Trevylyan. 
 
 A STORY OF THE TIMES 
 
 OF 
 
 WHITEFIELD AND THE WESLEYS. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE SCHONBERG-COTTA FAMILV,'' 
 "THE EARLY DAWN," &c. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 M. W. DODD, 506 BROADWAY, 
 
 I 869. 
 
''The Author of the ' Schonberg-Cotta Family' 
 wishes it to be generally known among the readers 
 of her books in America, that the American Edi- 
 tions issued by Mr. M. W. Dodd, of New York, 
 alone have the Author's sanction." 
 
ittt¥0i»fti0«* 
 
 ^F late yea^s, novels have been written witli a 
 purpose. Men of commanding intellect have 
 employed the power of fiction to satirize the fol- 
 lies of fashionable life, to expose social evils, to i^lead 
 the cause of the oppressed, to denounce priestly domi- 
 nation and tyranny. The works of the author of " The 
 Chronicles of the Schonberg Cotta Family " can not, 
 with propriety, be called novels. The thin veil of fic- 
 tion, lifted up, reveals soft, sweet landscapes of truth, 
 long hidden in the mists and shadows of the i)ast. A 
 careful study of the history of the great periods of 
 reformation in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Spain 
 and England, has enabled this gifted writer to give 
 the form and pressure of the time, to throw ui^on her 
 canvas the heroic figures that made those days illus- 
 trious. The use of her rich materials is artistic. From 
 the quiet home life of the family she enables us to look 
 out on the historic religious movements that mould 
 and fashion the forms of national existence. Her great 
 work depicts the life and times of Luther, and second 
 to this in interest, is " Mrs. Kitty Trevylyan's Diai-y," 
 giving glimpses of the Wesleys and their work. 
 
 Kitty's home, in Cornwall, is painted with the fidel- 
 ity of a Flemish picture. The good mother, with 
 her calm brow and saintly face, her quiet readings of 
 1* 
 
 416695 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Thomas a Kempis, and Bishop Taylor, the "aro- 
 matic odor of her sanctity," — the selfish and reckless 
 brother — Betty, hard-working and faithful, with her 
 j)lain speech and her stormy temper — the dog Trusty, 
 with his wistful eyes and his intelligent sympathy 
 with the family joys and sorrows — and Kitty-s morn- 
 ing walk along the cliffs, at whose base dash the 
 ceaseless waves, with their " old familiar thunder " — 
 all these are skilfully brought out. 
 
 Kitty's visit to London affords glimjDses of the 
 heartless frivolity of the day — of the fine lady at her 
 toilette, with her white poodle, black page and chat- 
 tering parrot — of gentlemen in laced coats and flaxen 
 wigs. One gets an idea of the dreariness of the time 
 in church and state. No heroic ideas or noble deeds. 
 Profligacy and infidelity among the higher classes, 
 ignorance and vice among the lower — a tide of ini- 
 quity sweeping over the land, unstayed "by the frail 
 break-waters built by the moral writers of the day. 
 " Religion," said good Dr. Watts, *' is dying in the 
 world." And the clergy, destitute of power and 
 influence, pronounced feeble moral essays, and gave 
 to the people " good words made a long time ago, 
 about good things a long way off, to be given after a 
 long w^hile, to they didn't exactly know whom." 
 
 It was a dull, sleepy time, but voices were soon 
 heard crying in this moral wilderness, and their loud 
 call penetrated the heavy car and the drowsy con- 
 science. People were aroused from their sleep of 
 death. The warm life-current began once more to 
 flow through the arteries of the social system. Men 
 began to feel the burden of sin, and their need of a 
 Saviour. Socrates and Plato were put aside for the 
 livmg Saviour ready to heal and to bless. The un- 
 
mTRODTJCTIOK. Vli 
 
 washed, untaught masses awoke as to a new life. 
 The underlying strata of humanity cropped out on 
 the surface. Thousands of grim miners from dark 
 mines, of fishermen from long lines of sea-coast came 
 to hear the wondrous story, the glad announcement 
 that lifted them from their low estate, and made them 
 kings and priests unto God. A wonderful congrega- 
 tion was gathered in the amphitheatre excavated by 
 ancient miners at Gwennap. Rugged countenances 
 they showed, on which dark stories were written, 
 wild, eager eyes and dishevelled hair — while the 
 " close, silent attention, with gravity and quietness," 
 was at times broken by convulsive weeping and the 
 *'loud spontaneous amen." " One of the most magni- 
 ficent spectacles," said John Wesley, " to be seen this 
 side of heaven, and no music to be heard on earth 
 comparable to the sound of many thousand voices all 
 harmoniously joined in singing praises to God and 
 the Lamb." 
 
 The preacher is described as " a little, compact 
 man, in blameless clerical black, witli silver buckles 
 on his shoes," — " an angelic face, with a calm, lofty 
 expression," '* fine, sharply cut features," " eyes not 
 appealing, but commanding, and the delicate mouth 
 firm as a Roman general's." 
 
 Such was the outward appearance of the man, who, 
 perhaps, next to St. Paul and Luther, has exercised 
 the most powerful influence for good upon humanity. 
 
 The power of Whitefield's eloquence is well des- 
 cribed, prostrating the sinner, utterly destitute, at the 
 feet of the Saviour, while "Wesley's noble words 
 seemed like God's gracious hands once more invest- 
 ing him with his forfeited possessions — no more as 
 earthly dross, but as priceless heaver.ly treasure." 
 
VUl INTRODUCTION, 
 
 Tliere is a very fine specimen of word-painting in 
 the description of the solemn coming up of the early 
 dawn, — "the welling up of the light from hidden 
 fountains," — the misty clouds becoming *' defined 
 purple bars," — " the moon paling from a pearly lamp 
 illuminating the dark to a silver crescent floating on 
 a silvery sea, and sinking with her stars into the flood 
 of sunlight," — " the soft twittering of the waking 
 birds — the murmurs of the far-off waves, and the 
 sweeping of the winds over the long ranges of the 
 dewy moors." John Nelson, the stalwart Yorkshire- 
 man, addressed the men, women and children assem- 
 bled in the silent solemnity of this early morning 
 hour to listen to his plain, pointed words and rugged 
 eloquence. Then arose from lips newly touched with 
 sacred fire, the. simple melody of one of Wesley's 
 noble hymns. 
 
 There was a wonderful power in these hymns, well 
 brought out in the touching words of Toby Treffry, 
 the Cornish fisherman. 
 
 " It was mostly the hymns," said Toby, " first the 
 Bible, and then mostly the hymns, for they are the 
 Bible for the most part, only set to music like, so tliat 
 it rings in your heart like a tune. It was the hymns, 
 and what they said at the class-meetings. Before I 
 went to class, and heard what they had to say there, 
 I thought I was all alone, like a cast-away, on a sandy 
 shore under a great sheer wall of cliffs — a narrow 
 . strip of sand which no mortal man had ever trod 
 before, and which the tide was fast sweeping over bit 
 by bit. To spell out the hymns in the book by my- 
 self was like findii^g foot-prints on the sand, and that 
 was something. But when I went to the class, and 
 heard them sing the hymns, it was lil:c hearing voices 
 
INTRODUCTIOir. IX 
 
 on the top of the cliffs cheering me up and pointing 
 out the way." 
 
 The triumphs and trials attending the introduction 
 of Methodism into Ireland are not without their 
 record. The fiery ordeal through which the heroic 
 spirits of Methodism passed in their exposure to 
 angry mobs is forcibly delineated, — " the sore trial to 
 faith and love to find hundreds of your fellow-men, 
 and even of women, no one of them, perhaps, alone 
 would refuse you help and shelter, transformed into 
 a dreadful merciless monster, with the brain of a man, 
 the heart of a wild beast, and the strength of the sea 
 in a storm." " It was not," writes Hugh Spencer, 
 Kitty's betrothed lover, " until I had spent more than 
 one night in prayer, it was not until I recollected 
 another mob which accomplished its purpose, until once 
 more above such a sea of cruel, mocking, inhuman, 
 human faces, I had seen by faith One sublime, suffer- 
 ing, human Face uplifted, divine in unruffled love and 
 pity — it was not till then that I could take heart, and 
 hope to go forth once more with the message of par- 
 don and grace." 
 
 Whitefield's labors in America are described, and 
 all these historical details are so woven in the web of 
 the story, that their introduction in no way seems 
 unnatural or forced. 
 
 The great truth that Methodism made living in the 
 experience of hundreds of thousands, the possibility 
 of obtaining, in the beautiful words of the collect of 
 the church of England, " pardon and peace ; that 
 they may be cleansed from all their sins and serve Him 
 with a quiet mind " — this truth is shown in the power 
 it exerted, not only over the ignorant and degraded, 
 but over the consciences of the " elect ladies," the 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "honorable women," who dedicated to noble uses 
 their lives, and all their gifts of wealth and position. 
 The character of Evelyn Beauchamp is finely drawn, 
 and " the subject (or object)" in which she and Hugh 
 Spencer were mutually interested will not so long 
 remain a mystery to the yt)utliful readers of this 
 Diary as it did to the writer. 
 
 Mrs. Kitty is " a winsome wee-thing," who;^e grave 
 simplicity, winning artlessness, perfect truth, and 
 deep piety give her an irresistible charm. The real 
 diary of a French girl, Eugenie de Guerin, recently 
 published, exhibits all these characteristics in a very 
 remarkable degree. She, too, loved the early fresh- 
 ness of the morning, the bird's song, the daily com- 
 munion with nature and with nature's God. She, 
 too, found amjole exercise for loving charities in her 
 own household, and among the neighboring j)oor, 
 and hapj)iness in an liumble, holy life of prayer and 
 praise. 
 
 Mrs. Kitty Trevylyan will be a welcome guest in 
 every Christian home, but especially do we bespeak 
 for her an entrance into every Methodist family in 
 the land, that she may tell the young people, in her 
 own quaint way, the story so dear to their fathers, 
 that she may prepare them to unite in a joyful and 
 intelligent celebration of the aj)proaching centenary ' 
 of American Methodism, with grateful oflfeiings and 
 choral hymns of thanksgiving. 
 
 Mrs. Julia M. Olin. 
 
 New Yoek, Fchnianj l-Uli, 1SG5. 
 
I. 
 
 "Wednesday, May the First, 1745. 
 
 XinX OTHER always said that on the day I became 
 fl S^ I sixteen she would give me a book of my own, 
 ^^ in which to keep a Diary. I have wished for 
 it ever since I was ten, because Mother h<>rself always 
 keeps a Diary ; and when anything went wrong in the 
 house, — ^when Jack was provoking, or Father was pas- 
 sionate with him, or when our maid Betty was more 
 than usually wilful, or our man Roger was more than 
 usually stupid, — she would retire to her own little 
 light closet over the porch, and come out again with 
 a serenity on her face which seemed to spread over 
 the house like fine weather. 
 
 And in that little closet there is no furniture but 
 the old rocking-chair in which Mother used to rock 
 us children to sleep, and a table covered with a white 
 cloth, with four books on it, — the Bible, Bishop Tay- 
 lor's *' Holy Living and Dying," Thomas a Kempis on 
 the " Imitation of Christ," and the Diary. 
 
 The three printed books I was allowed to read, but 
 (except the Bible) they used in my childish days to 
 seem to me very gloomy and grave, and not at all 
 such as to account for that infectious peacefulness in 
 Mother's face and voice. 
 
 I concluded, therefore, that the magic must lie in 
 the Diary, which we were never permitted to open, 
 
12 ' ,27/^ DIAlkX OF 
 
 iiltkough'I Ii^ad 6ften*felt sorely tempted to do so, 
 especially since one morning when it lay open by 
 accident, and I saw Jack's name and Father's on the 
 page. For there were blots there, such as used to 
 deface my copy-book, on those sorrowful days when 
 the lessons appeared partcularly hard, when all the 
 world, singing birds, and bees, and breezes, and even 
 my own fingers, seemed against me, and I could not 
 help crying with vexation, — those blots which 
 Mother used to call " Fairy Faineante's footsteps " 
 (for Mother's grandmother was a Huguenot French 
 Lady, driven from France by the cruel revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes, — and Mother taught us French.) 
 
 It made me wonder if Mother too had her hard 
 lessons to learn, and I longed to peep and see. Yes, 
 there were certainly tears on Mother's Diary. I won- 
 der if there will be any on mine. 
 
 So white and clean the pages are now, and the calf- 
 skin binding so bright and new ! like life before me, 
 like the bright world which looks so new around me. 
 
 How difficult it is to believe the world is so old, 
 and has lasted so long 1 This morning when I went 
 up over the cliff behind our house to the little croft 
 in the hollow where the cows are pastured, to milk 
 Daisy for Mother's morning cup of new milk, and the 
 little meadow lay blue in the early dew before me, and 
 each delicate blade of grass was glittering around me, 
 and far beneath, the waves murmured on the sands 
 like some happy mother-creature making soft con 
 tented cooings and purrings over its young ; and fax 
 away in the offing, beyond the long shadow of the 
 cliffs, the just risen sun was kissing the little waves 
 awake one by one, — it seemed as if the sun, and 
 the sea, and the green earth, and I were all young 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN'. 18 
 
 togetlier, and God like a father was smiling on us 
 all. 
 
 And is it not true in some sense ? Is not every sun 
 rise like a fresh creation ? and every morning like the 
 birth of a new life ? and every night like a liiddc n 
 fountain of youth, in which all the creatures bathe in 
 silence and come forth again new-bom ? 
 
 It often seems so to me. 
 
 I am so glad Mother lets me help Betty about the 
 milking. At first she thought it was hardly fit work 
 for Father's daughter (he being of an ancient and 
 honorable family), but I like it so much better than 
 any work indoors, that since there are only Betty and 
 Roger, and we must help in some way, she was per- 
 suaded to let me do what I enjoy. Mother always 
 says, since Father chose poverty with her rather 
 than riches and honors with his great relations, we 
 must all do all we can to make it easy to him. Mothei 
 thinks it was such a great sacrifice for him to marry 
 her, a poor chaplain's daughter. But it is impossible 
 for me to think it a sacrifice for any one to have mar- 
 ried Mother. 
 
 It was delicious to sit milking Daisy and thinking 
 of these things, and of how Mother would welcome 
 me with my cup of new milk on this my birthday 
 morning, while every now and then Daisy, the friendly 
 creature, looked round and thanked me with her great 
 kind motherly eyes, or rubbed her rough tongue on 
 my dress. There is something that goes so to my 
 heart in the dumb gratitude of animals. 
 
 However, as I was walking home with my milk- 
 pails, smging, I met Toby Teffry, riding his widowed 
 mother's donkey, beating the poor beast with a huge 
 2 
 
14 THE DIARY OF 
 
 stick, — ^blows whicli resounded as if from xTic trunk 
 of a tree, — and shouting at it in those inhuman kind 
 of savage gutturals which seem to be received as the 
 only speech comprehensible to donkeys. 
 
 It stopped my singing at once, and I chid Toby se- 
 verely for his cruelty to the creature, and it so thin 
 and starved. 
 
 *' It has had a better breakfast than I am like to get, 
 Mistress," retorted Toby surlily ; " and if I was as 
 lazy as the brute, surely master would whack me 
 harder. And there's mother at home without a crust 
 till I come back." 
 
 Toby is a lank, lean-looking lad, and I chid myself 
 for not remembering how his temper might be tried 
 by povei-ty, and thought I could do no less to make 
 up for my hard words to him than offer him a drink 
 of milk and a crust I had in my pocket, and gently 
 commend the beast to his tender mercies. 
 
 Methought the lad was hardly as thankful as he 
 might have been ; indeed, I am not sure he did not 
 regard the gift as a kind of w^ak attempt at bribery. 
 And so he went on his way and I on mine. But the 
 current of my thoughts was quite changed, and every- 
 thing around seemed changed with them. 
 
 Beneath me, on the white sands in the cove, lay ino 
 wreck of the fishing-smack that was lost there last 
 winter. Those sunny waves now fa^\Tiing so softly 
 on the shore had not yet washed away the traces of 
 their own fierce work of destruction. 
 
 The thought of Toby's donkey brought before me 
 all the mute unavenged sufferings of the harmless 
 beasts at the hand of man. The thought of Toby's 
 widowed mother lying blind and lonely, waiting for 
 a crust of brrnd, led me down a step deeper into the 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAX. 15 
 
 sorrows of earth, — to want, and pain, .and death. 
 And the thought of Toby himself avenging his sor- 
 rows on the poor helpless beast led me to the lowest 
 depth of all ; for if the end of all this want, and 
 pain, and sorrow, was to harden instead of soften, to 
 make worse instead of better, what a terrible chiios 
 the world and life seemed to be ! 
 
 Thus, instead of the creation seeming the ladder 
 of light on which just before my spirit had been ris- 
 ing to heaven, from love to joy, and joy to love, it 
 seemed to have become a winding stair-case into the 
 abyss, from sorrow to sin, and from sin to sorrow. 
 
 The- matter was too hard for me, but I resolved to 
 ask Mother, and at all events to carry some bread and 
 milk at once to Widow TrefTry. 
 
 I therefore sat down my pails in the dairy, gave 
 them in charge to Betty, cut off a large slice of the 
 great barley loaf, took it with a jug of milk to Widow 
 Treffry, and was back at the door of Mother's closet 
 with her cup of new milk scarcely after the appointed 
 time. 
 
 Yet Mother has been looking for me, for when she 
 answered^ she had this beautiful diaiy of mine all 
 ready beside her own. 
 
 She smiled at my rapture of delight. But it is so 
 very seldom that anything new appears in our house, 
 on account of our not being rich, that I can never 
 help enjoying a new dress or a new hood, or even 
 a new ribbon, as if it made the day on which it came 
 a high day and a holiday, just as I used when I was 
 a child ; although now, indeed, I am a child no longer, 
 and ought to estimate things, as Parson Spencer sayOj 
 with a gravity becoming my years. 
 
 My new treasure entirely put all the great myste 
 
16 TEE DIARY OF 
 
 lies of toil and sorrows out of my head, until Mother, 
 laying her hand fondly on my head as I knelt beside 
 her, said, — " Your cheek is like a fresh rose, Kitty ; 
 the draught of morning air is as good for thee as the 
 new milk for me ;" and then pointing to her old worn 
 Diary, she added, — " Thou and thy book are as suit- 
 able to each other as I and mine." 
 
 A passionate, fervent contradiction was on my lips. 
 Our precious, beautiful Mother ! as young in heart as 
 ever. But while I looked up in her dear thin face I 
 could not speak ; the words were choked in my throat, 
 and I could only look down again and lay my cheek 
 on her hand. 
 
 " Do not flatter thyself, Mrs. Kitty," she said, with 
 her little quiet laugh, " as if the comparison were all 
 ^n thy favor. May there not be something in the 
 inside of this poor worn old book worth as much as 
 the new gilding and white emptiness of thine ? Mine 
 is worth more to me than when it was clean and 
 bright as thine." 
 
 I thought of the blotted page I had seen by acci 
 dent there, and I said, — 
 
 " But what if there should be pages there stained 
 with tears ?" 
 
 " The pages blotted with tears are not always the 
 darkest to look back on," she said. 
 
 Then the thought flashed on me, — *^ Perhaps it may 
 be the same with the world's history. The tear- 
 stained pages, nay, the blood-stained pages, may net 
 be the darkest to read, by-and-by ;" and I said so, 
 and told Mother also about Toby and the donkey, 
 and Widow TrefFry. 
 
 She i^aused a moment, as if to read my thought to 
 the end, and then she said, in a low calm voice,— 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAN. 17 
 
 " One page of the world's history stained with the 
 bitterest tears ever shed on earth, and steeped in 
 guiltless blood, is not the darkest to read. Child, it 
 is in the light of that sorrow and that sin thou must 
 leam to understand all the rest. All these hard and 
 bitter questions are answered there to the lowly heart, 
 and nowhere else, and to none else, as far as I have 
 seen. But each of us must learn for himself, and 
 learn it there. I cannot teach it thee, darling, nor, I 
 think, can God himself teach it thee, in one lesson. 
 But He is never weary of teaching, child ; only be 
 thou never weary of learning ; and hereafter, when 
 all the lessons are learned, and we wake up in His 
 likeness, thou and I will sing together the Hallelujahs 
 and the Amens it took us so long to leam, and theii 
 we shall be satisfied." 
 
 Thursday, May the Second, 1745. 
 
 I MEANT to have written a great deal more last 
 night, but as I recalled those words of Mother's, I 
 fell into a long musing, and then I must have fallen 
 into a long doze, for the next thing I was conscious 
 of was the hooting of the white owl that has built in 
 the ruined side of the house. 
 
 So I never got beyond breakfast time. It is quite 
 plain that a Diary cannot be meant to be a record of 
 all that happens in any one day, because it would 
 take all day to write it, and then there would be 
 nothing to write. 
 
 Who would think until they l:)egan to write, how 
 much is always happening ; how many words are 
 spoken, and how many things are done 'on every one 
 of those days which seem so like each other, and are 
 over almost before they seem properly begun ! 
 2* 
 
18 TEE DIARY OF 
 
 As it passes, a day seems just a moment, but wliilc 
 wc try to recall what it brought, a day seems a life- 
 time. 
 
 I have heard old people say all life to look back on 
 is just like a summer-day. And yet, when we stand 
 at the judgment bar of God, and all the days are 
 unrolled before us, will not each day seem like a life- 
 time in its early resolutions broken, its in-evocable 
 c pportunities lost, its sins unrepented, its blessings 
 uncounted ? It is a discovery I have just made in 
 my precious Diary which has set me on these grave 
 reflections. 
 
 On the last page I find Mother has written with 
 her own hand these passages from Bishop Taylor's 
 " Golden Grove " :-~ 
 
 "AGENDA, OR THINGS TO BE DONE. 
 
 "the diary, OB A RULR TO SPEND EAOH DAY RELIGIOUSLY. 
 
 " 1. Suppose every day to be a day of business ; 
 for your whole life is a race and a battle, a merchan- 
 dize and a journey. Every day propound to yourself 
 a rosary or a chaplet of good works, to present to 
 God at night. 
 
 " 2. Rise as soon as your health and other occa- 
 sions shall permit ; but it is good to be as regular as 
 you can, and as early. Remember he that rises first 
 to prayer hath a more early title to a blessing. But 
 he that changes night into day, labor into idleness, 
 watchfulness into sleep, changes his hope of blessed- 
 ness into a dream. 
 
 " 3. Never let any one think it an excuse to lie in 
 bed, because he hath nothing to do when he is up ,• 
 for whoever hath a soul, and hopes to save that soul, 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEYYLYA2T, 19 
 
 haili enougli to do to make Ms calling and election 
 sure, to serve God and to pray, to read and to medi- 
 tate, to repent and to amend, to do good to others 
 and to keex) evil from themselves. And if thou hast 
 little to do, thou oughtest to employ the more time 
 in laying up for a greater crown of glory. 
 
 " 4. At your opening your eyes enter on the day 
 with some act of piety — 
 
 " (1.) Of thanksgiving for the preservation of the 
 night past. 
 
 " (2.) Of the glorification of God for the works of 
 the creation, or anything for the honor of God. 
 
 " 5. When you first go off from your bed, solemnly 
 and devoutly bow your head and worship the Holy 
 Trinity — the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 
 " 6. When you are making ready, be as silent as 
 you can, and spend that time in holy thoughts ; 
 there being no way left to redeem that time from loss 
 but by meditation and short mental prayers. If you 
 choose to speak, speak something of God's praises, of 
 his goodness, his mercies, or his greatness ; ever re- 
 solvhig that the first fruits of thy reason and of all 
 thy faculties shall be presented to God, to sanctify 
 the whole harvest of thy conversation. 
 
 *' 7. Be not curious nor careless in your habit, but 
 always keep these measures : — 
 
 " (1.) Be not troublesome to thyself or to others by 
 unhandsomeness or uncleanness. 
 
 " (2.) Let it be according to your state and quality. 
 
 " (3.) Make religion to be the difference of your 
 habit, so as to be best attired upon holy or festival days. 
 
 '* 8. In your dressing, let there be ejaculations 
 fitted to the several actions of dressing : as at wash- 
 ing your hands and face, pray God to cleanse your 
 
»U THE DIARY OF 
 
 soul from sin ; in putting on your clothes, pray hiin 
 to clotlie your soul with the righteousness of your 
 Sa"\dour ; and so in all the rest. For religion must 
 not only be the garment of your soul, to invest it all 
 over ; but it must also be as the frmges to every one 
 of your actions, that something of religion appear in 
 every one of them, besides the innocence of all of 
 them. 
 
 "9. As soon as you are dressed with the first pre- 
 paration of your clothes that you caa decently do it, 
 kneel and say the Lord's Prayer ; then lise from your 
 knees, and do what is necessaiy for you, in order to 
 your further dressing or affairs of the house, which 
 is speedily to be done ; and then finish your dressing 
 according to the following rules. 
 
 " 10. When you are dressed, retire yourself to youi 
 closet, and go to your usual devotions ; which it is 
 good that at the first prayers they were divided into 
 seven actions of piety : — 
 
 " (1.) An act of adoration. 
 
 " (2.) Of thanksgiving. 
 
 " (3.) Of oblation. 
 
 " (4.) Of confession. 
 
 " (5.) Of petition. 
 
 " (6.) Of intercession. 
 
 " (7.) Of meditation, or serious, deliberate, useful 
 reading of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 "11. I advise that your reading should be governed 
 by these measures : — 
 
 " (1.) Let it be not of the whole Bible in order, 
 but for your devotion use the New Testament, and 
 such portions of the Old as contain the precepts of 
 lioly life. 
 
 " (2.) The historical and less useful part, let it be 
 
ME8. KITTY TREVYLYAN: 21 
 
 read at such other times wliich you have of leisure 
 from your domestic employments. 
 
 " (3.) Those portions of Scripture which you use 
 in your prayers, let them not be long ; a chapter at 
 once, and no more. But then what time you can af- 
 ford, spend it in thinking and meditating upon the 
 holy p receipts which you read. 
 
 " (4.) Be sure to meditate so long, till you make 
 some act of piety u]3on the occasion of what you 
 meditate : either you get some new arguments against 
 a sin, or some new encouragements to virtue ; some 
 sj)iritual strength and advantage, or else some act of 
 prayer to God. or glorification of Him. 
 
 *' (5.) I advise that yoa would read your chapter 
 LQ the midst of your j)rayers in the morning, if they 
 be divided according to the number of the fonner 
 actions ; because little interrui^tions mil be apt to 
 make your prayers less tedious, and yourself more 
 attent upon them, but if you find any other way 
 more agreeing with your spirit and disposition, use 
 your liberty without scruple. 
 
 " 12. Before you go forth of your closet, after 
 your prayers are done, set yourself doAvn a little 
 while, and consider what you are to do that day, 
 what matter of business is like to emiDloy you or to 
 tempt you ; and take jDarticular resolution against 
 that, whether it be matter of wrangling, or anger, 
 or covetousness, or vain courtsliij), or feasting ; and 
 when you enter upon it, remember upon what you 
 resolved in your closet. If you are likely to have 
 nothing extraordinary that day, a general recommen- 
 dation of the affairs of that day to God in your 
 prayers will be sufficient ; but if there be anything 
 foreseen that is not usual, be sure to be armed for It 
 
22 THE DIARY 01 
 
 by a hearty, though a short prayer, and an earnest, 
 prudent resolution beforehand, and then watch v» hen 
 the thmg comes. 
 
 ****** 
 
 " 22, Towards the declimng of the day, be sure to 
 retire to your private devotions. Read, meditate, 
 and pray. 
 
 " 23. Read not much at a time ; but meditate as 
 much as your time and capacity and disposition will 
 give you leave ; ever remembering that little reading 
 and much thinking, little speaking and much hear- 
 ing, frequent and short prayers and great devotion, 
 is the best way to be wise, to be holy, to be devout. 
 
 " 24. Before you go to bed, bethink yourself of the 
 day past. If nothhig extraordinary hath ha^jpened, 
 your conscience is the sooner examined ; but if you 
 have had a difference or disagreeing with any one, or 
 a great feast, or a great company, or a great joy, or a 
 great sorrow, then recollect yourself with the more 
 diligence: ask pardon for what is amiss, give God 
 thanks for what was good. If you have omitted any 
 duty, make amends next day ; and yet if nothing be 
 found that was amiss, be humble still and thankful, 
 and pray God for pardon if anytliing be amiss that 
 you know not of. Remember also to be sure to take 
 notice of all the mercies and deliverances of yourself 
 and your relatives that day. 
 
 " 25. As you are going to bed, as often as you can 
 conveniently, meditate of death, and the preparations 
 to your grave. When you lie down, close yf»ur eyes 
 with a short prayer ; connnit yourself into the hands 
 of your faithful Creator ; and when you have done, 
 trust him with yourself, as you must do when you 
 are dying. 
 
MP.S. KITTY TREVYLYAir. S3 
 
 ^' 26. If you awake in tlie night, fill aj) tlie inter- 
 vals or spaces of your not sleeping by holy thoughts 
 and aspirations, and remember the sins of your youth ; 
 and sometimes remember your dead, and that you 
 shall die ; and pray to God to send to you and all 
 mankiud a mercy in the day of judgment." 
 
 I have taken so long reading these holy rules, and 
 thinking of them, and thinking of Mother's goodness 
 in writiug them out with her own dear hand, that I 
 have no time to write any more. 
 
 To-morrow I hope to begiu in good earnest to put 
 them in practice. 
 
 Only those last I certainly cannot put in practice ; 
 for I never remember waking in the night for long 
 enough than just to hear a gust of wind through thi 
 tall old elms, and perhaps a rook cawing a re^ 
 monstrance at being blown out of his nest, and the 
 rain pattering against the window-panes ; and then 
 to thank God for my bed, and feel how comfortable 
 it is, and fall asleep again. 
 
 Also I have no beloved dead to remember. None. 
 My beloved are all living — Father, and Mother, and 
 Rrother Jack, and Hugh Spencer ; and if I stayed 
 awake till cock-crowing, how could I thank God 
 enough foi that ? 
 
 Friday, May the Third. 
 
 Eakly as I woke this morning, the birds were 
 awake before me. First came the cawing of the busy 
 rooks, from their nests in the elms, far above the roof; 
 then the tmttering of the sparrows in the white- 
 thorn under my window. And these seemed to me 
 like the tunini? of the instruments in the church be- 
 
24 THE DIARY OF 
 
 fore the psalii , i^liicli was soon poured out in a deli- 
 cious flow of continuous song from the throats of the 
 thrushes and the blackbirds. 
 
 Yes, the clioir was all ready for me ; and when T 
 opened my casement, the hawthorn and the lilacs 
 sent up their delicate fragrance, like another kind of 
 music 
 
 I felt so happy as I looked out on the humble 
 creatures all sending up their incense of content to 
 God, that ray eyes filled with tears, and I knelt and 
 said aloud the Lord's Prayer, and then I said in my 
 heart, — 
 
 "Dear creatures of God, ye seem never able to 
 utter what ye would of his praise ; and yet you do 
 not know half his goodness — not half of what we 
 know. Ye bask in the light of his smile, but we 
 know the secret of his heart. Ye praise him for the 
 overflowing of his riches, which cost him nothing ; 
 we praise him for the sacrificing love wliich cost 
 Him his Son. The earth is full of thy riches ; but we 
 only know, O our Sa\dour, the love of thy poverty and 
 thy cross." 
 
 For the words Mother said to me on my birthday 
 morning have been much in my mmd ever since. • 
 
 So it seemed to me most natural this moniing that 
 every act should be something like what the Cate- 
 chism says the Holy Sacrements are — " an outward 
 visible sign of an inward spiritual grace." And as I 
 opened my window, I thought, "Jesus my Sun, I 
 open my heart to thee I Let thy light and thy Spirit 
 flow into my soul, as thy light and air into my cham- 
 ber." And Avas not the pure cold water one of His 
 own consecrated images ? and did not the very clothes 
 that I put on recall the white robes, made white as no 
 
MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 25 
 
 fuller on earth can white them, in a fountain no hand 
 on earth could open or close ? 
 
 I had no temptation to " light discourse," for Betty- 
 had just left the room inside mine, and was at no time 
 very conversational ; and not a creature else, except 
 the birds, was awake. 
 
 When I was dressed, I thought how I might best 
 fulfil the good Bishop's directions as to " retiring to 
 my closet." At first I thought I would ask Mother 
 to let me clear a small chamber in the turret above 
 the apx^le-room. But then I thought it would be 
 rather like the Pharisees praying in the comers of 
 the streets, to go up there in the sight of all to per- 
 form my devotions ; and I should lose the sweet feel- 
 ing that no one knows what I am doing but God. 
 
 So I came to the conclusion that no place could be 
 a better closet than a young maid's chamber like 
 mine, with such sights and scents and sounds to be 
 had from my casement. 
 
 But this inward debate occupied some time, so 
 that I had not much time for the " seven actions of 
 piety." Indeed, the first two of adoration and thanks- 
 giving seemed necessarily much the longest for mc, 
 because I have so endlessly much to give thanks for, 
 and so little to wish for. I must ask Mother whether 
 this is right, and also what the act of oblation means. 
 Also I am not quite sure whether I made the right 
 kind of " act of piety " in reading the Holy Scriptures. 
 My chapter was the first of St. Matthew, but I did 
 not get beyond the twenty-first verse, because it 
 seemed to me such a wonderful promise that Jesus 
 our Lord will really save us from our sins, from being 
 impatient and discontented and all the things which 
 make us unhappy. Before I got any further it was 
 
v6 THE DIARY OF 
 
 high time for me to be going a-milking. Tliercfore I 
 resolved, that instead of sitting down to think what 
 temptations were likely to come on me, I would do 
 this on my way to the cliff, to the pasture where the 
 cows are. That was how it happened that my temp- 
 tations came on me before I had time to think of 
 them and guard myself; although indeed in general 
 it seems to me the very essence of temptations is that 
 they come just when and where one does not expect 
 them. 
 
 On my way to take the milk-pail from the dairy, I 
 went to see if some cough syrup I had made for 
 Widow Treffry, and had left to stand there all night, 
 had settled. When I came to the shelf on which I 
 laid it, it was gone. On my questioning Betty (very 
 gently, I am sure, for it was washing-day, and we 
 know she has all her prickles out then), she replied 
 she could not let such rubbish stand by her cream to 
 tempt all the flies in the country. She had put it on 
 the window-seat in the kitchen, and the cat had upset 
 it. It was a mercy the cup was not broken, and that 
 the poor cat was not poisoned. She would not have 
 such filthy stuff in her dairy. To which I retorted 
 warmly that I had certainly as much right to the 
 dairy as she had, and that she might have known the 
 cat always sat in that window-sill when there was sun- 
 shine. 
 
 Betty replied that she was not going to be ordered 
 about by those she had brought up from the cradle ; 
 and I retired from the contest, worsted ; as I might 
 havcj known I should be. 
 
 On my return to my room, before breakfast, I found 
 all my drawers in disorder. On my complaining at 
 the breakfast-table, Jack laughed, and said he had 
 
MES. KITTY TEEVYLYAX. 5:' 
 
 only been looking for a piece of string, and asked if 
 I intended to put it in my Diary. 
 
 I colored, and said he had no right to pry into my 
 drawers, nor indeed to enter my room without per- 
 mission. 
 
 Mother interposed, and said I should not make such 
 a storm about trifles. 
 
 And Father smiled, and asked me if my Diary was 
 to be like that of the citizen in the " Spectator." 
 Monday — Rose and dressed, and washed hands and 
 face. Tuesday — Washed only my hands. 
 
 I ought to have laughed, but I could not. A pro- 
 fane touch seemed to have brushed the bloom off my 
 new treasure, and so, somewhat heavily, the day 
 passed on. 
 
 How very much everything has changed with me 
 since this morning. At all events I have no difficulty 
 in finding enough to-night for " confession " and 
 " petition." 
 
 But to confess truly, I must, I think, be just to 
 myself as well as to others. I have noticed that 
 sometimes one can fall into a passion of self-accusa- 
 tion, which seems to me no more true repentance 
 than a passion of accusing other people. I think 
 one has no right to rail at one's self, any more than at 
 any one else. Besides, it seems to me so much easier 
 to burst into a flood of tears, and sob, " I am a wretch, 
 a miserable sinner, the chief of sinners," than to say 
 with quiet shame, from one's inmost heart, " I was 
 unjust to Betty to-day ; I was cross and selfish with 
 Jack ; I was impatient even with dearest Mother." 
 
 Disappointment and vexation are not repentance. 
 Exaggerated self-reproach is not confession. In the 
 
J8» TUE DIARY OF 
 
 midst of our tears we secretly congratulate ourselves 
 on our sensibility ; or the heart rebounds against the 
 excess of its self-accusation, and ends by estimating 
 the sin as very little, and its penitence as very 
 great. 
 
 No : before all things I want to be true to myself 
 and to every one. I want really to overcome my 
 sins — not merely to have the luxury of weeping over 
 them ; and therefore I must try to know exactly 
 what they are. It was my hasty temper that led me 
 wrong in all these things. But what makes my 
 temper hasty ? What was it that Betty touched to 
 the quick in asserting her right over me ? I suppose 
 it was my pride. 
 
 What made me so angry with Jack ? He certainly 
 had no right to appropriate my property ; but I had 
 DO right to be angry. It must be then that I care 
 too much about my things I What fault is that ? 
 Can it be avarice ? 
 
 And then, what made me impatient with Mother ? 
 I thought she did not justly stand up for my 
 rights. 
 
 My dignity I My things I My rights I How mean 
 and selfish it looks I 
 
 What would have made me overcome ? If I had 
 thought of Betty's rough but most unselfish care 
 over us all these years ; if I had loved Jack more 
 than my miserable things / if I had loved and hon- 
 ored Mother as I ought, and thought how tenderly 
 faithful her reproofs are, and how I need them 1 
 
 What I want, then, is love — more love. Yes, 
 theie is enough to confess, and enough to ask to- 
 night. 
 
JIRS. KITTY TEEYYLYAN. 69 
 
 Saturday, May the Fourth. 
 
 This morning was very wet and windy, and as I 
 came down into the dairy I found Betty there already 
 with the pails full of new milk. 
 
 " Do you think I was going to let such a young 
 thing as you go over the cliff in this storm ?" said she, 
 letting down the pails with her stout stalwart arms. 
 " The wind would have blown over a dozen of you." 
 
 Yet Betty has rheumatism, and certainly her 
 clothes are more jDrecious to her, and more diScult 
 to rej)lace, than mine. 
 
 " Betty," I said, in a flood of gratitude, " I never 
 ought to have spoken to you so yesterday about the 
 dairy." 
 
 " Young folks must have their tantrums," said 
 Betty, no doubt thinking it her duty not to miss 
 such an opportunity of carrying on my education. 
 
 The glow of my repentance was somewhat chilled, 
 when Betty added, — 
 
 *' There is not a creature that comes near her, that 
 Missis does not do her best to spoil. There'd be no 
 order in this house but for me. From Master Jack 
 to the cat, not a creature would know what it is to 
 keep in their place." 
 
 The universality of the censure took off its edge, 
 and I could not help laughing ; which I found did 
 my temper much good. 
 
 I do think in good books something should be 
 said of the good it does one sometimes to laugh at 
 one's self. I think it would often do people more 
 good than to cry. 
 
 I think religious people now and then i)erplex 
 themselves by giving their faults too grand religious 
 names. It is necessary, indeed, to dig among the 
 3* 
 
80 THE DIARY OF 
 
 roots of our sins ; but occasionally I think we may 
 accomplisli as much by lightly moving the blossoms. 
 For the blossoms also have seeds ; and weeds fipread 
 by the seed as well as by the root. 
 
 Sunday, Jane the Ninth. 
 
 Sundays are always delightful days. The very- 
 taking of the Sunday clothes out of the chest where 
 they have lain all the week among the lavender, the 
 sight of the clean swept stone floor of the hall where 
 we take our meals, gives one such a fresh, clean, 
 festive feeling. 
 
 We have not very many Sunday books. Mother 
 sometimes brings down the " Holy Living and Dying" 
 from her closet ; and when I sit at her feet, and she 
 reads it to me, I feel as if I were walking with one 
 of the old saints through some King's Garden, full 
 of all manner of fruits and flowers, and adorned with 
 strange antique statues of gods and heroes and saints 
 all mixed together, with stately foreign robes and 
 faces, and garlanded with exotics ; while the air is 
 heavy with fragrance and sunshine, and musical with 
 the regular flow of artificial fontinels. I enjoy it 
 so much. 
 
 And then to read a chapter of the Bible afterwards 
 is like coming from that royal garden straight up to 
 the cliff behind our house, feeling the crisj> fresh 
 grass under one's feet, and the fresh sea-air on one's 
 face, — looking over the fields where the cows and 
 sheep and God's other common creatures are enjoying 
 themselves, — looking over the great and wide sea, 
 with its countless emerald and purple waves, to 
 which we see no end, — looking up to the great sunny 
 sky ^6 which there is no end ; — rjid through it all 
 
MES. KITTY TEEVYLYAM. 31 
 
 listening to a Human Voice like our own, telling us 
 in simplest every-day words things tliat touch our 
 inmost hearts ; and knowing that the Human Voice 
 is also Divine, and that the things it tells are all true, 
 for ever and for ever. 
 
 Then there are the Homilies, and, of course, the 
 Prayer-Book. I do not w^sh for any more religious 
 books. Besides, Betty has Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 
 with terrible pictures, and stories of agonies will- 
 ingly borne for Truth's sake — of heroic patience and 
 joy in death v/hich brace the heart, as a strong pure 
 air braces the limbs — especially now that I am old 
 enough to know how to avoid the tortures and the 
 dreadful pictures. 
 
 Monday, June the Tenth. 
 
 I WISH I could feel easy about Jack. It is not 
 that he has any great faults. He is honorable and 
 truthful as our Father's son could hardly fail to be ; 
 and he has little gracious kindly ways which remind 
 one of Mother, and often melt Betty's heart when 
 she has most reason to be indignant with him. I do 
 not know what it is that makes me imeasy about him, 
 except that he never seems to me to do anything he 
 does not like. He will work in the harvest time as 
 hard as any of the men and do as much ; but no 
 efforts of mine or Betty's can get him up in the 
 mornings, although he knows how angry Father is 
 about it, and how hard we all have to work to make 
 up for it. He will wander away for a day's shooting •» 
 or fishing, just when every one is busiest, and then 
 return vvdth birds or fish, and a jest, which pacifies 
 Betty, but not Father, and makes Mother sad. He 
 loses or spoils his own things, and comes on all of us 
 
83 THE DlAllY OF 
 
 and claims our things, as if tlieir cliief use was to 
 make up for his waste, and then calls us mean and 
 stingy if we remonstrate, and often succeeds in mail- 
 ing us feel as if we were, when he says, " Is he so 
 ungenerous as not to share anything with us ?" But 
 is it generosity to share your things with others, if 
 you regard their property as a kind of inexhaustible 
 fund to draw on in return ? 
 
 He is never in time for church, although he knows 
 Mother loves nothing more than to have us all walk 
 into church together, and the vicar looks quite angry 
 as he saunters up the aisle, and once even stopped 
 in the Psalms, so that everybody looked ; and some- 
 times even he alludes to such habits in his sermons. 
 "How can people make such a fuss," Jack says, 
 " about a little thoughtlessness ?" But what is at 
 the bottom of thoughtlessness which pains those 
 dearest to us ? 
 
 It would give me more pleasure than almost any- 
 thing to see Jack do anything he really disliked, or 
 give up anything he really liked, just because it was 
 right. I am sure Mother is often anxious about him, 
 especially since Aunt Beauchamp's husband, who is 
 rather a great man in London, promised to get him a 
 commission in the army. There are so many terrible 
 temptations in the army. Mother says, for those who 
 go mth the stream. I cannot think Jack would 
 ever do anything mean or disgraceful ; but the oppo- 
 site of right is wrong, and one never knows where a 
 wrong turn may lead. 
 
 When we were children I never saw this. Jack 
 was the best playfellow in the world. If he got me 
 into scrapes, he always knew how to get out of them ; 
 and if not, I was quite content to be in disgrace 
 
MliS. KITTY TREVYLYAN: 6'6 
 
 witli liim ; and if lie liked to lead, I liked quite as 
 much to follow. So I think there never could have 
 been ha^Dpier children than we. What princes could 
 have had a better play-room than the dear old court 
 beliind the house ? with the felled trees, and the 
 ruinous sheds, and the old pigeon turret with the 
 winding stairs, and our dog Trusty, and the cat, and 
 the fowls, and ducks, and pigeons living in the free- 
 dom Betty's love of animals insures to them, going 
 where they like, and doing what is right in their 
 own eyes. It was as good as a fairy tale any day, 
 and better than ^sop's Fables, to watch the stately 
 ways of the cocks, and the system of education pur- 
 sued by the mother-ducks, and the hens, with their 
 tender anxieties; and to see the grand patriarchal 
 airs of Trusty, and the steady, stealthy pursuit of 
 her own interests by the cat. The farm-yard was a 
 world to us. The children who lived long ago in 
 this house, when the three sides of the quadrangle 
 were perfect, and all was stately and complete, never 
 could have loved the old house as we do in its ruins. 
 Then we had the cove by the sea at the end of our 
 valley — the cove with the white and sparkling sand, 
 which the sea filled at every tide, sometimes creeping 
 m quiet ripples, but oftener leaping in in great 
 white waves, far taller than we, and thundering on 
 the shore like kindly giants pretending to intend to 
 swallow us up, only we knew them too well to be 
 afraid. What an enchanted jDlace it was to us. Every 
 day the sea washed us uj) something new, some glit- 
 tering pebble or shell ; and then there was the cave 
 with the white .sand heaped up at the end, and the 
 pool at the entrance, where we made a causeway 
 
84 THE DTARY OF 
 
 " like Alexander the Great at Tyre," Hugh Spencer 
 said. 
 
 For our happiest daj^s were when Hugh Spencer, 
 the vicar's son, came to play with us. He is three 
 years older than I am, and he knew so much history 
 that he was always linking our plays with great men 
 and women who lived, and great things that were 
 done long ago ; so that playing with him always felt 
 like something real and great. And then he had a 
 wonderful history of a man called Robinson Crusoe, 
 written by a Mr. Defoe, of London ; and although 
 Jack did not like the trouble of reading, he was al- 
 ways ready to listen to the wonderful stories of the 
 island, and the cave, and the savages. 
 
 And Hugh always made a kind of queen of me, 
 being the only girl, and seemed to think he could 
 never do enough to save me trouble or to give me 
 pleasure. He cut those nice steps down to the cove 
 for me, that I might climb up easily when the tide 
 was in. And he never would let Jack order me 
 about as he did at other times, although I had no 
 dislike to it. 
 
 I suppose it makes a difference to boys not having 
 sisters of their own. Hugh's only sister died when 
 she was seven years old. One Sunday evening Hugh 
 took me into his father's study, to see her miniature. 
 Such a little, fair, grave face, with large, thoughtful, 
 open eyes — grave and beautiful as an angel's, I 
 thought. It only wanted the wings, to be much 
 more like a cherub than any of the cherubs in 
 church, which the clerk is so proud of having 
 painted with red cheeks and blue wings. 
 
 I suppose the memory of the little sister in heaven 
 
3fIiS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 35 
 
 gives Ilugii that kind of gentleness lie has fdth little 
 girls and women — even with Betty. 
 
 The memory of that little sister and of his mother, 
 who died soon after. He watches 3Iother, and is as 
 reverent to her as if she were a saint — which, indeed, 
 I believe she is. 
 
 It must make everything seem very sacred to have 
 any so very near us in heaven. 
 
 It does seem as if this world were a more sacred 
 place to Hugh Spencer than to most people. He 
 looks so differently on many things. For instance, 
 last Sunday, as we came back from church, Hugh 
 walked with us. As we came near a miner's village 
 which lies in a hollow below the church-path, sounds 
 of wild, drunken revelry came up to us from it. 
 
 Jack said, " The miners seem merry to-night." 
 
 " That dreadful place !" Hugh said softly to me, 
 for we were walking l)ehind the rest. " I cannot 
 sleep sometimes for thinking of it." 
 
 " Why ?" I said. " Betty says they are not poor." 
 
 " No, but they are immortal !" he said ; " and I do 
 not thiak the name of God is known there except 
 in oaths. I saw a dying woman there a few weeks 
 since, and she had never heard of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 ** Do they never come to church ?" I asked. 
 
 " Only at weddings or funerals," he said ; " and if 
 they came, what would the beautiful words be to 
 them, untaught and untrained as they are, but so 
 much music ? You might as well talk to an infant 
 in Greek." 
 
 " The vicar does say a good deal that is like Greek 
 to me," I said (for our vicar is a very learned man, 
 and of course he would not be respected as he is if 
 
36 'VnE DIARY OF 
 
 his thoughts were always level to the con prehension 
 of the congregation). " He knows so much," I 
 added, fearing I had said something disrespectful, 
 '* of course, one cannot always expect to understand. 
 The sermons always make me feel how ignorant I 
 am. It makes one understand, too, how many wise 
 men there have been in the world — Socrates, and 
 Aristotle, and St. John Chrysostom, and so many 
 others whose names I cannot even pronounce — that, 
 altogether, it raises one's mind, and humbles one 
 very much at the same time, only to think how 
 much there is to be known and how little one knows. 
 And then it is such a comfort the lessons are always 
 plain." 
 
 " But there are people who know as little about 
 Christ as you do about Socrates," he replied ; " and 
 I cannot help thinking that if St. John Chrysostonc, 
 or, far better, St. Paul himself had been here, they 
 would have found some way to make the people 
 understand — even such people as those miners." 
 
 It was a new thought to me that the sermon could 
 ever be as i^lain as the Bible ; for Mother never 
 allowed us to discuss anything said or done in 
 church. I was afraid we were on dangerous ground. 
 
 But Hugh pursued his ovm. thoughts, and said, 
 " I am going to Oxford soou, and when I have taken 
 my degree, and learned how the Greeks and Romans 
 used to speak, before I take ordei*s I should like to 
 go to another kind of university, to learn how the pooi 
 fttruggling men and women around us speak and 
 think — to live among the fishermen on our coasts — 
 to go to sea with them — to share their perils and 
 privations —that I might learn how to reach their 
 hearts when I have to preach ; and then to live 
 
MES. KITTY TREYYLYAm 87 
 
 among such as these poor miners — ^to go undergromid 
 with them — to be with their families when the Father 
 is brought home hurt or crushed by some of the 
 many accidents, to speak to them of God and our 
 Saviour — not on Sundays only, and on the smooth 
 days of life, but when their hearts are torn by 
 anxiety, or crushed by bereavement, or softened by 
 sickness or deliverance from recent danger. Men 
 who have hearts to brave death over and over again 
 to maintain wife and children, ought not to be left to 
 die around us as ignorant as the Heathen." 
 
 " But," said I, " you do know all the fishermen and 
 miners in the county, Hugh, as it is. I am sure they 
 all greet you when we meet them, like an old friend ; 
 and I never heard of any clergyman finishing his 
 studies in the mines or among the fishermen." 
 
 " Did you never hear of any sermons preached on 
 the sea-shore to fishermen?" he said, in a low, 
 reverent voice ; "or of any life much of which waa 
 passed among the homes of the poor ? I sometimes 
 think," he continued, " it would be a good rule if 
 every clergyman were obliged to begin by being 
 something else, that he might know what the trials 
 and temptations of ordinary people are ; and that 
 sermons might be more like heart speaking to heart, 
 and less like a dry metallic echo of human voices, 
 once living, but silenced long ago in death." 
 
 I was silent for some time. Hugh's words made 
 me think; but then I thought of Mother, and I 
 said, — 
 
 " Mother never lived in fishermen's huts or among 
 
 miners. For years she has not been strong enough to 
 
 go beyond much the garden, except to church, and 
 
 her youth was spent in my grandfather's quiet par- 
 
 4 
 
88 THE DIARY OF 
 
 souage ; yet she seems always to understand wliat 
 every one feels. People of all kinds pour out their 
 sorrows before her, and she has words of comfort 
 for all." 
 
 *' Yes," replied Hugh, thoughtfully. "Perhaps 
 any kind of trial which makes the heart tender and 
 deep, like your Mother's, opens to it the depths of all 
 other hearts. Perhaps some may learn, like her, to 
 know all men and women simply by knowing Him 
 so well who knows what is in all. But every one can 
 scarcely become like your Mother." 
 
 In the evening, w^hen I went out into the kitchen 
 to toast the bread, Betty said, — 
 
 " What a wonderful fine discourse the parson gave 
 us to-day I It rolled along like the sea." 
 
 " "What was it you liked so much in it, Betty V' I 
 asked. 
 
 " Bless your heart I" said Betty, " do you think 
 I would make so bold as to understand our parson % 
 Why, they do say there is not such another scholar 
 in all the country. But it was a wonderful fine 
 discourse. It rolled along like the waves of the 
 
 Thursday, July the Eleverth. 
 
 To-night, as we were supping, and Hugh Spencer 
 with us, Betty came, in great agitation, into the 
 room, and exclaimed that a Church parson had been 
 mobbed, and all but killed, at Falmouth. 
 
 He had been preaching to the people in the open 
 air, and was staying quietly in Falmouth, when tho 
 mob were exc^^ed against him, and led on by tbo crews 
 of some privateers in the harbor, attacked the house 
 in whicn he was, swearing they would murder the 
 
3£BS. KITTY TREYYLYAN. b^ 
 
 parson. The family fled in terror, leaving Mm alone 
 with one courageous maid-servant. The mob forced 
 the door, filled the passage, and began to batter 
 down the partition of the room in wliich the parson 
 was, roaring out, " Bring one the Canorum ! Where 
 IS the Canorum ?" Kitty, the maid, through whom 
 Betty heard of it, exclaimed, *' Oh, sir, what must 
 we do V He replied, " We must pray." Then she 
 advised him to hide in a closet; but he refused, 
 saying, " It was best for him to sta^ just where he 
 was." But he was as calm as could be, and quietly 
 took down a looking-glass which hung against the 
 wall, that it might not be broken. Just then the 
 privateers'-men, impatient of the slov/ progress of 
 the mob, rushed into the house, put their shoulders 
 to the door, and shouting, " Avast, lads ! avast 1" 
 tore it down and dashed it into the room where the 
 clergyman was. Immediately he stepped forward in 
 their midst, bareheaded, that they might all see his 
 face, and said, " Here I am. Which of you has any- 
 thing to say to me ? To which of you have I done 
 any wrong ? To you ? — or you ? — or you ?" So he 
 continued speakmg until he had passed through the 
 midst of the crowd into the street. There he took 
 his stand, and, raising his voice, said, " Neighbors, 
 countrymen ! do you desire to hear me speak ?" 
 The mob stood hesitating and abashed, and several 
 of them cried vehemently, " Yes, yes ; he shall s^Deak 1 
 — ^he shall ! Nobody shall hinder him !" and two 
 of their ring-leaders turned about and swore, not a 
 man should touch him. Then they conducted him 
 Bately to another house, and soon after he left the 
 town in a boat. 
 " A brave heart the parson must have had, truly," 
 
iO TUE DIARY OF 
 
 laid Father. " I had rather face an army than to be 
 pulled in pieces by a mob. But what did the mob 
 attack him for ?" 
 
 "Because he will preach in the fields, Master,'* 
 said Betty, " and the people will go to hear him, and 
 the parsons won't have it, and the magistrates read 
 the Eiot Act on him the day before." 
 
 " But parsons and privateers'-men do not usually 
 act in concert," said Father, " and the Riot Act seemed 
 more wanted for the mob than for the parson ?" 
 
 " I have heard of them, sir I" said Jack. " Some say 
 this parson has been sent here by the Pretender. The 
 common people go to hear him by thousands, and he 
 speaks to them from a hedge or a door-step, or any 
 place he can find ; and the women cry, and fall into 
 hysterics." 
 
 " Not the women only, Master Jack," interposed 
 Betty. " My brother-in-law, as wild a man as ever 
 you saw, was struck down by them last summer, and 
 he has been like a lamb ever since." 
 
 " What struck him down, Betty ?" said Mother, in 
 a bewildered tone. 
 
 " It is the words they say !" said Betty, — " they are 
 60 wonderful powerful I And they do say that they 
 be mostly Bible words, and the parson is a regular 
 Church parson — ^none of your low-lived Dissenters — 
 and if he comes in our parts, I shall go and hear him." 
 
 " But, Betty, you must take care of what you are 
 about," said Mother. " There are wolves in sheeps' 
 clothing; and I do not understand women going 
 into hysterics and men being struck down. There is 
 nothing like it in the Acts of the Apostles. I hope, 
 indeed, it is no design of the Jesuits." 
 
 But Betty stood her ground. " I am no scholar^ 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAK 41 
 
 Missis," said she ; " but I should like to hear the 
 parson that turned my brother-in-law into a lamb." 
 
 " And I," said Father, " should like to see the man 
 who can quiet a mob in that fashion." 
 
 And I," said Hugh Spencer quietly to me, " should 
 like to hear the sermons which bring people together 
 by thousands." 
 
 I do not know that I should have thought so much 
 about it if our vicar had not preached about it on the 
 next Sunday. 
 
 The things our vicar preaches about seem generally 
 to belong to times so very long ago, that it quite 
 startled us to hear him say that in these days a new 
 heresy had sprung up, headed by most dangerous and 
 fanatical persons calling themselves clergymen of the 
 Church of England. This new sect, he said, styled 
 themselves Methodists, but seditiously set all method 
 and order at defiance. They had set all England and 
 Wales in a flame, and now, he said, they threatened 
 to invade our peaceful parish. He then concluded 
 by a quotation from St. Jerome (I think), likening 
 the heretics of his day to wolves, and jackals, and a 
 great many foreign wild beasts. He gave us a cata- 
 logue of heresies from the fourth century onward, 
 and told us he had now done his part as a faithful 
 shepherd, and we must do ours as valiant soldiers of 
 the Church. 
 
 Betty thought our vicar meant that we should be 
 valiant like the privateers'-men at Falmouth ; but I 
 explained to her what I thought he really meant. 
 
 But in the evening, as I was reading in the Acts of 
 the Apostles how the magistrates and the mob seemed 
 to agree in attacldng the Apostles ; and about the 
 riot at Ephesus and the calmness of St. Paul, I won- 
 
42 MRS, KITTY TREVYLYAIT. 
 
 dered if the Apostle looked and spoke at all like tliat 
 brave clergyman at Falmouth. 
 
 And my dreams that night were a strange mixture 
 of that old riot at Ephesus, and this new riot at Fal 
 mouth, and Foxe's " Book of Martyrs." 
 
 Hugh says the clergyman's name is the Reverend 
 John Wesley, and that he is a real clergyman, and 
 fellow of a college at Oxford, 
 
II. 
 
 /^J^ 0-DAY a letter came from Aunt Henderson to 
 \« ) ^^^^^^5 inviting him and me to pay a visit to 
 them and Aunt Beauchamp in London. She 
 said it would be a pity to let slip this opportunity, 
 it was time I should be learning something of the 
 world ; and Aunt Beauchamp, who was staying at 
 Bath for the waters, would fetch me in her coach from 
 Bristol, if we could get as far as that. 
 
 Father would not hear of going himself, saying he 
 had seen enough of the world, and had done with it ; 
 but he was very earnest that I should go. He said I 
 ought not to mope my life away in this comer. 
 
 Mother turned rather pale, and spoke of the perils 
 of the world for such a child as me. 
 
 But Father would not heed her ; he has found a 
 ehip about to sail from Falmouth to Bristol, and he 
 himself will accompany me thus far. So all is settled, 
 and Mother says no doubt it is best. 'T were a pity 
 my mind should grow narrow, and I should come to 
 think our little world was all. But to the primrose 
 in the wood her world is not narrow ; she sees as far 
 around her as the rose in the King's Garden, and looks 
 up all day through the fretted windows of her count- 
 less green leaves to the sun, and at night beyond the 
 sun, into God's World of countless stars. 
 
44 THE DIARY OF 
 
 I do uot see how our world can be wider than just 
 80 far along the path God makes for us as He clears 
 the way for us to see. And I do not see that it need 
 be wider than home and heaven. 
 
 Father and Jack say it shows how much I need a 
 change, that I am so unnatural as not to wish to go. 
 And mother is busy all day ransacking her stores for 
 remnants of old finery to asck me withal. So I sup- 
 pose it is just tTbejpatJi for me, and I must go. 
 
 Sunday Evbnino. 
 
 Mr box is packed, all but the comer into which I 
 must squeeze my diary, if it were only for the precious 
 words at the end in Mother's handwriting. 
 
 I am glad, now it is settled, that it is so near. I 
 cannot bear to meet Mother's eyes, and see her try to 
 smile as she turns them away, and feel how long they 
 have been resting on me. 
 
 And I cannot bear to see Trusty watch me in that 
 wistful way and hammer his tail on the floor, when- 
 ever I look at him. The poor beast knows so well I 
 am going away, and I cannot tell him why, or how 
 Boon I shall be back again. And I know to-morrow 
 evening he will come snuffing about all my things, 
 and up to the empty chair where I sit, and then go 
 to Mother and sit down gravely before her and whine, 
 and feel as if I had foi*saken him and done his faith- 
 ful heart a wrong. And no one will be able to ex- 
 plain it to him. 
 
 Oh, I wish I were back again, or that things need 
 never change 1 
 
 A terrible thought came to me to-night as we were 
 all sitting quiet in the great hall window, after wp 
 had sung the evening hymn. 
 
MBS. KITTY TBEVYLTAK 45 
 
 I thouglit how wliat made me dread this parting 
 is only because it is a faint imcertain shadow of the 
 dreadful certain changes that must, must come ; and 
 that every day of these happy unvarying days we are 
 goiag on, hand in hand, and heart in heart, on and 
 on, always, always to the point where our hands must 
 be unclasped. 
 
 ■ Partings are terrible because they are the fore- 
 shadowings of death. 
 
 But life, life itself, joyous growing life itself, is 
 leading us on to death ! 
 
 These vague yearnings and regrets, and presenti- 
 ments of evils which perhaps do not come — ^they are 
 not vague, they are not delusive ; they are indeed but 
 shadows, but echoes ; but they are shadows from the 
 valley of the shadows, which is the one only certainty 
 life brings us ; they are echoes of farewells which 
 must be said at last — and not answered I 
 
 Mother came in as I had finished these words, and 
 brought me some little bags of lavender she had just 
 finished to lay in my linen. She saw I had been cry- 
 ing, and bade me go to bed at once, and finish my 
 packing in the morning. 
 
 Then she knelt down with me by the bedside, as 
 she used when I was a little child, acd said the 
 Lord's Prayer aloud with me, and saw me safely into 
 bed, and tucked me in as v>^hen I wis a little child, 
 and kissed me, and wished me good night in her 
 own sweet, quiet voice. 
 
 But when she went away I cried, and almost 
 wished she had not come. 
 
 All the days and nights I am away from her shall 
 I not feel like a child left alone in the dark ? 
 
 But then came on me the echo of her voice saying, 
 
46 THE DIARY or 
 
 " Our Father which art in heaven," and if I can keep 
 that in my heart, I cannot feel like a child alone in 
 the dark. 
 
 I suppose that is why our dear Saviour taught it 
 to us, and not only taught it us, but said it with us, 
 tliat we might feel, as it were. His hand in ours when 
 we say it, and so be wrapped all around with love. 
 
 Hackney, May the Twentieth. 
 
 It has happened as Mother said. The first few 
 days were dreadful. I felt like a ghost in another 
 world, — I mean a kind of heathen ghost in a world 
 of shadows it did not belong to. 
 
 But now the world begins to look real to me 
 again, especially as eight days of my absence are 
 really over, and I am all that truly and surely nearer 
 home. 
 
 Mother stood like a white statue at the door when 
 I rode away on the pillion behind Father; Jack 
 laughed and made jests, partly to cheer me up, and 
 partly to show himself a man ; Betty hoped I should 
 come back safe again, and find them all alive, " but 
 no one ever knew ;" and then she cried, and her veiy 
 dismal forebodings and her honest tears were, some- 
 how or other, the most comforting thing that hap- 
 pened to me that morning ; for Betty's tears opened 
 the flood-gates for mine, and then her forebodings 
 roused my spirit to find refuge against them ; and 
 the only refuge I could find was to fly from all the 
 uncertainty straight to Him with whom all is life and 
 certainty ; to fly from circumstances to God himself, 
 and say, — " Thou knowefct. Thou carest. Keep 
 them and me." 
 
 And then I became calm, and could even t«lk to 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 47 
 
 Father as we rode along, and tliink of the last re- 
 quests I wanted to make for the animals and the 
 flowers, which had to be cared for wliile I was gone. 
 Hugh Spencer met us on the shore, and helped us 
 on board with my trunk. I do not remember that 
 he said anything particular to cheer me, but I felt 
 better for seeing him. And I begged him to go and 
 see Mother often. And it comforts me to tliink 
 he will, until next month, when he is going to Ox- 
 ^ ford. 
 
 It was fortunate for me that there was a poor sick 
 woman on board who had a little child, which, as 
 she was too ill to notice it, fell to me to take care of; 
 because it made me feel that God had not left this 
 piece of my life out of his care, but would find some- 
 thing for me to do. And, besides, tlie pleasure of 
 little children always makes one happy in spite of 
 one's self. 
 
 When we landed at Bristol it was in a small degree 
 like lea^dng home again. The little child clung 
 around me so lovingly, and the poor woman was so 
 grateful. She said she could never thank me enough 
 for beiug so condescending. 
 
 She took me for a great lady. That must have 
 been because of Father's looks. It did make me 
 proud to see how noble he looked in his plain old 
 suit of clothes. Every one knew he was a *'born 
 gentleman ;" and when cousins met us in their vel- 
 vets, and laced suits, and hats, I thought he looked 
 like a prince in disguise among them. 
 
 It is worth while coming into the world a little, if 
 only to learn what Father is. 
 
 And cousins felt it too. One of the first things 
 
48 TEE DIARY OF 
 
 Cousin Harry said to me when we were all in the 
 coach on our way to London was, — 
 
 "Your father looks like an old general, Kitty, 
 One would Lever think he had been rusticating for a 
 quarter of a century among the Cornish boors." 
 
 " Captain Trevylyan could not fail to look like a 
 gentleman and a soldier," said his father. Sir John 
 Beauchamp. 
 
 I like Sir John's manners far better than Cousin 
 Harry's. He is so grave and courteous, and attends 
 to all I say as if I were a princess, in the old cavalier 
 manner Father speaks of; and never swears unless he 
 is very angry with the groom, or the coachman. 
 But Harry spices his conversation with all kinds of 
 scarcely disguised oaths, and interrupts not me onl^f 
 but his mother and Cousin Evelyn, and is as free and 
 easy as if he had known me all my life. 
 
 Yet I think he is good-natured, for once when I 
 colored at some words he used, he was quite careful 
 for an hour or two. Cousin Evelyn and he had most 
 of the conversation to themselves, although Evelyn 
 was not very talkative. Frequently when I looked 
 at her I found her large dark eyes resting on me, as 
 if she were reading me like a book. Aunt Beau- 
 champ was busied among her furs and perfumes, and 
 seemed every now and then on the point of going 
 into hysterics when the horses dashed round a comer 
 into a village, or the carriage jolted on the rutty 
 road. 
 
 In one place not far from Bristol she was very 
 much frightened. We had to stop while way was 
 made for us through the outskirts of a large mob 
 who were collected to hear a great preacher called 
 Whitclield. Uncle Beauchamp says he is a wild 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAN-. 49 
 
 fanatic, and that the magistrates were not worth 
 their salt if they could not i)ut such fellows down. 
 Aunt Beauchamp said we might as well travel through 
 some barbarous country as be stopped in the King's 
 highroad by a quantity of dirty colliers, who made 
 the air not fit to breathe. 
 
 But as we waited I could not help noticing how 
 very orderly the people were. Thousands and thou- 
 sands all hanging on the words of one man, and so 
 quiet you could hear your own breathing ! All quite 
 quiet, except that as I listened I could hear repressed 
 sobs from some, both men and women, and I saw 
 tears making white channels down many of the sooty 
 faces. 
 
 And the preacher had such a clear wonderful voice. 
 He seemed to speak Tvithout effort. His whole body, 
 indeed, not only his tongue, seemed moved by the 
 passion in him, but the mighty musical voice itself 
 flowed easily as if in familiar conversation, and the 
 fine deep tones were as distinct on the outskirts of 
 the crowd where we stood as if he had been whis- 
 pering in one's ear. He looked like a clergyman, and 
 the words I heard were very good. He was speak- 
 ing of the great love of God to us all, and of the 
 great sufferings of our Lord for us all. 
 
 I should have liked to stay and listen with the 
 colliers. I never heard music like that voice ; yet 
 the words were more than the voice; and oh, the 
 reality is more than the words ! It made me feel 
 more at home than any words since Mother's last 
 prayer with me ; and I should like Hugh Spencer to 
 have been there. 
 
 Uncle Beauchamp asked me soon after we had 
 gone on, what made me look so thoughtful. 
 6 
 
50 THE DIARY OF 
 
 I said I was wondering if these were like the 
 people they called Methodists in Cornwall, who came 
 together in thousands to hear a clergyman called 
 Wesley preach. 
 
 "Are they there too?" said Uncle Beauchamp, 
 " Confound the fellow^s, they are like locusts. The 
 land is full of them, but if ever they set their feet 
 near Beauchamp Manor, I shall know how to give 
 them their deserts !" 
 
 " They have met their deserts in more places than 
 one, sir," said Harry ; and he proceeded to relate a 
 number of anecdotes of Methodist preachers being 
 mobbed, and beaten, and dragged through horse- 
 ponds ; which seemed to amuse him very much. 
 
 But they made me think again of Foxe's " Book 
 of Martyrs." 
 
 Suddenly Cousin Harry paused, and said, — 
 
 "Cousin Kitty looks as grave as if she were a 
 Methodist herself; and as fierce as if she could imi- 
 tate the Methodist woman who once knocked down 
 three men in defence of a preacher they were beat- 
 ing." 
 
 " I cannot see any fun in hundreds of men setting 
 on one and ill-using him," I said. 
 
 " Well said, little Englishwoman," interposed Uncle 
 Beauchamp. " I have no doubt if she did not 
 knock the assailants down, she would have picked 
 the preacher up and dressed his wounds, in face of 
 any mob." 
 
 " I hope I should, Uncle," I said. 
 
 And since that. Uncle Beauchamp generally calls 
 me his little Samaritan. 
 
 But Aunt Beauchamp checked the further progress 
 of the conversation by languidly observing that she 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAJ^. 51 
 
 thought we had been occupied long enough with 
 colliers, and mobs, and Methodists, and all kinds of 
 unwashed people. 
 
 *' John Wesley is certainly not that," said Harry. 
 " He looks as neat and prim as a court chaplain." 
 
 " Is the fellow a dandy too ?" exclaimed Uncle 
 Beauchamp, — "more contemptible even than I 
 thought." 
 
 " Dandy or not," said Harry, combatively, " I have 
 heard he is a gentleman." 
 
 "At all events he is not a dandy of Harry's 
 school," said my Cousin Evelyn, " whose highest style 
 is that of a groom unwashed from the stable." 
 
 Thus the discourse glided off to the subject of 
 dress, which proved to be inexhaustible, and my 
 russet travelling suit did not fail to come in for much 
 good-humored ridicule, although Mother had Miss 
 Pawsey the milliner, express from Truro, to make it, 
 and she comes up to London at least once in three 
 years to learn the fashions. 
 
 It was three days before we reached London. And 
 then I was not so much surprised with it as my 
 cousLQS wished. 
 
 The streets were certainly wider, and the houses 
 higher, and the shops grander, and I saw more sedan- 
 chairs, coaches, and magnificent footmen in an hour 
 than I had seen in all my life before. But that 
 seemed to me all the difference. The things man 
 makes seem to me, after all, so very much alike, 
 only a little larger or smaller, or a little richer or 
 poorer. 
 
 The great wonder is the people, and that is quite 
 bewildering. Because the stream never ceases flow- 
 ing, any more than the river or the sea at home. 
 
52 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 I wonder if it is like the river, or like the sea ; I 
 mean, if it is really the flowing on of the river, the 
 stream always the same, and the drops always dif- 
 ferent ; or if it is more like the waves beating on the 
 shore, the waves always different, but the water 
 always the same, heaving, tossing, struggling, beaten 
 back, pressing on again, and again, and again. 
 
 I think it is more like the sea. 
 
 And so many of the faces look so white and wan 
 and defeated, as if the people had been tossed and 
 broken and beaten back so very often. Only God 
 will not let his human creatures struggle and be 
 tossed about and baffled for nothing. I am quite 
 sure of that. 
 
 What a blessing is it that the things we are dim 
 and doubtful about are only the things half way up, 
 and that at the very top of all, all is perfectly clear 
 and radiantly bright I 
 
 For God our Father is there ; and His Son the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who is also the Son of man, is 
 there ; and God is love. 
 
 Yes, at the top of this mountain of the world are 
 not cold snows and empty space, but heaven and 
 God. And when we are there too, every thing will 
 be clear to us, as it is to Him. 
 
 And meantine. Thou Thyself, O Blessed Saviour, 
 art with us here ; and Thou, who lovcst each of us 
 more than our dearest friend, more than Mother 
 loves me, and knowest all things, and knowest God, 
 art satisfied that all is right. 
 
 And I am satisfied too. 
 
 Only I wish the preacher I heard near Bristol, 
 Mr. Whitefield, could speak to these poor London 
 crowds. I think he might comfort them. Perhaps 
 
JfliS. KITTY TBEVYLYAir, 5b 
 
 he Tias spoken to them, and has helped those who 
 would listen. 
 
 Hackney, near London. 
 
 The place Aunt and Uncle Henderson live in is 
 called Hackney. I had no idea a merchant's house 
 could be as pretty as this is. Father always spokG 
 of his sister Henderson as " Poor Patience," implying 
 that she had lowered herself irremediably by marry- 
 ing a "tradesman." But I find that Aunt Henderson 
 as commonly speaks of Father as " my poor brother," 
 apparently regarding Cornwall as a kind of vault 
 above ground, in which we led a ghostly existence, 
 not strictly to be called life. 
 
 And indeed as to what are called riches, handsome 
 furniture and costly clothes. Aunt Henderson is 
 certainly right. 
 
 God's riches, of which the Bible says the earth is 
 full, overflowing from heaven as from a fountain 
 over-full, are of course hers as well as ours, if she 
 would look, so that they do not count in the com- 
 parison. 
 
 It is very strange to me the idea some of the 
 people in London seem to have, as if the rest of the 
 world were a kind of obscure outskirts of this great 
 town. 
 
 Aunt Beauchamp and my cousins seemed in a 
 polite way quite grateful that I did not eat with my 
 fingers, or talk like a ploughboy. They condescended 
 to wonder that I had such a pretty manner, con- 
 sidering that I had seen none of " the world." 
 
 And Aunt Henderson, I believe, is sincerely thank- 
 ful that I have not a hump, or long ears, or any othei 
 
04 THE DIARY OF 
 
 appendage that might be expected in a human being 
 bom out of " town." 
 
 But since London is not the City of the Great 
 King nor even the centre of the earth, perhaps the 
 wonder is not so great after all. 
 
 There is a nice large garden behind the house, and 
 and my bedroom looks over it across a long reach of 
 marshy ground to a range of blue hills which look 
 wavy like our moors. I feel sure there must be furze 
 and heather there, and a kind of longing has pos- 
 sessed me every morning to feel my feet on the turf 
 again, and smell the flowers. One morning I rose 
 early to walk to them. But as I was leaving the 
 garden. Uncle Henderson came down in his night-cap 
 and Indian dressing-gown, quite breathless with 
 hurry, and said, — 
 
 " Child, where are you going at this time of 
 day ?" 
 
 " I am going to those hills. Uncle," I said. " They 
 look like the hills at home. I am used to long 
 walks, and I think I can be back by breakfast-time." 
 
 He looked at me with a kind of compassionate 
 kindness, as one would on a half-witted person, and 
 taking my hand led me back to the house. 
 
 At breakfast Aunt Henderson told me never to 
 venture alone outside the garden walls. " And as 
 for Hampstead," she said, " neither your Uncle nor I 
 nor any respectable citizens like to be seen there, 
 since they have set up that wicked place at Belsize, 
 where they meet to dance and gamble. Besides, the 
 roads are infested with highwaymen. Child, I trem- 
 ble to think what would have become of you." 
 
 To comfort me Uncle Henderson took me iu form 
 
MES. KITTY TREVYLYAN-, 55 
 
 round the garden after breakfast, and showed me a 
 great many young, new, spiky little trees, which he 
 said had come from all kinds of places I never heard 
 of, and one of which he said was the only one in 
 England. 
 
 After that I could not help looking with respect 
 and even a kind of tender interest on the puny ban- 
 ished trees, although it was impossible for me quite 
 to agree with my aunt, who said she did not see how 
 any person, with a well-regulated mind could ever 
 desire to wander beyond such a garden as Uncle 
 Henderson's. 
 
 Before now I have always said my morning prayers 
 looking towards those blue hills. Which way shall 
 I look now ? I can look straight up to the sky ; for 
 my other vnndow looks towards London, with its 
 smoke and its dull world of houses, and its sea of 
 people. 
 
 Yet perhaps that is the best way to turn my prayers, 
 after all. For the Bible says, God looks on the earth 
 " to behold the children of men." After all, the hills 
 are only perishable dust, and in the city are the im- 
 perishable souls. 
 
 It is those poor wan men and women who were 
 made in the image of God, not this beautiful earth. 
 
 And perhaps even the stars themselves are only 
 perishable dust compared vrith the men and women 
 toiling and struggling in that great city. 
 
 If there is one heart suffering there, surely our 
 Saviour cares more for it than for all the things in 
 the world ; and I am afraid there must be so many I 
 
 And if there is one heart praying there — and surely 
 there arc thousands — that heart is nearer God and 
 more sacred than the highest star. 
 
56 THE DIARY OF 
 
 I wonder if God meant me to come to London 
 partly to learn tliat. 
 
 The sea and the hills and the skies are so glorious. 
 But God cares more for any poor, fallen, suffeiing, 
 human creature than for all the skies and hills and 
 seas together. Hugh Spencer has often said so. 
 
 But I never felt it so much as now, since I heard 
 the preacher near Bristol, bringing tears do\NTi those 
 rough black faces, just with speaking to them about 
 God and our Saviour. 
 
 Uncle Henderson is a Dissenter. 
 
 Mother warned me a little against this. But I find 
 they have their own good books, just as we have, al- 
 though they are not the same. 
 
 Quite a different set of names there are on the 
 book-shelves in the best parlor ; Baxter and Howe, 
 and Owen, and a number of tall, old books, bound in 
 calf, which do not look much read, and which seemed 
 to me to go on very much the same from page to 
 page, with very long paragraphs. 
 
 It must be out of one of these books, I think, Uncle 
 Henderson reads the sermons on Sunday evenings, 
 because it seems to go round and round just like that 
 without getting on; so that no one never knows 
 when the end is coming, which I think is a pity. It 
 is so much easier to bear anything patiently if one can 
 only see the end, although it may be ever so far off. 
 
 Some of the books, however, seem to me as good 
 as Bishop Taylor, and easier to understand, especially 
 *' The Saint's Rest," by Mr. Baxter, and a small book 
 called " The Redeemer's Tears over Lost Souls," by 
 Mr. Howe. 
 
 There are also some new hymns, some of which are 
 
MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 57 
 
 delightful, composed by Dr. Watts and by Dr. Dod- 
 dridge. 
 
 I do not think Mother knows anything of all these 
 good people. She will be pleased when I tell her. 
 It is so pleasant to think how many more good books 
 and men there are and have been in the world than 
 we knew of. 
 
 Uncle Henderson, however, does not seem at all 
 pleased with Mother's good books. When he asked 
 me one day what we read at home on the Sabbath, 
 and I told him (although Mother does not read her 
 religious books only on Sunday), he shook his head 
 very gravely at Bishop Taylor, and said he was very 
 much in the dark, quite an Arminian, indeed, if not 
 a Pelagian, besides his natural short-comings in com- 
 mon with all Prelatists. 
 
 Then I said that Mother's principal good book was 
 the Bible, and that I liked it much the best of all. 
 
 And Uncle and Aunt Henderson both said, — 
 
 " Of course, my dear, no one disputes that." 
 
 Uncle Henderson always calls Sunday "the Sab 
 bath." I daresay it is just as right a name. But I 
 do not like it so much. It sounds like the end instead 
 ^rf the beginning. The Lord's Day is the first day of 
 the week now, not the last, as in the old Jewish times, 
 and I cannot at all see that Sunday is a " Heathen 
 name," as Uncle Henderson says. Because, certainly, 
 the sun is nrt heathen, and I like to think of Sunday 
 as a Idnd of sunrise and dawn among the days. 
 
 Neither do I like the service in Uncle Henderson's 
 chapel very much. 
 
 At home the sermon was very often beyond my un- 
 derstanding, but then there were always the prayers, 
 and the psalms, and the lessons. But here th^ prayer 
 
58 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 seems as difficult as the sermon, and is nearly as long, 
 and all in one piece without break. And when it is 
 done I feel as if I had been only hearing about sacred 
 things instead of speaking to God (although, of 
 course, that is my own fault). The minister does 
 not preach about Socrates and St. Jerome, like our 
 vicar ; but somehow or other, when he speaks about 
 God and the Lord Jesus Christ, it seems just the same 
 ai if they had lived in the past, and made decrees and 
 done great things a long time ago. 
 
 But I do not think the people generally like it 
 much more than I do. They seem so very glad to 
 go. They rise the moment the blessing is finished 
 (there is a rustling of silks and a settling of dresses 
 long before), put on their hats, and seem to try which 
 can get out first. 
 
 Uncle Henderson says they put on their hats to 
 show that we must have no superstitious reverence 
 for places. 
 
 The sermons are very long. Last Sunday there 
 were five-and-twenty heads. And each head was 
 nearly as long as our vicar's Christmas Day sermon, 
 which certainly is always rather short on account of 
 the puddings. 
 
 And the people do not look interested. They are 
 all, however, very handsomely dressed. Aunt Hen- 
 derson says she has counted five coaches at the 
 door; almost as many, she says, as there are at 
 the church Lady Beauchamp attends at the West 
 End. 
 
 I suppose the poor go somewhere else. I should 
 like to know where. 
 
 Uncle Henderson says this was quite a celebrated 
 chapel Jn the days of the old Puritans. The minister 
 
3IRS. KITTY TREVYLYAX. 69 
 
 used to preach in it, and the people to come to it, at 
 the risk of their lives, or at the least of having their 
 ears slit, and being beggared by fines. 
 
 I should like to have seen the congregation then. 
 Probably none of them went to sleep. I suppose the 
 poor came there then ; and the coaches went some 
 where else. 
 
 On our way home from the chapel to-day I saw 
 where the poor people go. 
 
 It was in a great open space called Mooi-fields. 
 Thousands of dirty ragged men and women were 
 standing listening to a preacher in a clergyman's 
 gown. We were obliged to stop while the crowd 
 made way for us. At first I thought it must be the 
 same I heard near Bristol, but when we came nearer 
 I saw it was quite a different looking man ; a small 
 man, rather thin, with the neatest wig, fine sharply 
 cut features, a mouth firm enough for a general, and 
 a bright steady eye which seemed to command the 
 crowd. Uncle Henderson said, — 
 
 " It is John Wesley." 
 
 His manner was very calm, not impassioned like 
 Mr. Whitefield's; but the people seemed quite as 
 much moved. 
 
 Mr. Whitefield looked as if he were pleading with 
 the people to escape from a danger he saw but they 
 could not, and would draw them to heaven in spite 
 of themselves. Mr. Wesley did not appear so much 
 to plead as to speak with authority. Mr. Whitefield 
 seemed to throw his whole soul into the peril of his 
 hearers. Mr. Wesley seemed to rest with his whole 
 soul on the truth he spoke, and by the force of his 
 own calm conviction to make every one feel that 
 
6(r THE DIARY OF 
 
 what lie said was true. If his hearers were moved, 
 it was not with the passion of the preacher ; it was 
 with the bare reality of the things he said. 
 
 But they were moved indeed. No wandering eye 
 was there. Many were weeping, some were sobbiag 
 as if their hearts would break, and many more were 
 gazing as if they would not weep, nor stir, nor 
 breathe, lest they should lose a word. 
 
 I wanted so much to stay and listen. But Uncle 
 Henderson insisted on driving on. 
 
 " The good man means well, no doubt," he said, 
 "but he is an Arminian. He has even published 
 most dangerous, not to say blasphemous, things 
 against the immutable divine decrees." 
 
 And Aunt Henderson said, — 
 
 " It might be all very well for wretched outcasts 
 such as those who were listening, but we, she tmsted, 
 who attended all the means of grace, had no need of 
 such wild preaching." 
 
 But he was not speaking of the immutable decrees 
 to-day, nor of anything else that happened long ago. 
 He was speaking of the living God, and of the liv- 
 ing and the dying soul, of the Saviour dying for 
 lost sinners, of the Shepherd seeking the lost sheep. 
 
 And I am so glad, so very glad, the lost sheep 
 were there to hear. 
 
 Because in Uncle Henderson's chapel it seems to 
 me there are only the found sheep, or those who 
 think they are found ; and they do not, of coui*se, 
 want the good news nearly so much, nor, perhaps 
 on that account, do they seem to care so much 
 about it. 
 
 I wonder if the Pharisees, when they said our 
 Lord was beside himself, thought His parables 
 
MES. KITTY TRKVYLYAm 61 
 
 miglit nevertlieless be of some use to those wlio 
 did not (as they did) "attend all the means of 
 grace." 
 
 I have found a friend. 
 
 At the end of Uncle Henderson's garden he has 
 fitted up a little house where an aged aunt of his 
 lives with one servant to take care of her. Every 
 one calls her Aunt Jeanie. 
 
 She is a widow more than seventy years of age. 
 Her husband was killed when she and he w^ere quite 
 young, which is perhaps one reason why her heart 
 seems to have kept so fresh and young. He was 
 killed by King James' soldiers who were sent to dis- 
 perse a congregation of poor people to whom he was 
 preaching in the open air on the Scotch hills, just, I 
 suppose, as Mr. Whitefield and Mr. Wesley preach to 
 tne poor people now. 
 
 But Aunt Jeanie does not seem to have a bitter 
 thought about it. "How should she," she says, 
 " now that the sorrow is so nearly over ?" At first, 
 indeed, she did feel bitter ; but what is the use of 
 God sending us aflliction unless it takes the bitter- 
 ness out of us ? And now the years of separation 
 are so nearly over, and her Archie, who has all these 
 years been growing like her Lord, will be waiting to 
 welcome her home. 
 
 " But then," I said one day, " it would have been 
 sweeter to be prepared on earth together. A year in 
 heaven must make any one so far beyond us on earth ; 
 we could hardly understand each other." 
 
 " My poor bairn, what thought have you then of 
 the holiness of the saints ? It is the pride, lassie, 
 that separates us from one another, not the goodness. 
 
62 THE DTARY OF ' 
 
 I know well the greatest saint in heaven would bo 
 easier to speak to than many a poor sinner on earth. 
 Have you forgotten the Lord himself, and how he let 
 the sinful woman kiss his feet ?!' 
 
 Aunt Jeanie always calls me either my bairn or 
 lassie. I cannot, of course, write down her Scotch, 
 l)ut it has an unspeakable charm to me. Her voice 
 has a tender cadence in it I never heard in any Eng- 
 lish voice. It touches me like an echo of some voice 
 dear and familiar long ago. 
 
 She has beautiful histories to tell me of good 
 people. She has known so many. Best of all I like 
 to hear her speak of the family of Mr. Philip Henry 
 of Broad Oak in Flintshire. The farm-house plenty 
 and homeliness about the life, blended with such 
 learning and piety, seem to me so very beautiful. 
 
 The family prayers in the great farm-house kitchen ; 
 the brother and four sisters all growing up in the 
 double sunshine of the love of God and of their 
 parents; the father in his study, or preaching, or 
 visiting the prisoners or the sick ; the mother, like 
 the woman in the Proverbs, rising while it is yet 
 night, " giving meat to her household, and a portion 
 to her maidens," stretching out her hands to the 
 poor, yea, reaching out her hands to the needy ; — it 
 all seemed as simple and sacred and happy as a bit 
 of the Bible. 
 
 Then old Mr. Henry had such good sayings. 
 *' Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of 
 the night," is one which I have written at the end of 
 Mother's words from the " Golden Grove." 
 
 Yet this holy family were all Presbyterians. 
 
 Aunt Jeanie does not know much of Mother's 
 good books any more than Uncle Henderson, but she 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 6U 
 
 does not shake her head when I speak of them. She 
 says,— 
 
 " There is no saying the strange ways by which 
 people may get to heaven, if only they love the Lord 
 Jesus Christ and try according to their light to fol- 
 low him. Was there not actually an English minister, 
 calling himself Archbishop of Glasgow, in the worst 
 days of the Prelatists, who wrote a book on the 
 Epistles of St. Peter, than which John Knox himself 
 could not have written a better ?" 
 
 So whenever I am more than usually wearied or 
 perplexed by anything in Uncle Henderson or his 
 chapel, I creep out to Aunt Jeanie, and she puts me 
 all right again. 
 
 Sometimes she smiles drily, and says, " I am doubt- 
 less a wise bairn, as wise as the man in the 8j^edator 
 who turned the ' Whole Duty of Man ' into a book 
 of libels, by writing his neighbor's name opposite 
 each particular sin." Sometimes she smiles tenderly, 
 and says, I am a poor bewildered lamb, and fears 
 "the wilderness is rougher and drier than usual just 
 now for the little ones, since it perplexes even those 
 who have been toiling long ; but the Good Shep- 
 herd," she adds, " doubtless knows the way, and will 
 guide His own all the more tenderly because it is 
 difficult." 
 
 Yet Aunt Jeanie is a Presbyterian and I think a 
 Puritan^ as much as Uncle Henderson (the things of 
 all others Father hates) ; and indeed I think she is 
 worse. Her husband at least was a Covenanter ; and 
 whatever that means, I know it is something exceed- 
 ingly dangerous, because I remember our vicar, speak- 
 ing of it when he was congratulating us on living in 
 such a Christian country, spoke of the " seditioua 
 
84 THE DIARY OF 
 
 canting Covenanters" as the lowest depth of tne 
 degradation to which Presbyterians had reduced 
 Scotland. 
 
 Dead Puritanism seems to me a very terrible thing. 
 There is just the death without the balms or the 
 spices, or the beautiful sepulchre. Yet perhaps it is 
 as well dead religions should look dead, that people 
 may know it all the ^oon^f and seek for life where it 
 is to be found. 
 
 But how beautiful Christian life seems in any form, 
 and how much alike, whether in Mother or Aunt 
 Jeanie 1 Alike in being life^ and yet how delightfully 
 unlike in each I 
 
 Cousin Tom Henderson has come home. He has 
 not Cousin Harry Beauchamp's free and easy man- 
 ners. He seemed at first very shy and awkward, but 
 now he is getting used to me and I to him ; we are 
 quite friends, and his large questioning eyes which at 
 first gleamed so susi^iciously from under his shaggy 
 eyebrows now meet mine quite confidingly. 
 
 To-day, as we walked in the garden after the ser- 
 vice in the chapel, he said to me, — 
 
 " Cousin Kitty, could you ever remember the 
 TteadsV' 
 
 " Our sermons never had any heads," I said, "they 
 were all in one piece." 
 
 "Then I suppose you did not mind going to 
 chapel ?" he said. 
 
 " I always liked going to church," I said. 
 
 •♦ Why did you like it ?" he asked. 
 
 " Mother liked it so much," I said, " and then it 
 wa% Sunday, and something diflferent, something bet- 
 ter and more than any other day, and the cornfields 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAN, 65 
 
 never seemed to look so golden, or the sea so bright 
 as when I walked to church with Mother's hand in 
 mine. And coming home she let me gather a nose- 
 gay of wild flowers, and they and all the world 
 always seemed fresh and clean as if they had a kind 
 of Sunday clothes on like the rest of us. That was 
 when I was a child, and now I like Sunday and going 
 to church for a thousand reasons." 
 
 " Were you allowed to gather flowers on Sunday ?" 
 said Tom. " Did Sunday seem something letter and 
 MOKE to you ? It was always something less to me. 
 I was not allowed to read the books I liked, or do 
 the things I liked. Certainly such a walk to church, 
 and a sermon without heads would have made a dif- 
 ference. But then nurse always said it was no won- 
 der I did not like the Sabbath, because I was not 
 convei-ted. Cousin Kitty," he added abruptly, look- 
 ing earnestly in my face, " are you converted ?" 
 
 The question startled me very much, and I did not 
 know what answer to give. 
 
 " Because," said Tom, " you know God does not 
 love any one who is not converted." 
 
 " I am sure God loves me, Tom," I said, " if that is 
 what you mean. How could I be so wicked as to 
 doubt it for an instant, when He has done me nothing 
 but good all my life long, and has forgiven me so 
 many wrong things that I have said and done, and 
 has bome with me so gently, and shown me my sins, 
 and helped me against them whenever I have really 
 asked Him ?" 
 
 ''But all that is nothing, they say," said Tom 
 " unless you are converted, and you know you cannot 
 Always have been converted. No one is." 
 
 " But then there is the Cross, Tom," I said. " There 
 6* 
 
00 THE DIARY OF 
 
 is the Cross I How can I doubt that God loves me 
 when I think of the Cross ?" 
 
 " But they say the Cross will sink us lower in hell 
 than anything else unless we are converted," said 
 Tom. Then seeing me begin to cry, for I could not 
 help it, he added in a gentle tone, — 
 
 " Do not cry. Cousin Kitty. Perhaps you are con- 
 verted ; you attend the Lord's Supper, do you not ? 
 so perhaps you are. It does seem as if God had been 
 very good to ymi,'''' 
 
 There was something so sad and bitter in the em- 
 phasis which he gave to that " you," that I forgot my 
 own perplexities altogether in pity for him, and I 
 said, — 
 
 " Cousin Tom, God is good to every one. The 
 Bible says so. He is good to every one because He is 
 good, not because we are good. I cannot tell about 
 being converted, but I am sure of that." 
 
 But at night when I was alone in my room, and 
 opened my Bible, and knelt down by it, and made it 
 all into a prayer, it all seemed to become clear to me. 
 
 Our Lord does certainly say, " Except ye be con- 
 verted, and become as little children^ ye shall not en- 
 ter into the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 He said it to the disciples when they were debating 
 who should be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 To the poor wandering multitudes he said not, 
 " Be converted," but " Come unto MeP 
 
 Then it came into my heart. 
 
 " Lord, I do come unto thee. I have come before. 
 But I come again now — to thee, to thee. I turn to 
 thee, I would not turn from thee for the world. Is 
 that to be converted ? See, I am at thy feet ; and if 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVTLYAN. 67 
 
 no% see, lam at tliyfeet^ and thou wilt surely do the 
 rest, since thou knowest what I want, if I do not. 
 Lord, I am a little child — thou knowest I am helpless, 
 weak, unable to lead myself. Heavenly Father, I am 
 a helpless little child, and thou art our Heavenly 
 Father. I am not a little child half as much as I 
 should like in truthfulness and simplicity, but I am 
 a little child in wanting thee, in being able to do 
 nothing without thee. Not because I am child-like, 
 Heavenly Father, but because I am helpless, help 
 me, Not because I am converted, O gracious Saviour, 
 but because I want thee help me ; not because I love 
 thee (and yet I do love thee), but because thou lovest 
 me, because thou diedst for my sins, help and save 
 me. And help that other poor wandering sheep who 
 does not seem to have come back to thee at all, and 
 save him, not because he is returning, but because he 
 is wandering, and it is so wretched to wander in the 
 world without thee l" 
 
 I never lay down to sleep with a happier feeling 
 than that night. 
 
 The next time Tom and I were alone (it was by the 
 window in the best parlor. Uncle was smoking a 
 quiet pipe in the garden-house, and aunt was taking 
 a dish of tea with a friend), I said, " Cousin Tom, I 
 have been thinking of what you said, and you must 
 not say God does not love you because you are not 
 converted. I am sure that is not true. Because, our 
 Saviour goes after the sheep when they are ac- 
 tually wandering and lost, which cannot be the same 
 as being converted. And, of course. He goes after 
 them, because He is loving them. But you must "he 
 converted. Cousin Tom," I said. 
 
 His tone was altered from the time he had spokea 
 
68 777^ DIARY OF 
 
 last, it was not so mucli sad as bitter and sarcastic, 
 and he said, — 
 
 " Cousin Kitty, you are a poor theologian. How 
 am I to be converted unless God convert me V 
 
 I did not know what to say, until at last I said, 
 and I am afraid it could not have been the right 
 thing,— 
 
 " God is converting you — taking you by the hand, 
 as it were, to turn you round — I mean He is doing 
 all He can, He is calling you, watching you, pitying 
 you, seeking you in a thousand ways, He only knows 
 how many and how often." 
 
 *' Then I suppose it will be all right one day," said 
 Tom, " for who hath resisted His will ?" 
 
 I was very much grieved. His tone was so bitter, 
 and I could not help saying, it came so forcibly into 
 my heart, — 
 
 " Cousin Tom, you are resisting His \sall, with all 
 your might — you will not come back to our Saviour." 
 
 "And you are contradicting St. Paul, Cousin 
 Kitty," he said. 
 
 " How I wish you could hear Mr. Whitefield or ]yir. 
 Wesley," I said, for I felt my logic failing. 
 
 "Father says Mr. Wesley is an Arminian," said 
 Tom, with a satirical smile; "but perhaps you are 
 little better. Mother always said poor sister Trevy- 
 lyan was little better than a Papist." 
 
 At first I felt angry at his levity, but then all at 
 once I thought it was only the laughter of a heart iU 
 at ease, and T said gently, — 
 
 " Cousin Tom, you know you do not care in the 
 least whether Mr. Wesley is a Calvinist or an Arminian. 
 I am sure you are unhappy about something this 
 evening. Can I help you ? Jack says it ofte^i 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAUr, 69 
 
 helps him just to tell me anything, and you have no 
 sister." 
 
 " Nor any one that cares for me," said Tom. 
 
 " Oh, Tom," I said, " you must not say Uncle and 
 Aunt do not care for you." 
 
 He had been sitting with his elbows on his 
 knees and his hands on his face ; now he rose, and 
 said in a low voice, like the grinding of an iron heel 
 on stone, — 
 
 " No doubt they care that I should grow rich 1 But, 
 Kitty, this life is more than I can bear. While you 
 are here it is a little more cheerful, but in a few weeks 
 you will be gone, and it will be duller than ever. It 
 is one incessant, ' Thou shalt not,' from one end of the 
 year to the other ; or only one * Thou shalt,' to counter- 
 balance it, * Thou ahalt make money and be rich ;' 
 * Thou shalt not go to the play, thou shalt not dance.' 
 And I do go to the theatre and to the opera when I 
 can. It does me less harm, I am sure, than sitting 
 at home and hearing Aunt Beauchamp and Cousin 
 Harry and nine-tenths of our acquaintance pulled to 
 pieces as reprobates. But I dare not tell father, be- 
 cause he would never believe I do these things 
 without doing a thousand worse things which I do 
 not. So I am living a lie, and I hate myself for it, 
 yet I see no way out of it." 
 
 " There is a way out of it," I said. " You must 
 give it up. It is better to lead the dullest life in the 
 world than to do wrong, and I am sure you would 
 find it happier." 
 
 " There is one thing I will not do, Cousin Kitty, I 
 will not be a hypocrite. I will not put on a smooth 
 face and pretend to like all the whining Pharisaical 
 cant I hear. If I am to go to the bad end, it shall 
 
70 THE DIARY OF 
 
 be by the honest broad road, and not oy the narrow 
 prim path of the Pharisees which leads the same 
 way." 
 
 "But, Cousm Torn," I said after a little while, 
 " there is no need for you to be either bad or a hypo- 
 crite. You can be good^ and you must ivy^ 
 
 " Do you mean I must be converted ?" he said, al 
 most fiercely. 
 
 " I think," I said, " you should give up thinking 
 about being converted, and should just turn to God, 
 just look away from your sins and other people's sins, 
 and from everytliing to our Saviour, and ask Him to 
 help you to be really good. Of course, it is all real 
 with Him. And I am sure He would.' 
 
 He did not answer, and I went on, — 
 
 " It seems to me you put conversion between you 
 and Christ, as if it were a kind of shut door to get 
 through, instead of just going up to the open door. 
 For the door of the kingdom of heaven is open, I am 
 quite sure. Our Lord says, *I am the door;' which 
 must mean that there is no door, no closed door, but 
 that He himself stands at the entrance instead, to 
 welcome us and lead us in. Think of the difference 
 between a door and a friend's face. And then such a 
 Friend I we have done him so much wrong, and He is 
 80 ready to forgive all ; and such a Hand I pierced to 
 cross for us. St. Thomas saw the prints of the nails." 
 
 My heart was very full, and when I looked up, 
 Tom brushed his hand over his face and moved away. 
 
 But I went up to him and ventured to say, — 
 
 " Cousin Tom, tell Aunt Henderson what you have 
 told me ; I am sure it would be right and perhaps it 
 might help you both." 
 
 " You don't know in the least how hard it would 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAJN, U 
 
 be, Kitty," lie said; "Mother thinks all sins are 
 on the same level. If I told her I had gone to the 
 opera she would think me as bad as a thief. An*i 
 yet," he exclaimed," "I do not know but I amjnst as 
 bad. Have I not been living a lie ?" 
 
 Just then Uncle Henderson came in, and I went to 
 join Aunt Henderson in the best parlor. 
 
 She was just then comparing poor Aunt Beau- 
 champ's system of education with her own, and 
 complacently dwelling on the necessary difference in 
 the results between her Tom and poor Harry, who 
 had just, she understood, lost a small fortune in bet- 
 ting on the race-course. From this she glided into 
 an instructive dissertation on her household manage- 
 ment. Other people, she said, were always complain- 
 ing of their servants dressing like their betters, and 
 even taking tea and snuff. But she never had such 
 difficulties. She would like to see the hussy who 
 would sport a silk gown or a snuff-box in her house. 
 The visitor, a gentle little woman, set^'^d quite de- 
 pressed by my aunt's superiority and soon after took 
 her leave in a meek and subdued manner. 
 
 A large portion of Aunt Henderson's conversation 
 consists in these compassionate meditations on the 
 mistakes and infirmities of her neighbors. She does 
 this " quite conscientiously." " It is so important," 
 she says, " that we should observe the failures and 
 errors of our neighbors, in order to learn wisdom." 
 
 It seems as if Aunt Henderson thought the rest 
 of the world were a set of defective specimens ex- 
 pressly designed to teach her wisdom, just as we used 
 to have ill-written and misspelt sentences set before 
 us to teach us grammar. 
 
 But I always thought we learned more by looking 
 
79 THE DIARY OF 
 
 at the ic^ZZ-written sentences. In that way one's 
 writing and spelling grow like the copy without 
 thinking about it. And it is so much pleasanter to 
 have the beautiful right thing before one constantly 
 instead of the failure. 
 
 Besides Aunt Henderson's grammar may not be 
 exactly the standard after all. 
 
 And it must matter just as much how the other 
 copies are written ; at all events, to the people who 
 wiite them. I suppose no one is sent into the world 
 exactly to be a kind of example of failure, even to 
 make Aunt Henderson quite perfect by the contrast. 
 But only to think of Aunt Henderson calling Mother 
 a Papist. 
 
 To-day I had a great pleasure. Last Sunday we 
 went to another chapel, in Buiy Street, and heard 
 the venerable old minister called Dr. Watts preach. 
 It was a sermon on safety in death, to comfort 
 parents who had lost little children. And I am sure 
 it must have comforted any one ; it went so far into 
 the sorrow with the balm. He spoke of this world 
 as like a garden in a cold place, from which God, 
 like a careful gardener, took the tender plants into 
 His own house before the winter came to spoil them. 
 Tet sweet and touching as it all was for those whose 
 hearts were already awake to listen, there was no- 
 thing of the rousing penetrating tones which awaken 
 those whose hearts are slumbering. 
 
 The good old man spoke so tenderly I thought he 
 must have felt it all himself. But Aunt Henderson 
 Bays he is a student and an old bachelor. 
 
 And to-day she took me to see the place where ho 
 lives. It is a beautiful park belonging to Sir Wil 
 
MRS. KITTY TEEVYLYAy. 78 
 
 liam and Lady Abney at Stoke I^Tewington. And 
 there, five and thirty years ago, they brought Dr. 
 Watts to be their guest for a week when he was 
 lonely, and poor, and in delicate health. And they 
 have kept him there ever since, caring for him like 
 a son, and reverencing him like a father. He has 
 nice rooms of his own ; and they always are grateful 
 when he joins their circle, so that he can have ag 
 much solitude and as much company as he likes, and 
 have the good of riches without the responsibilities 
 and many of the pleasures of the family-circle with- 
 out the cares. 
 
 It seems to me such a beautiful use to make of 
 riches. The holy man's presence must make their 
 house like a temple ; and when the dear aged form 
 has passed away, I think they will find that the 
 garden-walks, where he used to converse with them, 
 and the trees under which he used to sit, and the 
 flowers he enjoyed, v/ill have something of the fra- 
 grance of Eden left on them. 
 
 60 they TiaDe their reward; yet not all of it. 
 There will be more to come when they see our Lord, 
 and He will thank them for taking care of His 
 servants. 
 
 Dr. Watts writes such beautiful hymns. They 
 have not the long winding music of John Milton's 
 hymn on the " Nativity," or Bishop Taylor's in the 
 " Golden Grove ;" but they have a point and sweet- 
 ness about them which I like as much, especially 
 when one thinks that the very best thing in what 
 they sing of is that it is tnie^ for ever true. 
 
 They sang one at the chapel on Sunday, which I 
 shall never forget : — 
 
 7 
 
M TEE DIARY OF 
 
 "When I survey the "wondrous cross 
 On which the Prince of Glory died. 
 My richest gain I count but loss. 
 And pour contempt on all my pride. 
 
 ** Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, 
 Save in the death of Christ, my God I 
 All the vain things that charm me most 
 I sacrifice them to his blood. 
 
 *' See, from his head, his hands, his feet, 
 Sorrow and care flow mingled down; 
 Did e'er such love and sorrow meet. 
 Or thorns compose so rich a crown ? 
 
 " Were the whole realm of nature mine. 
 That were a present far too small ; 
 Love so amazing, so divine, 
 Demands my soul, my life, my all.'* 
 
 It mado the chapel seem as beautiful to me as any 
 cathedral while they sang it, because one seemed to 
 look through it straight into heaven, where our 
 Lord is. And anything which helps us to do that 
 makes it matter so little whether what we look 
 through is a white-washed ceiling or a dome like 
 St. Paul's. And then the comfort is, the poor can 
 understand it as well as the most learned. 
 
 While we were at Abney Park, a consumptive- 
 looking minister from Northampton was there, a 
 great friend of Dr. Watts. Lady Abney had just 
 brought him from London in her coach, a gentle, 
 thoughtful-looking man called Dr. Doddridge. He 
 also writes beautiful hymns, they say. Lady Abney 
 told me he has a dear little girl who wus once 
 asked why every one loved her ? She looked very 
 thoughtful for a moment, and then said, " I suppose 
 because I love every one." 
 
 To-morrow I am to leave Aunt Henderson to stay 
 
MliS. KITTY TREVYLYAN'. 75 
 
 witli Aunt Beaucliamp at the West End of the town, 
 in Great Ormond Street. I am afraid Tom has not 
 made any confession to his mother yet. But he has 
 promised to try and hear Mr. Wesley, and to go often 
 to Jeanie. 
 
 Aunt Henderson has been talking to me very 
 seriously about the danger's to which I shall be 
 exposed. She says poor Aunt Beauchamp's is a 
 thoroughly careless family, and they live quite in 
 " the world." 
 
 Does " the world " then begin somewhere between 
 Hackney and Great Ormond Street ? 
 
 Mother seemed to think I should meet it as soon 
 as I left home. 
 
 And the Catechism speaks of our having to re- 
 nounce it from infancy, like the flesh and the Devil. 
 
 If we have always to be renouncing it, it must be 
 tliere^ everywhere, alw^ays ; one thiog to Mother, 
 another to Aunt Henderson, another to Cousin Tom, 
 or Aunt Beaucliamp ; one thing to me when I was a 
 child, another to me now — yet always there, always 
 to be renounced. 
 
 What is it then ? St. John says, " It is not of the 
 Father." 
 
 Does it mean whatever gift of God we make a 
 pedestal for our pride, instead of making of it a step 
 of God's throne on w^hich to kneel and look up, and 
 adore ? 
 
m. 
 
 Great Obmono Street 
 
 PHEY were all so kind to me when I left Hack- 
 ney, I felt very sorry to go, and should have 
 grieved more, had not the leave-taking been 
 like a half-way house on the" journey to my dear 
 home. 
 
 Uncle Henderson gave me a purse with five new 
 guineas in it, saying some people had found a for- 
 tune grow from no bigger beginning, and who knew 
 but my guineas might expand into a " plum " (a hun- 
 dred thousand pounds). I do not very well see how, 
 because I have spent the whole over ten times in 
 my mind already ; but I know it will bring me in 
 pleasures as rich to me as anything Uncle Henderson 
 could desire for me, if I can only tell which of the 
 ten plans I have thought of is the best. 
 
 Aunt Henderson gave me a little book with a very 
 long name, which she hoped would prove, at all 
 events, more profitable reading than Bishop Taylor. 
 Cousin Tom had relapsed into something of the shy, 
 half-surly manner he had when first I came ; and liis 
 great eyes were flashing, and his voice was very 
 gruff. But just as I was getting into the hackney 
 coach, he said abruptly, " Cousin Kitty, forgive mo 
 If I spoke roughly to you ; you have been very good 
 to me ; and some day perhaps I will hear Mr. 
 
3[RS, KITTY TREYYLYAN. 77 
 
 Wesley." Aunt Jeanie to wliom I paid a visit early 
 in the morning, gave me nothing — at least nothing 
 gold and silver can buy or pay for ; but, like the 
 Apostles, such as she had she gave me abundantly. 
 There were tears in her dear, kind eyes, and she 
 called me her poor lambie, and fell very deep into 
 Scotch, and prayed that the good Lord would keep 
 me through all the perils of the wilderness ; " for the 
 world was a wilderness, no doubt, and temptation 
 was strong. The Lord forgive her if it was like 
 murmuring to say so, she had found so many pleas- 
 ant places on her way ; and all the way had been 
 good to her ; and every thorn needful ; and the 
 waste places as wholesome as the Elims ; the water 
 from the rock sweeter even than the foundations 
 under the palms. And how can I dare be so un- 
 grateful as to distrust my God for thee, my bairn ?" 
 she added. " If I am old and tough, and able to 
 bear a prick now and then without shrinking, and 
 thou art young and tender, and quick to feel, does 
 not He who gathered the lambs in His bosom know 
 that better than I ?" 
 
 So we cried together a little while, and then 
 she knelt down with me for the first time by her 
 bedside, and poured out her heart for me in tender, 
 pleading words, that melted all my heart as ice melts 
 in the spring sunshine and rain. 
 
 What she said I cannot remember. It was not 
 like words. It w^as like a heart poured out into a 
 heart — a child-like, dependent human heart into the 
 great, infinite, tender heart of God. But when she 
 rose and kissed me, and bade me farewell, all my 
 heart, which had been so touched and -melted, seemed 
 to have grown strong and buoyant. It seemed as if 
 7^ 
 
^8 THE DIARY OF 
 
 every burden became ligbt, and every task easy, ana 
 every grief illmninated in the light and heat of that 
 prayer. 
 
 When I reached Great Orniond Street, the butler 
 said my lady was still in her chamber, but had 
 directed that I should be shown up to her at once. 
 I thought this very affectionate of Aunt Beauchamp, 
 and stepped very softly, as when Mother has a head- 
 ache, expecting to enter a sick-chamber. 
 
 But, to my surprise, Aunt Beauchamp was sitting 
 at her toilette, in a wrapper more magnificent than 
 Aunt Henderson's Sunday silk. And the chamber 
 was much more magnificent than the best parlor at 
 Hackney, with a carpet soft as velvet, and all kinds 
 of china monsters, on gilded brackets, and rich 
 damask chairs and cushions ; not stiffly set up, like 
 Aunt Henderson's, as if it was the business of life to 
 keej) them in order, but throTVTi lavishly about, as if 
 by accident, like the mere overflow of some fairy 
 hom of plenty. Two very elaborately dressed gen- 
 tlemen were sitting op]Dosite her; what seemed to 
 me a beautifully dressed lady was arranging her hair 
 in countless small curls; while a shapeless white 
 l^oodle was curled up in her lap ; and a black i)age 
 was standing in the background, feeding a chattering 
 parrot. 
 
 It startled me very much ; but Aunt Beauchamp, 
 after suiTcying me rather critically as I made a pro- 
 found courtesy, held out two fingers for me to kiss, 
 and patting me on the cheek, said, "As rosy as ever, 
 Kitty; the roses in your cheeks must make up for 
 the russet in your gown. A little country cousin of 
 
MJiS. KITTY TREVYLYAK, 79 
 
 mine," she said, introducing me in a kind of paren- 
 thetical way to the gentlemen in laced coats. 
 
 One of the gentlemen looked at me through an 
 eye-glass, as if I had been a long way off, which 
 made me indignant, and took away my shyness. The 
 other, in a sky-blue coat, who seemed to me rather 
 old, rose, and with an elaborate bow offered me a 
 chair, and hoped it would be long before I withdrew 
 the light of my presence again from the town. " The 
 planets," he observed, looking at Aimt Beauchamp, 
 " naturally gathered around the sun." 
 
 Aunt Beauchamp gave a little girlish laugh, tap- 
 ping him lightly with her fan, called him a " mad 
 fellow," and bade me go and seek my Cousin 
 Evelyn. 
 
 It seemed to me very strange to see these elderly 
 people amusing themselves in this way, like old- 
 fashioned children. Aunt Beauchamp is much older 
 than Mother. I should think she must be five-and- 
 forty. And the old gentleman's face looked so sharp 
 and wrinkled under his flaxen wig. And I could not 
 izelp noticing how close he kept his lips together 
 wUen he smiled, as if he did not wish to show his 
 iceth. He must be more than fifty. 
 
 I felt so sorry Aunt Beauchamp let her maid put 
 those cheriy-colored ribbons in her hair. They made 
 her face look so much older and more lined. And it 
 is a dear, kind old face, too. She looked almost like 
 Father when she patted my cheek. Father says she 
 was very beautiful when she was young. I suppose 
 it must be sad to give up being beautiful. Yet it 
 seems to me every age has its own beauty. White 
 hairs are as beautiful at seventy as golden locks at 
 twenty. It is only by trying to prolong the beauty 
 
80 THE DTAR Y OF 
 
 of one stage into another that the b'jauty of both is 
 lost. 
 
 I hope I shall know when I am ave-and-forty, and 
 not go on forgetting I am growing old, while every 
 one else sees it. 
 
 I am resolved that on all my birthdays I will say 
 to myself, " Now, Kitty, remember you are eighteen, 
 nineteen, twenty." And in that way I think old age 
 cannot take me by surprise. 
 
 I found Cousin Evelyn in dishabille, not elaborate, 
 but real, in her room, one hand holding a novel which 
 she was reading, the other stroking the head of a 
 great stag-hound which stood with his paws on her 
 knee, while her maid was smoothing out her beauti- 
 ful long hair. 
 
 Her greeting was not very cordial ; it was kind, 
 but her large penetrating eyes kept investigating me 
 as they had on our journey from Bath. Having fin- 
 ished her toilette and dismissed her maid, she said, 
 " What made you stay so long at Hackney ? Did you 
 not find it very dull ?" 
 
 It had never occurred to me whether it was dull 
 or not, and I had to question myself before I could 
 answer. 
 
 " You need not be afraid to tell me what you 
 think," she said. " Mamma thinks Aunt Henderson 
 a self-satisfied Pharisee ; and Aunt Henderson thinks 
 us all publicans and sinners ; so there is not much 
 communication between the families. Besides, I sup- 
 pose you know that the distance between America 
 and England is nothing to that between the east 
 and the west of London ; so that, if we wished it 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 81 
 
 ever so mucli, it would be impossible for us to meet 
 often." 
 
 " I am not afraid to tell you anything, Cousin 
 Evelyn," I said ; '' but I never thought very much if 
 it was dull. It was of no use. I had to be there ; and 
 although, of course, it could not be like home, they 
 were all very kind to me, especially Cousin Tom and 
 Aunt Jeanie." 
 
 " And now you have to le liere^'' she replied ; " and 
 I suppose you will not think whether it is dull 
 or not, but still go on enduring your fate like a 
 martyr." 
 
 " I am not a martyr," I said ;. " but you know it is 
 impossible to feel anywhere quite as one does at 
 home." And I had some difficulty in keeping back 
 the tears, her manner seemed to me so abrupt and 
 unjust. 
 
 Then suddenly her tone changed. She rose, and 
 seating herself on a footstool at my feet, took one of 
 my hands in both of hers, and said, " You must not 
 mind me. I think I shall like you. And I always 
 say what I like. I am only a child, you see," she 
 added, with a little curl of her lip. " Mamma will 
 never be more than thirty ; therefore, of course, I can 
 never be more than ten." 
 
 I could not help coloring, to hear her speak so of 
 her mother ; and yet I could not tell how to contra- 
 dict her. 
 
 She always saw in a moment what one does not 
 like, and she turned the subject, saying very gently, 
 " Tell me about your home. I should like to hear 
 about it. You seem so fond of it." 
 
 At first it seemed as if there were nothing to tell. 
 Every one and everything at home are naturally so 
 
0» THE DIARY OF 
 
 bound up with my heart, that to talk of it seemed 
 like taking up a bit of myself and looking at it. 
 
 But Evelyn drew me on, from one thing to another, 
 until it seemed as if, having once begun, I could 
 never finish. She listened like a child to a new 
 faiiy tale, leaning her face on her hands, and gazing 
 on me with her questioning eyes quite eagerly, 
 only saying when I paused, " Go on — and what 
 then V 
 
 When I spoke of Mother, a tender, wistful look 
 came over her face, and for the first time I saw how 
 beautiful and soft her eyes were. That expression, 
 however, quickly passed, and when at length I came 
 to a long pause, she said, smiling, " I am glad your 
 Trusty is a genuine, uncompromising old sheep- 
 dog. I hate poodles." And then she added in her 
 old dry tone : " It is as good as a jDastoral, and as 
 amusing as a novel. When we go back to Beau- 
 champ Manor, I will ask papa to build me a model 
 dairy, and will commence an Arcadian life. It would 
 be charming." 
 
 " But," I said, bewildered at her seeming to think 
 of me and Mother and Betty as if we were a jDeople in 
 a poem, " your dairy would be mere play ; and I can- 
 not see any amusement in that, except for children. 
 It is the thought that I ouglit to do these things — 
 that the comfort of those about me depends on my 
 doing them — that makes me so happy in them." 
 
 "The thought that you. ought P^ she said; — "that 
 is a word no one understands here. We do what we 
 Wee and what wo mtcst If I thought I ought to go 
 to the opera or to Vauxhall, I should dislike it as 
 much as going to church." 
 
 "As going to church !" I said. , 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 83 
 
 "Yes," she replied. "I mean at Beaucliamp 
 Manor, wliere Dr. Humden reads long sermons some 
 dead bishop wrote centuries ago, in a voice which 
 sounds as dead and stony as if it came from the effi- 
 gies of all the Beauchamps which preside over the 
 church. In towTi it is diflfercnt. The archdeacon 
 never preaches half an hour, and that in the softest 
 voice, and most elegant language — very little duller 
 than the dullest papers of the Sjjectator or the Taller, 
 And then, one sees every one ; and the performances 
 of the congregation are as good as a play." 
 
 Evelyn next gave herself, with real interest, to the 
 inspection of my wardrobe. 
 
 It seemed almost like sacrilege to see the things 
 which had cost mother so much thought and pains 
 treated with the imperfectly concealed contempt, 
 which curled my cousin's lips as she unfolded one 
 carefully packed article after another. My best Sun- 
 day bonnet brought a very comical twist into her 
 face ; but the worst of all was when I unpinned my 
 very best new dress, which had been constructed 
 with infinite contrivance out of Mother's wedding- 
 dress. Evelyn's polite self-restraint gave way, and 
 she laughed. It was very seldom she gave any token 
 of being amused, beyond a dry, comical smile ; and 
 now her rare, ringing laugh seemed to discompose 
 Dragon, the stag-hound, as much as it did me. He 
 seemed to feel that he was being laughed at — a disre- 
 spect no dog can ever endure — and came forward and 
 rubbed his nose reproachfully under my cousin's 
 hand, with a little deprecatory moan, as she held up 
 the dress. 
 
 She gave him a parenthetical pat, and then looking 
 
84 THE DIARY OF 
 
 up in my face, I suppose saw the foolish tears tliat 
 would gather in my eyes. 
 
 " You and Dragon seem aggrieved," she said. *' I 
 am afraid I have touched on sacred ground, Cousin 
 Kitty. You seem very fond of your things." 
 
 " It is not the things," I said ; *' but Mother and 
 all of us thought they were so nice ; and Miss Pawsey 
 from Truro does go to London once in every three or 
 four years ; and, besides, she has a Book of Fashions, 
 mth colored illustrations." 
 
 I could not tell her it was Mother's wedding-dress. 
 Rich people, who can buy everything they want im- 
 mediately they want it, at any shop, and throw it 
 aside when they get tired, can have no idea of the lit- 
 tle loving sacrifices, the tender plannings, the self-de- 
 nials, the willing toils, the tearful pleasures, that are 
 LQterwoven into the household possessions of the 
 poor. To Evelyn my wardrobe was a bad copy of 
 the fashions ; — to me every bit of it was a bit of 
 Jwme^ sacred with Mother's thoughts, contriving for 
 me night and day, with the touch of her busy fingers 
 working for me, with the quiet delight in her eyes as 
 she surveyed me at last arrayed in them, and smoothed 
 down the folds with her delicate neat hands, and then 
 contemplated me from a distance with a combination of 
 the satisfaction of a mother in her child and an artist 
 in his finished work. I could not say all this with a 
 steady voice, so I fell back on the defence of Miss 
 Pawsey ; but she only laughed, and said, — 
 
 *' Do you know that three years old is worse than 
 three centuries ? It is all the difierence between anti- 
 quated and antique. You would look a great deal 
 more modern in a ruff aiid fardingale of one of our 
 great-great-grandmothers in Queen Elizabeth's days, 
 
3IBS. KITTY TREYYLIAN. 85 
 
 Indeed, I have no doubt if I could see Aunt Trevylyan 
 at this moment, I should think her quite in fashion 
 compared with those exactly out-of-date productions 
 of your Falmouth oracle. We must send for my 
 milliner." 
 
 " But Mother thought it so nice, Cousin Evelyn," I 
 said at length ; " I could not bear to have what she 
 took such pains with pulled to pieces." 
 
 She looked up .at me again with the soft, wistful 
 look in her eyes, folded the precious dress together 
 as reverently as I could have done, and, laying it in 
 the trunk, said very gently, — 
 
 "Do not think any more about it, Cousin Kitty. 
 I will manage it all." 
 
 I have been to the opera and the church, and I 
 cannot wonder so much at Cousin Evelyn comparing 
 the two. 
 
 The gloom of the Hackney Sundays seems cheerful- 
 ness itself compared to the dreary week-day glare of 
 these. At the opera the music was as beautiful as 
 songs in the woods on a spring morning : it was com- 
 posed by a young Saxon gentleman — ^IMr. Handel. It 
 was very strange to me that the people attended so 
 little. Aunt Beauchamp had quite a little court of 
 middle-aged and elderly gentlemen, to whom she 
 dispensed gracious smiles, or frowns, which seemed 
 in their way as welcome ; pretty severities with her 
 fan, and laughing rebukes ; and whenever I looked 
 about between the acts, the same small entertain- 
 ments seemed going on in the boxes around me. 
 When the music went on I could see and hear nothing 
 else. 
 
 Evelyn 1 aughed at me when we returned. I actually 
 8 
 
86 THE DIARY OF 
 
 was SO unsophisticated, she said, as to go to the opera 
 to enjoy the music. 
 
 " What can any one go for else ?" I asked. ** It is 
 not a duty." 
 
 " For the same reason we go to church, or anywhere 
 else," she replied, — " to meet our fellow-creatures, to 
 play over our play, or see them act theirs. I could 
 have told you of three separate dramas going on in 
 the boxes nearest us, one at least of. which is likely to 
 rise into tragedy. — You liked the music then ?" 
 
 " It w^as as beautiful as a dream," I said ; " only I 
 wished sometimes it was a dream." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I felt sorry for that modest, gentle-looking young 
 woman having to talk so much nonsense in public. 
 I think she could hardly have felt it right." 
 
 " You bring right and wrong into everything. You 
 must not think of the actors as men and women, but 
 as merely machines." 
 
 At church it seemed to me very much the same. 
 Aunt Beauchamp encountered many of her little 
 court, and distributed her nods and smiles and her 
 deprecatory glances, as at the play. 
 
 During the Psalms people made profound courte- 
 sies to their neighbors in the next pews ; and during 
 the Litany there was a general fluttering of fans and 
 application of smelling-bottles, as if the confessing 
 ourselves miserable sinners w^ere too much for the 
 nerves of the congregation. But then it occurred to 
 me that I was as careless as any one, or I should 
 have known nothing of what the rest of the congre- 
 gation were about ; and it was a comfort to confess 
 it in the words of the Litany. Afterwards I stood 
 
MliS. KITTY TEETYLYAN-. 87 
 
 up, and was beginning to join with all my heart in 
 the Psalm, when Evelyn tapped me lightly, and said, 
 " IS'o one sings buf the professional choir." Then I 
 saw that several people were looking at me with con- 
 siderable amusement, and I felt ashamed of my own 
 voice, and then felt ashamed of being ashamed. 
 
 The sermon was on the impropriety of being right- 
 eous overmuch ; and every one said, as they met and 
 exchanged greetings in the porch that it was a most 
 elegant and able discourse. It was a pity some of 
 the Methodist fanatics could not hear it. Afterwards 
 many important arrangements w^ere made as to card- 
 parties and balls for the ensuing week, or for Sunday 
 evening itself. 
 
 On our way home Aunt Beauchamp said to me. 
 *'My dear child, you really must not say the responses 
 so emphatically, especially those about our being 
 miserable sinners. People will think you have done 
 something really very wrong, instead of being a sin- 
 ner in a general way, as, of course, we all must ex- 
 pect to be." 
 
 One thing that made me feel strange in Aunt 
 Beauchamp's church is its looking so different from 
 the church at home. I cannot help liking the great 
 stone pillars, and the arched roof, and the fretwork 
 of the high windows, with bits of stained glass still 
 left in them, better than this new church, with its 
 carpeted passages, and cushioned galleries, and 
 painted wooden pillars, and flat ceiling. The music, 
 and even the common speech in response and prayers, 
 seem in some way mellowed and made sacred as they 
 echo and wind among the old arches and up the roof, 
 which seems more like the sky. 
 
 But Cousin Evelyn says my taste would be deemed 
 
bo THE DIARY OF 
 
 perfectly monstrous — that these old country churches 
 are remnants of the dark ages, quite Gothic and bar- 
 barous, and that in time, it is hoped, they will be 
 replaced tl:roughout England by buildings in the 
 Greek and Roman style, or by that classic adapta- 
 tion of both which is so elaborately developed in the 
 ornamental pulpit and sounding-board of the church 
 we attend. 
 
 And then Aunt Beauchamp says some of the wood- 
 work is of that costly, new, fashionable wood called 
 mahogany, so that it admits of no comparison with 
 the rough attempts of less civilized ages. 
 
 I wonder if there are fashions in architecture as 
 well as in dress — only counting their dates by centu- 
 ries instead of by years. It would be strange if these 
 old churches should ever be admired again, like the 
 costumes of Queen Elizabeth's time, and these new 
 buildings be ridiculed as antiquated, like Miss Paw- 
 Bey's fashions ! 
 
 I should be glad if this ha^Dpened ! The poor old 
 Gothic builders seem to have delighted in their work, 
 and taken such pains about it, as if they were guided 
 by thoughts about right and wrong in what they 
 did, by love and duty, instead of just by fashion 
 and taste. 
 
 There seems such a heavy weight of emptiuess 
 about the life here. The rigidity of Aunt Hender- 
 son's laws seems to me liberty compared with the 
 endless drifting of this life without laws. In the 
 morning the toilette, with the levee of visitors, the 
 eager discussions about the color of head-dresses and 
 the shape of hoops. In the evening a number of 
 beautifully dressf I people, paying elaborate aompli- 
 
MRS. KITTY TliEVYLYAir. 89 
 
 ments to their present acquaintances, or elaborately 
 dissecting the characters of their absent acquaint- 
 ances — the only groups really in earnest being appar 
 ently those around the card-tables, who not unfre- 
 quently fall into something very like quarrelling. 
 
 This kind of living by the day surely cannot be 
 the right kind — this filling up of every day with 
 trifles, from brim to brim, as if every day were a 
 separate life, and every trifle a momentous question. 
 
 "When our Saviour told us to live by the day, He 
 meant, I think, a day encompassed by Eternity — a 
 day whose yesterday had gone up to God, to add its 
 little record to the long unforgotten histoiy of the 
 past, whose to-morrow may take us uj) to God our- 
 selves. We are to live by the day, not as butterflies, 
 which are creatures of a day, but as mortal yet im- 
 mortal beings belonging to Eternity, w^hose mortal 
 life may end to-night, whose longest life is but an 
 ephemeral fragment of our immortality. 
 
 Evelyn seems very much aloof from the world 
 about her. In society sometimes she becomes ani- 
 mated, and flashes brilliant sayings on all sides. But 
 her wit is mostly satirical ; the point is too often in 
 the sting. She is evidently felt as a power in her 
 circle ; ancl her power arises in a great measure from 
 her absence of ordinary vanity. She does not care 
 for the opinion of those around her; and whilst 
 those around her are in bondage to one another for a 
 morsel of praise or admiration, she sits apart on a 
 iribunal of her own making, and dispenses her judg- 
 ments. 
 
 At present, I believe, she has passed sentence on 
 me as Pharisaical, because of something I said of the 
 new oratorio of the Messiah. At first it seemed to 
 8* 
 
90 THE DIARY OF 
 
 me more heavenly than anything I had ever heard ; 
 but when they came to those words about our Lord's 
 sorrows, " He was despised and rejected, a man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with grief," and around us 
 there was, not a hush of sham.e and penitence, but a 
 little buzz of applause, suppressed whispers, such as 
 " Charming !" — " What tone !•' — *' No one else can 
 sustain that note in such a way I" — and at the close 
 the audience loudly clapped the singer, and she 
 responded with a deep theatrical courtesy — I thought 
 oi'^^'Wlien I survey the wondrous cross,'^^ wished myself 
 in Dr. Watts' chapel, and felt I would rather have 
 listened to any poor nasal droning which was wor- 
 ship, than to such mockery. I could not help 
 crying. 
 
 When we were in the house again, Evelyn said, — 
 
 " You enjoyed that music, Kitty." 
 
 "No, Cousin Evelyn," I said; "I would rather 
 have been at the opera, a hundred times, and far 
 rather in Aunt Henderson's chapel at Hackney." 
 
 " Your taste is original, at all events," she replied 
 drily. 
 
 " To think," I said, " of their setting the great 
 shame and agony of our Saviour to music for an 
 evening's entertainment, and applauding it like a 
 play I One might as well make a play about the 
 death-bed of a mother. For it is true, it is true I He 
 did suffer all that for us." 
 
 She looked at me earnestly for a few moments, and 
 then she said coldly, — 
 
 " How do you know, Cousin Kitty, that other 
 people were not feeling it as much as you ? AYhat. 
 right have we to set down every one as profane and 
 heaitlcss just because the tears do not come at every 
 
MRS. KITTY TllEYYLYAX. 91 
 
 moment to tlie surface. The Bible says, • Judge not, 
 and ye shall not be judged ;' and tells us not to be in 
 such a hurry to take the motes out of other people's 
 eyes." 
 
 I was quite silenced. It is so difficul fc to think of 
 the right thing to say at the moment. Afterwards I 
 thought of a hundred answers, for I did not mean to 
 judge any one unkindly. I only spoke of my own 
 feelings. But Evelyn has retired into her shell, and 
 evades all attempts to resume the subject. 
 
 This morning at breakfast Cousin Harry (of whom 
 we see very little) spoke, quite as an ordinary occur- 
 rence, of a duel, in which some one had been killed, 
 in consequence of a quarrel about a lady ; and of an- 
 other little affair of the same kind ending in the flight 
 of a lady of rank to the Continent. 
 
 I asked Evelyn afterwards what it meant. 
 
 " Only that some one ran away v^^ith some one else's 
 wife, and the person to whom the wife belonged did 
 not like it, and so there was a duel, and the husband 
 was killed." 
 
 "But," I said, "that is a dreadful sin. Those 
 are things spoken of in the Ten Commandments." 
 
 " Sin," she replied, " my scriptiiral cousin, is a 
 word not in use in polite circles, except on Sun- 
 days, as a quotation from the Prayer-Bouk. We 
 never introduce that kind of phraseology on week 
 days." 
 
 " Do these terrible things happen often, then ?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Not every day," she replied drily. " The next 
 thing you will be thinldng is, that you have lighted 
 on a den of thieves. A great many people only play 
 
03 . THE DIARY OF 
 
 with imitations of hearts iu ice. For instauce, 
 mamma's little amusements are as harmless to her- 
 self and all concerned as the innocent gambols ot 
 a kitten. The only danger in that kind of diver- 
 sion," she added bitterly, "is, that it sometimes 
 ends in the real heart and the imitation being scarcely 
 distinguishable from each other. 
 
 The easy and polished world around me no longei 
 seems to me empty and trifling, but terrible. These 
 icicles of pleasure are, then, only the sparkling crust 
 over an abyss of passion, and wrong, and sin. 
 
 There is excitement and interest enough, certainly, 
 in watching this drama, if one knows anything of 
 what is underneath, — the same kind of excitement 
 as in watching that dreadful rope-dancing Cousin 
 Harry took us to see at Yauxhall. The people are 
 dancing at the risk of life, and more than life. The 
 least loss of head or heart, the least glancing aside 
 of one of these graceful steps, and the performers 
 fall into depths "one shudders to think of. 
 
 I tremble when I think of it. Dull and hard as 
 the religion seemed to me at Aunt Henderson's, it is 
 safety and purity compared with this wretched, 
 cruel levity, this dancing on the ice, beneath which 
 your neighbors are sinking and struggling in agony. 
 
 Religion is worth something as a safeguard, even 
 when it has ceased to be life and joy. 
 
 The sweet hawthorn which makes the air fragrant 
 in spring is still something in winter, although it be 
 only as a prickly prohibitory hedge. 
 
 The trees which were a home of happy singing 
 Dirds, and a treasure of shade and refreshment iu 
 summer, are still a shelter even when their leafless 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 93 
 
 branches toss and crackle in the fierce winds of 
 December. That is, as long as there is any life in 
 the thorns, or the trees, or the religion. 
 
 If it were death instead of only winter that made 
 the trees leafless, they would soon cease to be a 
 shelter as they have before ceased to be a delight. 
 
 Yesterday I had a letter brought me by Evelyn's 
 maid, written on perfumed colored paper. 
 
 In it the writer ventured to call me in poetry a 
 goddess, and a star, and a peerless rose. If there 
 had been only that, I should have felt nothing but 
 indignation; for I do believe I have done nothing 
 to deserve such nonsense being said to me. 
 
 But at the end there is some prose, in which the 
 writer says he has really formed a devoted attachment 
 to me, and he seems to want me to marry him at 
 once, for he talks of lawyers and settlements. Cousin 
 Evelyn came in as 1 was sitting perplexing myself 
 what I ought to do. She laughed at my distress, 
 and lold me she could show me a drawer full of such 
 compositions. 
 
 ** It is so trying to have to make any one really 
 unhappy," I said ; " and you see he says in the prose 
 that life will be a blank to him if I cannot give him 
 the answer he wishes." 
 
 " Indeed you need not mind," she said. " I my- 
 self have broken a score of hearts in the same way, 
 and I assure you no one would know it ; they do as 
 well without their hearts. They are like the x)oor 
 gentleman whom Dante discovered, to his sui'prise, 
 m the Inferno, while he was supposed to be still 
 alive. A devil was walking about in his body while 
 Ms soul was in torments ; and the devil and the soul 
 
94 
 
 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 were so much alike that no one had suspected the 
 change." 
 
 " I had never anything of the kind to do before," 
 I said, " and I am sorry. The prose really looks as 
 if he "would care, and I want to write gently but 
 very firmly. I wish I could see Mother." But then I 
 thought how Mother had always told me of the one 
 Refuge in every difficulty, and I said softly, hardly 
 knowing I said it aloud, *' But if I pray, God will 
 help me to do what is right." 
 
 *' Pray about a love letter !" exclaimed my cousin, 
 looking nearly as much shocked as I had felt at her 
 calling the church as good as the play. " Pray 
 about a love letter, Cousin Kitty ! You surely would 
 not do anything so profane." 
 
 *' Surely I may pray God to help me to do right," 
 I said, " about everythuig. Nothing in which there 
 seems a question jf right or wrong can be out of His 
 care." 
 
 Evelyn looked at me once more with her wistful, 
 soft look, and said very gravely, — 
 
 " Kitty, I believe you really do believe in God." 
 
 " You do not think that any wonder ?" I said. 
 
 " I do^'' she said solemnly. I have been watchmg 
 you all this time, and I am sure you really do 
 believe in God ; and I think you love Him. I have 
 never met any one who did since my old nui*se 
 died." 
 
 " Never met with any religious person I" I said. 
 
 " I did not say that," she replied. *' I have met 
 with plenty of religious persons. Uncle and Aunt 
 Henderson, and several ladies who almost shed tears 
 over their cards, while talking of Mr. Whitefield's 
 * heavenly sermon,' at Lady IIuutmgdon's—num])era 
 
Mils. KITTY TliEVYLYAir. 95 
 
 Df people wlio would no more give balls in Lent 
 than Aunt Henderson would go to church. I have 
 met all kinds of peoj)le who have religious seasons, 
 and religious places, and religious dislikes, who 
 would religiously pull their neighbors to pierces, and 
 thank God they are not as other men. At the 
 oratorio I thought you were going to turn out just a 
 Pharisee like the rest; but I was wrong. Except 
 you and my old nurse, I never met with any one 
 who believed, not in religion, but in God ; not now 
 and then, but always. And I wish I were like either 
 of you." 
 
 " Oh, Cousin Evelyn," I said, " you must not 
 judge people so severely. How can we know what 
 is really in other people's hearts ? How can we 
 know what humility and love there are in the hearts 
 Df those you call Pharisees; how they weep in 
 secret over the infirmities you despise ; how much 
 they have to overcome ; how, perhaps, the severity 
 you dislike is only the irritation of a heart strug- 
 gling with its own temptations and not quite 
 succeeding ? How do you know that they may not 
 be praying for you even while you are laughing at 
 them ?" 
 
 " I do not want them to pray for me," she replied 
 fiercely. "I know exactly how they would pray. 
 They would tell God I was in the gall of bitter uess 
 and in the bond of iniquity ; they would thank Him 
 for having, by His distinguishing mercy, made them 
 to differ ; and then they would express a hope that 
 I might be made to see the error of my ways. I 
 know they would, for I heard two religious ladies 
 once talking together about me. One asked if I wav 
 a believer ; and the other, who had expressed great 
 
96 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 interest in me and sought my confidence, said she 
 ^ was not Tvithout hope of me, for I had expressed 
 great disgust at the world. She had even told 
 Lady Huntingdon she thought I might be won to the 
 truth. The woman had actually worked herself into 
 my confidence by pretended sympathy, just to gossip 
 about me at the religious tea-parties." 
 
 I endeavored to say a word in defence, but she 
 exclaimed, — " Cousin Kitty, if I thought your reli- 
 gion would make you commit a treachery like that, 
 I would not say a word to you. But you have never 
 tried to penetrate into my confidence, nor have you 
 betrayed any one else's. I feel I can trust you. I 
 feel if you say you care for me you mean it ; and 
 you love me as me myself^ — not like a doctor, as a 
 kind of interesting religious case. Now," she con- 
 tinued in a gentler tone, " I am not at all happy, 
 and I believe if I loved God as you do I should be. 
 That may seem to you a very poor reason for wishing 
 to be good, but it does seem as if God meant us to 
 be happy ; and I have been trying, but I don't get 
 on. Indeed, I feel as if I got worse. I have tried 
 to confess my faults to God. I used to think that 
 it must be easy, but the more I try the harder it is. 
 It seems as if one never could get to the bottom of 
 what one has to confess. At the bottom of the 
 faults^ censoriousness, idleness, hastiness, I come to 
 ains^ pride, selfishness. It is not the things only that 
 are wrong, it is / that am wrong, — I myself, — and 
 what can alter me ? I may change my words or my 
 actions, but who is to change ine ? Sometimes I feel 
 a longing to fall into a long sleep and wake up some- 
 body else, quite new." 
 
 It occurred to me that the thought of conversion, 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 97 
 
 W^hich to Cousin Tom had, in the wrong place, 
 become like a barrier between him and God, Vv^ould 
 to Evelyn be the very thing she longed for. And I 
 said, " ' except ye be converted, and become as little 
 children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.' 
 It is we that must be converted, changed, and not 
 merely, as you say, our actions — turned quite round 
 from sin and darkness to God and light." 
 
 She caught at the words " a% little children^ She 
 said, " Cousin Kitty, that is just the thing I should 
 like — that would be like waking up quite new. But 
 how can that be ?" 
 
 " It seems to me," I said, " that it must be like the 
 blind man, who, believing in our Lord's words, and 
 looking up to Him sightless, saw. Looking to Him 
 must be turning to Him, and turning to Him must be 
 conversion." 
 
 Then we agreed that we both had much to learn, 
 and that we would read the Bible together. 
 
 Since then we have read the Bible veiy often to- 
 gether, Evelyn and I. But her anxiety and uneasi- 
 ness seem to increase. She says the Bible is so full of 
 God, not only as a King, whose audience must be 
 attended on Sundays, or a Judge at a distance record- 
 ing our sins to weigh them at the last day, but as a 
 Father near us always, having a right to our tender- 
 est love as well as our deepest reverence. 
 
 " And I," she says, " am far from loving Him best 
 — ^have scarcely all my life done anything, or given 
 up anything, to please Him." 
 
 I comforted her as well as I could. I told her she 
 
 must not think so much of her loving God as of Hi^ 
 
 lovhig her ; — loving us on through all our ingratitude 
 
 and foolishness. We read together of the Cross — of 
 
 9 
 
98 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Him who bore our sins there in His owti body, and 
 bore them away. 
 
 I cannot but think this is the true balm for my 
 cousin's distress ; it always restores and cheers me — 
 and yet she is not comforted. 
 
 It seems to me sometimes as if while I were trying 
 to pour in consolation, a mightier hand than mine 
 gently put aside the balm, and made the very 
 gracious words I repeated a knife to probe deeper 
 and deeper into the wound. 
 
 And then I can only wait, and wonder, and pray. 
 It does seem as if God were working in her heart. 
 She is so much gentler, and more subdued. And the 
 Bible says not only joy and peace, but gentleness, is 
 a fruit of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 I often wish Evelyn were only as free as the old 
 woman who sells oranges at Aunt Beauchamp's door, 
 or the little boy who sweeps the crossings ; for tney 
 may go where they like and hear the Methodist 
 preachers in Moorfields or in the Foundery Chapel. 
 And I feel as if Mr. Wesley or Mr. Whitefield could 
 help my cousin as I cannot. If she could only hear 
 those mighty, melting words of conviction and conso- 
 lation I saw bringing tears down the colliers' faces, 
 or holding the crowd at Moorfields in awe-stricken, 
 breathless attention 1 
 
 My wish is accomplished. We are to go and hear 
 Mr. Whitefield speak at Lady Huntingdon's house in 
 Park Street. It came about in this way : — 
 
 A lady who is reported to have lately become very 
 religious called one morning, and after some general 
 conversation began to speak of Mr. Whitefield's ad- 
 dresses in Lady Huntingdon's house. She strongly 
 
MUS. KITTY TREVYLYAK, 99 
 
 urged my aunt and cousin to go, saying, by way of 
 inducement, that it was quite a select assembly — no 
 peoj)le one would not like to meet were invited, Or, 
 at all events, if such people came, one was in no way 
 mixed up with them. " And he is such a wonderful 
 orator," she said ; " no common-place fanatic, I assure 
 you, Evelyn. His discourses are quite such as you 
 would admire, quite suited to people of the highest 
 intellectual powers. My Lord Bolingbroke was quite 
 fascinated, and my Lord Chesterfield himself said to 
 Mr. Whitefield (in his elegant way), ' He would not 
 say to him what he would say to every one else, how 
 much he approved him.' " 
 
 " I did not know that Lord Chesterfield and Lord 
 Bolingbroke were considered good judges of a ser- 
 mom," said Evelyn drily. 
 
 " Of the doctrine — well, that's another thing," said 
 the religious lady ; " but of the oratory and the taste. 
 Garrick, the great actor, says that his tones have such 
 power that he can make his hearers weep and trem- 
 ble merely by varying his pronunciation of the word 
 Mesopotamia; and many clever men, not at all re- 
 ligious, say they would as soon hear him as the best 
 play." 
 
 " I have heard many services which seemed to me 
 like plays," said Evelyn, very mischievously ; " and 
 I do not see that it can do any one's soul any good to 
 be made weep at the word Mesopotamia." 
 
 " Oh, if we speak of doing real good to the soul," 
 rejoined the visitor, — " that is what I mean ;" and in 
 a tone of real earnest feeling she added, " I never 
 heard any one speak of the soul, and of Christ, and 
 of salvation like Mr. Whitefield. While he is preach- 
 ing I can never think of anything but the great things 
 
iOO TUE DIARY OF 
 
 ^3 is speaking of. It is only afterwaicls one reincm- 
 bc."S his oratory and his voice." 
 
 And it was agreed that we should go to Lady 
 Huntingdon's house the next time Mr. Whitefield 
 was to preach. 
 
 " How strange it is," Evelyn said to me when the 
 lady had left, " what things religious people think 
 will influence us who are still * in the world !' What 
 inducement would it be to me to go and hear a 
 preacher, if Lord Bolingbroke and Lord Chesterfield, 
 or all the clever and sceptical and dissipated noble- 
 men in England liked him, and were no better for it ? 
 They try to tempt us to hear what is good, by saying 
 the congregation is fashionable, or that clever people 
 are captivated, or that the preacher is a genius, or 
 an orator, or a man of the world, when I do think 
 the most worldly people care more for the religion in 
 a sermon than for anything else, and would be more 
 attracted if they would say, * We want you to hear 
 that preacher, because he speaks of sin, and of Christ, 
 and of the forgiveness of sins in a way no one else 
 does.' I wonder," she concluded, after a pause, with 
 a little smile, " if I ever should become really religious, 
 if I shall do the same ; if I shall one day be saying to 
 Harry, ' You must hear this or that preacher ; for he is 
 a better judge of a horse than any jockey you know.' " 
 
 We have heard Mr. Whitefield. 
 
 And what can I remember ? 
 
 Just a man striving with his whole heart and soul 
 to win lost souls out of a perishing, sorrowful world 
 to Christ, and holiness, and joy. 
 
 Just the conviction poured in on the heart by an 
 overwhelming torrent of pleading, warning, tender, 
 
MJiS. KITTY TB^Vk'A-Juif. ,' , ^%^\ 
 
 fervent elotLuence, that Christ ,. Je&lis AK^ 'V^^^, Jcajfes ; 
 more infinitely to win and save lost wandeiihg feoulfe ' 
 than man himself — that where the preacher weeps 
 and entreats, the Saviour died and saved. 
 
 Yes, it is done. The w^ork of salvation is done. 
 "It is finished." 
 
 I never understood that in the same way before. 
 
 It is not only that the Lord Jesus loves us, yearns 
 over us, entreats us not to perish. He has saved us. 
 He has actually taken our sins and blotted them out, 
 washed them out of sight, white, whiter than snow, 
 in His own blood. 
 
 It is not only that He pities. He saves. He has 
 died. He has redeemed. The hands stretched out 
 to save are those that paid the terrible ransom. He 
 did not begin to j)ity us when we began to turn to 
 Him. "When we were without strength, He died 
 for us, ungodly." 
 
 " God was in Christ reconciling the world to him- 
 self, not imputing their trespasses unto them." 
 
 " For He hath made him to be sin for us who knew 
 no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of 
 God in Him." 
 
 I never understood this in this way before ; and 
 yet there it is, and always has been, as clear as day- 
 light, in page after page of the Bible. 
 
 All the way home Evelyn said nothing. Aunt 
 Beauchamp was the only one who spoke ; and she 
 said it was very affecting certainly ; but she did not 
 see there was anything so very original. It was all 
 in the Prayer-Book and in the Bible. 
 
 And then, after a pause, she added, in rather a 
 Belf-contradictory way, " But if we are to be what Mr. 
 VThitefield would have us, we might as well all go 
 
'i02,c' , V « i/ '<Jt/I^ DIARY OF 
 
 ; i'i\t(^ cp^iveWis^at oicf'. He really speaks as if people 
 were to (id^notliifig but te "religious. He forgets that 
 some of us have other duties." 
 
 Then she took refuge in her vinaigrette, and said 
 in a very languid voice, " My darling Evelyn you look 
 quite pale. Much more excitement of this kind would 
 make us both quite ill. The man is so terribly vehe- 
 ment, he makes one feel as if one were in peril of life 
 and death. Such preaching may do for people with- 
 out nerves, but it would soon kill me. I am only 
 too glad I escaped without an attack of hysterics. 
 And," she continued, " I was told that a few days since 
 Lady Suffolk was there by invitation. I really won- 
 der a person of Lady Huntingdon's character should 
 invite such people to her house. My dear," concluded 
 my aunt, " I do not think the thing is respectable, 
 and I wonder Lady Mary proposed our attending 
 such an assembly. Indeed, I wonder at myself for 
 consenting to go. It is not at all a kind of place for 
 sound church people to be seen at. I would not 
 have the archdeacon know it on any account ; for I 
 am sure Dr. Humden would think I had been out of 
 my senses." 
 
 And soothed with so many restoratives, ecclesiasti- 
 cal, social, and medical. Aunt Beauchamp relapsed 
 into her usual state of languor and self-content- 
 ment. 
 
 But Evelyn said nothing. Only when I ventured 
 some hours afterwards to knock at her bed-room 
 door, she opened and closed it in silence, and then 
 taking both my hands, said, in u soft, trembling 
 voice, " Cousin Kitty, I am very full of sin 1 I really 
 think I am worse than any one, because, being 
 myself so wrong, I have so despised every or.e 
 
MRS. KITTY TEEVYLYAK 108 
 
 tiround me. I have been a Pharisee and a publican 
 all in one." 
 
 And then she burst into tears, and buried her face 
 in her hands. But in a few minutes she looked up 
 again with a face beaming with a soft, child-like, 
 lowly peace, and she said, " But Cousin Kitty, I am 
 happier than I ever thought any one could be. For 
 I do believe our Lord Jesus Christ died for my sins, 
 and has really washed them away. And I do feel 
 sure God loves me, even me ; and I think He really 
 will by degrees make me good — I mean humble, and 
 loving, and kind. I do feel so at Jiome^ Cousin Kitty," 
 she added. " I feel as I had come back to the very 
 heart of my Father — and oh. He loves me so tenderly, 
 so infinitely, and has been loving me so long. Yes, 
 at home, and at rest," she sobbed ; at home everywhere^ 
 and for ever, and for ever^ 
 
 The next morning Evelyn came to me early, pale, 
 but with a great calm on her frank, expressive face. 
 " Kitty," she said, *' I have had a strange night. I 
 could not sleep at all. It seemed as if the sins of all 
 my past life came up before me unbidden, as they 
 say the whole past sometimes comes vividly bacl: to 
 a drowning man. I saw the good I had left undone, 
 the evil I had said and done, and the pride and self- 
 ishness at the bottom of all. And almost more than 
 anything, I felt how unkind, and even unjust I had 
 been to mamma; how ungenerous in not veiling 
 many of her little infirmities ; for I know she loves 
 papa and Harry and me really better than all else in . 
 the world. I felt I must come with the first light 
 and confess this to you. For one night came back 
 to me, Kitty, years and years ago, when I was a little 
 child. Harry and I had the scarlet fever, and I saw 
 
104 THE DIARY OF 
 
 before mc, as if it were yesterday, my mother's pa^e 
 tender face, as she moved from one little bed to the 
 other. I remember thinking how beautiful and dcai 
 she was as she sat by the nursery fire, and the flicker- 
 ing light fell on her face and her dark hair, and how 
 she started at any movement or moan I or Harry 
 made, and came so softly to the bedside, and bent 
 over me with such anxious love in her eyes, and '')aid 
 tender little soothing words, and smoothed the pil- 
 low, or kissed my forehead with the soft kiss which 
 was better than any cooling draught. Since then, 
 indeed, we have been much away from her, and left 
 to governesses and tutors ; but Kitty, think what a 
 blessing it is to recall all that early affection now, in- 
 stead of by-and-by, when it would be too late to say 
 a loving word or to do a thing to please her in re- 
 turn ! Now I can bear to think of this, and of all 
 my coldness and impatience, with the thought of the 
 Cross and of God's forgiving love, and with the hope 
 of the days to come. But only think what it would 
 have been to have seen it all too latey 
 
 It seems as if, in coming back to God, Evelyn had 
 come back to all that is tender and true in natural 
 human love. 
 
 I suppose this is conversion. The joy of such a 
 waking must be very great. But it is joy enough to 
 le aicalce^ however little we know when and how we 
 awoke — awake in the light of our Heavenly Father's 
 love to do the day's work He gives us. 
 
 To-day she smiled and said to me, — 
 
 " I think I should not mind now their talking over 
 my tase at Lady's Betty's tea-parties. I had rather 
 not but if there was kindness at the bottom of it, I 
 
Jl^tS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 105 
 
 need not mind much. But Kitty," slie continued, " I 
 do think still it is not possible to talk truly and much 
 of our deepest feelings of any kind. I think it is a 
 waste of power which we want for action." 
 
 " We certainly need not sit down to talk of our 
 own feelings," I said. " There are moments when 
 they mil come out. And there is so much in the 
 Bible to speak of mthout talking about ourselves." 
 
 "Yes," she said; "I think setting ourselves to 
 talk religion is weakening. Think of Harry and me 
 having a meeting to discuss v/hich of us loved our 
 parents best, or whether we loved them better yester- 
 day or to-day ! Yet there are sacred times when we 
 must speak of those we love." 
 
 Aunt Beauchamp is rather puzzled at the change 
 In Evelyn. Evelyn has tried to explain it to her. 
 But she says she cannot at all understand it. ^''Emry 
 one believed in Christianity except a few sceptics like 
 Lord Bolingbroke. Of course^ the work of our re- 
 demption was * finished.' It was finished more than 
 seventeen hundred years since. Mr. Humden preached 
 about it, always, at least, on Good Friday. And 
 why Evelyn should be so particularly anxious about 
 having her sins forgiven, she could not conceive ; 
 she had always been charming, if at times a little 
 espiegle. But if she was happy no one could ob- 
 ject." 
 
 There is nothing striking in this change in Evelyn, 
 but it is pervading — a gentleness in all she says and 
 does; which, with the natural truthfulness and 
 power of her character, are very winning. And 
 this I notice especially with regard to her mother, 
 a deference and tenderness, which with no peculiar 
 demonstration of affection, evidently touch Aunt 
 
106 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Beaucliamp more than she knows. She begins even 
 to venture to consult Evelyn about her wardrobe. 
 
 Evelyn does not ask to go again to hear Mr. Wliite- 
 field. But she has asked to go with me to see my 
 poor old Methodist orange woman, who has disap- 
 peared from our door-steps, and now lies contentedly 
 on her jDoor bed, coughing and suffering, waitl ig the 
 Lord's time, which, she says, is sure to be exactly 
 right. The dear old soul gets us to read to her 
 chapters from her old Bible, and hymns from Mr. 
 Wesley's new hymn-book ; and repeats to us bits 
 from Mr. Wesley's sermons. And perhaps, although 
 sometimes the grammar is very confused and the 
 theology not very clear, the strength of God made 
 perfect in the weakness of a dying-bed may help us 
 both as much as the mighty pow er of Mr. ^Yhite 
 field's eloquence. 
 
 To-day Hugh Spencer called on his way from 
 Cornwall to Oxford. 
 
 At first he called me Mrs. Kitty, and w^as very cere- 
 monious. But I could scarcely help crying, I was so 
 glad. It was like a little bit of home. But he did 
 not bring a very good account of Mother, and that 
 made me cry in earnest. And when he saw^ that he 
 dropped naturally into his old manner — always so 
 kind, and like truth itself. 
 
 When he was gone, Evelyn asked me who he was^ 
 and wiiy I had not said more about him. 
 
 " He looks," she said, " a man one could trust." 
 
 But why should I ? He is only like one of our- 
 selves. 
 
 I am so glad and thanldul. Aunt Beauchamp is 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 107 
 
 going again to Batli for the waters. And from Bath, 
 tather or Jack is to fetch me home. 
 
 I am so hapi^y, I can scarcely help singing all day 
 I hope it is not ungrateful. They have all been so 
 very kind to me in London. 
 
 And even Aunt Eeauchamp's very dignified maid, 
 of whom at first I stood in such awe, seemed quite 
 sorry when she heard I w^as going, and fell from the 
 highest refinement of English into her native Devon- 
 shire dialect, when she took leave of me, to go and 
 prepare the house at Bath, and wished me every 
 blessing with tears in her eyes. 
 
 Yet I have done nothing for her, except being very 
 sorry for her, and tiying to comfort her one day 
 when she was crying because her only brother had 
 got drunk, and gone and taken the King's money 
 and listed for the wars, and left her widowed mother 
 alone. 
 
 To-day Evelyn went v^ith me to v^ish good-bye to 
 Aunt Henderson. Aunt Henderson was very kind in 
 her hortatory way. She told me she had heard with 
 thankfulness that Evelyn had become serious. But 
 she advised her not to run into extremes. Young 
 people brought out of the world were very apt to 
 run into the other extreme of fanaticism. She hoped 
 Evelyn, if she was indeed sincere, would kec p the 
 golden mean. It had always been her endeavor to do 
 so, and she had found it the wisest plan. 
 
 Cousin Tom was more shy and awkward than ever. 
 He said, when I asked him, that he had attended Mr. 
 Wesley's preaching two or three times, but it was 
 like daggers to him. For as to telling everything to 
 his father and mother, he did not see how any human 
 bci ig could. To sit evening after evening at hom.e a 
 
108 THE DIAHT OF 
 
 distrusted delinquent, the subject of indirect lectures^ 
 was more than he could bear. If he confessed, he 
 must run away the next morning. 
 
 I told him I was sure he had no idea of the tru^ 
 love there was in his mother's heart — if he would 
 only try it. 
 
 " Very little more idea, Tom," I said, " than you 
 have of the love God has for you — if you would only 
 try that !" 
 
 A gleam of light flashed for a moment from under 
 the shaggy eyebrows, and he glanced up at me. But 
 then the old desponding downcast look came back. 
 Aunt Henderson and Evelyn joined us, and he said no 
 more. 
 
 Aunt Jeanie seemed to me feebler than when I saw 
 her last ; but her dear old face lighted up as she 
 talked to me. 
 
 And as we were going away, she rose and held our 
 hands in each of hers, and said, in a tender, trem- 
 ling voice, — 
 
 '* The world is no easy place for baims like you to 
 find their way through. And there's no safe road 
 through it that I know, from fii-st to last, but just the 
 foot-prints of the Lord himself. But you must not 
 look to see even these in any long track before you. 
 You'll mostly find nothing i)lain but the next step. 
 But your heart need not sink for that. A Saviour's 
 hand to guide you is better than a map. It itpholdi 
 irliiU it guides, I have found that the times I was 
 longing for the map were just those when I was 
 losing hold of the hand ; and then more than once 
 the thorns, piercing my feet, drove me back to the 
 foot-prints and the hand I should never have for 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAHr. 109 
 
 saken. But you need not be afraid even of the 
 thorns," she added, her whole face lighting up with 
 confidence and joy; "the feet in whose prints we 
 tread were j)ierced for us with worse than thorns. 
 And the hand that guides and upholds is a hand 
 well alt)le to bind up any wounds. It has bound up 
 what none else could — ^the broken heart." 
 
 Then as once or twice before, she seemed to forget 
 the thought of our presence in the presence of God. 
 Her spirit seemed to rise in prayer. 
 
 Evelyn and I said little as we went home together. 
 But it was not because our hearts were closed to 
 each other. They seemed not only too full, but too 
 near to need the inteiTcntion of words. 
 10 
 
IV. 
 
 j«jT home again ! With what longing I have 
 looked forward to the moment when I should 
 be able to write those words. And now I can 
 scarcely see to wiite them through my tears. 
 
 For Mother looks so ill, so terribly gentle ; her 
 step, always light, so noiseless ; her voice, always 
 soft, so low and,sweet ; her smile so tender, not like 
 the dawn or the echo of happy laughter, but like the 
 light struggling through tears. 
 
 Can these few months have made such a change, 
 or have I been blind ? Father does not seem to see 
 it, nor Jack. Can it be, after all, only that, coming 
 out of the glare of that brilliant London world, 
 everything in our quiet world at home looks pale for 
 the time ? 
 
 Because the house, and the furniture, and all look 
 so different. I never saw before how the bit of car- 
 pet in the i)arlor is worn and colorless ; nor how the 
 chintz curtains are patched ; nor how Mother's Sun- 
 day dress itself is faded. 
 
 And these cannot have changed much in a few 
 months. 
 
 Indeed, as it is, I should not have noticed the 
 furniture half as much if we had met as usual in 
 the hall, around our ordinary table, to our ordinary 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAN: 111 
 
 fare. But Betty was determined to make it a liigli- 
 day ; and accordingly the meal was spread in the 
 parlor, and the best Delft ware was brought out, as 
 if I had been a stranger of distinction ; and, after 
 all, it seemed a positive wrong to notice the dams 
 in the table-cloth, bleached to such a dazzling white- 
 ness, and the crack in the best glass sugar-basia, 
 monument of an ancient battle between Betty and 
 Jack. 
 
 Yes, it was this holiday pitch to which Betty had 
 insisted on winding everything up, which just brought 
 me from the laughing point to the crying, which 
 is so near it. It was the tender anxiety in Mother's 
 eyes that I should find everything especially pleasant 
 and bright, that so nearly turned the smile in mine 
 own into tears whenever I looked at her. It was 
 Betty's ostentatious exhibition of all her grandest 
 things that gave me the little pang when Father 
 took ofi" his best coat, which he had put on to wel- 
 come me, and Mother took it from him, and folded- 
 it so carefully in its white covers, and laid it on its 
 shelf in the cupboard. 
 
 For it is no grievance to have to take care of one's 
 clothes ; I am sure none of us feel it so. And I would 
 not, if I could, have our dear old furniture sink into 
 the mere decorative ciphers such things are in rich 
 men's houses, instead of beiag the dear familiar old 
 letters on which so much of the history of our lives 
 is written. 
 
 No ; it was just the strain to be at high-holiday 
 pitch which was too much for the carpet, and the 
 table-cloth, and our precious Mother, and me. 
 
 For when at last Father gave a little shivering 
 glance at the parlor grate, with its very fine decora- 
 
112 THE DIARY OF 
 
 tions, whicli Betty would on no account sacrifice to 
 such low considerations as warmth and comfort, and 
 Trusty, with his paws on the sacred threshold which 
 he dared not cross, whined an insinuating remon- 
 strance against our exclusiveness, and our stateliness 
 at last broke down, and Jack set a light to the fire 
 in the great hall, and we five drew close to it, and 
 the great festival was over, and we began to be 
 really at home, — it could not have been only the 
 glow from the blazing logs, — Mother certainly did 
 look less pale, and more like her own self, as Trusty 
 and I sat together at her feet, she stroking my hair, 
 and I stroking Trusty's ears. 
 
 Yet we did not remain long so ; Father fell asleep, 
 and waking suddenly asked Jack if he had seen to 
 the horses. The one I had ridden had been lent us, 
 and had a cough, and must have a warm mash. 
 
 Jack had not seen to anything. Father drily sup- 
 posed not — ^how could any one expect it ? 
 
 Jack yawned in a deprecatory way, and went out ; 
 and Father did not fall asleep again, but followed 
 Jack in a few minutes, muttering that borrowed 
 beasts at least must not be left to chance. 
 
 The troubled look came into Mother's face again. 
 Trusty evidently felt she needed consolation, and 
 after following Father to the door, paused a moment, 
 then came back and put his paws on her knee, and 
 attempted to lick her hand. And I felt just as 
 dumb and pei*plexed as the dog, and could do little 
 more than he in the way of comfort. I could only 
 draw Mother's hand round my neck, and press a 
 little closer to her, and cover it with silent kisses. 
 
 After all, we are all " dumb creatures" after a cer- 
 
MRS, KITTY TBEVTLYAK 113 
 
 tain point. Only, dogs reacli their dumb point a 
 little sooner than we do. 
 
 And this has been going on all the time I have 
 been away I While I have been living without care 
 or anxiety ; while Aunt Henderson has been pursu- 
 ing her grave routine of household occupations, 
 having the washing done on Monday, the ironing on 
 Tuesday, the best parlor cleaned on Wednesday, the 
 l^ack parlor on Thursday, the hall and the garden- 
 room on Friday, and things in general on Saturday ; 
 while Aunt Beauchamp has been amusing herself 
 with her complimentary old gentlemen in the morn- 
 ings, and exciting herself over her cards every 
 evening ; care, care, care, keen pangs of fear, and 
 slow gnawings of anxiety have been steadily, surely, 
 eating away at Mother's heart ; and no one has seen 
 it but Trusty ! Poor, faithful, perplexed old dog, 
 he has seen it — he told me so with his wistful eyes 
 this evening, and by his low whine when Jack went 
 out, not closing the door, and Father followed him, 
 decisively slamming it. And I have not been here. 
 But nothing on earth shall ever move me from 
 Mother's side again. 
 
 The Same Evening. 
 
 Aftek writing these words my heart was too full 
 for any more, and I closed the Diary, and prepared to 
 go to sleep, lest Mother should see my candle burn- 
 ing too late, and be anxious about me. But it was 
 too late already. The soft touch was on the latch of 
 the door, and before I could possibly extinguish the 
 light and liide my tears in the darkness. Mother was 
 beside me. 
 
 " My darling !" she said, a rare word for her, "you 
 10* 
 
114 THE DIARY OF 
 
 are over-tired. You are not well. You should be in 
 bed before this. We must come back to our homely 
 old country ways." 
 
 " Indeed I am not tired, Mother," I said, trying to 
 speak steadily. 
 
 "Has anything troubled you, darling," she said, 
 " while you were away ?" 
 
 " Oh, no," I said ; " every one has spoiled me with 
 kindness." 
 
 " Spoiled you for the old home, Kitty ?" she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 She had given me a right to cry, and I sobbed out, 
 " Oh, Mother, it is nothing but you ; you are so pale, 
 and things have been troubling you, and there has 
 been no one to see it." 
 
 She was too truthful to comfort me with a decep- 
 tion. She only smiled, and said, " Does no one see 
 but you, Kitty ? Well, supposing I say I have missed 
 you day and night, and never knew what you were to 
 me till you went away, will that comfort you, Kitty ? 
 Shall we cry because it is all right again ?" 
 
 " I will never leave you again, Mother, as long as 
 I live," I said passionately. 
 
 "As long as we both live, darling," she replied 
 very quietly. " If it is God's will, and not very selfish 
 in me, I do trust not." 
 
 I was calmed by her words. 
 
 [t was only after she had seen me safely in bed, and 
 closed the door, and come back again to give me 
 another kiss before she left me, that her words came 
 b-»-ck on me with another meaning. 
 
 " As long as we hyfh live." 
 
 And then they echoed through and through my 
 b'^art, like a passing bell through a vault. And I 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 115 
 
 tossed to and fro, and could not sleep, until I re- 
 membered I had not said my prayers. 
 
 The first night of my coming home ! the thing I 
 had prayed for evening and morning, and often in the 
 day, ever since I had left home, and I had gone to 
 rest without a word of thanks to God 1 
 
 I was appalled at my own ingratitude. I rose and 
 knelt by the window in the moonlight, which quiv- 
 ered through the branches of the old elms, and 
 shimmered on the leaves of the old thorn, and 
 chequered the floor through the diamond lattice 
 panes. 
 
 It was that I wanted — only that — prayer w^th 
 thanksgiving. It did me good from the moment I 
 began. 
 
 And what wonder ? Prayer is no soliloquy. The 
 Bible says, w^hen we call on Him, God bends down 
 His ear to listen, as a father bends down to listen to 
 a little child. Yes, God listens I He heard me as I 
 confessed my ingratitude and my distrustful fears. 
 He heard me as I gave Him thanks ; He heard me as 
 I committed Mother to His care. 
 
 Ungrateful ! God had been watching Mother all 
 the time, understanding her inmost cares, and caring 
 for her. 
 
 And He w^ll care for us, " as long as we 'both live.'''' 
 Yes, when I breathed even tJiose words into His ear, 
 the terrible death-chill seemed to pass from them. 
 
 " As long as we both live " here on earth, and, then, 
 w^hcn we have no more cares to cast on Him, He will 
 still care for us both for ever and for ever. 
 
 Margihal Note. — I was unjust, too, to say no one 
 I) ad seen how dear Mother was looking : for Hugh 
 
116 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Specer told me she was looking ill when I saw him 
 in Great Ormond Street. 
 
 I am feeling much better to-day than yesterday. 
 
 In the first place Mother is looking better. 
 
 In the second place, I have had my morning walk 
 once more, and milked the cows, and taken the cup 
 of new milk to Mother before breakfast. And the 
 mere sight and sound of the sea made my heart 
 buoyant again like its own weaves; the great and 
 wide sea, heaving its innumerable waves from its 
 deep, still heart ; the wind crisping them into foam, 
 till they looked like a flight of snowy sea-birds ; the 
 old familiar thunder of the breakers against the 
 rocks ; the long roll of the ebbing wave, as it swept 
 the pebbles back from the white beach far below. 
 Then the turf was crisp with hoar-frost ; and the 
 wind on the clifi" blew about me with a rough hearti- 
 ness; and when I sat on the milking-stool in the 
 shelter of the hollow, Daisy looked round at me 
 with her large, motherly eyes, and in her calm, 
 friendly way, recognized my light to be there. So 
 all the dumb creatures welcomed me home again. 
 
 And in the third place, I have had a battle with 
 Betty, which is her welcome and recognition that I 
 have once more taken my old standing. 
 
 I had just taken the new milk to Mother, and to 
 my grief and surprise had not found her in her own 
 little closet over the porch ; she had not yet risen. 
 
 " I find it strengthens me more to take the milk 
 before I rise, Kitty," she said, making light of it. 
 ** I did not think you would have been stirring so 
 early after your journey. It is cold sometimes in the 
 mornings now," she added, apologizing to my rueful 
 
MRS. KITTY TEEVYLYAN, 117 
 
 looks ; " but when tlie spring comes, we sliall liave 
 our morning talks in the porch-room again." 
 
 I tried to make as light of the change as Mother 
 did, to her ; but when I left her, I could not resist 
 the longing to pour out my 1 rouble on some one. 
 Father was in the fields. Jack was in bed. Betty 
 was the only human creature in the house ; and I had 
 no resource but to invade the sanctuary of the dairy 
 where she was making the butter. 
 
 The windows were open ; the low sunbeams slanted 
 through the thick leaves close outside, flickering on 
 the clean, cool, grey slabs of slate ; the fresh morn- 
 ing air came in, rippling the milk in the pans from 
 which the thick cream had been skimmed, while the 
 one that was left with its unbroken crust of thick, 
 yellow cream, recalled countless childish feastings. 
 Altogether it was a delicious atmosphere of cool- 
 ness, and greenness, and cream, and memories of child- 
 hood ; and I felt just as much a child beside Betty, 
 as when Jack and I stood there, humble j)etitioners 
 to her bounty as Queen of the Dairy, and Dispenser 
 of all that was Delicious, scarcely tall enough to see 
 over the brims of those wonderful pans of delight. 
 
 Betty was facing the window, lovingly patting her 
 butter into shape, and humming to herself a low 
 winding song, with as little beginning or end as the 
 murmur of a brook. She did not hear me until I 
 stood before her, and exclaimed, — 
 
 " Oh, Betty, why did no one tell me ? Has no one 
 seen how ill Mother is V 
 
 It was an indiscreet beginning. Betty looked on 
 it as an assault. For a minute she said nothing, then 
 ^till continuing apparently absorbed in her butter 
 she replied drily, — 
 
118 THE DIARY OF 
 
 " Some folks thinks no one sees anything except 
 they tell it to the town-crier. Some folks, especially 
 young folks, thinks no one sees anything but them- 
 selves." 
 
 "Oh, you know what I mean, Betty!" I said. 
 " How long has Mother not been able to get up to 
 have her milk ? And why did no one write to me V 
 
 " Why no one wrote I can't say, Mrs. Kitty," she 
 replied. " Why / didn't write, is as plain as why the 
 dog doesn't speak. Not that that is so very plain 
 neither, leastwise as regards Trusty, for he sees more 
 than a sight of us that can." 
 
 And she continued dexterously and elaborately 
 shaping her butter into the well-remembered dainty 
 little rolls, as if the precise curve of the rolls were of 
 supreme importance, and the question under discus- 
 sion of none. 
 
 My disadvantages in the contest were great ; a 
 woman with her fingers employed has always such a 
 high vantage-ground in a debate, over one that is 
 idle. The matter in debate can always be treated 
 in a i^lacid parenthetical way, as quite subordinate to 
 the matter in hand. Besides, Betty was in the very 
 heart of her dominions, and I was an invader. 
 
 My only chance was to get her to perceive that I 
 was no combatant at all, but only a suppliant, when, 
 after guarding herself with an admonition, I knew 
 her faithful womanly heart would open all its stores 
 of affection and pity at once. 
 
 The tears which nearly choked my voice came to 
 my aid, as I said, — 
 
 " Betty, I know you love her almost as I do, and 
 you always see as quickly as any one. Is Mother ill if 
 and can anything be done ?" 
 
MliS. KITTY TREVYLYAU: 119 
 
 Tlicn Betty, having laid the last finished roll on its 
 white dish, began to wipe her hands in the runner 
 that hung behind the door, and said, — 
 
 " I tell you what it is, Mrs. Kitty, I believe we 
 make a heathen idol of Missis, and the Lord won't 
 have it." And the runner was suspiciously drawn 
 over Betty's face. 
 
 " Make Mother a heathen, Betty !" I said. " What 
 do you mean ?" 
 
 " I mean this, Mrs. Kitty," she said : " I have heard 
 that parson that the other parsons can't abide, and 
 who turned my brother-in-law into a lamb ; and he 
 said we are all bom idolaters, no better than the 
 heathen, unless we love God. And then he went on 
 to say what were our idols. At first I thought he 
 was going to let us all off easy. For he spoke of the 
 rich man worshipping his riches, and I thought of 
 the old miser at Falmouth, who counts out his money 
 every night ; and then he spoke of the great man 
 worshipping his acres, and I thought there was a hit 
 at our squire, who wouldn't let Master have that bit 
 of a field that runs into ours, and would have made 
 such a winter pasture for our Daisy ; and then he 
 spoke of the foolish young hussy s making an idol of 
 their ribbons, and I looked round on a many such 
 that were there, to see how they liked that. And 
 then he told of husbands and wives making idols of 
 each other, and mothers of their children, and then I 
 thought of all of you, Mrs. Kitty, and wished that 
 Master and you and Missis had been there to hear ; 
 and so I do sure, it would have done you all a sight 
 of good. There's Master makes an open idol of you, 
 Miy dear ; and Missis is just as bad, only she does it 
 
120 THE DIARY OF 
 
 in secret like ; and you think no one fit to touch Alis- 
 sis or look after her but yourself." 
 
 Having thus delivered her conscience of her ser- 
 mon, Betty had made an outlet for her sympathy ; 
 and sitting down on a bench, and wiping her face 
 with her apron, she resumed in a gentle husky 
 tone, — 
 
 "Not that I thiuk you need worrit yourself so 
 much about Missis. In my belief, it's you, Mrs. 
 Kitty, my dear, that she has been pining for ; and 
 now she's got you again, the life will come back 
 again, like a fish thrown back into the w^ater ; least- 
 ways if you don't go making an idol of her, and, 
 with your tears and your woeful looks watching 
 every turn of her face, love her right away from us 
 altogether into heaven, which at any time, in my be- 
 lief, it would take little to do with Missis. For that 
 she is fit for to go nobody can deny. But as to her 
 not getting up so early," she continued, " that's some- 
 thing to be thankful for, my dear. It was me that 
 brought her over to that, and I hope no one will 
 over-persuade her out of it. Some folks seem to 
 think it improves a weak rope to stretch it as far 
 as it will strain. In my belief, it's more like to 
 snap it." 
 
 Betty's view of Mother's health comforted me 
 much. It seemed to bring the matter from the region 
 of vague, immeasurable, helpless fears, into that of 
 actual but remediable cares, which a little cheerful, 
 tender nursing might soon relieve. I felt anxious to 
 know more of Betty's experience with the Methodists, 
 and I said, — 
 
 " Then the parson, after all, said nothing which 
 particularly suited you, Betty ?'» 
 
MBS. KITTY TBEVYLTAN. 121 
 
 " Suited ! no, . Mrs. Kitty, lie did not surely ; as 
 little as a rod suits a fool's back. And a fool I was 
 to go, wlien Missis warned me not." 
 
 " You did not like what he said, then ?" 
 
 " I should think not," she replied. " I should like 
 to know who would like to be stuck up in the stocks 
 before the whole parish, and pelted with dirt and 
 stones, not in a promiscuous way like, but just ex- 
 actly where it hurts most !" 
 
 " How was it, Betty V I ventured to ask. 
 
 To my great amazement, Betty's voice suddenly 
 failed, and she began to cry. Never before had I 
 seen her show any sign of feeling, beyond a transient 
 huskiness of voice, or a suspicious brushing of her 
 hand over her eyes. She was wont to be as much 
 ashamed of tears as a schoolboy. But now her tears 
 became sobs, and it was some little time before she 
 could speak. 
 
 " Mrs. Kitty," she said, " it was just as I was think- 
 ing who he'd hit next, and smiling to myself to see 
 the poor fools sobbing and fainting around me, when 
 down came the word like an arrow right into the 
 core of my heart ; and there I had to stand writhing, 
 like a fish on a hook, while the parson drove it in ; 
 and he as quiet all the time as if he'd been fixing . a 
 nail in the right spot to a hair's-breadth, in a piece 
 of wood that mustn't be split. I could have knocked 
 him down, Mrs. Kitty ; but there I stood, fixed and 
 helpless as a worm with a pin through it." 
 
 " But what did he say, Betty ?" 
 
 " Mrs. Kitty," she said, " he made me feel I was 
 no better than a natural-bom heathen, and that 
 the idols I had been worshipping, instead of God, 
 11 
 
122 THE DIARY OF 
 
 were things an Indian savage would liFive been 
 ashamed of." 
 
 " What were they then, Betty ?" 
 
 " Why, just my dairy, and my kitchen, and myself,-' 
 she said ; " the very pats of butter which must be 
 better than any in the countiy, and the stone floor 
 I've been as angered to see a foot-mark on, as if it 
 had been the King's foot-stool." 
 
 *' The parson did not speak about pats of butter 
 and kitchen floors ?" I said. 
 
 " Not in so many words," she replied ; " but 1 
 knew well enough what he meant, and so did he ; 
 the passions I've been in with Master Jack and you 
 about your tricks, and with old Roger about his 
 dirty shoes, and all." 
 
 " But, Betty," I interposed, " Jack and I and Roger 
 were provoking and wrong often ; and the kitchen 
 and the dairy were the work God had given you to 
 do, and you miglit to care about them." 
 
 " What's the use of struggling, Mrs. Kitty?" Betty 
 replied, hopelessly shaking her head. "I am not 
 going to defend Roger. If I were a saint, I'd not 
 say Roger's not often as bad as a bom fool, and that 
 tilings don't often hapi)en aggravating. Haven't I 
 gone over things times without number, and made 
 out everything as clear as if I'd been a lawyer at the 
 assizes — that Fd a right to be in a rage, and a right 
 to care for the work the Almighty gave me to do ? 
 But it's no use ; the wound is there and the word is 
 there, working and rankling away in it like a rusty 
 nail. I'm a poor, sinful woman, ]Mrs. Kitty, and that's 
 the end of it, and I see no way out of it." 
 
 ** But, Betty," I said, " did you not go again, and 
 try to get comfort ?" 
 
MES. KITTY TREVYLYAy, 123 
 
 " I did indeed, although I had little hope of get- 
 ting comfort," she said. " All the time he was speak- 
 ing, he looked at me through and through like, but 
 I never flinched : I looked at him back again ; and I 
 set my face, and said in my heart, ' You've caught 
 me now, but I'll never let you try your hand on me 
 again.' But when he had stopped and I had got 
 away, it seemed as if something were always drawing 
 and drawing me back, like a moth to a candle. So 
 at last I went again. A lot of folks from the mines 
 and the fishings were met on the side of the moor, 
 and a man preached to them from the top of a hedge. 
 But this time it was not the parson, Mr. Wesley ; it 
 was a chap from Yorkshire — a stout, tall fellow, 
 strong enough to throw any wrestler in Cornwall. 
 At first I thought he was speaking a foreign tongue ; 
 but when I made him out, I found he was worse than 
 the other. The parson drove that one nail home into 
 your heart, and kept it there in one spot, struggle as 
 you might ; but the Yorkshire man knocked and 
 pounded you about until there was no sound place 
 left in you from top to toe. He made me feel I had 
 been doing, and speaking, and thinking, and feeling 
 wrong every day of my life, and was to this day. 
 And that was all the comfort I got for not minding 
 Mssis." 
 
 " But, Betty," I said, " there is comfort, there U 
 balm for such wounds ; that was not all these Metho- 
 dists said ?" 
 
 •' No," she replied mournfully, " folks say they 
 spoke wonderful gracious words about our Saviour 
 and His death and His pity. But all I know is, it 
 all turned to gall for me. They say sugar turns to 
 vinegar when folks' insides are wrong ; and I sujjposo 
 
124 777^ DIARY OF 
 
 the sweetest words man or angel ever spoke would 
 be sour to me, as long as my heart is all wrong. 
 Why, the very thing that makes me worse than the 
 Indian savages, is the Lord's pity and what he went 
 through for me, for they never heard of it, and I 
 have." 
 
 *' But, Betty," I said, " there is prayer ! You can 
 pray." 
 
 " I always thought I could, Mrs. Kitty," she said, 
 " until I came to try. I've always said the Lord's 
 Prayer every night, and the Belief and the Com- 
 mandments on Sundays. But when I came to want 
 something and ask for it, it seemed as if I could not 
 pray at all ; pray, of course, I might, but it seems as 
 if there were no one there to mind." 
 
 *' Betty," I said, " I think you really do know our 
 Lord's pity and grace as little as the Indians. You 
 speak as if you were all alone in your troubles, when 
 all your troubles are only the rod and staff of God 
 bringing you home." 
 
 " Maybe, Mrs. Kitty," she said ; " but I can't see 
 it. I only feel the smart and the bruises, and they 
 worrit me to that degree I can barely abide Koger, 
 or Master Jack, or you, or ]\Iissis, or anybody. I 
 even struck at old Trusty the other day with the 
 mop — poor, harmless, dumb brute — as if it was Jiis 
 fault. But he knew I meant no harm, and came 
 crouching to lick my hand the next moment." 
 
 " Oh, Betty," I said, " the poor beasts understand 
 us l)etter than we undei*stand God I They trust us.'* 
 
 "And well they may, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, " for 
 they never did any sin. The cat '11 steal the milk if 
 she gets a chance, jooor fool, and the dog cannot be 
 trusted with a bone at all times, I'll not say he can. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 125 
 
 But the Almighty made them so, and it's us that 
 puts them out with our laws about mine and thine, 
 which they don't understand. It's their nature. 
 But the Almighty never made us to bury our souls 
 in pats of butter and pans of milk, and forget Ilim. 
 and fly into rages about a bit of dirt on a kitchen 
 floor. And until that can be set right, I don't see 
 that anything is right, or that I can think with any 
 comfort of the Almighty." 
 
 " But our Saviour came to set all that right, Betty," 
 I said. " He came to put away sin by the sacrifice 
 of Himself." 
 
 " Maybe, sure," said Betty, " but I know it's not at 
 all set right for me." 
 
 She rose, and once more wiping the tears from her 
 face, she went into the kitchen to set the rashers on 
 the fi7ing pan for breakfast. 
 
 But before she drowned her voice in the hissing of 
 the bacon, she turned and said to me with unusual 
 gentleness : — 
 
 " You mean it very kind, Mrs. Kitty ; but I don't 
 know why I should pour out my troubles on you. 
 It's not to be expected a young maid like you should 
 understand. But you meant it very kind, my dear ; 
 only don't say a word to worrit Missis, and don't you 
 lose heart about Mssis yourself, for she '11 get round 
 in time, sure, now she's got you again ; if you don't 
 go and make a heathen idol oi her, as the parson 
 said. And after all, my dear," she concluded, " I 
 never found the work any the forwarder for worrying 
 about it over night. You can't mend a thing before 
 it's torn ; and if you get a hundred pieces, the rent '11 
 always be sure just to go in the way that fits none 
 of 'em. Things he perverse, most times, and there's 
 11* 
 
t26 THE DIARY OF 
 
 no way that I know by, of being up with them be- 
 forehand." 
 
 Betty's prediction seems coming true, perhaps is 
 making itself true, for her cheery words about Mother 
 have lightened my heart, and the lightening of my 
 heart seems to lighten Mother's. The anxious look 
 is wearing away a little, although not the paleness. 
 But I cannot say all is right between Father and 
 Jack. 
 
 This morning they had one of the word-battles 
 Mother and I so greatly dread. 
 
 We three had all but finished breakfast, and Father 
 had been making very sharp comments on Jack's ab- 
 sence, when he himself came strolling in in his easy 
 unconcerned way, and seating himself at the table 
 after a general greeting, began to play Tvdth the 
 home-brewed ale and bread and cheese in rather a 
 languid manner, every now and then half suppress- 
 ing a yawn. 
 
 " Over-wrought with last evening's work, I con- 
 clude," said Father, beginning, as he usually does, 
 with the politest sarcasm ; *' when yoimg gentlemen 
 toil till midnight, old men, of course, must expect to 
 work in the morning while they rest." 
 
 " I believe I was rather late last night, sir," said 
 Jack, with an easy attempt at apology. 
 
 " And in good company, sir 1" said Father. " A 
 pleasant serenade you and your companions gave 
 us, as you parted. A little too much repetition, 
 perhaps, in the strains, and a slight uncertainty in 
 the close." 
 
 *' I was not drunk, sir," said Jack. 
 
 " I did not say you were, sir. I spoke of your 
 
MRS. KITTY TliEVYLYAX 127 
 
 company, not of your entertainment. Any gentle- 
 man may bo overtaken, now and then, among his 
 equals, of course, but no son of mine — no gentleman 
 who bears the name of Trevylyan — shall have my 
 leave to herd with degraded sots, who make brutes 
 of themselves on small beer." 
 
 "There is a difference between claret and beer, 
 certainly, sir," said Jack, daintily quaffing his home- 
 brewed, while he glanced at the little bottle of 
 French wine, always set for Father (he acquired the 
 habit in the army in Flanders, Mother says, and can- 
 not be expected to do without it now. If it is a 
 little expensive, we can save in other ways). 
 
 " There is a difference between you and me, sir !" 
 retorted Father, dropping his sarcasm and enforcing 
 his words with some of those strong expressions, 
 which Mother says he also acquired in the army in 
 Flanders. " I give you notice that I pay no more 
 bills at any low tavern where you may choose to 
 make boon-companions of any rascally fellow in the 
 town and neighborhood." 
 
 " I quite agree with you in preferring better com- 
 pany, sir," said Jack; "but I cannot afford it. I 
 have neither horses for the hunt, nor fine clothes to 
 wear, nor fine company to keep that I can see, 
 unless I seek the society of the Squire, who is car- 
 ried to bed every night from the effects of the best 
 claret." 
 
 " Leave the table, sir," said Father, " if you cannot - 
 speak except to insult me." 
 
 Jack rose without a murmur, throwing the re- 
 mainder of his bread and cheese to Trusty, but 
 before he went out of the door he turned back 
 and took a cherrv-colored ribbon knot out of his 
 
128 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 pocket, which he said he had bought for me at the 
 fair. 
 
 " Is it paid for, sir ?" said Father, in a tone of sup- 
 pressed rage. 
 
 " I had no small change about me at the time," 
 said Jack, " and I told them so. But Hugh Spencer 
 happened to be near, and he lent me the money." 
 
 " No daughter of mine shall wear stolen goods I" 
 said Father, and seizing the ribbon he threw it on 
 the fire. 
 
 With that Jack grew warm and strode out of the 
 house, and Father grew cool, and seeing the tears in 
 my eyes, smoothed my hair tenderly, and told me not 
 to fret, my own brown hair was better than all the 
 cherry-colored knots in the world. 
 
 " It is not for the ribbon, Father," I said. 
 
 " For what then ?" he said testily. 
 
 " For thee and Jack, Father," I said. 
 
 He was silent a moment, and then he said : — 
 
 " Perhaps I was rather hard on the poor fellow. 
 Boys will be boys." 
 
 " It was not that I meant. Father," I said, for I felt 
 as if I must speak, because Mother was crying ; and 
 dearly as Father loves her, he never will bear a word 
 from her. " It was not that. It is that you are 
 right and Jack is wrong, and yet you always let him 
 make you seem wrong, because he is so cool and he 
 puts you in a passion.*' 
 . *' Fine education you give your children, madam ;" 
 said he, turning to Mother ; " your son puts me in a 
 rage, like an old fool as I am, and your chit of a 
 daughter reads me a sermon." 
 
 But he was not angry either with mother or me. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 139 
 
 And at dinner, like a generous gentleman as lie is, 
 h^^ held out his hand to Jack and said : — 
 
 ''' Perhaps I was hard to you, my boy. It was 
 WH^ll-meant, after all, buying your sister the ribbon." 
 
 But that was not all what I meant. Jack had 
 come off from the conflict a self-complacent victor, 
 satisfied that he had kept his temper under great 
 provocation, and had done a very generous action in 
 bi?ying me a ribbon with Hugh Spencer's money, 
 which, of course, especially now that the ribbon was 
 burned, he would never think of paying. 
 
 And Jack is so pleasant, that when I lecture him, 
 it always ends in a joke ; and when Betty and Father 
 scold him, they always put themselves in the wrong, 
 and end by virtually begging his pardon ; and when 
 Mother gently remonstrates, he ends in persuading 
 her that he is on the eve of turning over quite a new 
 leaf, and indeed had quite made uj) his mind to do 
 so before she spoke. 
 
 But the new leaf is only a repetition of the old, 
 and my heart aches to think how it can end. It 
 seems to me people never drift by accident into the • 
 right haven. 
 
 July the Fifteenth. 
 
 I WONDER if any one ever quite carried out all 
 Bishop Taylor's rules every day. Perhaps he did 
 not mean it to be done. It so often happens with 
 me that one " action of piety " takes up the time of 
 the whole seven. For instance, one morning I seem 
 able to do nothing but rejoice in the thought how 
 good God and my Saviour are, and thank Him for 
 all His goodness to us. The next I am overv/helmed 
 with the thought of my own weakness and sinful- 
 
130 THE DIARY OF 
 
 ness, and the wrong tilings I think, and say, and do. 
 And this morning I seemed able to do nothing but 
 pray for Jack. I am so anxious about him, and it is 
 impossible to help loving him so dearly, if it were 
 only for Mother's sake, who loves him as the apple 
 of her eye. 
 
 I wonder if Mother is quite right. She seems to 
 think women were only made to endure patiently 
 whatever the men belonging to them inflict, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously. But I think we should 
 try to prevent them being selfish and inconsiderate 
 for us, because it does them harm as w^ell as us. 
 
 But am I right in seeing so much of " the mote in 
 my brother's eye?" Does our Lord mean that we 
 should be blind to the faults of those we love, or 
 that, not leing Uind, we should shut our eyes and 
 say, " I will not see ?" He cannot mean this, for 
 it would be false, and all false things He abhors. 
 
 I think he must mean that we should love on, 
 in spite of all we see. How can we help each other 
 unless we see where each needs help ? But we must 
 see, not to exhibit but to veil, not to judge but to 
 help. 
 
 Love is not blind, I am sure, for true love lives and 
 breathes, and has its being in truth. 
 
 It is the selfishness in our love which is blind, the 
 passionate selfishness which says, " This is mine, 
 therefore, I will think it fair, and will give the lie to 
 any who say it is not." 
 
 But God is Love, and He is the Truth, and Ho 
 says to us, " You are fiot sinless, you are not fair, but 
 you are mine; I have pitied and redeemed you, 
 because you were wretched and polluted, and I will 
 make you fair." 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAy. 131 
 
 And in our poor narrow measure I think we should 
 try to be and do the same. 
 
 My last attempt to take the mote out of my bro- 
 ther's eye has certainly not been at all successful, 
 except that it has answered the purpose of showing 
 me more plainly the beam in my own. 
 
 After writing about Jack as I did last night, I felt 
 this morning as if it were scarcely sisterly and honest 
 not to tell him what I thought this afternoon. 
 
 Betty was "meating the pigs,'' Father was guiding 
 the plough with Roger, the call to the laboiing oxen 
 came pleasantly across the valley, Mother was s'^wing 
 in the hall, and I and Jack were alone in the kitchen, 
 I sorting herbs on the table at the open window, and 
 he polishing a new gun I had brought him from 
 London. The opportunity seemed favorable, and I 
 ventured to say, — 
 
 " Jack, you won't mind my saying so ; but you 
 will pay Hugh Spencer for the cherry-colored ribbon, 
 won't you ?" 
 
 '' How can you worry about such trifles, Kitty," he 
 said. " Just a few pence, not worth mentioning be- 
 tween old friends, and gentlemen's sons." 
 
 " But they were lent," I said ; " and a debt is a 
 debt." 
 
 " Let Father pay it then," he said, laughing ; " he 
 has the property. Or you yourself, Kitty ; since 
 you are so particular." 
 
 " I would, indeed, Jack," I said ; " but it is such 
 a trifle, I don't like to speak to Hugh about it." 
 
 *' Nor do I," he said drily. 
 
 " But it's your debt," I said. 
 
 " Kitty," he replied, " you are in the way to be one 
 
133 THE DIARY OF 
 
 of the most aggravating women I know. It's a 
 symptom of insanity when trifles take such posses- 
 sion of the brain. You should be careful." 
 
 '' But how much was it, Jack V I persisted once 
 more. *' I couid give you the money, you know, and 
 you could pay Hugh." 
 
 '^ You may give me what money you please," he 
 replied, **I am not too proud to be thankful for 
 trifles. But I shall not pay Hugh. It would be a 
 degradation to allude to such nonsense. And besides," 
 he continued, *' Hugh Spencer is a screw, and it is 
 only what he deserved. I asked him to lend me a 
 few guineas a few days before, and he refused. I was 
 disgusted with his meanness." 
 
 I felt myself getting hot, and I said, — 
 
 " I think the meanness is in borrowing, not in not 
 lending." 
 
 " You are always ready enough to turn against 
 me," said Jack ; *' but you may look in the Bible, 
 and you'll find plenty about the duty of lending, 
 and not even expecting to be paid again. It's like 
 the publicans to lend, expecting to receive as much 
 again. And to refuse to lend at all is worse ; it's 
 like the Pharisees and hypocrites. An open heart 
 and an open hand, that's the kind of Christianity I 
 like, and that's the kind of Christian I mean to be 
 when I am rich. Do you think I should have shut 
 my purse to Hugh if I had had money to lend ?" 
 
 " Jack," I said, " Hugh is not a publican nor a 
 Pharisee, and you know it. You know he has im- 
 poverished himself again and again to get you out 
 of scrapes ; and if he ever refused to help you, it 
 was because he thought it right to refuse ; and he 
 was right, I have no doubt. And with all your 
 
3[BS. KITTY TBEVYLTAN: 133 
 
 grand intentions, when did you ever deny yourself 
 anything for any one V 
 
 Jack had entangled me in his soiDhisms, and 
 driven me to indignant assertions, as he does Father. 
 He was cool as usual, and pushed his advantage. 
 
 " As to self-denial," he said, '* if I had the means, 
 it would be no self-denial to me at all to help my 
 friends, but the greatest pleasure. And I never said 
 Hugh was a publican or a Pharisee. I only said the 
 publicans and Pharisees disliked lending money. I 
 daresay they were right ; and Hugh was right, at all 
 events, as regarded the money." 
 
 " Oh, Jack !" I said, " how can you be so ungener- 
 ous to Hugh. Have you forgotten the times without 
 number he paid for things you bought, when the peo- 
 ple threatened to send the bills in to Father, because 
 you said it would break Mother's heart ? Have you 
 forgotten how, again and again, some little comfort 
 or delicacy Mother needed, has come in from him, 
 *just,' as he used to say, 'because he hapiDened to 
 meet with it V Ask all the poor toiling men and 
 women in the parish whether Hugh Spencer is gener- 
 ous or not. And you know he is not rich, and that 
 his father never allows him much." 
 
 " No ; I believe a certain carefulness about money 
 is hereditary in the Spencer family," Jack replied. 
 
 I knew he felt in the wrong, because he was so 
 provoking. If I could only have been quiet, and let 
 the conviction work ! But my heart was full, and my 
 temper was up, and I said, — 
 
 " Jack, I don't know what you will come to, and 
 
 what you will bring us all to. The Bible says, ' The 
 
 toiclced borroweth and payeth not again.' You seem 
 
 to have no honesty, nor gratitude, nor shame : and 
 
 12 
 
134 THE DIARY OF 
 
 I do believe you will end in breaking Mother's 
 heart." 
 
 " Whew 1" said Jack, drawing a long breath, and 
 for a moment stopping his polishing to look at me. 
 " Whatever sins may be hereditary with the Spencers, 
 a certain peculiarity of temper is certainly hereditary 
 with the Trevylyans. My dear Kitty, Mother is com- 
 ing into the kitchen, and as you are so apprehensive 
 about her feelings, I recommend you to withdraw. 
 You look quite excited. No doubt," he added de- 
 murely, *' as Mother used to say, you will be sorry for 
 this to-morrow." 
 
 And I had to withdraw, for I could not stop my 
 tears, and what is worse, I shall have to be sorry to- 
 morrow, and to apologize to Jack ; for the language 
 I used was certainly unnecessarily strong. Unneces- 
 sarily strong as regarded the immediate occasion, but 
 as regards that habit of his, what language can be 
 too strong ? And what an opportunity I have throwi^ 
 away of helping him I 
 
 It was only yesterday I was thinking how feeble 
 my convictions of sin were compared with Betty's ; 
 and I had resolved next Sunday seriously to read 
 Bishop Taylor's '* Instruments, by way of Considera- 
 tion, to Awaken a Careless Person and a Stupid Con- 
 science," and his " Form of Confession of Sins and 
 Repentance, to be used on Fasting Days." But now 
 there is no need to go through a course of voluntary 
 humiliation. I am humbled enough in Jack's eyes as 
 well as in my own. So unworthy, so hasty, so pas- 
 sionate, how could I ever think of setting myself up 
 as a censor of other people. Perhaps this pride and 
 secret self-satisfaction is the beam in my own eye. 
 Perhaps, now I feel how really blind and wrong I am, 
 
MRS. JiriTTy TItEVYLYAK. 135 
 
 I may be able to speak to Jack to-morrow with more 
 result. For lie is wrong about the debts. Perhaps 
 when I speak to him from his own level, as no better 
 than he is, though in a different way, he will listen. 
 
 It is of no use. Jack received my apologies with the 
 graciousness of an offended but merciful sovereign. 
 
 *' Do not mention such a trifle again, my dear littie 
 Kitty. We all get a little excited at times ; it is in 
 the family, although, perhaps, I am not so mucn 
 troubled in that way as the rest of you." 
 
 And when I made one more feeble attempt to make 
 an impression on him about the debts, he stojDiDed me 
 with, — 
 
 " Perhaps I was even a little hot myself yesterday 
 about poor Hugh. Hugh is a good fellow at bottom. 
 "We all have our little peculiarities, especially about 
 money. I only meant that when I have my commis- 
 sion, and have won a few battles, and taken one or 
 two towns, and have my prize-money, that won't be 
 exactly my way. An open heart and an open hand, 
 Kitty, that's my idea of a Christian, although it may 
 make one's purse a little low at times." 
 
 And he kissed me benignantly, and went away 
 whistling, " Begone dull care." 
 
 What can I do ? It is plain the price of the cherry- 
 colored bow is far too great a trifle for Jack's " open 
 hand " to contract to pick up and retu m. 
 
 And it is plain that he considers himself, although 
 probably touched with a little of general infection 
 of the sin of Adam, quite singularly free from the 
 peculiar infirmities of the Spencers, and the Trevyl- 
 yans, and every one else. 
 
 And it is plain that my hands are by no means 
 
136 THE DIARY OF 
 
 steady enough (even if my eyes were clear enough) to 
 take the mote out of my brother's eye. 
 
 Yet I cannot help feeling as if those habits of his 
 were like the little low clouds gathering far out in the 
 west, — ^like the little uneasy interrupted gusts of wind 
 which come when we are to have a storm, — ^like the 
 little cloud no bigger than a man's hand, which the 
 prophet's servant saw, when the heaven was so soon 
 to be black with clouds. 
 
 I should make a bad historian. I have never said 
 a word about our journey home from London. 
 
 Not that there is much to tell, because, after all, 
 we came from Bristol by sea. Father and Hugh Spen- 
 cer and I, and I was so full of the thought of home, 
 that I did not observe anything particularly. The 
 chief thing I remember is a conversation I had with 
 Hugh. 
 
 It was a calm evening. Father had rolled himself 
 lip in his old military cloak with a foraging cap half 
 over his eyes, and Hugh and I were standing by the 
 rdde of the ship watching the trail of strange light 
 she seemed to make in the waves. There was no one 
 olse on deck but the man at the helm, and an old 
 sailor mending some ropes by the last glimmerings 
 of daylight, and humming in a low voice to himself 
 what seemed like an attempt at a jDsalm tune. 
 
 '' Do you know what he is singing ?" Hugh asked. 
 
 " Not from the tune. I do not see how any one 
 'jould ; but the quaverings seem of a religious char- 
 acter, like what the old people sing in the church." 
 
 " It is a Methodist hymn," Hugh said. " He said 
 it through to me this morning." Hugh always has 
 a 'VNay of getting into the confidence of working men, 
 
3fBS. KITTY TEEVYLYAN; 1S7 
 
 especially of sea-faring people. The old man hacl 
 been in the ship which took Mr. John Wesley and 
 Mr. Charles Wesley to America. Several religious 
 people were there also from Germany, going out as 
 missionaries. They called themselves Moravians. At 
 first he despised them all for a foolish psalm-singing 
 set. But they encountered a great storm on the At- 
 lantic, and the old sailor said he should never forget 
 the fearless calm among these Christian people during 
 the danger. " It was," he said, " as if they had fair 
 weather of God's making around them, be the sides 
 as foul as they might." He could never rest until he 
 found out their secret. When he went ashore he at- 
 tended the Methodist meetings everywhere, *'and 
 now," he said, " thank the Lord and Parson Wesley, 
 my feet are on the Rock aboard or ashore." 
 
 " These Methodists find their way eveiywhere 
 Hugh," I said. "It does seem as if God blessed 
 their work more than any one's." 
 
 "And what wonder," he said; "who work as they 
 do ?" 
 
 " But so many people — even good people — appear 
 to be afraid of them," I said. " Are they not some- 
 times too violent? Do they not sometimes make 
 mistakes ?" 
 
 " No doubt they do," he said. " All the men who 
 have done great and good work in the world have 
 made mistakes, as far as I can see. It is only the 
 easy, cautious people who sit still and do nothing, 
 who make no mistakes, unless," he added, " their 
 whole lives are one great mistake, which seems prob 
 able.'" 
 
 And then he told me something of what he had 
 seen in the world and at Oxford ; how utterly God 
 
 1 o* 
 
138 THE DIARY OF 
 
 seemed forgotten everywhere ; how scarcely disguised 
 infidelity spoke from the pulpits, and vices not dis- 
 guised at all paraded in high places; how in the 
 midst of this John and Charles Wesley had stood 
 apart, and resolved to live to serve God and do good 
 to men ; how they had struggled long in the twilight 
 of a dark but lofty mysticism, until they had learned 
 to know how God has loved us from everlasting, and 
 loves us now, and how Christ forgives sins now ; and 
 then, full of the joyful tidings, had gladly abandoned 
 all the hopes of earthly ambition for the glorious 
 ambition of being ambassadors for Christ to win 
 rebellious and wretched men back to Him. 
 
 " Morning, noon, and evening," he said, " John 
 Wesley goes about proclaiming the tidings of great 
 joy in Ireland, America, throughout England, among 
 colliers, miners, and slaves ; in prisons, to condemned 
 criminals ; in hospitals, to the sick ; in market- 
 places, pelted with stones ; in churches, threatened 
 with imprisonment ; reviled by clergymen, assaulted 
 by mobs, and arraigned by magistrates. They go 
 on loving the world that casts them out, and con- 
 stantly drawing souls out of the world to God to be 
 blessed." 
 
 " It seems like the Apostles," I said. "It is won- 
 derful." 
 
 *' Kitty," he said fervently, " when I tliink, I can 
 not wonder at it. The wonder seems to me that we 
 should wonder at it so much. If we believe the 
 Bible at all ; if not now and then by some strange 
 chance, but steadily, surely, incessantly, the whole 
 world of living men and women arc passing on to 
 death, sinking into unutterable woe or rising into in- 
 &iite inconceivable joy ; and if wc h^ve it in our 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 139 
 
 power to tell them the truths, which, if they believe 
 it, really will make all the difference to them for 
 ever, and if we find they really will listen, what is 
 there to be compared with the joy of telling these 
 truths ? And the people do listen to Whitefield and 
 "Wesley. Think what it must be to see ten thousand 
 people before you smitten with a deadly pestilence, 
 and to tell them of the remedy — the immediate 
 remedy, which never failed. Think what it must be 
 to stand before thousands of wretched slaves with 
 the ransom-money for all in your hand, and the title- 
 deeds of an inheritance for each. Think what it 
 must be to see a multitude of haggard, starving men 
 and women before you with the power such as our 
 Lord had of supplying them all with bread here in 
 the wilderness, and to see them one by one pressing 
 to you and taking the bread and eating it, and to see 
 the dull eye brightening, color returning to the wan 
 cheek, life to the failing limbs. Think what it would 
 be to go to a crowd of destitute orphans and to be 
 able to say to each of them, ' It is a mistake, you are 
 not fatherless. I have a message for every one of you 
 from your own Father, who is waiting to take you to 
 His heart.' Oh ! Kitty, if there is such a message as 
 this to take to all the poor, sorrowing, bewildered, 
 famished, perishing men and women in the world, 
 and if you can get them to listen and believe it, is it 
 any wonder that any man with a heart in him should 
 think it the happiest lot on earth to go and do it, 
 night and day, north and south, in the crowded 
 market-places, and in every neglected corner where 
 there is a human being to listen ?" 
 
 " I thiQk not, indeed," I said ; " but the difficulty 
 
140 THE DIARY OF 
 
 seems to me to get people to believe that they are 
 orphans, and slaves, and famishing." 
 
 " That is what Whitefield and the Wesleys do," he 
 said. " Or rather they made them understand that 
 the faintness every one feels at times is hunger, and 
 that there is bread ; that the cramping restraint, the 
 uneasy pressure we so often feel, are from the fetters 
 of a real bondage, and that they can be struck off; 
 that the bewildered, homeless desolation so many are 
 conscious of is the desolation of orphanhood, and 
 that we have a Father who has reconciled us to him- 
 self through the blood of the Cross." 
 
 As Hugh spoke, a selfish anxiety crept over me, 
 and I said, — 
 
 " Shall you go then, Hugh, and forsake everything 
 to tell the good tidings far and wide ?" 
 
 " If I am called," he said, " must I not go ?" 
 
 " But how can you know you are called ?" I said. 
 
 *' To have the bread of life to give is one call," he 
 said ; " to be able to go is another ; to be willing to 
 go is a third. If I had these three calls, Kitty, I must 
 listen ; the vocation in the word of God to proclaim 
 it, the vocation in my heart, the vocation of Provi- 
 dence." 
 
 "Have you these three, Hugh?" I said, feeling 
 half afraid he had. 
 
 " I think I have, except the call of Providence, 
 Kitty. I cannot see that it would be right to go 
 directly counter to my father's will ; otherwise I 
 think I am ready to go." 
 
 My heart was heavy. Would he then leave us all 
 BO easily ?" 
 
 There was a long silence, the waves plashed around 
 us and closed in after us as we cut through them, 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK, 141 
 
 with a sound which in the morning light would hare 
 been crisp and fresh, and exhilarating ; now, in the 
 dimness and stillness of night, it seemed to me 
 strange, and dull, and awful. And I thought not so 
 much of the waves we were bounding over and part- 
 ing before us like the future, like life ; but of the 
 waves which were closing in on us like the past, like 
 death. It gave me a sad lonely feeling as I thought 
 how Hugh and I were standing there together, and 
 had been together all our lives, and how soon all the 
 sweet familiar past might slip aw^ay from us into the 
 darkness like the sea behind us, leaving at first a 
 little furrow and a track of foam, but very soon no 
 track at all, — and that Hugh seemed to care no more 
 than the sea. It felt very cold and desolate. I had 
 been picturing life to myself as a quiet river, alvfays 
 passing on indeed, but flowing by familiar places, 
 with its own fountains, its own hills, its own little 
 meadow banks to water, and keep green, its own 
 welcome at last to the sea. And was life instead to 
 be the mere crossing of a great dreary sea, with one 
 wave like another, and one great round space like 
 another, one horizon like another, except for more or 
 less of heat and cold, or more or less of storm or 
 calm? 
 
 Ought all places to religious people to be alike, — 
 mere spaces of this great featureless ocean we have to 
 cross ? Ought all human beings to be alike to us, 
 just masses of undistinguishable " immortal souls ?" 
 
 For the first time in my life my heart felt at discord 
 with Hugh's, I scarcely knew why. A cold shadow 
 seemed to have come between us, and if it Was reli- 
 gion that cast it, it was wrong to wish it away. 
 
 But was it religion, I questioned myself? or was it 
 
143 MRS, KITTY TREVYLYAN-, 
 
 rigM ? Certainly all people had not tlie same space 
 or the same place in St. Paul's heart. Only see the 
 greetings at the end of the epistles. And our blessed 
 Lord himself, if He loved all equally, surely loved 
 each differently, each with His own piece of love, with 
 a peculiar, recognizing, watchful, personal affection, 
 which was for that one, and no one else ! 
 
 Perhaps Hugh was feeling in some way as I did, 
 for after that silence he said softly, — 
 
 " Perhaps I was deceiving myself. Perhaps it is 
 just because there is that barrier in my way that I 
 have been fancying I should be willing to go if there 
 were not." 
 
 Then he began to be afraid I felt the night air 
 
 chill, and brought me a little seat, and placed it at 
 
 Father's side, and wrapped me up in all the warm 
 
 Traps he could find. And we neither of uf» said 
 
 anything more that nigh*. 
 
V. 
 
 fHAVE had a great pleasure to-day. A letter 
 from Cousin Evelj^n, the first letter I ever re- 
 ceived, except two from jMother in London; 
 and the very first I ever received at home from any 
 one. It has, already, I believe, greatly increased my 
 consequence in Betty's eyes. I was shelling peas in 
 the kitchen window when a gentleman on horseback 
 rode up and asked Betty, who was scrubbing down 
 the window-sill, if Miss Trevylyan lived there. 
 
 " What new-fangled title is that V muttered Betty. 
 Miss Trevylyan, indeed ! if it is our Mrs. Kitty you 
 mean, she is there, and you can speak to herself." 
 
 (Betty's temper has not improved lately; and she 
 has relapsed into impenetrable silence about herself.) 
 
 Taking off his hat with a bow, the horseman 
 handed me, through the open window, a letter which 
 EveljTi had addressed in the new style. 
 
 It would have reached me before, he said, only it 
 had met with many misadventures. 
 
 The King's mail had been robbed on Hounslow 
 Heath ; and although the " gentlemen of the road" 
 had most politely restored the letters after rifling the 
 bags of their pecuniary contents, the postman had 
 been wounded in the fray, and this had caused a de- 
 lay of some days. Then there had been a flood over 
 
144 THE DIARY OF 
 
 dome part oftlie road which had riwept away the 
 bridges ; and finally, when the letter reached Fal- 
 mouth, the Farmer's lad, to whose care it had been 
 committed, after carrying it about some days in his 
 pocket, for-got for whom it was meant, and not being 
 able to read, judiciously carried it back to the post- 
 office nearest him ; and there it might have been lying 
 for no one knows how much lunger, had not the gentle- 
 man who gave it to me politely volunteered to take 
 it to its destination on his way to his home further 
 west. 
 
 The unusual clatter of horse's hoofs had brought 
 Father into the court, and notning would satisfy him 
 but that the stranger should have his horse put up 
 and remain to dinner with us. And then he had 
 much to tell that interested Father and Jack. Thus 
 it was two or three hours longer before I could open 
 the precious packet. 
 
 Jack listened eagerly to all the stranger's news, and 
 sighed for the commission which was to open the 
 world to him. 
 
 Father heard his narrative with very mingled emo- 
 tions. He was cheered to think that the Duke of 
 Cumberland had put down " those canting Scotch ;" 
 but his satisfaction was diminished by the military 
 successes of those " rascally French." " We taught 
 them another lesson, sir," he said, " in Marlborough's 
 days." He broke into many strong military exj^res- 
 sions at the thought of the troops of " beggarly Ger- 
 mans" v/ho had come over in the train of the Hano- 
 verian King. 
 
 He syuij)athized with the London mob who, when 
 the Hanoverian court-lady dejirecated their wrath by 
 exclaiming in apologetic tones from her carnage 
 
MliS. KITTY TI^EVYLYAN. 14o 
 
 ^nndow, "My dear people we come for all your 
 goods," retorted, " Yes, confound you, and for our 
 chattels too." He was disgusted with the Pretender 
 parading as a hero at the Paris opera-house, on the 
 strength of the brave deeds of the Highland chiefs 
 who were being hanged for his sake at Tyburn. But 
 he consoled himself by thinking it was just like those 
 " confounded Papists," and drinking to the Protest- 
 tant Succession. But, again, his loyalty was sorely 
 tried by the tales of the quarrels between the King 
 and the Piince of Wales, and other court scandals I 
 do not care to write. " Terrible times, sir," he said ; 
 " the country in the hands of scoundrelly foreigners, 
 £^nd the county jails full of villainous poachers, who 
 will poach again, sir, the instant their punishment is 
 over. Sir, we are going to destruction as fast as 
 Jacobites and Whigs can carry us." He was in some 
 measure restored to hope by hearing of certain printers 
 who had been compelled to apologize on their knees 
 on the floor of the House of Lords for venturing to 
 print reports of the debates in the Lords and Com- 
 mons. " Low fellows like them," he said, " daring to 
 report the words of gentlemen !" 
 
 But his spirits were again depressed by hearing of 
 Methodist lay preachers, who drew crowds around 
 them in every county, from Northumberland to the 
 Land's End. " Sir," he said, "in my time we should 
 have made quick work with idle fellows who left the 
 plough, or the mason's trowel, or the tailor's goose, 
 to preach whatever canting trash they pleased. We 
 should have dispersed the congregation, sir, at the 
 point of the bayonet, and set the preacher in the 
 stocks to meditate on his next sermon. Sir, tho 
 
 13 
 
146 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Papists manage to keep down such seditions fanatics ; 
 and shall we be outdone by the Papists ?" 
 
 " No doubt, sir," replied the stranger ; " but would 
 you believe it, on my way here I met a fellow who is 
 reported to be one of the worst among them, John 
 Nelson, the Yorkshireman, who told me he had met 
 Squire Trevylyan, and that he was a most hospitable 
 gentleman ; for he had given him the pasty he was 
 carrying for his own dinner, and had invited him to 
 take his bread-and-cheese and beer at his house when- 
 ever he came that way." 
 
 Father looked perplexed for a moment at the con- 
 trast between his fierce denunciations against the 
 Methodists in general, and his tolerance of the only 
 Methodist he had encountered in particular, but he 
 soon rallied. 
 
 ** Sir," he said, " that fellow is a true-bom English- 
 man, as true to the Church and King as you or I. A fel- 
 low, too, with such a chest and such muscle as would 
 be worth the King a troop of those beggarly Hessians 
 you spoke of. And he had been knocked down and 
 trampled on by a mob of cowardly rufBans, just before 
 I saw him. Sir, they knocked him down, and beat 
 and kicked him till the breath was well-nigh out of him, 
 and his head bleeding ; and then they dragged him 
 along the stones by the hair of his head, and would have 
 thrown him into a draw-well, but for a high-spirited 
 woman who stood by the well and pushed several of the 
 cowardly bullies down. I would take off my hat to that 
 woman as soon as to the King. And then ho got up 
 and vciy soon mounted his horse again, and rode 
 forty miles that very day as if nothing had happened. 
 Sir, it is not in any Englishman, least of all in an old 
 soldier of the Duke's, not to honor that brave fellow. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAX. 147 
 
 Besides, he was hungry; and would you have a 
 Cornish gentleman turn a hungry traveller from his 
 door ? Not if he were the Pope himself, or the Pre- 
 tender ! Is it my fault if he preaches w^hat the par- 
 sons don't like on the strength of my pasty ? Tha,t 
 fellow is no hypocrite, sir ; I give my word of honor 
 for it. A fellow with such a stout heart, and chest, 
 and the voice of a lion ! Besides," continued 
 father softly, with some reserve, " I assure you what 
 he said to me afterwards was excellent ; none of your 
 canting phrases, but plain sense about believing in 
 our Saviour, and doing our duty. Upon my honor," 
 continued Father, with increasing earnestness, " I felt 
 the better for it. He said very plain things to me, 
 such as a man does not often hear ; things, sir, that 
 we shall all have to remember one day ; and I feel 
 grateful to the man for his honest, faithful words, 
 and I trust I shall not forget them. An old soldier 
 has not a few thmgs he might be glad to unlearn, 
 and would like to be sure will not be remembered 
 against him." 
 
 The simple humility and earnestness of Father's 
 manner put a stop to all further jesting ; and before 
 long the stranger, respectfully saluting him, went off 
 with Jack to saddle his horse, and I was free to fly to 
 my chamber and open 
 
 COUSIN' EVELYN'S LETTER. 
 
 " My Dearly-beloved Cousin Kitty, — I suppose you 
 have no more idea how we missed your dear, tender, 
 soft, quiet, quaint, wdse, comfortable, little self, than 
 a fire has how cold the room is when it goes out. 
 Mamma moaned for you more than she did for the 
 poodle that was drowned in the soup-tureen; she 
 
t48 TUB DIARY OF 
 
 fancied you sliivermg on the Cornish moors honey- 
 combed, as she understands they are, with fearful 
 abysses, your life endangered by grimy miners, your 
 complexion by the sea-air ; and she wondered in the 
 first place how you grew up at all ; and in the sec- 
 ond, how you could possibly grow to be what you 
 are amidst the perils of that vast howling wilderness, 
 or, indeed, to be anything beyond the level of a Red 
 Indian. 
 
 *' Aunt Henderson, whom I have seen twice, regrets 
 you should be again in the darkness of a country she 
 has heard to be little better than heathen ; but hopes 
 that the sound teaching you received at Hackney 
 may be of some use to her ' poor Sister Trevylyan, 
 who had so few privileges." 
 
 " Harry swears if Mother will find him a girl like 
 Kitty he will marry her to-morrow ; but how much 
 he brings you forward as a golden back-ground 
 to throw out the strong colors on which he paints 
 the ' simpering heaps of gauze and brocade,' re- 
 commended to his attention, I will not undertake 
 to say. 
 
 " Papa roams about as unsettled as when anything 
 detains him in London during the sporting season. 
 He says you are a girl of the old style, such as he 
 remembers when he was young; not too clever to 
 make a sensible man's home haj)py, ' although he 
 may not be able to talk like a Frenchman about 
 the fashions, or like an Italian adventurer about 
 operas and pictures, or like a Bishop about religion.' 
 
 "But this again, Kitty, must not make you too 
 conceited, as your excellencies serve to barb a dart at 
 me, in reference to a neigboring potentate, whose 
 estates march with those of the Beauchamps, but 
 
MliS. KITTY TBEVrLYAK 149 
 
 whose manners do not * march ' with your corre- 
 spondent's tastes. 
 
 " From the silent homage rendered to your memory 
 by Mamma's maid, and by Aunt Jeanie, the tongue 
 of Detraction herself can, however, detract nothing. 
 Mamma's maid has recourse to genuine Devonshire, 
 and a genuine pocket-handkerchief to prevent gen- 
 uine tears from spoiling the powder of Mamma's 
 hair as she falters out the praises of Hhe nicest 
 and most affable young lady she ever set eyes on.' 
 And Aunt Jeanie soars high into Scotch and the 
 Bible, as she tells how the winsome lassie, the tender 
 lammie, came day after day to listen to an old wife 
 like herself; and how you made her feel as if the 
 air of the Highlands was breathing fresh on her 
 face once more, and the voices of old times were in 
 her ears. 
 
 " Oh, Kitty darling, I would give all I have in the 
 world to carry with me the fresh air you bring 
 everywhere ! There is something about you, you 
 little witch, as much sweeter and more exhilarating 
 than all the wit, and fashion, and cleverness of our 
 London world, as the country air on a spring morn- 
 ing is sweeter than all the perfumes of a London 
 drawing-room. What is it, Kitty, except that yon 
 are just your natural sweet self? Yes, there is no 
 perfume like freshness ! and there is no moral or 
 mental perfume like truth ! 
 
 " And that is just the explanation of some of my 
 difficulties. Cousin Kitty ; for I Tiaw my difficulties, 
 Kitty. Life — I mean the inner, religious life — is not 
 so smooth to me as you may think, as I thought it 
 must be always henceforth when I heard that won- 
 derful sermon of Mr. Whitefield's. Or rather, it is 
 13* 
 
l^^ TUE DIARY OF 
 
 not liv. plain. For I did expect roughnesses, more 
 perbajt>s than I have met with ; but I did not expect 
 perplexities such as I feel. 
 
 " My difficulties are not interesting, elevating dif- 
 ficulties, Kitty, such as would draw forth sweet tears 
 of sympathy and smiles of tender encouragement at 
 some of the religious tea parties. No one has taken 
 the trouble to make me a martyr. I should rather 
 have enjoyed a little more of that, which is, per- 
 haps, the reason I have not had it. Mamma was a 
 little uneasy at first ; but when she found I did not 
 wish to dress like a Quaker or to preach publicly 
 from a tub, she was relieved, and seems rather to 
 think me improved. Harry says all girls are sure 
 to ruu into some folly or another, if they don't 
 marry, and probably even if they do ; and some new 
 whim irf sure soon to drive out this. Papa says 
 women must have their amusements ; and if I like 
 going to see the old women at the manor, and taking 
 them biuth and reading them the Bible, better than 
 riding a thousand miles for a wager, as a young lady 
 did the other day, he thinks it is the more sensible 
 diversiou of the two. His mother gave the people 
 broth and bitters, and probably they like the Bible 
 better than the bitters. I am a good child on the 
 whole, he says ; and if I ride to the meet with him 
 in the country, and give myself no sanctimonious 
 airs, he cannot object to my amusing myself as I like 
 in town. Indeed, he said one day he thought Lady 
 Huntingdon's preachings were far better tilings for 
 a young woman to hear, than the scandalous nonsense 
 those Italian fellows squalled at the opera. But, 
 Kitty, although he talks so lightly, do you know, the 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 151 
 
 otiier evening, as lie had taken his candle and was 
 kissing me good-night, he said — 
 
 " ' By the way, Eve, if you don't fancy going with 
 me all the way to-morrow, I'll drop you at the game- 
 keeper's lodge beyond the wood. His old woman is 
 very ill, and she says you told her something that 
 cheered her heart up ; so you might as well go again. 
 She is an honest old soul, and she says you remnnded 
 her of your Aunt Maud who died, and she was a good 
 woman, if ever there was one.' 
 
 " So you see, Cousin Kitty, I have little chance of 
 martyrdom. 
 
 " My difficulties are from the religious people 
 themselves. There seems to me so much fashion, 
 so much phraseology, so much cutting and shaping, 
 as if the fruits of the Spirit were to be artificial 
 wax fruits, instead of real, living, natural fruits. 
 
 " With you, Kitty, it is so different. You like 
 what you like, and love those you love, and not 
 merely try to like what you ought to like, and to 
 work yourself up to something like love for those 
 you ought to love. 
 
 " I find it difficult to explain myself. AYhat I 
 feel is, that religious people, no doubt from really 
 high motives, are apt to become unnatural — to lose 
 spontaneousness. 
 
 " I do not see this in Mr. Whitefield and Lady 
 Huntingdon, or in Aunt Jeanie, nor, my sweet Cou- 
 sin, in you. Lady Huntingdon is a queen, no doubt; 
 but we must have kings and queens. But it is 
 the foUcncers of Mr. Whitefield, the ladies who form 
 Lady Huntingdon's court, that trouble me in this 
 way. 
 
 " There is a cutting down, a rounding off, a 
 
163 THE DIARY OF 
 
 clipping into shape, like the cypresses in the Dutch 
 gardens, and a suspicious uneasiness about any sell- 
 willed shoot which asserts its right to sprout beyond 
 the prescribed curves, w^hich provokes me beyond 
 measure. 
 
 " I feel sometimes in those circles as if I were 
 being put in a mortar and pestled into a sweetmeat ; 
 as if all the natural color in me were being insensibly 
 toned down to the uniform gray ; as if all the natural 
 tones of my voice were being in spite of me pitched 
 to a chant, like the intoning of the Roman Catholic 
 priests. It is very strange this tendency all religious 
 schools seem to have towards monotone and uniform, 
 from the Papists to the Quakers. And in the Bible 
 it seems to me, there is as little of it as in nature. 
 
 " I was becoming very rebellious when at Bath, 
 before we escaped into the free, natural country life ; 
 and now that we are in London once more, it is 
 coming over me again like a terrible spell. But I 
 am determined I will not be pestled into a sweet- 
 meat I The great fear is, that I shall ferment myself 
 into an acid. 
 
 " But if I could only keep close to God himself, to 
 my glorious Saviour, to his free Spirit, there could 
 be no danger of either. 
 
 *' The following of Christ is freedom, expansion, and 
 growth. The following of his followers is copying, 
 imitation, contraction. And it is to the following 
 of Christ, close, always^ with nothing and no person 
 between, that we are called, all of us, the youngest, 
 the weakest, the meanest. You and I, Kitty 1 as 
 well as Lady Huntingdon, and Mr. Whiteficld, and 
 Mr. Wesley, and St. Paul. 
 
 " And Christ our Lord, if we yield ourselves hon 
 
MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAN, 153 
 
 estly, wholly to Mm, will develop our hearts and 
 souls from within, outward and upward from the 
 root, which is growing ; instead of our having to trim 
 and clip them from outside inward, which is stunting. 
 He will give to each seed *his own body.' Is it not 
 true, Kitty ? I want very much to have a talk with 
 you, for I cannot find other people's thoughts and 
 ways fit me, any more than their clothes ; and I want 
 to know how much of this is wrong, and how much 
 is right. 
 
 " For instance, the other evening Lady Emily — 
 
 " I had written so far, when an opportunity oc- 
 curred of going to hear Mr. John Wesley preach at 
 the Foundry. The sermon seemed made for me. It 
 was on evil-speaking ; and veiy pungent and useful 
 I found it, I assure you. 
 
 " Such an angelic face, Kitty ! — the expression 
 so calm and lofty, the features so refined and defined, 
 regular and delicate, just the face that makes you 
 sure his Mother was a beautiful woman (one of his 
 Aunts was painted by Sir Peter Lely as one of the 
 beauties of the clay.) Yet there is nothing feminine 
 about it, unless as far as an angel's face may or must 
 be partly feminine. Eyes not appealing but com- 
 manding ; the delicate mouth firm as a Roman 
 general's ; self-control, as the secret of all other 
 control, stamped on every feature. If anything is 
 wanting in the face and manner, it seemed to me just 
 that nothing was wanting — that it was too angelic. 
 You could not detect the weak, soft place, where he 
 would need to lean instead of to support. He 
 seemed to speak almost too much from heaven ; not, 
 indeed, as one that had not known the experiences 
 
154 THE DIARY OF 
 
 of earth (there was the keenest peuetration and the 
 deepest sympathy in his words), but as one who had 
 surmounted them all. The glow on his countenance 
 was the steady sunlight of benevolence, rather than 
 the tearful, trembling, intermittent sunshine of affec- 
 tion, with its hopes and fears. The few lines on his 
 brow were the lines of effective thought, not of 
 anxious solicitude. If I were on a sick-bed in the 
 ward of an hospital, I should bask in the holy bene- 
 volent look as in the smile of an angel ; but I do not 
 know that he would (perhaps could) be tenderer if I 
 were his sister at home. 
 
 " I should like to hear Mr. Wesley preach every 
 Sunday ; he would send me home detected in my in- 
 most infirmities, unmasked to myself, humbled with 
 the conviction of sin, and inspired with the assurance 
 of victory. 
 
 *' And yet if on Monday I came to ask his advice 
 in a diflSculty, I am not quite sure he would under- 
 stand me. I am not sure that he would not come 
 nearer my heart in the pulpit than in the house ; that 
 while he makes me feel singled out and found out, 
 as if I were his only hearer in the crowd, if I were 
 really alone with him I should not feel that he 
 regarded me rather as a unit in ' the great multitude 
 no man can number,' than as myself, and no one 
 else. 
 
 " But I am running away from his sermon, as if I 
 winced from it, as I did. 
 
 " He began with the words — 
 
 " * Speak evil of no man,' says the great apostle— 
 *as plain a command as **Thou shalt do no murder." 
 But who, even among Christians, regard this com- 
 mand ? Yea how few are there that so much as un- 
 
3/7?^. KITTY TREVYLYA2^. 155 
 
 derstand it. What is evil-speaking ? It is not the 
 same as lying or slandering. All a man says may be 
 as true as the Bible, and yet the saying of it be evil- 
 speaking. For evil-speaking is neither more nor less 
 than speaking evil of an absent person ; relating 
 something evil which was really done or said by one 
 that is not present when it is related. In our lan- 
 guage this is also, by an extremely proper name, 
 termed " back-biting." Nor is there any material 
 difference between this and what we usually style 
 " tale-bearing." If the tale be delivered in a soft 
 and quiet manner (perhaps with some expressions of 
 good-will to the person, and a hope that things 
 may not be quite so bad), then we call it " whisper- 
 ing." But in whatever manner it be done, the 
 thing is the same, if we relate to another the fault 
 of a third person when he is not there to answer for 
 himself. 
 
 " ' And how extremely common is this sin, among 
 all orders and degrees of men. How do high and 
 low, rich and poor, wise and foolish, learned and un- 
 learned, run into it continually ! What conversation 
 do you hear of any considerable length whereof evil- 
 speaking is not one ingredient ? 
 
 " ' And the veiy commonness of this sin makes it 
 difficult to be avoided. If we are not deeply sensible 
 of the danger, and continually guarding against it, 
 we are liable to be carried away by the torrent. In 
 this instance, almost the whole of mankind are, as it 
 were, in a conspiracy against us. Besides, it is re- 
 commended from within as well as from without. 
 There is scarcely a wrong temper in the mind of man 
 that may not occasionally be gratified by it — our 
 pride, anger, resentment. 
 
156 THE DIARY OF 
 
 '' * Evil-speaking is the more difficult to be avoided, 
 b cause it frequently attacks us in disguise. We 
 speak tlius out of a noble, generous (it is well if Vv^e 
 do not say) holy indignation, against those vile crea- 
 tures. We commit sin from mere hatred of sin ! 
 We serve the devil out of pure zeal for God !' 
 
 " Then having laid bare the disease, Mr. Wesley 
 gave the remedy. 
 
 " * First, " if thy brothet sin against thee, go and 
 tell him of his fault between thee and him alone." 
 This,' he said, ' requires the greatest gentleness, meek- 
 ness, and love. If he opposes the truth, yet he can- 
 not be brought to the knowledge of it but by gen- 
 tleness. Still speak in a spirit of tender love, which 
 " many waters cannot quench." If l/yte is not con- 
 quered, it conquers all things. Who can tell the force 
 of love ? 
 
 " ' This step our Lord commands us to take Jirst,^ 
 Mr. Wesley went on to say. * No alternative is al- 
 lowed,' 
 
 " * Do not think to excuse yourself for taking an 
 entirely different step by saying, " I did not speak to 
 any one until I was so burdened I could not refrain." 
 And what a way have you found to unburden your- 
 self 1 God reproves you for a sin of omission, for 
 not telling your brother of his fault ; and you com- 
 fort yourself by a sin of commission, by telling your 
 brother's fault to another person. Ease bought by 
 sin is a dear purchase 1' 
 
 "Afterwards he exhorted us to 'hear evil of no 
 man. The receiver is as bad as the thief. If there 
 were no hearers, there would be no speakers of evil.' 
 
 " The close of the sermon was something in these 
 words • 
 
MRS. KITTY trevylyan: 157 
 
 " * O that all of you who bear the reproach of 
 Christ, who are in derision called Methodists, would 
 set an example at least in this ! If you must be dis- 
 tinguished, let this be the distinguishing mark of a 
 Methodist — " He censures no man behind his back : 
 by this fruit you may know him." What a blessed 
 effect of this self-denial we should quickly feel. in 
 our hearts ! Mow would " our peace flow as a river," 
 when we thus followed peace with all men ! How 
 would the love of God abound in our souls while we 
 thus confirmed our love to the brethren ! And what 
 an effect would it have on all that were united to- 
 gether LQ the name of our Lord Jesus Christ ! How 
 would brotherly love continually increase. If one 
 member suffered, all would suffer with it ; if one was 
 honored, all would rejoice with it. Nor is this all. 
 What an effect this might have even on the mid, un- 
 thinking world. Once more, with Julian the Apos- 
 tate, they should be constrained to cry, " See how 
 these Christians love one another !" Our Lord's last 
 solemn prayer would be fulfilled — ^his kingdom would 
 come. The Lord hasten the time, and enable us to 
 love one another, not only in word and tongue, but in 
 deed and in truth !' " 
 
 " There sweet cousin, thus did I sit rebuked and 
 instructed, and after that you will of course never 
 expect to hear what Lady Emily said the other even- 
 ing. But as to the duty of taking her apart and 
 telling her, I am not clear. This kind of assault is 
 not pleasant, except to very pugnacious natures, so 
 that this method of speaking evil to instead of of 
 people, has farther the great advantage of making 
 one try to find out apologies for the faults one would 
 have to condemn in this straightforward manner. 
 14 
 
158 THE DIARY OF 
 
 And very often, I do believe, we should find the apo- 
 logy truer than the accusation. 
 
 " These wonderful Wesleys, Kitty ! I do think 
 they are like the apostles more than any people that 
 ever lived ; at least on the side on which they wero 
 apostles. I cannot yet get over the feeling that St. 
 Paul or St. John, and certainly St. Peter, would have 
 been easier to ask advice from about little home-difl3- 
 culties. 
 
 " I have been hearing about them from your friend, 
 Mr. Hugh Spencer. Papa likes him, and he has 
 been to see us several times, and when Papa goes 
 out, we have had long conversations concerning the 
 Methodists, and also concerning another subject (or 
 object) in which we are both greatly interested. 
 
 ^' I should like to have spent a week at that Ep- 
 worth parsonage where the Wesleys were cradled — 
 that home which was free, and happy, and full of 
 healthful play as any home in the holidays, and or- 
 derly, and full of healthful work as any school ; 
 where the ' odious noise' of the crying of children 
 was not suffered, but there was no restraint in their 
 gleeful laughter; to have listened to the singing 
 with which the childish voices opened and closed 
 their lessons; to have seen, at five o'clock, the oldest 
 take apart the youngest that could speak, the second 
 the next, and so on, and read together the Psalm for 
 the day and a chapter from the New Testament ; to 
 have gone through the quiet bedrooms three hours 
 afterwards, and seen the rosy, sleeping faces, even the 
 baby of a year old lying quiet although awake, or 
 only venturing to ' C17 softly ;' or more than all to 
 have watched invisibly the mother conversing alone, 
 
MRS. KITTY trevylyan: 159 
 
 as she did, with one of her little ones every evening, 
 listening to their childish confessions, and giving 
 counsel to their childish perplexities. 
 
 " So deep was the hold that mother had on the 
 hearts of her sons, that years afterw^ards, in his early 
 manhood, she had tenderly to rebuke John for that 
 * fond wish ' of his of dying before she died. 
 
 " There were nineteen children born in that home ; 
 thirteen of them were living at one time. The pres- 
 sure of all the endless small cares of poverty was 
 added to the labor of teaching and training those 
 healthy, eager, clever children, all of them, no doubt, 
 endued with a considerable portion of the will and 
 character of their parents. And their circumstances 
 were not improved by the father's uncompromising 
 politics ; many of the parishioners paid the tithes in 
 the most inconvenient way they could, and the au- 
 thorities, on the plea of a small debt, once threw" Mr. 
 Wesley into prison. Whilst there, his noble wife 
 sold her dngs to support him ; other female super- 
 fluities no doubt had disaj^peared before, and his 
 books were no superfluities in his eyes or hers ; and 
 in prison he read the prayers, and preached to the 
 WTetched inmates, and found the jail (so he wrote to 
 the Archbishop of York) a larger a.ud more import- 
 ant parish than his owtq. 
 
 "Yet burdened as she was, no one can picture 
 Mrs. Wesley, as creeping with stooping shoulders 
 through life, a weary heavy-laden woman. All her 
 work was done with a hearty cheerfulness. At fifty, 
 she said, in a letter to the Archbishop of York (tiied 
 as she had been with poverty) that she believed it 
 was easier to be content without riches than with 
 them. 
 
160 THE DIARY OF 
 
 " There was a secret spring wMcli fed her inmost 
 heart. Every morning and every evening she spent 
 an hour alone with God. That morning hour of 
 prayer (your friend Hugh Spencer said), made the 
 day's yoke easy and its burdens light ; that evening 
 hour kept her heart and conscience at rest. 
 
 " And so fresh did those week-day Sabbath-hours 
 keep her strength, that on Sundays, during her 
 husband's absence, she found it no toil to gather his 
 poor parishioners in her kitchen and read a sermon, 
 pray, and converse in a simple and solemn way with 
 them. Two hundred were sometimes assembled in 
 this way. An unfavorable report of this • conventicle ' 
 was sent to her husband, and on his remonstrating 
 she wrote that she was preparing hearers for his 
 church-services. But if he continued to object, she 
 simply requested, * Do not advise^ but command me 
 to desist.' His command was God's authority for 
 her, and she would submit unhesitatingly. His ad- 
 vice was man's advice, and she could not alter her 
 convictions at his will or her own. 
 
 " The old home at Epworth Rectory is in other 
 hands now; the last time Mr. John Wesley went 
 there, being refused his father's pulpit, he preached 
 to the jDeople from his father's grave-stone. 
 
 " Both father and mother are gone now. The 
 family have the recollection of two saintly death- 
 beds to crown the memory of those two noble lives. 
 When dying, old Mr. Wesley laid his hand on the 
 head of his son Charles, and said, * Be steady ; the 
 Christian faith will surely revive in this kingdom ; 
 you will see it, though I shall not.' 
 
 ** The inward witness I' he said, at another time, 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 161 
 
 * the inward witness I tliat is the proof, the strongest 
 proof of Christianity.' 
 
 " His last words were, ' God chastens me with 
 strong pain, but I praise Him for it, I thank Him for 
 it, I love Him for it.' His last act Avas receiving the 
 Holy Communion with his family. 
 
 " The mother died only a few years since in her 
 seventy-third year; calm, serene, painless, looking 
 up to heaven, she passed away (as she had wished) 
 whilst her children were singing around her bed a 
 ' Psalm of praise to God.' As the praises of earth 
 fell dim and distant on the ear of the dying, other 
 songs of everlasting joy were beginning to burst 
 upon her. 
 
 " I hear Mr. John Wesley x)reach, and read these 
 deep heart-stirring hymns of his brother Charles 
 with far greater interest now that I know what thei]' 
 father's house was like ; what a pure, sweet stream 
 of home memories flows round their lofty devotion 
 to God. And this devotion seems quite unreserved. 
 When Mr. John Wesley's income was thirty pounds 
 a year, he spent twenty-eight and gave away two. 
 Now that it is one hundred and twenty, he still 
 spends twenty-eight, and gives away ninety-two. 
 The return he made of his plate lately to the tax 
 collectors was, 'Two silver sj)oons, one in London 
 and one at Bristol.' 
 
 " What wonders one man may do, without vanity 
 and covetousness ; and with a suflicient motive ! 
 Yet his dress is at any time, they say, neat enough 
 for any society, except when some of the mobs, who 
 have frequently attacked him, but never injured him, 
 may have considerably ruffled his attire. His temper 
 they could never ruffle ; and in the end, his unaf- 
 
IbS TUE DIARY OF 
 
 fccted benevolence, his Christian serenity and gentic*- 
 nianly composure are sure to overcome. The ring- 
 leaders more than once have turned round on their 
 followers and dared them to touch the parson. Hife 
 ralm, commanding voice has been heard. Silence 
 has succeeded to hootings, and sobs to silence, and 
 Hugh SiDencer says, there is scarcely a place where 
 the Methodists have been assailed by mobs, where, 
 from the very dregs of these very mobs, men and 
 women have not been rescued, and found, not long 
 after, * sitting clothed and in their right mind,' at the 
 feet of the Saviour. 
 
 " Mr. Whitefield is very different. Any one can 
 understand why the Wesleys should do great things, 
 especially Mr. John. He is a man of such will and 
 power, such strong practical sense and determination, 
 so nobly trained in such a home. But Mr. Whitefield's 
 strength seems to be obviously not in him but in the 
 truth he speaks. His early home, an inn at Bristol, 
 his early life spent in low occupations among low 
 companions, his one great gift, suited one would 
 have thought more to a theatre than a pulpit. But 
 his whole heart is on fire with the love of Christ and 
 the love of perishing immortal men and women. 
 And he has the great gift of making people listen to 
 the message of God's infinite grace. The message 
 does the rest. And what it does, Kitty, I can hardly 
 write of without tears. 
 
 " He tells peoi^le all over the world — morning, 
 noon, and night, every day of his life — duchesses, 
 wise men, colliers, and outcasts (as he told me), that 
 we have a great burden on our hearts; and we 
 know it. He tells us that burden is sin ; and 
 "whether we knew it or not before, we know, when 
 
MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAN. 163 
 
 lie says so, it is true. He weeps and tells us that 
 unless that great burden is lifted off nmo.^ it will 
 never be lifted off, but will crush us down and down 
 for ever ; and half his audience weep with him. He 
 tells us it can be lifted off now.^ Jiere^ this instant ; we 
 may go away from that spot, unburdened, forgiven, 
 rejoicing, reconciled to God, without a thing in time 
 or eternity to dread any more ; the burden of terror 
 exchanged for an infinite wealth of joy, the debt of 
 guilt into a debt of everlasting gratitude. And 
 then, just as the poor stricken hearts before him, 
 each hanging on his eloquent words as if he were 
 peading with each alone, begin to thrill with a new 
 hope ; he shown us liow all this can be. He shows 
 us (or God reveals to us), Christ, the Lamb of God, 
 the Son of God fainting under the burden of our sin, 
 yet bearing it all away. And we forget Mr. White- 
 field, the congregation, time, earth, ourselves, every- 
 thing but the Cross, to which he has led us, but that 
 suffering, smitten, dying Saviour at whose feet we 
 stand. And from that moment we seem no longer 
 to be listening, but only looking. We are looking 
 on God. And that look is not death but life, life 
 everlasting, for God is in Christ reconciling us to 
 himself. We are looking on God and loving Him ; 
 God is looking on us and loving us. And then, as 
 we gaze, slowly the truth dawns on us ; that God is 
 not now leginning to look on us with that look of 
 infinite compassion and tenderness, He has been 
 caring for us all our lives ; He has loved us with an 
 everlasting love. He has been drawing us blind, 
 wilful, unwilling, to Himself. It is our first look, 
 but oh, it is not His ! Then the barriers of time 
 and death seem gone, for sin was their substance, 
 
164 THE DIARY OF 
 
 and that is taken away; and we are in eternity, 
 eternal life has begun, for Christ is our life, and we 
 are forever with Ilim. 
 
 " Kitty, I believe Mr. Whitefield has brought this 
 unutterable joy to thousands and thousands, and that 
 he lives for nothing else but to bring it to thousands 
 more. And this whole generation must pass away 
 before his sermons can be coolly criticised, or his 
 name uttered in any large assembly of Christian 
 people without bringing tears to many eyes. 
 
 " Dear Kitty, I have heard Mr. Wesley again, and 
 his sermon was on our being stewards of God I 
 cannot tell you what that sermon did for me. That 
 first sermon of Mr. Whitefield's seemed to lay me 
 prostrate, beggared, utterly destitute, at the feet of 
 my Saviour, thenceforth to be nothing and have 
 nothing in myself, yet to possess all things in Him. 
 
 " Mr. Wesley's noble words, on the other hand, 
 seemed to be like God's gracious hands once more 
 investing me with all my forfeited possessions, no 
 more as earthly dross, but as priceless, heavenly 
 treasures. Anything God has given me — health, 
 youth, any power of pleasing or influencing others, 
 every faculty of the body, * that exquisitely wrought 
 machine,' as he termed it ; every power of the mind ; 
 our money, which he calls our poorest and meanest 
 possession ; every relationship of life, every moment 
 of time, seemed given back to me, new coined, 
 stamped with the seal of God, and made current 
 through eteniity. If before, in the first glimpse 
 of eternity, all the things I had most prized seemed 
 dust and dross, now, themselves linked to eternity, 
 they seem to me sacred and priceless. *How pre 
 
31ES. KITTY TEEVYLYAm 165 
 
 cious, above all utterance, above all coi ceptiou,' as 
 he said, ' is every portion of our life. Not, indeed, 
 that there are any works of supererogation ; that 
 we can ever do more than our duty seeing all we 
 have is not our own but God's ; all we can do is due 
 to Him. We have not received this or that thing 
 but everything from Him; therefore everything is 
 His due.' 
 
 " After that sermon I went back to the good peo- 
 ple who gather around Lady Huntingdon, of whom 
 I wrote to you in the beginning of this letter, or rather 
 this book of chronicles ; and in the light of that truth 
 all seemed to me transformed. We are fellow-ser- 
 vants — ^fellow-workers ; and I came to them humbly 
 to ask them to put me in the way of doing some 
 humble work, such as a beginner might attempt. 
 Then, Kitty, I found that many of these good women, 
 whose manners I had been criticizing at my leisure, 
 had meantime been engaged in countless labors of 
 love ; and as I went with them to the schools, the 
 hospitals, and the dwellings of the poor, the voices 
 which brought gladness among little destitute child- 
 ren, and a rare sunshine into the dwellings of the 
 London poor, — ^which were longed for on lonely sick- 
 beds, and welcomed with grateful smiles by wan faces 
 drawn with pain, — ^have passed for me into a region 
 far beyond the icy touch of criticism ; they are dear 
 to me, Kitty. We are bound together as fellow-ser- 
 vants as well as brethren. It seems to me nothing 
 unites us like a common object to work for ; partly, 
 I suppose, because working shows us our own deli- 
 ciencies, and humility and forbearance spring up from 
 one root. I think it would be a good rule if every 
 Clitic were compelled by law to write a book himself. 
 
lOd THE DIARY OF 
 
 He would see then what the difficulties of those he 
 criticizes are; and the world would see what his 
 powers are, which, in many cases, would, I have no 
 doubt, tend to produce in a critic a wholesome 
 humility. 
 
 "I have come to the conclusion, Kitty, that we 
 obtain a grander and truer view of lofty things from 
 below than from above ; looking up to them from our 
 own level instead of looking dowTi on them, fore- 
 shortened by their own elevation, from the height to 
 which but for them we never could have climbed. 
 
 *' And now, Cousin Kitty, I must seal up my bud- 
 get, and send it this veiy day, or it will grow so long, 
 you will forget the beginning before you reach the 
 end. I had thought of sending it by the hand of 
 your friend, Mr. Hugh Spencer, when he passes 
 through London from the University, but it is of ko 
 use to wait for him ; and as there is nothing Jacobite 
 or fanatically Whig in my lucubrations, I must trust 
 tliem to the ordinary chances of the mail, and not 
 wait till next week, when we leave London again, 
 and they would have to be committed to the extra- 
 ordinary perils of the cross posts from Beauchamp 
 Manor. I suppose the mails, like Miss Pawsey's 
 fashions, do reach you at least ' once in every two or 
 three years.' 
 
 " Before finishing, however, I must tell you of a 
 conversation which took place to-day. 
 
 *' This morning two gentlemen who were calling on 
 papa were lamenting the degeneracy of the times. 
 
 *' One was an old general, and he said, — 
 
 " * We have no heroes now — not a great soldier left 
 Since Marlboi'ough died not an Englishman has ap« 
 peared who is fit to be more than a general of division. 
 
MnS. KITTY TREVYLYAI^, 167 
 
 There is neither the brain to conceive great i3lans, 
 nor the will to execute them, nor the dash which so 
 often changes reverses into victories.' 
 
 *' My great-uncle, a Fellow of Brazennose, took up 
 the wail. ' No, indeed,' he said ; ' the ages of gold 
 and iron and brass are over ; the golden days of Eliza- 
 beth and Shakespeare, and the scattered Armada, the 
 inm of the Revolution (for rough as they were, these 
 men were iron) ; the brass of the Restoration ; and 
 now we have nothing to do but to beat out the dust 
 and shavings into tinsel and wire.' 
 
 " * We have plenty of wood at least for gallows,' 
 interposed my brother Harry. ' Cart-loads of men 
 are taken every week to Tyburn. I saw one myself 
 yesterday.' 
 
 " * For what crimes ?' asked the general. 
 
 " * One for stealing a few yards of ribbon ; another 
 for forging a draught for £50,' said Harry. 
 
 " * Ah,' sighed the general, ' we have not even energy 
 left to commit great crimes !' 
 
 " ' Then,' resumed my great uncle, ' what authors 
 or aiiists have we worth the name ? Pope, Swift, and 
 Addison, Wren and Kneller, — all are gone. We have 
 not amongst us a man who can make an epic march, 
 or a satire bite, or a cathedral stand, or picture or a 
 statue live. Imitators of imitations, we live at the 
 fag-end of time, without great thinkers, or great 
 thoughts, or great deeds to inspire either.' 
 
 " * There is a little bookseller called Richardson, 
 who, the ladies say, writes like an angel,' observed 
 my Brother Harry ; ' and Fielding at all events is a 
 gentleman, and knows something of men and man- 
 ners.' 
 
 " * And pretty men and manners they are from vfhajk 
 
168 THE DIARY OF 
 
 I hear,' was my great-uncle's dolorous response. * But 
 what are these at best ? Not worth the name of lit- 
 erature; frippery for a lady's drawing-room, — no 
 more to be called literature than these mandarins or 
 monsters are to be called sculpture.' 
 
 " ' Mr. Handel's music has some life in it,' replied 
 Harry, roused to opposition (although Harry does 
 not know * God save the Queen ' from ' Rule Britan- 
 nia!'). 
 
 " * Yes, that is all we are fit for,' was the cynical 
 reply, — 'to put the great songs of cur fathers to 
 jingling tunes. We sit stitching tinsel fringes for 
 the grand draperies of the past, and do not see that 
 all the time we are no better than tailors working at 
 our own palls.' 
 
 " * Besides,' resumed the old general, ' Handel is no 
 Englishman. The old British stock is dying out, sir. 
 We have not even wit to put our forefathers' songs to 
 music, nor sense to sing them when that is done. We 
 Lave nothing left but money to pay Germans to fight 
 for us, and Italians to scream for us.' 
 
 " * And that is going as fast as it can,' interposed 
 papa. * What public man have we. Whig or Tory, 
 who would not sell his country for a pension, or his 
 soul for a place ?' 
 
 " ' Soul, nephew I' said my great-uncle. ' You are 
 using words gro^vn quite obsolete. Wlio believes in 
 such a thing as the salvation or perdition of the soul 
 in these enlightened times V 
 
 " ' The Methodists do, at any rate, sir,' replied 
 Harry, maliciously ; * and Lady Huntingdon, and my 
 Sister Evelyn, and my Cousin Kitty.' 
 
 " Harry had drawn all the forces of the enemy on 
 bim at once by this assault. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAN. 169 
 
 " * Sir,' said papa, ^ I beg henceforth you never 
 couple your sister's or your cousin's name with those 
 low fanatics. If Evelyn occasionally likes longer ser- 
 mons than I can stand, she is a dutiful child, and 
 costs me not a moment's anxiety, which is more than 
 can be said for every one ; and if she visits the old 
 women at the Manor, so did her grandmother, who 
 lived before a Methodist had been heard of.' 
 
 " ' Methodists !' exclaimed the general, indignantly ; 
 * it was only the other day I was told of one of them, 
 John Nelson, who was enlisted by force, and who 
 would have made as fine a soldier as the king has 
 but for his confounded Methodism. They actually 
 had to let him off, lest he should bite the other fel- 
 lows, and make them all as mad as himself. Why, 
 sir, he actually reproved the officers for swearing, and 
 in such a respectful way, the cunning fellow, they 
 could do nothing to him ; and when an ensign had 
 him put in prison, and threatened to have him 
 whipped, he seemed as happy there as St. Paul him- 
 self. The people came to him night and day, to hear 
 him speak and preach. The infection of his fanatical 
 religion spread in every town through w^hiqli they 
 took him. They could find nothing by which they 
 might keep hold of him ; for he was no Dissenter ; 
 he professed to delight to go to church more than 
 anything, and to receive the sacrament. And the 
 end of it was, the major had to set him free ; and ac- 
 tually was foolish enough to say, if he preached again 
 without making a mob, if he was able, he would go 
 and hear him himself; and he wished all the men 
 were like him. A most dangerous rascal, — a fellor 
 "with the strength af a lion and the courage of a 
 Veteran ; and y^t /^e would rather preach than fight 
 15 
 
170 THE DIAllY OF 
 
 I woulJ make short work with such fellows, if I had 
 Tyburn for a few days in my own hands, with a troop 
 of Marlborough's old soldiers.' 
 
 " ' It would be of no use, sir,' replied Harry ; * they 
 would beat you even at Tyburn. I saw a man hung 
 there yesterday as peacefully as if he had been ascend- 
 ing the block for his country or his king. He said 
 Mr. John Wesley had visited him in the prison, and 
 taught him how to repent of his sins and seek his 
 God, and made him content to die. The peojjle 
 were quite moved, sir.' 
 
 " '- No doubt ! the people are always ready enough 
 to be moved,' said the general, 'especially by any 
 rogue who is on the point of being hanged. These 
 things should be met silently, sharply, decisively.' 
 
 " ' Tlie Pope has tried that before now, sir,' I ven- 
 tured to suggest, * and not found it altogether answer, 
 — at least not in England.' 
 
 " ' True, Evelyn,' said my great-uncle, meditatively. 
 * These outbursts of fanaticism are like epidemics ; 
 they will have their time, and then die out. In the 
 Middle Ages, whole troops of men and women used 
 to march through the country, wailing and scourging 
 themselves, and in the wildest state of excitement ; 
 but it was let alone, and it passed off; and so it will 
 be with Methodism, no doubt.' 
 
 " * But, uncle,' I said, ' those Methodists do not 
 scourge themselves, nor any one else. They only 
 preach to the people about sin, and the judgment- 
 day, and our Saviour.' 
 
 " ' And the people sob, and scream, and faint, and 
 fall into convulsions, said Harry,' turning on me. 
 
 " ' Of course,' said my great-uncle, ' we are not 
 Papists. Fanaticism will take another form in Pro- 
 
3ritS. KITTY TREVYLTAK 171 
 
 testant countries ; and as to ignorant men preaching 
 about sin and the judgment-day, what have they to 
 do with it ? I preached them a sermon on that sub- 
 ject myself last Lent, in St. Mary's, and no one sobbed, 
 or fainted, or was at all excited.' 
 
 " ' But, uncle,' I said, ' the people who are to be 
 hanged at Tyburn, and the Yorkshire colliers, cannot 
 come to hear you at St. Mary's.' 
 
 " 'However little it might excite them !' interposed 
 Harry. 
 
 " ' Is it not a good thing, uncle,' I continued, ' that 
 some one, however imperfectly, should preach to the 
 people who can't come to hear you at St. Mary's, or 
 who won't V 
 
 " ' Preach in the fields to those who won't come to 
 church to be taught !' said my great-uncle ; ' the 
 next thing will be to take food to the people at 
 home who won't come to the fields to work, and beg 
 them to be so kind as to eat !' 
 
 " ' But, dear uncle,' I said, ' the worst of it is, the 
 people who are dying for want of this kind of food 
 don't know it is hunger they are fainting from. You 
 must take them the food before they know it is that 
 they want.' 
 
 *' * Nonsense, Evelyn,' he said ; ' if they don't knov/, 
 they ought. I have no notion of pampering and 
 coaxing criminals and beggars in that way. Every- 
 thing in its place. The pulpit for sermons, and Ty 
 bum for those who won't listen. But how should 
 young women understand these things ? There is 
 poor John Wesley, as orderly and practical a man as 
 ever v/as seen before he was seized with this insanity 
 or imbecility. The times are very evil ; the world is 
 turned upside do^Ti ; and tliis fanatical outburst of 
 
173 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Methodism is one of the worst symptoms of the 
 times. It is the growth on the stagnant pond, — ^the 
 deadly growth of corrupt and decaying age.' 
 
 *' But, oh ! Cousin Kitty, when the world was 
 turned upside down seventeen hundred years ago, in 
 that corrupt and decaying age of ancient times, 
 people found at last it was only as a plow turns up 
 the ground for a new harvest. 
 
 *'And sometimes when I hear what Mr. Hugh 
 Spencer tells me of the multitudes thronging to 
 listen to Mr. Whitefield and Mr. Wesley, and the 
 other preachers in America and Wales, and among 
 the Cornish miners, and the colliers of the north, and 
 the slaves in the West Indies, and of hearts being 
 awakened to repentance and faith and joy even in 
 condemned cells it seems to me as if instead of death 
 a new tide of life was rising and rising through the 
 world everywhere, bursting out at every cranny and 
 crevice ; as in spring the power of the green earth 
 bursts up even through the crevices of the London 
 paving-stones, through the black branches of the 
 trees in deserted old squares, through the flower in 
 the broken pot in the sick child's window, making 
 every wretched comer of the city glad with some 
 poor tree or blossom, or plot of grass of its own. 
 But the dead tree, alas I crackles in the wind, — the 
 life-bringing spring wind, — and wonders what all 
 this stir and twittering is about, and moans drily 
 tha.t it is the longest winter the world ever saw, and 
 that it will never be spring again. 
 
 " As I did once, and for so long ! — 
 
 " But we have come, have we not, to the Fountain 
 of Life, and this tide of life is not around us only, i1 
 
MRS. KITTY TEEVYLYAIi\ 173 
 
 is within us, and sometimes the joy is so great it 
 seems quite too great to bear alone ! 
 
 " And then especially I long for you, Kitty, and 
 my thoughts buzz about you like bees around flow- 
 ers in the sunshine. If you feel a pleasant little stir 
 about your heart at any time, that is j^hat it is ! 
 
 " And where will you read this ? In your sunny 
 chamber alone, with the rooks cawing in your old 
 elms, and the light flickering through their branches 
 on your floor ? Or in Aunt Trevylyan's closet, sitting 
 at her feet, while ' Bishop Taylor' lies open on the 
 little table beside her ? Or by the hall fire, while 
 Uncle Trevylyan is reading for the hundreth time 
 that book on fortifications, soothed to occasioual 
 dozes by the drone of your mother's spinning-wheel, 
 and Jack is mending his fishing-tackle, and Trusty 
 now and then heaves a long sigh in his sleep, and 
 stretches himself into a posture of more absolute re- 
 pose? 
 
 " I should like to see it all one day, Kitty, and I 
 must^ if only to tell Aunt Trevylyan all you have 
 been to your loving cousin 
 
 '*Eteltn Beatjchamp. 
 
 "P. 8, — Mamma and I are so much together now, 
 Kitty, I read to her hours together, sometimes French 
 romances and sometimes the 'Ladies' Magazine of 
 Fashion.' They are a little dull, but they have one 
 great merit, they imprison my thoughts as little as 
 embroidery. But every morning, before she gets up, 
 I read the Bible to her ; and the other day, when I 
 was a little later than usual, she pointed to her 
 watch, and said in a disappointed tone, — 
 15* 
 
174 TEE DIARY OF 
 
 " * You are late Evelyn, we shall scarcely have any 
 time ;' and this veiy morning she said, — 
 
 " * I shall be glad when Lent comes. I am tired 
 of seeing so many people, and you and I, child, shall 
 have more time for each other then.' 
 
 "And then she looked just as she did on that 
 night in the old nursery at Beauchamp Manor, when 
 she was watching by Harry's sick-bed and mine. 
 
 " Second P. 8. — Cousin Tom is as savage as he can 
 be to me. But he always contrives to ask for you, 
 although he snatches at any 'news of you like a 
 chained bear at a biscuit, and then shuffles off 
 growling." 
 
 Cousin Evelyn and Hugh Spencer seem to be very 
 intimate. That is quite natural. They must like 
 each other. They are so suited. Nothing petty 
 about either of them. Evelyn is just the kind of 
 woman I used to think would understand him, so 
 frank and fearless, and truthful, and generous, and 
 full of thoughts of her own ; so self-possessed and 
 ready-witted ; so different from me. And she is sure 
 to like Hugh. Every one must who knows him. 
 And she said the first time she saw him, she felt he 
 was just a man she could trust. 
 
 But they do seem to have become such great friends 
 very quickly 1 
 
 Already they appear to have secrets she does not 
 tell me. 
 
 I wonder what the "subject (or object)" was which 
 Bho does not mention, in which they are both so 
 equally interested. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 175 
 
 When I read Evelyn's letter to Mother, she said,-- 
 " She seems much delighted with the Methodists, 
 Kitty. It seems to me a little dangerous for so young 
 a woman to have such strong opinions. And I do 
 not quite like her comparing her great-uncle to a 
 dead tree in a London square. It does not seem 
 respectful or Idnd. I am afraid she has learned that 
 from the Methodists. I do not like young people to 
 judge their elders in that way. But, poor child, she 
 seems to have had her own way too much, and she is 
 affectionate, and so fond of you, Kitty. I am glad 
 you love each other. Kitty, I am afraid you. must 
 have tried her patience sorely with your long stories 
 of your home. She seems to know all about us. 
 But I am very much afraid of those Methodists. I 
 cannot think what we want of a new religion. St. 
 Paul says, though an angel from heaven were to 
 preach another gospel to us, we must not listen to 
 him. What has Mr. Wesley to say that the Bible 
 and the Prayer Book do not say, — and Thomas a 
 Kempis and Bishop Taylor ? Betty went to hear the 
 Methodists, and since then, for the first time in her 
 life, she has twice spoilt the Sunday's dinner in 
 cooking it. Evelyn perhaps has learned some good 
 things from these people, but my Kitty will not want 
 any other religion than that she has learned from her 
 childhood, — in her Bible, and from the Church, and 
 in this little closet from her Mother's lips. Only 
 more of it, Kitty ! — more faith, and hope, and charity, 
 more than I have ever had, or perhaj)s can hope to 
 have, more^ but not something else.'''' 
 
 I could only assure Mother what I feel so deeply, 
 that I could never wish for anything but to grow 
 year by year more like what she is. 
 
176 MRS. KITTY TnEVYLYAy. 
 
 Yet wlicn I tLink of it here alone, it does seem to 
 me as if things needed to be said over again in a new 
 way to each new generation, just as every spring has 
 new songs and new blossoms. And even more than 
 that, because birds do sing the same songs, and yet 
 they are always fresh. But men's works and words 
 seem to grow old-fashioned unless they are varied ; 
 until, as Evelyn says, they grow again into a kind of 
 fresh youth when they pass from being antiquated to 
 being antique. 
 
 The Bible is indeed always fresh, always new, as 
 the songs of the birds, as the spiing flowers, as the 
 brealdng of the waves, as the hearts of children, 
 as the young man in a shining garment at the sepul- 
 chre, who must have " sung for joy " thousands of 
 years before, at the birthday of the world. 
 
 But it does seem as if God meant His Gospel to be 
 borne on from age to age by voices, not by books, not 
 in faint echoes from the tombs, but in fresh, living 
 words from heart to heart. 
 
 Certauily Betty understands Mr. Wesley and John 
 Kelson, as she never could understand Thomas u 
 Kempis and Bishop Taylor. I must ask Mother next 
 Sunday about this. Mother will be sure to knovf 
 better than I can. 
 
VI. 
 
 /^^HE song-birds, for tlie most part, liave outlived 
 ■3Bj their days of song, and are quietly chirping 
 advice to their nestlings in a sober and practi- 
 cal way. Only the rooks, who seem to carry on 
 their attachments in a very business-like style, as if 
 they were always discussing the " settlements " and 
 "pin-money" Evelyn used to laugh about, make as 
 much noise as ever. The old rooks are cawing in- 
 structions to the young ones, and the young ones seem 
 to discuss these instructions in rather a seditious spirit 
 among themselves. 
 
 ]S"o doubt the young rooks think they are encoun- 
 tering quite newly-discovered difficulties with the 
 most original arguments, although precisely the 
 same discussions have been carried on every season 
 in precisely the same tones for centuries, ever siQce 
 rooks were. 
 
 I wonder if the cavillings and controversies of our 
 times, which seem so modem and new to us, would 
 sound just as monotonous to any one who had lived 
 through seventeen generations of men, as I have of 
 rooks ! 
 
 The grave autumn winds are sweeping in slow and 
 solemn cadences, like the throb of a dead-march, 
 through the fading leaves of the elms ; as a musician 
 
178 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 might draw a low, lingering farewell from his harp, 
 before he laid it aside for a season of mourning. 
 For the winds often seem to me to mourn over the 
 wild work they have to do, sighing and so])bing 
 through the woods they are laying bare, and passion- 
 ately wailing above the waves they are lashing into 
 fury. " We were not ma U for this," they seem to 
 moan. " Of old we bore not death but life on our 
 wings. When will it be so again ? Wlien shall we 
 rest ? When will the earth rest and be quiet ? When 
 will all the mournful work be done, and only the 
 good be left to do ? 
 
 Hugh Spencer used to say, how thankful we should 
 be that the part of God's work given us to do on earth 
 i^ not the avenging and destroying, but the healing 
 and the helping. 
 
 How many things I have learned from him. I sup- 
 pose he vdll never be here much again. The work to 
 e done in the world seems to press on him so much, 
 and there are so few to do it ; and his heart is so 
 warm and large, he is able to do so much more than 
 most other people. Cousin Evelyn feels what he is 1 
 
 And yet this parish is like a world in itself, he used 
 to say ; and his is just the character that grows dearer 
 to people the longer they know him, and it seems al- 
 most a pity to throw away the love old and young 
 have for him in his father's parish. There are other 
 people who could preach to the multitudes through- 
 out the world. But it docs seem as if no one could 
 do what he might for the people here. 
 
 I wonder what the " subject (or object) " is Evelyn 
 and he are " equally interested in," that she does not 
 tell me 1 
 
 Hugh used to tell me all his wishes and purposes. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA2L 179 
 
 But Evelyn is i\o much more capable of entering into 
 them than I ever was, and of helping him to carry 
 them out, with her rapid ready wit ; so different from 
 me, who so often think of the right thing to say just 
 when it is too late. And perhaps I disap]3ointed him 
 when he spoke to me that evening on the sea, of his 
 feeling called to proclaim the gospel through the 
 world, when that selfish sadness came over me, at the 
 chought of his no more belonging to us all at home, 
 but to the wide world. Perhaps he feels I cannot 
 enter into his great, benevolent plans. And, of course, 
 I never can, as Evelyn could. She knows so much 
 more, and thinks so much more. Beside Evelyn's, 
 my thoughts and feelings seem so faint and weak; 
 like a little flute beside a clear, ringing clarion. Yes, 
 Evelyn seems just made to understand and help Hugh 
 Spencer. One day, perhaps, they will tell me what 
 this great " subject (or object) '■ is. And I must not 
 be selfish again, then, but must try to enter into it 
 with all my heart; for it is sure to be something 
 generous and good. 
 
 Jack has got his commission at last. He is wild 
 with delight, and patronizes us all, and bestows 
 imaginary fortunes on every one in the parish, on 
 the strength of the cities he means to take, and the 
 prize-money he means to win. 
 
 Father seems to live over his youth again, as he 
 talks to Jack of the perils and adventures before him 
 and although he warns him that the days of victory 
 are few and the nights of watching many, and the 
 days of marching long, yet the old martial enthusi 
 asm that comes over him as he fights Marlborough's 
 battles over again, certaiuly has more power to en- 
 
*80 77/^5- DIARY OF 
 
 kindle Jack's ardor, than the sober commentaries at 
 the end have to cool it. 
 
 It is pleasant, however, to see how cordial Father 
 and Jack become over the old book of " Fortifica- 
 tions," and in their endless discussions concerning 
 arms and accoutrements. 
 
 Meanwhile Mother and I rise early and sit uj) late 
 to complete Jack's outfit. And many tears Mother 
 lets fall on the long seams and hems^although I am 
 sure it is easier for us both, than if we were rich, and 
 could pay some one else to do the w^ork, while we sat 
 brooding over the parting. It is a comfort to put 
 our whole hearts into every stitch we do for him ; to 
 feel that no money could ever purchase the delicate 
 stitching and the elaborate button-holes, and the 
 close, strong sewing we delight to make as perfect as 
 possible. Mother sews her tender anxieties into every 
 needleful, and certainly relieves her anxieties as she 
 does so. And I sew all sorts of mingled feelings in, 
 besides ; repentance for every sharp word I ever spoke 
 to Jack, and every hard thought I ever had of his lit- 
 tie mistakes, and plans of my own for his comfort. 
 For the bees, and the three Spanish hens, whose 
 honey and eggs constitute my "pin-money," have 
 been very successful lately ; and I can very well, 
 with a little contrivance, make my woolsey dress last 
 one more winter ; so that I shall have quite a nice 
 little sum for Jack. 
 
 Father seems to feel as if he w^ere going forth again 
 to the wars and adventures of his youth in Jack's 
 person. But to Mother it is not a going fortli^ but a 
 going aicay. She shudders as Father goes over his 
 battles on the table after supper, with the bread and 
 cheese for fortresses, and the plates and salt-cellars 
 
MUS. KITTY THEVYLYAK 181 
 
 for the armies, and talks of " massing forces," and 
 ** cutting up detachments in detail." 
 
 " My dear," she said one day, " you talk so coolly 
 of masses and forces, and of ' cutting them up !' 
 You seem to forget it is men you are talking of, and 
 that our Jack is to be one of them." 
 
 Father smiled compassionately, and went on de- 
 taching his salt-cellars. Jack laughed and kissed 
 Mother affectionately, and said, " But I am not to be 
 one of them. Mother. I have no intention of letting 
 any one cut me up." 
 
 But Mother could not hear any more military dis- 
 cussions just then ; and we took a candle to a little 
 table near the fire, and comforted ourselyes once 
 more with Jack's outfit. 
 
 I suppose that it is meant that men must leave us 
 one day, and go forth into the world to do their 
 work. 
 
 But it does seem a little hard they should be so 
 glad to go. 
 
 Yet when I said this one day to Mother, she said, 
 " I would not have Jack one bit less eager and 
 pleased, on any account, Kitty ! What are women 
 for, unless they can help men in the rough things 
 they have to do and bear ? They work and fight 
 hard for us, and if we have our own share of the 
 burden to bear at home, the least we can do is to 
 bear it cheerfully, and not hinder them with repining 
 looks and words." 
 
 '' Only, Mother," I said, " it seems wronging the 
 old happy days to part with them so easily." 
 
 " The old happy childish days are gone, Kitty I" 
 she said. " Men cannot set down on the march of 
 life, gazing with lingering looks on the way behind 
 16 
 
182 TEE DIARY OF 
 
 them. And women should not; Christian women 
 ought not, Kitty," she added softly. "You know 
 we also have something to press forward to. Our 
 eyes should chiefly there be fixed whither our feet are 
 going." 
 
 " Dear Mother," I said, " if one were only sure that 
 this step forward would be a step really onward for 
 Jack I There are so many dangers in the army, are 
 there not ?" 
 
 " What makes you so desponding, Kitty V^ she 
 said. "It is not like you ; and it seems as if you 
 had too little confidence in Jack. We must not 
 sit and wail together over possible evils. When 
 such anxieties com.e, we must separate and pray. 
 I know no other remedy, my child." 
 
 And I could not find it in my heart to tell her my 
 peculiar anxieties about Jack. Besides it would 
 aave seemed ungenerous to him. 
 
 Jack is gone. Now he is really ofi^, and silence has 
 settled down on the house after all the bustle, 
 Father's apprehensions seem to over-balance his 
 hopes. He roams restlessly in and out of the house, 
 and then sits down to his " Fortifications," and after 
 reading a few words, shuts the book and pushes il 
 .\mpatiently aside, and walks carelessly up and down, 
 ■)r stands whistling at the window, or goes to the 
 door and looks at the weather, and wonders how 
 that poor boy is getting on at sea. 
 
 And Trusty, feeling there is something wrong, goes 
 to the door also, and also looks out at the weather, 
 and also wonders, and wags his tail in an indecisive, 
 meditative way, and returning to the fire, sits bold 
 upright before it in a cramped attitude, starini? 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLTAN. 183 
 
 vacantly at the flames, and saying, as plainly as a dog 
 can, tliat lie can make nothing of it. 
 
 Mother, on the other hand, makes frequent visits 
 to the little chamber over the porch, and comes 
 down pale and serene, and with some little cheery 
 observation changes the current of Father's thoughts, 
 or reminds him of some work about the farm. 
 
 Then Trusty feels that it is all right again, and 
 stretches himself out in his easiest attitude on the 
 hearth at her feet, and sighs, and composes himself 
 to sleep. 
 
 I wish I could feel as if it was all right. But 
 there are things about Jack which do make me 
 uneasy. 
 
 The day before he left, I went up to him as he was 
 packing in his own room, and slipped the little 
 packet containing two guineas into his hand. I felt 
 anxious he should not think it was any sacrifice to 
 me, so I said, " The bees and those Spanish hens you 
 reared for me, Jack, have brought me quite a fortune 
 this year ; and besides, I had something left from 
 Uncle Henderson's present, and there is no way of 
 spending money here if one wished it ; — and you will 
 want so many things." 
 
 I was going hastily down again, to avoid burden- 
 ing him with thanks, when he came after me, and 
 replacing the money in my hand, said laughing, 
 " Indeed, my good little sister, I cannot rob you of 
 your frugal earnings. Hugh Spencer is a good 
 fellow, after all, at bottom. I wrote to ask him for 
 the loan of a few pounds, and he sent me ten. I 
 mean to pay him mth my first prize money. The 
 pay is barely enough for a gentleman to live on. 
 And besides," he added, " that good kantankerous 
 
184 THE DIARY OF 
 
 old Betty has actually insisted on presenting me witL 
 five guineas. I quite hesitated to take it from her. 
 But she said it had all been earned in our service ; 
 and ' Master's son must look like a Trevylyan ; and 
 what use had she for money ? She was a fool ever 
 to have hoarded it !' So that at last I actually had 
 to take it from the dear old soul, to spare her feel- 
 ings, and to show her that I bore no malice for the 
 quarrels of my boyhood. So that you see, Kitty, 
 with such a purse it would be mean to accept any- 
 thing more from you." 
 
 Then, seeing me, I suppose, look j)erplexed and 
 grave, he took the packet again from my hand, and 
 opening it, withdrew one guinea, and gave me back 
 the other with the air of a benefactor, saying, 
 " There, my poor little Kitty, I will not disappoint 
 you. I will keep one for kindness' sake, and to buy 
 you a fairing with. And you can keep the other to 
 pay Hugh Spencer for your cherry-colored bow, if 
 like ; or any other little bill," he added, " which 
 may have escaped my memory, and which might vex 
 Father.'* 
 
 And Jack returned to his packing, persuaded he 
 had done at once a very liberal and a very conscien- 
 tious thing. But I could have sunk into the earth 
 with vexation and shame. To have written to bor- 
 row money from Hugh ; to have accepted Betty's 
 hard-earned savings ; what would he do next ? And 
 then those terrible words, *' any other little hiU^^^ 
 burnt into my heart like a drop of burning acid. 
 
 I stood irresolute. 
 
 He turned to me with his good-humored, easy 
 Bmile, and said, *' What is it, Kitty ? Can I do any- 
 thing else to oblige you ?" 
 
MUS. KlTIl TREVYLYAK 185 
 
 " Oh, Jack," I said, summoning all my courage, 
 for I dreaded very much to grieve him on that 
 last day, " would you mind telling me if you have 
 any idea to whom you owe those other little bills ?" 
 
 " My dear child," he said, " how can I remember 
 in all this bustle ? Nothing but trifles of course. 
 Let me see ; there were a pair of shoe-buckles I saw 
 the last time I was in Falmouth, at Moses the Jew's, 
 the newest fashion, in excellent taste, I assure you, 
 just such as I know Father would like to see me in. 
 Yet just the kind of trifle I would not trouble him 
 with. But that would not matter much ; Moses is 
 a rich man, and may wait — only Jews don't like to 
 wait. I care more about Miss Pawsey ; she lent me 
 half-a-guinea a few weeks since, when I had to treat 
 some fellows to a glass in honor of my obtaining 
 my commission. Yes ; I should like you to pay Mss 
 Pawsey, Kitty. And if there is anything else, no 
 doubt, the people will let you know in time. I told 
 them never to apply to Father ; so that if any one 
 should come at any time asking particularly for me, 
 you will know what it means, and can settle it at 
 once without mentioning it to Father or Mother. 
 It might vex them. But I am glad I thought of 
 telling you, because, of course, I coul^ not write 
 about these things; and now my mind is quite 
 easy." 
 
 And the next morning, as Jack was riding with 
 Father, he reined in his horse, and turning back, 
 took off his military hat to me with a low bow, and 
 beckoned me to him, and said softly as I stood close 
 to him : 
 
 "Don't cry your roses away, Kitty, till I come 
 back from Flanders, and you all have to come to 
 16* 
 
186 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Court to see me knighted. With the first good for- 
 tune I have I will send Hugh Spencer his money, 
 unless he is a bishop first, in which case, of course, 
 he would not need it ; and with the next I will buy 
 an annuity for Betty, on which she will be able to 
 live like a duchess. You see I shall make all your 
 fortunes, and you will all of you have reason to 
 rejoice in having befriended the hero in his adversity ; 
 and it will be as good as a fairy tale." 
 
 So he rode away and rejoined Father, and I went 
 back to Mother. 
 
 " What did he say to you, Kitty ?" she asked. 
 " Is anything forgotten ?" 
 
 " He said we should all have to come to Court 
 to see him knighted, and that he would make all our 
 fortunes," I said, " and that it would be as good as a 
 fairy tale." 
 
 " Poor fellow I" she said, the tears, so long re- 
 pressed, flowing freely, as her heart was touched 
 with this proof of Jack's generous intentions. " Poor 
 fellow I He was always so sanguine, and so full of 
 generous plans." 
 
 But I could not shed a tear. I stood and felt 
 like a stone. The weight of Jack's secrets seemed 
 to press mj^ heart into marble. And I felt like a 
 traitor to be making Mother glad, when, if I had 
 told her all, I was sure she would feel as I did. 
 
 But what am I to do ? The guinea will pay Miss 
 Pawsey, of course, and, perhaps, the Jew, if I could 
 see him. But I am so grieved about Betty and Hugh 
 Spencer. How in all my life shall I ever be able to 
 repay them ? And they must be paid. I would 
 work day and night, if I could tell how to earn any- 
 thing to pav them with. But fifteen guineas 1 It is 
 
MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAir. 187 
 
 a fortune ! How could I earn a guinea witliou fc 
 Mother's knowing ? And would it even be true to 
 Father and Mother to do this if I could ? 
 
 Evelyn could help me. But I could not ask her 
 without betraying Jack: 
 
 And how shall I ever feel safe from some one com- 
 ing and " particularly wanting to see" Jack ? 
 
 Ought not Father and Mother to know ? 
 
 And yet would it not almost break Mother's heart ? 
 
 I cannot tell her yet, at least, until the sorrow of 
 this parting is a little healed. For this is a sorrow 
 which seems to me as if it could never be healed. It 
 is not the money, or the debts, or the difficulty of 
 meeting them. It is Jack himself that is the sorrow. 
 What will he do next ? 
 
 I cannot bear this alone. Whatever the trouble 
 may be, it is clear God cannot mean it to make me 
 untruthful. He cannot mean it to make me do 
 wrong. Therefore, there must be some way out of it, 
 some one right way. 
 
 And God knows it. I will ask Him, and He will 
 surely help me also to find it, and to take it when I 
 find it, however rough and dark it may be. 
 
 Aunt Jeanie said we must not look to see more 
 than the next step. But that we must look to see, as 
 sure as God is true, and has promised to lead us. 
 
 Yesterday evening, to my great surprise, Betty 
 came into my room after I was in bed, looking wild 
 and haggard, and she said, — 
 
 " Mrs.' Kitty, my dear, I can bear it no longer. 
 Whatever comes of it, I must go and hear that York- 
 shireman again. He is to preach at six o'clock to- 
 morrow morning on the Dov/n above the house. I 
 
188 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 shall be back again before Missis wants me, for n 
 won't last more than an hour. And if she is angered, 
 she must be angered. I can get no rest night nor 
 day. The words that man spoke are like a fire in 
 my bones ; and hear him again I must. I can but 
 perish either way. And if I must perish, I had rather 
 know it." 
 
 She went back to her room. But I could not sleep 
 for thinking of her wan wild face. It haunted me 
 like the vision of some one murdered. And I felt as 
 if it would be hardly safe to let her go alone. 
 
 Accordingly, when Betty crept through my room 
 the next morning very softly, that she might not 
 wake me, I was already dressed, and, in spite of her 
 remonstrances, insisted on accomi^anying her. 
 
 The appointed place of meeting was in a slight 
 holloAv on the top of the Down. We were early, and 
 as we sat down on a tuft of withered grass, closely 
 wrapped in our hoods and cloaks, waiting for the 
 preaching to begin, I thought I had never been in a 
 place more like a temple. The solemn dawTi was 
 coming up in the east ; and I always think nothing 
 is so solemn as the coming up of the morning. There 
 is a pomp about the sunset blending with its tender 
 lingering tints ; and night is majestic with its crown 
 of countless stars ; but nothing ever seems to me so 
 grand and solemn as the slow, silent spreading of the 
 dawn over the sleeping world. There was little 
 color yet, only that steady welling up of the light 
 from its deep hidden fountain, overflowing all the 
 sky ; the great tide of sunlight rising without effort, 
 without conflict, without recoil, scarcely seeming to 
 advance, yet ceaselessly advancing, and never losing 
 one point won ; till the clouds from mysterious inde- 
 
jaU^a. KIlTY TBEYYLYAN. 189 
 
 finite "billows of mist became defined purple bars, 
 through which we gazed into the depths of golden 
 radiance behind ; and the moon paled from a pearly 
 lamp, illuminating the dark, to a silver crescent 
 floating on a silvery sea, and at le'igth sank with her 
 stars into the flood of simlight ; and the sky had 
 become full of light, and the earth full of color 
 and life. Then there were the soft twitterings of 
 the waking birds in the wood below us, and the 
 murmurs of the waves far off and far below, and the 
 sweeping of the winds over the long ranges of the 
 dewy moors. 
 
 It seemed to me I wanted no other preaching, or 
 music. But the silent solemnity of the dawn, and 
 the murmurs of the great sea, and the songs of birds, 
 have no power to lift the burden from the troubled 
 conscience. 
 
 That work is committed not to angels, nor to na- 
 ture (as Hugh Spencer used to say), but to poor 
 blundering sinful human beings, who have felt what 
 the burden is. 
 
 John Nelson was there already. He stood ear- 
 nestly conversing with a little group of men ; and I 
 watched the frank trustworthy face, and the tall 
 stal worth form, with no little interest, remembering 
 how he had been thrown down, and trampled on, 
 and bruised, and beaten by the mobs for Christ's sake, 
 and had dared the same rough usage again and again 
 to tell them the same message of mercy. 
 
 At length the congregation began to assemble. 
 Solitary figures creeping up from the farms and lone 
 cottages around, miners in their workirxg clothes on 
 their way to the mines, laborers on their way to the 
 
190 THE DIARY OF 
 
 fields, and from the nearer villages little bands ot 
 poorly clad women and children. 
 
 In a few minutes about two hundred had ranged 
 themselves around the preacher, who stood on a hil- 
 lock, his tall figure and strong clear voice command- 
 ing the little congregation, so that he spoke easily, 
 more as if conversing privately than preaching. He 
 said he would give us some of his ex]3erience, as it 
 might be of use in comforting any who w^ere in 
 trouble. 
 
 " I was brought up," he said, " a mason, as was my 
 father before me.* 
 
 " When I was between nine and ten years old, I was 
 horribly terrified with the thoughts of death and 
 judgment whenever I was alone. One Sunday night, 
 as I sat on the ground by the side of my father's 
 chair, while he was reading the twentieth chapter of 
 Revelation, the Word came with such light and 
 j)ower to my soul that it made me tremble, as if a 
 dart w^as shot at my heart. I fell with my face oi? 
 the floor, and wept till the place was as w^t where I 
 lay as if water had been poured thereon. As my 
 father proceeded, I thought I saw everything he read 
 about, though my eyes were shut. And the sight 
 was so terrible I was about to stop my ears that I 
 might not hear, but I durst not. When he came to 
 the eleventh verse my flesh seemed to creep on my 
 bones while he said, ^And I sate a great white throne^ 
 and him that sat thereon, from whose face the heavens 
 and the earth fled away ; and there was found no place 
 for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand 
 lefore Gcd: and tlie hoohs tccre opened; and another 
 
 * John Nelson's Autobioirrnphy. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 191 
 
 look was opened, whicJi is the hook of life : and the dead 
 were judged out of those things that were written in the 
 "hooks, according to their works. "^ Oh, what a scene was 
 opened to my mind I It was as if I had seen the 
 Lord Jesus Christ sitting on his throne with the 
 twelve apostles below him ; and a large book open 
 at Ins left hand ; and, as it were, a bar fixed about 
 ten paces from the throne, to which the children of 
 Adam came up ; and every one, as he approached, 
 opened his breast as quick as a man could open the 
 bosom of his shirt. On one leaf of the book was 
 written the character of the children of God ; and on 
 the other, the character of those that should not 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven. I thought neither 
 the Lord nor the apostles said anything ; but every 
 soul as he came up to the bar compared his con- 
 science with the book, and went away to his own 
 place, either singing, or else crying and howling. 
 Those that went to the right hand were but like the 
 r)tream of a small brook ; but the others were like 
 the flowing of a mighty river. 
 
 " God has followed me with convictions ever smce 
 I was ten years old ; and whenever I committed any 
 known sin against God or man, I used to be so terri- 
 fied afterwards that I shed many tears in private ; 
 yet, when I came to my companions, I wiped my face, 
 and went on again in sin and folly. But oh, the hell 
 I found in my mind when I came to be alone again I 
 and what resolutions I made. Nevertheless, when 
 temptations came, my resolutions were as a thread of 
 tow that had touched the fire. 
 
 " When I was turned sixteen my father was taken 
 ill, which I thought was for my wickedness ; yet, at 
 that tim*^ ^^*^e as I wo"^, I prayed earnestly that God 
 
192 THE DIARY OF 
 
 would spare him for the sake of my mother and the 
 young children, b,nd let me die in his stead ; but the 
 Lord would not regard my prayer. Three days be- 
 fore he died, he said to my mother, * Trouble not 
 thyself for me ; for I know that my peace is made 
 with God, and he will provide for thee' and the 
 children.' I was greatly surprised at this, wonder- 
 ing how he could know his peace was made with 
 God. 
 
 " In one of my times of trouble I was in a stable, 
 and falling into a slumber, I dreamt I prayed that 
 God would make me happy. But I thought, what 
 will make me happy? I also dreamt that I beheld 
 Jeremiah the prophet standing on a large rock at the 
 west gate of Jerusalem. His countenance was grave, 
 and with great authority he reproved the elders and 
 magistrates of the city ; for which they were enraged, 
 and pulling him down, cast him on a dunghill, where 
 the butchers poured the blood of their slain beasts. 
 And I imagined I saw them tread him under feet ; 
 but his countenance never changed, nor did he cease 
 to cry out, ' Thus saith the Lord, If ye will not repent, 
 and give glory to my name, I will bring destruction 
 on you and your city.' He seemed so composed and 
 happy while they were treading him under their feet, 
 that I said in my dream, ' O God, make me like Jere- 
 miah.' And since then, thou Lord, in a small mea- 
 sure, hast given me a taste of his cup." 
 
 Then (he said) he prayed God to give him a good 
 wife ; but although God gave him the most suitable 
 wife he believed he could have had, after his marriage 
 he loved pleasures more than God. Yet his pleasures 
 wore not happiness ; and after a day of successful 
 hunting or shooting, he felt so unhappy that ho wag 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLTAK 193 
 
 ready to break liis gun in pieces. His conscience had 
 found no rest. He went from home to seek work, 
 and prayed for guidance, and the Lord blessed him 
 in all his journey. He got into business the day he 
 arrived in London. But the burden of sin still 
 weighed on his heart. Forty times a day he would 
 cry for mercy. After his day's work he sat alone, 
 and read and prayed. He would not drink with his 
 mates. They cursed and abused him, and he bore 
 many insults from them without opening his mouth 
 to answer. But when they took his tools from him, 
 and said, if he would not drink he should not work 
 while they were drinking, that provoked him, so that 
 he fought with several. Then they let him alone; 
 but that stifled for the time his concern for his salva- 
 tion, and he left off reading and prayer, in a great 
 measure. 
 
 Then sickness came, and with it a horrible dread, 
 not of death, but of the judgment that should follow. 
 He recovered, and was restored to perfect health. 
 But again his conscience was awake: he could not 
 rest night nor day. All things prospered that he 
 pursued, yet he felt that he had something to learn 
 that he had not yet learned ; " ITe Tcneic not^'''' he said 
 " that it teas the great lesson of love to God and many 
 
 He began to consider what he wanted to make him 
 happy, for as yet he was as a man in a barren wilder- 
 ness that could find no way out. Health as good as 
 any man's ; as good a wife as he could wish for ; more 
 gold and silver than he needed, yet no rest. He cried 
 out to himself, " Oh, that I had been a cow or a 
 sheep !" He thought he would choose strangling, 
 rather than thirty years more of such a life. But 
 then came again the terrible thought of the judgment. 
 17 
 
104 
 
 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 And he cried, " Oh, that I had never been bom I" for 
 he thought his day of grace was over, because he had 
 made sc many resolutions and broken them all. 
 
 " Yet," he continued, " I thought I would set out 
 once more ; for I said, Surely Ood never made man to 'be 
 such a riddle to himself and to leave him so ; there must 
 be something in religion, that I am unacquainted 
 with, to satisfy the empty mind of man, or he is in a 
 worse state than the beasts that perish." 
 
 (As John Nelson spoke these words, Betty's down- 
 cast head was raised, her hood fell back, and from 
 that moment she never took her eyes from off his 
 face.) 
 
 " In all these troubles," he continued, " I had no 
 one to open my mind to ; I wandered up and down 
 in the fields, thinking ; I went from church to church, 
 but found no ease. One minister at St. Paul's 
 preached about a man doing his duty to God and 
 his neighbor, and on his death-bed finding joy in his 
 heart from looking back to his well-spent life. Oh 
 what a stab that sermon was to my wounded soul ! 
 for I looked back and could not see one day in my 
 life in which I had not left undone something I 
 ought to have done, or done something I ought not 
 to have done. 
 
 " Afterwards I heard another sermon, wherein the 
 preacher said, that man, since the fall, could not per- 
 fectly fulfil the Avill of his Maker ; but God required 
 him to do all he could, and Christ would make up 
 the rest ; but if man did not do all he could he must 
 unavoidably perish; for he had no right to expect 
 any interest in the merits of Christ, if he had not ful- 
 filled hif} part, and done all that lay in his power. 
 Then, thought I, every soul must be damned; for I 
 
MRS. KITTY TEEVYLYAK 195 
 
 did not believe that any who had lived to years of 
 maturity had done all they could, and avoided all the 
 evil they might. Oh what deadly physic was that 
 doctrine to my poor sin-sick soul !" 
 
 Then he tried Dissenters of various denominations, 
 Roman Catholics, Quakers, all but the Jews. To the 
 Quakers he listened three months, because among 
 them he heard one who seemed to describe the dis- 
 ease of his soul ; but, alas ! he showed no remedy. 
 
 " In the spring," he said, *' Mr. Whitetield came to 
 Moorfields, and I went to hear him ; he was to me as 
 man that could play well on an instrument, for his 
 preaching was pleasant to me ; and I loved the man, 
 so that if any one offered to disturb him I was ready 
 to fight him." 
 
 But the deliverance did not come through Mr. 
 Whitefield, although (he said), " I got some hope of 
 mercy, so that I was encouraged to pray and read the 
 Scriptures. But I was like a wandering bird cast out 
 of the nest, until Mr. John Wesley came to preach his 
 first sermon in Moorfields. Oh, that was a blessed 
 morning to my soul ! As soon as he got upon the 
 stand, he stroked back his hair, and turned his face 
 towards where I stood, and I thought fixed his eyes 
 on me. His countenance struck such an awful dread 
 upon me before I heard him speak, it made, my heart 
 beat like a pendulum, and when he did speak I 
 thought his whole discourse was aimed at me." 
 
 (Betty bowed her head with a little assenting 
 moan, and murmured, " And so, s ire it was ! Just 
 like him.") 
 
 When he had done, I said : " This man can tell the 
 secrets of my heart. He hath not left me there, for 
 he hath showed the remedy, even the blood of Jesus. 
 
196 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Then was my soul filled with consolation, through 
 hope that God for Christ's sake would save me." 
 
 Still the conflict was not over ; his besetting sin, a 
 hasty temper, got the better of him, and his heart 
 again felt as hard as a rock. He felt unworthy to eat 
 and drink. " Should such a wretch as he devour the 
 good creatures of God ?" He resolved neither to eat 
 nor drink, till he found the kingdom of God. He 
 wept tears like great drops of rain, he kneeled before 
 the Lord, yet he felt dunib as a beast, and could 
 not put up one petition ; he saw himself a criminal 
 before the Judge, and said, in his overwhelming sense 
 of guilt, surrendering himself as a condemned male- 
 factor body and soul to God, " Lord, thy will be 
 done ; damn or save." 
 
 " That moment," he said, " Jesus Christ was evi- 
 dently set before the eye of my mind, as crucified for 
 my sins, as if I had seen him with my bodily eyes ; 
 and in that instant I was set at liberty from every 
 tormenting fear, and filled with a calm and serene 
 peace. I could then say without any dread or fear, 
 * Thou art my Lord and my God.' Now did I begin 
 to say, * O Lord, I will praise thee : though thou wast 
 angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou 
 comfortest me. Behold, God is my salvation : I will 
 trust and not be afraid : for the Lord Jehovah is my 
 strength and my song. He also is become my salva- 
 tion.' My heart was filled with love to God, and 
 every soul of man ; next to my wife and children, my 
 mother, brothers, sisters, my greatest enemies had 
 an interest in my prayers, and I cried, * O Lord, give 
 me to see my desire on them; let them experience 
 Thy redeeming love.' 
 
 " In the afternoon, I opened the Book where it is 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 11)7 
 
 said, ' Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from 
 our sins in His own blood,' with which I was so 
 affected, that I could not read for weeping. That 
 evening, under Mr. Wesley's sermon, I could do 
 nothing but weep, and love, and praise God for send- 
 ing His servant into the fields to show me the way 
 of salvation. All that day I neither ate nor drank 
 anything ; for before I found peace the hand of God 
 was so heavy on me that I refused to eat ; and after 
 I had found peace, I was so filled with the manna of 
 redeeming love, that I had no need of the bread that 
 perishes, for that season." 
 
 The preacher went on, but I heard no more, for 
 Betty was sitting with her hands clasped, the tears 
 raining over her rugged face, yet with such an ex- 
 pression of hope on it, that I felt I could safely leave 
 her ; so I told her to stay, I would see to her work, 
 and put everything right by the time she came back. 
 
 As I went down the hill the sound of a hymn fol- 
 lowed me, at first faint and broken, but soon rising 
 strong and clear through the morning air. I thought 
 I had never heard pleasanter music ; and as I lighted 
 the fire and got the breakfast ready, my heart sang, 
 and I prayed there might be melody also in poor 
 Betty's heart. 
 
 She came back before any one had missed her. 
 
 All day she went about her work as usual; her 
 face looked more peaceful, but she said nothing, and 
 Betty's silences were barriers no one else but herself 
 could safely attempt to break down. 
 
 In the evening, while Mother and I were sitting by 
 
 the fire alone, and I preparing to confess to her my 
 
 having accompanied Betty to the morning preaching 
 
 Betty appeared with the supper, and after lingering 
 
 IT* 
 
198 THE DIARY OlT 
 
 about tlie tilings until I thought she would not go till 
 Father came back, and I should be left for the night 
 with the burden of my morning expedition uncon- 
 fessed, suddenly she stood still and said, — 
 
 " Missis, I may as well out with it at once. I am 
 going to hear that Yorkshireman again to-morrow. 
 It's no good fighting against it. I have tried, but I 
 shall have to go." 
 
 I had to fill up the vacancies in Betty's narra- 
 tive, as clearly as I could, hastily confessing my share 
 in it. 
 
 Mother looked seriously grieved. 
 
 ** Kitty," she said, " I did not expect this of you." 
 
 *' Mrs. Kitty went to take care of me," interposed 
 Betty. " She thought I was going mazed — and so I 
 was, sure — and Mrs. Kitty went to keep me from 
 mischief." 
 
 "Betty," said Mother, very gravely, "I cannot 
 sanction your going to any such places. You know 
 I never hinder your going to church as often as you 
 like, and I am sure Parson Spencer is a very good 
 man; and there are the lessons and the prayers. 
 What can you want more ?" 
 
 "I am not saying anything against our parson, 
 Missis," said Betty ; "I'd as lief say anything against 
 the King and the Parliament. I've no doubt that what 
 he says is all right in its way. But ever since I heard 
 Parson Wesley, I've had a great thorn fretting and 
 rankling in my heart, and our parson's sermons can 
 no more take that out, than they could take a rotten 
 tooth out of my head. It isn't to be expected they 
 should ; they're not made for such rough doctor's 
 work. But that Yorkshireman's can. He made me 
 feel better this morning and I must hear him again. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 199 
 
 And tlien, Missis, when I've got rid of the burden 
 on my heart, I can sit easy and hearken to Parson 
 Spencer. For no doubt his discourses are uncommon 
 fine. I'd as lief listen to him as to the finest music 
 I ever heard. Only it's not to be expected that the 
 finest music '11 stop a sore heart from aching." 
 
 " But the Bible is made for that," said Mother ; 
 " and you hear that every Sunday in church." 
 
 " Yes, sure, and so I do from the Yorkshireman ; 
 but he has a way of picking out the bits that suit 
 you, picking them out and laying them on, as you 
 did the herb lotion. Missis, last week when I bruised 
 my side. The herbs vfcre in the garden before, sure 
 enough, but I might have walked among them till 
 doomsday, and my side been no better." 
 
 Mother sighed. 
 
 " Take care, Betty," she said, " that you do not 
 pick out the texts you M"^, instead of those that 
 really suit you. Bitters," sighed Mother, " are better 
 than sweets often." 
 
 " And bitter enough they were to me," said Betty; 
 ii^s my belief it is the smart that did me the 
 good." 
 
 " Well, Betty," said Mother, " I cannot sanc- 
 tion it." 
 
 " Bless your heart, Missis," said Betty, " of course 
 you can't. I never thought you could. But I 
 thought it my duty to tell you before I went. 
 
 Mother shook her head, and Betty went ; for be- 
 yond this right of mutual protest our domestic 
 government with regard to her does not extend. 
 
 Betty went, and returned, and said nothing. Nor 
 did she give occasion to Mother to say anything. 
 
200 THE DIARY OF 
 
 The cooking was blameless, the floors spotless, 
 Father's meals punctual to a minute. Only there 
 was an unusual quiet in the kitchen, and on Satur- 
 day old Roger said to me privately, — 
 
 " I can!t think what's come over Betty, Mrs. Kitty. 
 She's so cruel kind ! and as quiet as a lamb. She 
 hasn't given me a sharp word for nigh a week, and 
 I can't say what'U come of it. It makes me quite 
 wisht. They say folks with Betty's tempers fall into 
 that way when they're like to die. And in the 
 evening she sits and spells over the great Bible yea 
 brought her from London. It's quite unnatural, 
 Mrs. Kitty ; I didn't like to tell Missis, for fear she 
 should take on about it, she's so tender-heaile.d ; but 
 I couldn't help telling you. The Methodists be 
 terrible folk ; they say in my country up to Dart- 
 moor that they know more than they ought to know, 
 and I shouldn't like them to ill-wish Betty. I used to 
 thiak her tongue was a trifle sharp by times, but the 
 place is cruel wisht without it and mortal lonesome ; 
 and I'd give somewhat to hear her fling out with 
 a will once more, poor soul." 
 
 Every other Sunday afternoon has always been one 
 of my most delightful times. There is no service 
 then in our parish church. The vicar rides to a 
 daughter-church some miles off, too far for us to 
 reach, and we have the whole afternoon for quiet. 
 Father and Jack used commonly to walk round the 
 farm with Trusty, ^Mother sits alone in the porch- 
 closet, and I spend the time alone in my own cham- 
 ber, or in the old apple-tree in the garden. 
 
 Last Sunday afternoon I was sitting, as usual, at 
 my chamber window. The casement was open, and 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA2r. SOI 
 
 it was SO still tliat the hum of the few stray bees 
 buzzing in the sunshine around the marigolds in the 
 garden below, came up to me quite clearly. But the 
 bees were evidently only doing a little holiday work 
 quite at their leisure. 
 
 I almost fancied I could hear the waving of the 
 grass on the hill-side, as it bent before the quiet 
 breeze ; and I could hear distinctly the crunching of 
 the grass which Daisy was croj)pmg in the Home- 
 park. And below all these intermittent sounds went 
 on the quiet, unintermittent flow of the little runnel 
 through the stone channel into the trough where the 
 cattle were watered. 
 
 The spring was over with its songs and nest- 
 buildings, the summer with its i)ower of ripening 
 sunshine, the harvest with its anxieties and its 
 merry-makings. The sun had nothing more to do 
 but to smile from his depths of golden light on 
 his finished sheaves and ripened fruit. 
 
 The earth, too, had done her work for the year, 
 and was couching at rest, and quiet, like the laboring 
 oxen in the streak of golden sunshme at the top of 
 the field opposite my window. 
 
 There was a ripe calm, and a sacred stillness over 
 everything, which made me feel as if I knew what the 
 Bible meant by the " shadow of the wings " of God. 
 For where " shadow " and " God " are spoken of 
 together, shadow cannot mean shade and darkness, 
 but only shelter, and safety, and repose. It seemed 
 as if the whole earth were nestling under great, 
 warm, motherly wings. 
 
 My Bible lay open on my knee, but I had not been 
 reading for some time. I had not consciously been 
 thinking or even praying, my whole heart resting 
 
S5Ua THE DIARY OF 
 
 silently in the presence of God, as the earth around 
 me lay silent in the sunshine : conscious of His 
 presence as the dumb creatures are conscious of the 
 sunshine, as a babe is conscious of its mother's smile, 
 neither listening, nor adoring, nor entreating, nor 
 remembering, nor hoping, but simply at rest in God's 
 love. 
 
 It seemed like waking, when a low murmur below 
 my window recalled me again to thought. 
 
 It was the broken murmur of a woman's voice. 
 The room immediately under mine was the kitchen, 
 and as I leant out of the window and listened, I per- 
 ceived that the voice was Betty's. 
 
 I went down stairs into the conrt, and as I 
 passed the kitchen window, I saw Betty sitting there 
 with her large new Bible open before her on the 
 white deal table. 
 
 It was a long window with several stone mullions, 
 and casements broken into diamonded panes. The 
 casement at which Betty sat was oi^en. The cat was 
 perched on the sunny sill, and Trusty was coiled up 
 on the grass-grown pavement beneath. 
 
 Betty was bending eagerly over the book ; the 
 plump fingers she was accustomed to rely on in 
 so many useful works, could, by no means, be dis- 
 missed from service in a work so laborious to her 
 as reading a book ; and her lips followed their 
 slow tracing of the lines, as if she would assure 
 herself by various senses of the reality of the im- 
 pressions conveyed to her by the letters. As she 
 bent thus absorbed in her subject, I noticed how 
 much power was expressed in the firm, well-defined 
 lips and in the broad, square brow, from which 
 the dark gray hair was brushed back ; and, indeed, 
 
3{nS. KITTY TBEVYLYAK. 203 
 
 in eyery rugged line of the strongly marked face. 
 As I approached, she looked up, startled by a little 
 movement of the cat, and by a musical yawn from 
 Trusty as he stretched himself, and rose to welcome 
 me. 
 
 Our eyes met. Betty seemed to think it necessary 
 to apologize for her unusual occupation, and she 
 said, — 
 
 " I was only looking, Mrs. Kitty, to see if what 
 that Yorksliireman said is true." 
 
 I could not help thinking of the noble women of 
 Berea ; and leaning on the window-sill, I listened. 
 
 " For you know, my dear," she continued, " if 
 his w^ords made my heart as happy as a king's, what 
 good is it if they w^ere only his own words ? But 
 if it's here^ it's not his but the Lord's, and then it'll 
 stand." 
 
 " Then his words did make your heart light, 
 Betty ?" I said. 
 
 " My dear," she said, " 'twas not his words at all. 
 It's all here^ and has been here, of course, ages before 
 he or I w^as bom, only I never saw it before.'' 
 
 And turning the Bible so that I might see, she 
 traced with her finger the words, — 
 
 ''''All we^ like sheep^ have gmie astray ; ice Jiave turned 
 every one to Ma own way ; and the Lord hath laid on 
 Him the iniquity of us alV 
 
 " There's a deal more, as good as that, my dear," 
 she said ; " but I keep coming back to that, because 
 it was that that healed up my heart." 
 
 Her eyes were moist, and her voice was soft and 
 quiet as she w^ent on, — 
 
 " Mrs. Kitty, the cure was as quick as the hurt. 
 Just as Mr. Wesley's words went right to the core of 
 
204 THE DIARY OF 
 
 my lieart in a moment, and made it like one great 
 wound, feeling I was a lost, ungrateful, sinful woman, 
 — tlicse words went right to the heart of the wound, 
 and flowed like sweet healing balm all through it, so 
 that just where the anguish had been the worst, the 
 joy was greatest. Not a drop of the sorrow but 
 Beemed swallowed up in a larger drop of the joy. 
 For it was not thinking, Mrs. Kitty, it was seeing. I 
 saw in my heart the blessed Lord himself, T*dth all 
 my sins laid upon Him, and He, while He was 
 stretched, bleeding, there on the cross, all alone, and 
 pale, and broken-hearted with the anguish of the 
 burden, the burden of my sins, seeming to say "uith 
 His kind looks all the time, 'J am not unwilling^ I am 
 quite content to 'bear it all for tliee? And oh, my dear, 
 my heart felt all right that very moment. I can't say 
 it felt light, for it seemed as if there lay upon me a 
 load of love and gratitude heavier than the old load 
 of sin, but it was all sweet, my dear, it is all sweet, 
 and I would not have it weigh an atom lighter for 
 the world." 
 
 I could not speak, I could only bow down and rest 
 my face on Betty's hand, as I held it in mine. We 
 were silent a long time, and then I said, — 
 
 " Did you tell Mr. Nelson ?" 
 
 " He came and asked. I had set myself as firm as 
 a rock, that there should be no crying, and i^raying, 
 and singing over me, Mrs. Kitty, but I was so broken 
 down with the joy, that I didn't mind what any one 
 did or thought about me, but sat crying like a ]30or 
 fool as I am, until Mr. Nelson came up to me quite 
 quiet and gentle, and asked if anything ailed me, 
 and then I said, ' You may thank the Lord for me, 
 Mr. Nelson, for to my dying**day, I shall thank the 
 
3IRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 205 
 
 Lord for you, and that you eyer came to these parts.' 
 Then he asked what it was, and I told him all, Mrs. 
 Kitty, as I have told you, and he looked mighty 
 pleased, and said it was being converted ; and said 
 something about the ' inward witness,' ' the witness 
 of the Spirit.' But what that meant I knew no more 
 than a new-bom babe, and I told him so. I knew 
 my heart had been as heavy as a condemned murder- 
 er's, and now I was as happy as a forgiven child, 
 and all through seeing the blessed Lord in my heart. 
 And they all smiled very pleasant, and said that was 
 enough, and that what more there was to learn, if I 
 kept on reading the Bible, and went to church, the 
 Lord would teach me all in time. But I felt I could 
 bear no more just then, so I wished them all good 
 day and went home alone. For I was afraid of losing 
 the great joy, Mrs. Kitty, if I talked too much about 
 it. I felt as if I had got a new treasure, and I 
 wanted to come home and turn it over, and look 
 at it, and make sure it was all true, and all really 
 mine." 
 
 " You spoke of seeing^ Betty," I said, " but you had 
 no visions or dreams." 
 
 " No," she said, " and I don't want any. I don't 
 see how it could be plainer than it is. And I found 
 it quite true," she went on, " about the Lord teach- 
 ing me at church. It is strange I never noticed be- 
 fore how the parson says every Sunday in the pray- 
 ers, so much that John Nelson told me. 'All we, 
 like sheep, have gone astray;' and about the for- 
 giveness of sins, and all. The prayers seemed won- 
 derful and plain to me to-day, Mrs. Kitty; but 1 
 can't say I've got to the length as yet of understand- 
 ing our parson. But, oh my dear," she concluded, 
 18 
 
206 TBE DIARY OF 
 
 *' it is a great mercy for us ignorant folks that the 
 Bible does seem the plainest of all !" 
 
 Then I left Betty again to her meditations, and 
 went up for the precious half hour with Mother, be- 
 fore Father came back from the fields. And I 
 thought it right to tell her as well as I could what 
 Betty had told me. She was interested and touched, 
 and looked very grave as she said, — 
 
 " I don't see what we can say against it, Kitty. 
 Your Father thinks that John Nelson is a very re- 
 markable man. Anything which makes a person 
 keep their temper, and love to read the Bible, and 
 go to church, does seem in itself good. But I think 
 Betty is quite wise to wish to be alone, and not to 
 talk too much about it. It seems to me we want all 
 the strength religion can give us for the doing and 
 the enduring, so that there is little to spare for the 
 talking, or to waste in mere emotion." 
 
 " Yet, Mother," I said, " it is love, is it not, which 
 strengthens us both to do and to endure, and love 
 has its joys and sorrows as well as its duties." 
 
 " Yes," she said thoughtfully, " many sorrows, and 
 also joys. Yet, Kitty, love is proved^ not by its joys 
 and sorrows, which are so much mixed up with self, 
 but by duty. God said, ' I will have obedience, and 
 not sacrifice ;' and I think that means that God will 
 have, not the ofi^ering of this or that in the luxury of 
 devotion, but the sacrifice of self ; for obedience is 
 nothing else than the sacrifice of self." 
 
 " Yet, Mother," said I, *' if the love is so deep that 
 it makes the obedience a delight, can that be a mis- 
 take?" 
 
 " That would be heaven, child 1" she said. " But T 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN'. 207 
 
 think none but great saints have experienced that on 
 earth, at least not constantly." 
 
 '* Yet, Mother," I said, " it seems to me, the more 
 one is like a little child, with God, the more one does 
 delight to obey." 
 
 " Perhaps it is the little children that are the great 
 saints, Kitty," she replied, smiling. 
 
 " But you think we need not trouble Betty about 
 what she feels. Mother," said I, " she seems so gentle 
 and happy ?" 
 
 " I think we must wait and see," said Mother. 
 
 And so our conversation ended. 
 
 Can it have been only yesterday morning I was sit- 
 tiDg mending Mother's mittens in the hall window, 
 when Hugh Spencer came in, and, after just wishing 
 me good-day, asked where Mother was, and left me 
 to go and find her ? 
 
 It seems so much longer. 
 
 I felt surprised that he should have no more to say 
 to me, when we had not met for months, and he had 
 been ordained in the meantime. I thought his mind 
 must be full of the " subject (or object)" in which he 
 and Evelyn are "equally interested." And I sup- 
 posed he wanted to consult Mother about it, thinking 
 me too inexperienced or too much of a child to be 
 able to give any advice worth having. 
 
 I did feel rather hurt, and then I began to be 
 afraid I might have shown him that I felt vexed, and 
 received him stiffly and coldly. And I resolved 
 when he came in again (if he came) to speak quite 
 as usual to him. What right, indeed, had I to feel 
 hurt ? Of course Mother was a better counsellor for 
 any one than I could be ; and every one could see 
 
208 THE DIARY OF 
 
 how much better Evelyn's opinion was worth having 
 than mine. But then my thoughts went off into 
 quite another channel. 
 
 For some days it had been becoming clearer and 
 clearer to me that the way out of the difficulty about 
 Jack's debts was simply to consult Hugh. He al- 
 ready knew the worst of it, since Jack had written 
 to beg of him himself. I had paid Miss Pawsey al- 
 ready, and I thought I would ask him to settle with 
 the Jew, and to take the rest of what I had for his 
 own loan (of course not saying the money was mine). 
 So I sat thinking how best to begin, and making a 
 number of imaginary speeches, in reply to an equal 
 number of possible observations of Hugh's, when he 
 returned. 
 
 He was alone, and I resolved not to lose a minute. 
 So, without looking up from Mother's mittens (for 
 Jack's reputation was concerned, and it was a deli- 
 cate matter to negotiate, and I felt nervous), I began 
 at once (forgetting all my speeches), at what was cer- 
 tainly the wrong end. I said, speaking very fast, and 
 feeling myself coloring crimson as I spoke, — 
 
 "Hugh, some time since Jack bought a cheriy- 
 '^lored ribbon for me, and he said you paid for it, 
 and he left me some money — at least he told me 
 about it." 
 
 " And will you not accept even a cherry-colored 
 ribbon from me, Mrs. Kitty ?" said Hugh. 
 
 Still I did not look up ; but I said, — 
 
 *' It was not exactly that Jack told me ; it was 
 about the other money you lent him, and I am to pay 
 it you by degrees." 
 
 And there I stopped, having become inextricably 
 perplexed between the difficulty of not telling a 
 
MliS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 209 
 
 Btory, and of not betraying tlie fact that I was to 
 pay Jack's debts with my own money. 
 
 Then Hugh spoke, and his voice was very gentle 
 and low, for he was standing quite near me^; and he 
 said, — 
 
 " Kitty, I came to speak to you about quite a dif- 
 ferent subject." 
 
 And then I looked up, lor I thought of Evelyn's 
 letter. 
 
 But we did not say anything more that evening 
 about Jack's debts. 
 
 Indeed, I do not know what we said. 
 
 Nor, when Hugh went home and Mother came in, 
 did she say much. 
 
 She only took me to her heart, and murmured, 
 " My darling child !" 
 
 But I do not feel any more anxiety about the " sub- 
 ject (or object)" in which Evelyn or Hugh are " equally 
 interested." 
 
 To think that Hugh had been wishing this so many 
 years ! 
 
 Only I am not half worthy of Hugh and his l'>ve. 
 
 Yet God can make me even that, in time. 
 18* 
 
VII. 
 
 f THINK no one ever had so many kinds of hap- 
 piness mixed together in their cup as I have. 
 I can hardly ever get beyond *' adoration " 
 and " thanksgiving " in my " acts of piety " now, 
 except when I have to make " confession " of not 
 having been half thankful enough. 
 
 For Hugh is to be his father's curate, and Parson 
 Spencer told Mother that it has always been under- 
 stood that, after him, the living will be given to 
 Hugh, so that we are to have the great joy, Hugh 
 and I, of having it for our business in life, to do all 
 the good we can all our lives long to those who have 
 known us from our childhood. All the good we can in 
 every kind of way. Other people have it for their call- 
 ing, the thing given them to do, to fight in the King's 
 armies, or to make laws, or to make other people 
 keep them, or to buy and sell, or, like Betty, to make 
 butter and scrub floors, doing what good they can, 
 by the way, or after their work is done ; but doing 
 good is to be our business, profession, study, always, 
 every day, Hugh's and mine. In the morning we are 
 to think who there are around us to be helped or 
 comforted, turned out of the wrong Avay, cheered on 
 in the right. With others, maintenance, traffic, are 
 necessary objects. We need not have one selfish ob- 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 211 
 
 ject in life. The poorest must feel there is always 
 one door in the parish from which they will not be 
 turned away. Those who have sunk the lowest must 
 feel that there is always one hand that will not fear 
 to be polluted by touching them to lift them up. 
 
 And all this will not be a romantic enterprise for 
 us, but simple, plain duty, which is so much sweeter. 
 
 For Hugh says it is a desecration of the endow- 
 ments which were given of old for sacred puq^oses, 
 when the clergy treat their incomes as if they were 
 like any common produce of traffic, or estate of in- 
 heritance, or w^ages of secular work. It is consecrated 
 wealth still, he says ; and when we have used what 
 we need for a simple and unpretentious household, 
 we owe our superfluous stores to the Church and 
 the poor. All Christians, he says, are indeed 
 stewards of consecrated wealth, but the clergy, he 
 thinks, more especially. It would be a disgrace, he 
 thinks, if the distinction between the Popish clergy 
 and ours were that ours are secularized into mere 
 thrifty farmers, or little squires. It is not in devoted- 
 ness we should differ from the ancient priesthood. 
 
 I am afraid it is the parsonesses that put things 
 wrong sometimes. I hope I shall not be a hindrance 
 to Hugh. I must not grudge his going out in the 
 evening on any summons of duty, on stormy nights, 
 even though he may seem wearied already with the 
 day's work. I must not let any womanish fears pre- 
 vent his visiting the sick, even though the sickneas 
 be deadly contagious pestilence. Should I be les?. . 
 brave than a soldier's wife, or a poor fisherman's? 
 Men are meant to peril their lives and to wear out 
 their strength in work, Hugh says ; and if the par- 
 s' >n's calling were to be without its perils and 
 
212 .THE DIARY OF 
 
 toils, it would be less manly tlian the sailor's, or tLe 
 sheplierd's, or the miner's, or any other working 
 man's and therefore less Christian. 
 
 Easy things for me to intend ; but not so easy to 
 do, when the peril or the trial comes I Yet if wo are 
 to have the true blessing of our calling, we must go 
 forth to it, Hugh says, not as a paradise, but as a 
 campaign. And then it will be we^ always we ! and 
 that makes all the difference. 
 
 Yet how could I bear to take all this happiness if 
 it were to bring loss to Mother, if I caught her tender 
 eyes eveiy now and then watching me wistfully, and 
 filling with tears, — and she still so feeble. But this 
 will scarcely take me from her, — not at all at first, foi 
 we are to have our home under this dear old roof,— 
 so that it will be all gain to Mother and to Father 
 too. And then I have some one to consult about 
 everything. Because (and that is another especial 
 blessing) Hugh knows already all about us all. He 
 has watched Mother as anxiously as I have ; and we 
 can x:)lan together about the best way of helping Jack, 
 without my telling him anything more of the things 
 I scarcely could have told even Hugh, if he had not 
 known them before. 
 
 Hugh is not at all hopeless about Jack, although 
 he knows all; but he says he seems like one in a 
 dream, and he does think it must be a rough call 
 that will wake him. 
 
 Father and Betty are so busy clearing out and 
 repairing the rooms in the older j^art of the house, 
 which are to be ours, — delightful old rooms with 
 great stone chimneys, and one in a tower with a long 
 arched window, which is to be Hugh's own den. It 
 is high up, and from the casement, through an open- 
 
MES. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 213 
 
 ing of the Mils, you catcli one glimpse of the sea, — «i 
 bright line of light on sunny days, at evening a dim 
 heaving cloud of purple against the green gold of the 
 sunset ; and always, Hugh says, a path for thought 
 to sail on, out into the wide world. 
 
 Hugh and I have dived into forgotten stores in the 
 lumber-room, and fished up wonderful pearls in the 
 shape of oaken chairs, which only want their backs 
 *mended, and tables which only want a leg or two to 
 be quite stately. 
 
 Betty thinks little of these discoveries, saying con- 
 cisely that ten shillings' worth of furniture from the 
 shop in Falmouth is worth them all. But then, carv- 
 ing and associations have no value in Betty's inven- 
 tory. 
 
 She thinks much more of Mother's purchases and 
 manufactures, although she says clothes in these days 
 are mere cobwebs compared to the stuflfs of our fore- 
 fathers, when Master's great-grandmother's wedding- 
 dress survived to become a christening robe for 
 Master, and after that a covering for the best sofa, 
 and looked as good as new to the last. 
 
 But Mother and Betty have become quite confi- 
 dential once more over the matter, Betty's sober and 
 conservative views about woolseys and linseys having 
 in some measure restored the confidence in her judg- 
 ment, so much impaired in Mother's mind by her 
 views about the Methodists. 
 
 Hugh said the other day there is no doubt Mr. 
 John Wesley would recognise Mother to be a most 
 saintly woman, if he knew her; and that he feels 
 sure, if Mother knew Mr. John Wesley, his life of 
 labor, his entire devotion to God, his unlimited be 
 
214 THE DIARY OF 
 
 uevolence and beneficence to man, his attachment to 
 the Church services, she would revere him as next to 
 the Apostles. It is the greatest trial of Reformers, 
 he thinks, that they have often to be blamed and 
 misunderstood by the good men and women of their 
 times. 
 
 He says if Mother had lived in Martin Luther's 
 time she might probably have prayed for him in her 
 convent as a prodigal whilst living by the very faith* 
 he spent his life to proclaim. 
 
 But if Mother had lived in a convent, Hugh," I 
 said, " she would never have been married, and she 
 would have been a Papist ; which would have beeii 
 impossible." 
 
 He smiled, and said, — 
 
 " But, Kitty, Mr. Wesley thinks some of the holiest 
 people who ever lived were Roman Catholics." 
 
 "That must have been when there was nothing 
 Use for people to be," I said. 
 
 " Nay," he replied, " Mr. Wesley says now, * I dare 
 not exclude from the Church catholic all those 
 congregations in which unscriptural doctrines, which 
 cannot be affirmed to be the pure word of God are 
 sometimes, nay frequently, preached ; neither all 
 those congregations in which the sacraments are not 
 duly administered (as the Church of Rome), whoever 
 they are that have one spirit, one hope, one Lord, 
 cue faith, one God and Father of all.' " 
 
 " That is a great comfoii;," I said. " But I think 
 we had better not conjecture what Mother would 
 have been if she had lived in Martin Luther's days. 
 Nothing bewilders my brain like thinking what 
 might have been if something else had been. Thank 
 
JinS. KITTY TnEVYLYAK. 215 
 
 Ood, Hugli, she did not live in those old dark days, 
 nor any of us." 
 
 " I am very thankful you did not at any rate, 
 Kitty," he said, with his quiet smile, which is aa 
 joyous as laughter, " at least unless we had all been 
 transplanted together." 
 
 But I was intending to write about Betty, and I 
 liave wandered quite away. 
 
 One evening about a fortnight since. Father was 
 Bitting after supper in one comer of the hall, smok- 
 ing some Virginian tobacco a ship's captain had 
 brought him lately as a present, with the book on 
 " Fortifications " open before him, and Mother and 
 I were busy cutting out garments at the deal table at 
 the other side of the fire, when Betty, after removing 
 the supper, announced her intention of joining the 
 Methodist Society which met in the village. 
 
 Mother said gravely, — 
 
 " You can do as you like, Betty ; indeed, I sup- 
 pose you will do as you like. This new kind of 
 religion seems to make that a necessity for every 
 one." 
 
 Very severe words for Mother ; yet Mother being 
 the gentlest of beings, is nevertheless in her gentle 
 way absolutely impenetrable when once her mind is 
 made up. 
 
 " Once for all, however, Betty," she continued, 
 laying down her scissors, and speaking in the low 
 quiet tone neither Jack nor I ever thought of resist- 
 ing, *' I think it my duty faithfully to warn you. I 
 do not understand this religion of violent excitement 
 and determined self-will. The religion I believe 
 
216 THE DIARY OF 
 
 in is one which enables us to control our feelings and 
 yield up our self-will." 
 
 " Missis," said Betty, " I may as well speak my 
 mind out at ohce too. If you mean that I couldn't 
 keep back my tears at the Sacrament yesterday, no 
 more I couldn't, nor I scarce can now when I think 
 of it. For the blessed Lord himself was there^ and I 
 felt as sure of it as that poor woman who w^ashed 
 His feet with her tears. I felt it was the Lord him- 
 self giving himself to me, and showing me He loved 
 me, and had died for me, and that my sins were 
 forgiven. Didn't old Widow Jennifer rouse up all 
 the town with her crying and sobbing when her poor 
 lost boy came back, that was thought to be wrecked; 
 and didn't he sob too, bearded man as he was? 
 And is it any wonder I should cry at findiug my 
 God ? Sure enough, Missis, I was shipwrecked wors« 
 than Jennifer's son, and sure enough my God is 
 more to me than any mother and son to each other. 
 
 Missis, if you only knew how lost I had been, you 
 wouldn't wonder. You'd wonder I kept as quiet as 
 
 1 did." 
 
 Mother was silent some little time. Her kind 
 thoughtful eyes moistened and then were cast down, 
 and she only said very gently, — 
 
 " I know such assured peace and such joys have 
 been given to some, Betty, but they were great 
 saints, and I think it w^as generally just before their 
 death." 
 
 " Well, Missis," said Betty simply, " I am sure I 
 am no great saint, and I don't know that I am like 
 to die, but I know that none but the Lord could give 
 me joy like that: and if it's for me, surely it's for 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 217 
 
 a^l. And John Nelson says our parsons say so every 
 Sunday." 
 
 " The parsons say every Sunday, every one may 
 know their sins are forgiven !" exclaimed Mother. 
 
 '' Every one who repents and believes," said Betty. 
 " Mr. John Nelson made me see how it says in the 
 Prayer-Book, ' He pardoneth and absolveth all those 
 who truly repent and unfeignedly believe His Holy 
 Gospel.' And if I ever felt anything truly in my 
 life, Missis, I've felt sorry for my sins, and hated 
 them, and they say that is repentance. And if I 
 believe anything in the world, it is that the blessed 
 Lord died on the Cross for sinners, and John Nelson 
 says that is the Holy Gospel. So that, now, when- 
 ever our parson com<^s to that, my heart leaps for 
 joy. For it isn't ' will pardon,' but ^pardoneth ' and 
 that must mean forgiveness now. So it's all the same 
 to me as if the parson said, " Betty Boskelly, God 
 Almighty has commanded me to tell you he forgives 
 you your sins for the sake of Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 And Missis," concluded Betty, " I don't mind how 
 little I can understand the sermon, when that's so 
 plain. So when the parson gets into the pulpit, 
 I listen to the text, (which is most times i)lain too), 
 and then I think, ' Now he's going to preach to the 
 learned folks, like himself, but I've got my sermon 
 already, and it's enough for me ;' so I sit and think, 
 quite content." 
 
 " But," resumed Mother after a pause, " you have 
 heard those words every Sunday of your life. What 
 makes the absolution such a new and strange thing 
 to you ?" 
 
 " I cannot well say, Missis," said Betty, " unless 
 it is the ' now ' and ' m^.' I always listened to it 
 19 
 
218 THE DIARY OF 
 
 all, as if the parson were reading good words made 
 a long time ago about good things a long way off 
 to be given after a long while to I didn't exactly 
 know who. But when I came to see that it is 
 God now forgiving mc^ that makes all the difier- 
 ence." 
 
 " Now, if the Prayer-Book makes you so content, 
 Betty," said Mother, shifting her attack, " what do 
 you want wdth those new-fangled meetings ?" 
 
 " It's the meetings that make me understand the 
 prayers. Missis," said Betty, persisting. 
 
 " I hope you do understand them, Betty, and are 
 not deluding yourself," said Mother, and having thus 
 reserved her rights to the last word, she abandoned 
 the contest, and Betty retired. 
 
 In the course of the evening, as we were all 
 gathered round the fire. Father said, — 
 
 "My dear, I advise you to have no more theo- 
 logical discussions with Betty. She turned your 
 position neatly with her quotations from the Prayer- 
 Book." 
 
 Mother colored a little. 
 
 " You know, my dear, we pray every Sunday 
 against schism as well as against heresy, and I am 
 very much afraid of people deluding themselves 
 into a kind of religious insanity with this new reli- 
 gion." 
 
 " My dear," said Father, " I have seen a good 
 many religions, and not too much religion in the 
 world with all of them together. I am not much 
 afraid of a schism which sends people to church, nor 
 of an insanity which makes them good servants. 
 These are strange times. The Squire told me to-day 
 they have sent poor John Greenfield to prison, ami 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAIT, 21 « 
 
 when I asked him why (for though the poor fellow 
 was a sad drunkard and ill-liver in years past, since 
 he has taken up with the Methodists he has been as 
 steady as Old Time), he said, ' why the man is well 
 enough in other things ; but his impudence is not to 
 be borne. Why, sir, he says he knows his sins are 
 forgiven.'* But," concluded Father, gravely, " there 
 are some old soldiers who n ight think poor John 
 Greenfield's penalty worth bearing, if they could 
 share his crime." 
 
 Mother is always easily melted out of the rigidity 
 of controversy by any symptom of yielding on the 
 other side. It is so foreign to her nature that (as I 
 have noticed with other gentle people), the very 
 effort required to enter on it makes her for the time 
 more stiff and unyielding w^hen she begins ; just as 
 I have noticed that a captain of militia will wear 
 his untried sw^ord with twice as fierce and military 
 an air as Father, who fought through the great 
 Duke's campaigns. But now, seeing Father's pen- 
 sive face, she gladly doffed her armor and laid her 
 hand on his arm and said, — 
 
 " My love, the Bible says, ' there is forgiveness 
 ynth. God for all.' " And lowering her voice she 
 added, " When I look at the Cross of our Saviour, 
 and see Him suffer and hear Him plead, it scem.s im- 
 possible that God cannot forgive, and then again 
 when I look at my sins, I think it is almost impos- 
 sible He can. And so, my love," she said, " I find 
 no comfort but in looking at the Cross of my Lord 
 again. And perhaps it may be the same for you." 
 
 He laid his hand on hers, and said with a grave 
 smile, looking into her dear, pure, tender fane. 
 
 * Yidc Wesloy's JouinaL 
 
220 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 " Tliy sins, Polly, must be a great weight indeed 1 
 Faith, I would like to hear thy confessions. * To-day 
 I was too worldly and too glad to see Kitty so 
 happy. Yesterday I was too sorry to see my hus- 
 band in a passion. Every day I love every one more 
 than I ought, and do ten times more for them than 
 they deserve.' Are these thy confessions ?" 
 
 She looked a little grieved at his turning the con- 
 versation lightly, and soon after she went to rest. 
 But this morning she told me I must not think 
 anything of it ; it was only a way, she said, dear 
 Father had caught in the army, and she had no 
 doubt he thought far more religiously than he talked. 
 Nor must I think anything of what he said about 
 the sins of his former life ; a truer and gentler heart, 
 she said, never beat. The bravest were always the 
 kindest. " And then, Kitty," she concluded, " What 
 are the perils and temptations of women to those 
 of men ? Perhaps more women than men may creep 
 quietly and safely into heaven ; but eveiy man who 
 gets there must be a hero, a king fit to reign over ten 
 cities." 
 
 But when Father and I were left alone, he said, — 
 
 " Kitty, it is a strange world. Here are men who 
 set the whole ten commandments at defiance — im- 
 prisoning a good man for confessing his sins and be- 
 lieving they are forgiven. This morning, when I was 
 out before dawn looking for a stray sheep, I heard a 
 sound of grave sweet singing ; and I found it was a 
 company of poor tinners, waiting around John Wes- 
 ley's lodging to get a sermon before they went to 
 their work, and singing hymns till he came out. 
 And here's Betty, with a temper like the Furies, 
 turned saint ; and your Mother, with a life like an 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAir, 221 
 
 angel's, bemoaning her sins. It's a very strange 
 world, Kitty; but if Jobn Nelson came this way 
 again, I would go and hear Mm. I'm not clear the 
 stout Yorkshireman mightn't preach as good a ser- 
 mon as some other people we know. And there's a 
 good deal in that idea of Betty's, about the * tk/uP 
 and the * me.'' " 
 
 " Hugh says John Nelson is a wonderful preacher, 
 Father," I said; "and some people think Hugh's 
 own sermons are beautiful." 
 
 " So, ho ! Hugh a Methodist too !" said Father, 
 patting my cheek. " But who said that Hugh's ser- 
 mons were not beautiful ?" 
 
 The Hall Farm is honored at present by a most 
 distinguished guest. 
 
 A few days since, Cousin Evelyn announced that it 
 was her royal pleasure to pay us a visit. 
 
 " I shall come without a maid," she wrote ; " for 
 Stubbs is persuaded that the Comish people are 
 heathens, who never offer a prayer except that ships 
 may be wrecked on their coasts ; that they tie lan- 
 terns to mare's tails, to bring about the same result, 
 the poor sailors mistaking them for guiding lights ; 
 that when ships are thus wrecked, they murder the 
 crew, and probably eat them afterwards, but of this 
 she is not sure ; of the perils of the journey, how- 
 ever, she is sure. And ready as she declares herself 
 to be for any sacrifice on my account, I feel it would 
 be an ungenerous return for such unlimited devotion 
 to strain it so far. I have therefore dispensed with 
 her services, promising to secure her a slice of the 
 pie of me, as a relic, in case of the worst. And, in- 
 deed, mamma says it cannot matter much my having 
 19* 
 
3553 THE DIARY OF 
 
 a maid to decorate me ; for she calls Cornwall * "West- 
 em Barbaiy,' and thinks that whatever fashion I in- 
 troduce may pass for the newest Court mode. But, 
 Cousin Kjtty, you and I know better. Mamma 
 knows nothing of Mss Pawsey ; but I who do, "in- 
 tend to bring my most elaborate brocades, and my 
 largest hoops, and my choicest lace-lappets for the 
 barber at Falmouth to arrange. For spectators, what 
 can any woman desire better than that most courtly 
 old courtier my uncle, and that most perfect gentle- 
 woman my aunt ? to say nothing of my sweet demure 
 cousin, and a neighboring gentleman who has told 
 me far more about her than she, fickle goddess, ever 
 deigned to tell me about liim. Happily for my 
 heart. Cousin Jack is at the wars ; but then there are 
 Betty and Trusty. I am wild with pleasure. Cousin 
 Kitty, at the thought of seeing you all. And I ex- 
 pect you will have Mr. John Wesley down on jDur 
 pose to edify me. Your most loving cousin, 
 
 ^'Evelyn Beauchamp." 
 
 Father shook his head and said there was too 
 much truth in what the maid said about the Coniisli 
 wreckers, to make it a matter for a jest. 
 
 Mother, however softened by the compliment to 
 Father's manners, was only half pleased with the 
 letter, and not at all i)leased at the prosj)ect of the 
 visit. 
 
 " Such an extraordinary mixture, Kitty I" she said. 
 " Mr. Wesley and the Falmouth barber, Methodists 
 and hoop-petticoats I What are we to do with such 
 a fine lady — a young woman, too, with such a very 
 dangerous levity as regards the Church ? I do wish 
 vou had not drawn her such a picture of me, my 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 228 
 
 poor fond Kitty I Wliat will she think ? How- 
 ever, she was very kind to you, and we must do our 
 best." 
 
 Nor was Betty more pleased than Mother. 
 
 *' It was a blessing indeed," she said, " she was not 
 to bring her maid, for she had heard that London 
 maids were far finer ladies than their mistresses. Not 
 that she w^as afraid of any fine lady, mistress or 
 maid; for who was better blood than the Trevyl- 
 yans? And she should certainly have given the 
 maid a bit of her mind, which might have done her 
 good." 
 
 But knowing the angular character of these " bits 
 of Betty's mind," I cannot but be glad at Stubbs' 
 escape. 
 
 And now. Cousin Evelyn has been here only a week, 
 and has conquered every heart in the house, from 
 Betty's, bristling all over with controversial asser- 
 tions of the glory of the Trevylyans, to Mother's, 
 trembling all over with the sense of her own defi- 
 ciencies, and the terror of Cousin Evelyn's grandeur, 
 and wit, and heterodoxy. 
 
 The afternoon she arrived, in spite of Betty's re- 
 monstrances, the table was set as usual in the hall, 
 instead of in the parlor. It was just growing dusk. 
 The blaze of the great fire of logs, on the hearth, 
 was fast overpowering with its ruddy glow and 
 quivering shadows the pale, fading daylight. Father 
 kept pacing the hall and gazing out of the window, 
 declaring Evelyn ought to have been here an hour 
 since. Mother hovered about the supper table, ar- 
 ranging the plate? with a nervous precision, when 
 the clatter of hoois was heard in the court, and the 
 
B24 ins DIARY OF 
 
 sound of a ringing voice, and in another moment I 
 was leading Cousin Evelyn in. 
 
 She looked so radiant, it seemed to me she brought 
 the day back again into the house as she entered ic, 
 her face glowing with air and exercise, the feather 
 waving in her hat, her rich brown hair knotted be- 
 hind with scarlet, and falling in curls over her blue 
 habit faced with silver. She did not overpower 
 Mother with any great vivacity, or with any violent 
 demonstrations of affection. The ordinary tones of 
 her voice were deep and low, with a kind of muffled 
 power, and her manner was composed and quiet. 
 And this evening there was a reverent tenderness in 
 her tones whenever she addressed Father, and espe- 
 cially Mother, that was most winning. Because 
 there is that kind of power about Cousin Evelyn 
 that makes one feel her afifection something giving^ 
 not asking — a strong, kind arm thrown round you 
 to cherish you, rather than a feeble, clinging tendril, 
 twining round you to support, itself. And her rever- 
 ence or admiration always seems like the condescen- 
 sion of a queen stooping to kiss your hand. 
 
 Trusty, having investigated her rights with that 
 peculiar sense (whatever it is) residing in his nose, 
 sanctioned her at once by that peculiar power of lan- 
 guage residing in his tail. 
 
 This quiet operation was his ordinary way of re- 
 ceiving any new-comer ; but Cousin Evelyn's case he 
 evidently felt to be exceptional. Like eveiy one else 
 with Evelyn, but quite in contradiction of his own 
 usual sentiments. Trusty evidently felt her approval 
 was even more necessary than his in the acquaint- 
 ance, and kept sitting beside her, wistfully gazing in- 
 to her face, until she honored him with a fi-iendly 
 
MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 225 
 
 pat from lier little soft hand, saying, " So, you are 
 Trusty I" when he was satisfied, and retired to his 
 place before the fire. 
 
 The household have all expressed to me their ap- 
 preciation of Cousin Evelyn in their various ways. 
 
 Mother said the next morning, as I took her the 
 new milk, — 
 
 "Kitty, I should never have thought Evelyn so 
 clever as you say she is. She seems to me a dear 
 good child, not at all wild, nor in the least conceited. 
 I am sure there is nothing in her conversation to lead 
 any one to think she knows any language but her 
 own, nor anything in her behavior to indicate the 
 least dangerous tendency towards separatists and agi- 
 tators ; and not a j)article of the fine lady about her ; 
 rather shy, I should have thought her. I am sure we 
 must all do our utmost to make the dear child feel at 
 home. And there is a strange wistful look in her 
 eyes, Kitty," continued Mother, "that goes to my 
 heart — a kind of orphaned look. Perhaps her home 
 is not as happy as ours, with all its splendor. I feel 
 strangely drawn to the child. I have a kind of 
 motherly feeling for her, Kitty. We must do every- 
 thing to make her happy." 
 
 As if it was anything strange for Mother's heart to 
 have a kind of motherly feeling to any creature she 
 had to do with ! 
 
 But it is strange she should notice that wistful 
 look in Cousin Evelyn's eyes, for I never said much 
 to her about Aunt Beauchamp. I thought it would 
 be a breach of hospitality. Mother always taught us 
 it would be such a treachery to gossip about the 
 Becrets of any home where we are welcomed. 
 
 Father on the contrary said, — 
 
»»0 THE DIARY OF 
 
 " That child is monstrously clever. I believe, 
 Kitty, with a very little teaching, she would know 
 as much of the science of war as I do. She entered 
 into my description of the great battle of Mai pi a- 
 quet as intelligently as if she had been an old sol- 
 dier." 
 
 Betty has said little. She is not the person to 
 strike her colors at the first summons. But yester- 
 day morning when I came back from the milking I 
 found Cousin Evelyn established with Betty in the 
 dairy on terms of intimacy it took Jack and me 
 many years to win, actually rolling up a pat of but- 
 ter with her dainty little hands, her round white 
 arms bare to the ruffles at her elbows. 
 
 And afterwards Betty said to me, — 
 
 ** I am not going to say Mrs. EveljTi is what she 
 might have been if she had been brought up in the 
 country in a sensible way ; but a fine lady she is not. 
 A more free and affable young lady 1 never did see. 
 Her fingers are not all thumbs, she's sense enough for 
 anything if she'd only been taught, poor young 
 thing. And," continued Betty candidly, " that's 
 more than I thought when I saw her first, with her 
 feathers and her ribbons, and her coat like a gen- 
 eral's, with all that tinsel stuff about it. But to 
 hear her talk about Parson Wesley and his sermons, 
 with that fly away lace on her head, and her long 
 curls, and those little high-heeled red slippers, and a 
 petticoat like a hen coop, was more than I could quite 
 take in." 
 
 " But, Betty," said I, *' these things are no more to 
 Cousin Evelyn than my woolsey jjetticoat and laced 
 bodl-je to me ; or Mother's cushion and cap and mus- 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 227 
 
 lin kerchief pinned over lier dress to her ; or your 
 Sunday cloak and hood to you." 
 
 " Maybe, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, " but I've spoke 
 my mind to Mrs. Evelyn, and she's spoke her mind 
 to me. And I hope she'll be the better for it, for 1 
 think I shall." 
 
 By this I knew that Betty and Cousin Evelyn had 
 had a passage at arms, the usual title to such rights 
 of citizenship as Betty can confer. 
 
 In the evening we had a long talk, Evelyn and I, 
 in my chamber, before we went to bed. Mother had 
 furbished up an old state bed with faded tapestry 
 hangings representing Herodias with John Baptist's 
 head in a charger, and had placed it in one of the 
 rooms which had been cleared out and whitewashed 
 for us. But Cousin Evelyn entreated not to be put 
 into such ghostly company again. 
 
 The first night she slept there alone, and she de- 
 clared that as the wood fire flickered on the livid 
 antique forms, they glowed and stirred in the strang- 
 est way, and that she should never be able to tell 
 whether an unnatural glare that came over the coun- 
 tenance of Herodias, just as she was going to sleep, 
 was merely the dying flicker of the embers, or that 
 princes herself revivified and scowling on her with 
 murderous eyes. Accordingly she has taken refuge 
 with me. 
 
 Our conversation began about Betty. Evelyn 
 said, — 
 
 *' I like you all very much, Kitty, but I am not 
 sure that Betty is not the best and wisest among you, 
 and the greatest friend to me. Aunt Trevylyan 
 spoils me by her tenderness, and Uncle Trevylyan by 
 
238 7772' DIARY OF 
 
 his courteous deference, and you by your humility. 
 But Betty knows better, and she has given me a bit 
 of her mind, and I have given her a bit of mine. 
 This morning I asked her to teach me to make but- 
 ter, and she said, * Mrs. Evelyn, my dear, I'll teach 
 you what I can, although I half think you are after 
 nothing but a bit of play. But before we begin, I 
 must tell you what's been on my mind for some time. 
 You may play, my dear, with Master about his bat- 
 tles, and with Missis at learning to sew, and with me 
 at making butter, if you like, but I can't abide play 
 about religion, and I can't think it's anything else 
 when you talk about Parson Wesley and his wondeiv 
 ful words, with those lappets and feathers flying 
 about your face, and tripping on your little red shoes. 
 The Bible's plain ; and I marked a text which you'll 
 be pleased to read.' 
 
 " She gave me her great Bible, and I read : * In 
 that day the Lord will take away the bravery of 
 their tinkling ornaments,' etc. ' But, Betty,' I said, 
 * I don't wear any tinkling ornaments, nor nose jew- 
 els, nor round tires like the moon, nor bells in my 
 toes.' 
 
 " * You may smile, Mrs. Evelyn,' said Betty very 
 gravely, ^but I think it's no laughing matter. If that 
 had been written in our days, my dear, your lappets, 
 and furbelows, and hoop petticoats would have como 
 in, sure enough. And it was written for you and me 
 as sure as if it had been written yesterday ; so we've 
 got to understand it. But Parson Wesley's sermons 
 are no child's play, my dear,' she concluded ; * and 
 if you'd felt them tearing at your heart as I have, 
 you'd know it ; and till ycu do, I'd rather not talk 
 about them. " 
 
MBS. KITTY TBEVTLYAN. S39 
 
 " And "what did you say, Cousin Evelyn ?" I asked. 
 
 " I was angry," said Evelyn, for I thought Betty 
 harsh and uncharitable, and I said, — 
 
 *' ' I Jiave felt Parson Wesley's words, Betty, and I 
 have learned from him that pride and vanity can hide 
 in other places besides lappets and furbelows. It's a 
 great warfare we're in, and the enemy has wiles as 
 well as fiery darts ; and it is not always so sure when 
 we have driven the enemy out of sight that we have 
 defeated him. We may have driven him further in ; 
 into the citadel of our hearts, Betty,' I said ; ' and 
 one foe in the citadel is worse than an enemy in the 
 field.' " 
 
 " And what did Betty answer ?" I asked. 
 
 " She answered nothing," said Evelyn. " She said, 
 
 * "Young folks were very wise in these days,' and then 
 she began to give me my lesson in making butter. 
 But as I was leaving the dairy afterwards, she said, 
 
 * Mrs. Evelyn, my dear, I am not goiag to say I've no 
 pride or conceit of my own. Maybe we'd better 
 each look to ourselves.' I gave her hand a hearty 
 shake, and I know we shall be good friends." 
 
 {Marginal Note. — I noticed after this that through- 
 out her visit Cousin Evelyn wore the soberest and 
 plainest dresses she had.) 
 
 Then after a pause Cousin Evelyn continued, in a 
 soft and deep tone, — 
 
 " Cousin Kitty, I no longer wonder at your bein^ 
 the dear little creature you are. I do not see how 
 you could help growing up ■> ircod and sweet here, 
 in such a home. I love you all so much 1 Aunt 
 Trevylyan has just such a sweet, choice aromatic 
 
 * odor of sanctity ' about her as old George Herbert 
 would have delighted to enshrin<? in one of his quaint 
 
 20 . 
 
280 THE DIARY OF 
 
 vases of perfume — those dear old hymns of his ; a 
 kind of fragrance of fresh rose leaves and Oriental 
 spices, all blended into a sacred incense. And dear 
 Uncle Trevylyan and I, Kitty, have talks I am afraid 
 your Mother would think rather dangerous, during 
 those long walks of ours over the cliffs and through 
 the fields. He likes to hear about John Nelson and 
 the Wesleys, and their strong homely sayings, and 
 their brave daring of mobs, and their patient endur- 
 ance of toil and weariness. He said one day he had 
 been used to think of religion as a fair robe to make 
 women such as your Mother (how he loves her, Kitty !) 
 even lovelier than they were by nature, to be rever- 
 ently put on on Sundays and holy days, and, it was 
 to be hoped, hereafter in heaven. But of a religion 
 for every day and all day, liere and nrnfi^ to be worn by 
 all and woven into the coarse stuff of every-day life — 
 a religion to be girt about a man on the battle-field, 
 and at the mine, and in the fishing-boat, he had 
 scarcely thought till he met John Nelson." 
 
 It is a great pleasure to take Cousin Evelyn to all 
 our old familiar haunts. She is more delighted with 
 our wild seas and rocky shores than even I had ex- 
 pected. She makes me see beautiful pictures in 
 things to which I had grown so accustomed as 
 scarcely to observe them. The view from the shady 
 recesses of our "Robinson Crusoe's Cave" across the 
 white sands and the line of breakers to the broad sea 
 twinkling in countless waves on and on to the hori- 
 zon, where it shone a line of emerald light touching 
 the opal sky, enchanted her. She said she had no 
 idea what a wealth of radiance floods our every-day 
 
MBS. KITTY TREVYLYAN, 231 
 
 footsteps in the open world, until sbo looked out on 
 it from tliat cavern. 
 
 " Think, Cousin Kitty," she said, " we are walking 
 every hour of the day in that fairy world of glory and 
 beauty without knowing it ; and people call it ^ this 
 every-day life,' and * this work-a-day world.' Can we 
 not understand a little," she added, " how it is that 
 God finds it for our profit to lead us sometimes into 
 the shadows V 
 
 Often she longs for some of the great old painters 
 to be here and transfer some of these scenes to canvas ; 
 — ^the sea with its amethyst and emerald tints, the 
 strange peaks, and pinnacles, and arched bridges in 
 the dark rocks against which the snow-white waves 
 leap ; the little openings in our green wooded valley, 
 through which we catch sunny glimpses of the sea. 
 She and Father delight to compare these things with 
 the landscapes of the great masters which he has seen 
 in Flanders, and she in various great houses in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Yet, in some way, there is a difierence between 
 Evelyn's enjoyment of these things and mine. When 
 she would pause in delight and amazement and ex- 
 claim, " What a picture ! what a flood of golden light 
 for Cuyp ! what a contrast that sky and those rocks 
 would make for Claude I" — at first I used to wonder 
 at my own dullness in taking it all so quietly ; until 
 one day when I said so to Hugh, he replied, — 
 
 *' It is not dullness, Kitty, that makes you never 
 think of exclaiming, every now and then, as you look 
 at your Mother, ' What a picture that face is !' And 
 yet I am sure Raphael never painted a countenance 
 of more sacred purity and tenderness than lier's. It 
 is your Mother's face ; you do not wonder at it ; you 
 
»o3 THE DIARY OF 
 
 know it too well. Its sweet beauty has been shining 
 on your heart since you were a baby, and has grown 
 part of you. It is so with nature. Your Cousin 
 Evelyn has been used to see the world from the win- 
 dows of magnificent mansions, and she has taste to 
 see it is grander than any picture-gallery they con- 
 tain. But still it is a picture-gallery — a collection 
 of master-pieces to her. I think you have been better 
 off. You have not gone to see the beauties of nature 
 as an exhibition ; you have grown up among them, 
 and done your every day work among them ; they 
 have been the flowers by your daily path, the familiar 
 walls and roof of your home. You have lived, as it 
 were, at home with nature, close to her heai*t. Her 
 glorious face has been beaming on you like your 
 Mother's from your infancy. She is no mere picture 
 to you, she is your friend. You do not gaze and ex- 
 claim, *How beautiful I' You love and enjoy. Her 
 beauty has entered into your very heart. It does us 
 good to admire what is good and beautiful. But it 
 does us infinitely more good to love it. We grow 
 like what we admire. But we become one with what 
 we love." 
 
 I suppose there may be some truth in what Hugh 
 says, although it is certainly colored by his affec- 
 tion. 
 
 But I do feel thankful it has been my lot to live in 
 our humble, quiet way, seeing the sunrise as I go to 
 milk Daisy, not as a great sight to rise for once in a 
 life time; and the sunset as I come back from all 
 kinds of homely errands ; hearing the birds, not as a 
 concert now and then, but singing close to my 
 chamber-window morning and evening; the same 
 rooks cawing in the same dear old elms ; the same 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 233 
 
 thrushes building year after year in the same nest in 
 the old thorn. 
 
 Evelyn told me to-day she had had a conversation 
 with Betty on ecclesiastical history, in reference to 
 the great multitude of Cornish saints — St. Just, St. 
 Keot, St. Perran, St. Ives. Betty, it seems, has a 
 theory that they were the John Wesleys and the John 
 Nelsons of those days, sent by the Almighty to wake 
 the folks up ; and she wonders if the Methodists will 
 ever fall asleep again, as the converts of the old saints 
 must have done, so that it will be needful for fresh 
 saints to be sent again to awaken them. 
 
 Most of all, however, I admire Cousin Evelyn when 
 she is talking to Hugh. She enters into his high 
 purposes, and wide hopes for the world, with such 
 enthusiasm. I used to feel like a dwarf beside her. 
 But now I only feel like a creature of a similar kind, 
 not dwarfed, I trust, thank God, but naturally of a 
 less size and meant to occupy a smaller space than 
 Cousin Evelyn, but with that little space and that 
 humble growth so content, so fully content I 
 
 My only fear is sometimes lest I should make 
 Hugh's world narrow and his purpose dwindle to 
 my degree. When he and Evelyn converse, they 
 seem to ennoble each other, and I have no power to 
 originate anything. I can only sympathize with 
 their purposes, and work out their thoughts in some 
 little homely way. I am afraid Evelyn would have 
 helped Hugh much better. But I cannot help that. 
 I could not choose for him. And he chose me — not 
 some ideal woman who might be ten times bet- 
 t<jr for him — ^but me myself, little Kitty Trevylyau, 
 20* 
 
234 777^ DIARY OF 
 
 just as I am. And as it was no choice of mine, but 
 bis, and there is no doubt about its being right, it is 
 such a sure, deep, unutterable joy. I must just accept 
 it all, and be happy, and love God and every one ten 
 times as much as ever. 
 
 We have had a charming little excursion round 
 part of the coast. Father, and Evelyn, and I, and on 
 our way home we were present at one of Mr. Wesley's 
 great field preachings at Gwennap Pit; and as it 
 came in our way, so that Mother could not be 
 grieved, I am so glad we were there. Because I 
 would not go for the world anywhere to grieve 
 Mother, for a religious pleasure, more than for any 
 other pleasure. And although Mr. Wesley's field- 
 preachings are infinitely more than a religious pleas- 
 ure to Betty and thousands of others, I do not see 
 that they would be so to Cousin Evelyn and me. 
 
 We started on two horses, I on a pillion behind 
 Father; Evelyn dressed in as sober attire as she 
 could find in her wardrobe, not to attract too much 
 attention. This, as it happened, was a great comfort 
 (for I must confess Cousin Evelyn's first appearance 
 at our church, in her large straw hat trimmed with 
 flowers, her rich violet silk di'ess, festooned over her 
 green brocade petticoat, her Paduasoy mantle, scarlet 
 stockings, and leopard skin mufi", did considerably 
 distract the 'congregation); and I should not at all 
 have enjoyed her appearing in any such dainty 
 attire under Mr. Wesley's penetrating eyes at Gwen- 
 nap. 
 
 How little the ancient miners thought, as they cut 
 deep and wide into the lonely hill-side of Cam Math, 
 1<<)W they were excavating a church for tens of thou- 
 St ids. When we arrived at the place thousands of 
 
MRS. KITTY TEEVYLYAN. 285 
 
 people were there already, standing about in groups 
 conversing eagerly, or sitting on the rocks and turf 
 in silence, waiting the arrival of the preacher. Still 
 more and more continued to stream in — whole fami- 
 lies from lonely cottages on the moors, the mother 
 carrying the baby, and the father leading the little 
 ones, leaving the home empty ; companies of miners, 
 ■u4th grim faces and clothes from the mines ; fisher- 
 men, with rough weather-beaten faces from the shores. 
 Few of the countenances were dull ; many of them 
 were wild, with dark, dishevelled hair, eager dark 
 eyes, and rugged, expressive features. Evelyn whis- 
 pered, — 
 
 " If I were Mr. Wesley, I would infinitely rather 
 preach to this wild-looking congregation than to a 
 collection of the stony, stolid faces of the midland 
 counties, or to a smooth-faced London audience. 
 There is some fire to be struck out of these eyes. 
 How historical the rugged faces are. Cousin E[itty ! 
 Dark stories, I think, written on some of them ; but 
 some story written on all. T should have thought 
 John Nelson would have done better than Mr. John 
 Wesley here." 
 
 He appeared in his blameless clerical black, with 
 the large silver buckles on his shoes — the little com- 
 pact man with the placid benevolent face. As he 
 stood, the object of the eager gaze of those untaught 
 thousands, so self-possessed, and clerical, and calm, I 
 almost agreed with Evelyn, and longed for the sturdy 
 Yorkshireman, with his stalwart frame, his ready wit, 
 his plain, pointed sense, his rugged eloquence. 
 
 But when he began to speak, that wish immediately 
 ceased ; the calm, gentlemanly voice, the self-possessed 
 demeanor, made every word come with the force of a 
 
286 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 word of command. In a few moments every stir was 
 hushed throughout that great assembly. 
 
 Before the prayer and preaching began I had been 
 thinking how small a space even these thousands of 
 human beings occupied in the great sweep of hilly 
 moorland. But when the sermon began, and I looked 
 round on the amphitheatre of earnest intent faces, 
 not the great hills only but the sky and earth seemed 
 to grow insignificant in comparison with any one of 
 the listening, deathless spirits gathered there. 
 
 Before Mr. Wesley had uttered many sentences I 
 ceased to look at the audience. My eyes also were 
 riveted on his benevolent face. 
 
 And before I had thus looked and listened long I 
 forgot Mr. Wesley himself altogether in the over- 
 whelming love and grace of the pardon he pro- 
 claimed. 
 
 It was the old inexhaustible good news, that all 
 men being lost and wandering sheep (and probably 
 not one present needed to have this proved to thenj), 
 the Good Shepherd had come to seek and to save 
 that which was lost ; that all men being under sen- 
 tence of death. He that might have claimed the for- 
 feit hath paid the ransom ; that the way to eternal 
 joy, once closed by sin and the flaming sword of jus- 
 tice was now and forever open to all, the sword 
 having been buried in the heart of Him who will- 
 ingly offered up himself for us, the flames quenched 
 in His precious blood. The way was open to all ; 
 and most earnestly Mr. Wesley invited all to return 
 back to God by this " new and living way " then and 
 there. 
 
 Soon the sound of subdued weeping directed my 
 attention once more to the multitude around me. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 237 
 
 The most part were " listening with a close, silent 
 attention, with gravity and quietness, discovered by 
 fixed looks, weepiag eyes, or sorrowful or joyful 
 countenances ;"* others began to lift up their voices 
 aloud, some softly, some in piercing cries; at one 
 time the whole multitude seemed to break into a 
 flood of tears, when the preacher's voice could scarce 
 be heard for the weeping around him. Many hid 
 their faces and sobbed, others lifted up their voices 
 in an ecstacy and praised God. At moments a deep 
 spontaneous amen arose from all those thousands as 
 from one voice. One or two, not women only, but 
 strong men, sank down as if smitten to the earth by 
 lightning; and these were borne away, sometimes 
 insensible, sometimes convulsed as if with inward 
 agony. 
 
 There was a hymn after the sermon. I shall never 
 forget its power. It seemed as if the sluice gate 
 had suddenly been opened, and the whole pent-up 
 emotion throughout that great silent, listening as- 
 sembly burst forth at once in a flood of fervent 
 singing. 
 
 " Yield to me now, for I am weak, 
 
 But confident in self-despair, 
 Speak to my heart, in blessings speak. 
 
 Be conquered by my instant prayer, 
 Speak, or thou never hence slialt move. 
 
 And tell me if thy name is love. 
 
 " 'T is love I 't is love I thou dledst for me, 
 
 I hear thy whisper in my heart ; 
 The morning breaks, the shadows flee, 
 
 Pure universal love thou art ; 
 To me, to all, thy bowels move, 
 Thy nature and thy name is love." 
 
 ♦ Vide Letter by Kalph Erskine in Wesley's Journal. 
 
S'^8 THE DIARY OF 
 
 To hear that hymn so sung by thousands who bat 
 for Mr. Wesley might never have known a joy higher 
 than those of brutes that perish, was a joy such as I 
 would have walked, barefoot, a hundred miles to 
 share. And then afterwards to see those whose feel- 
 ings overcame their natural reserve, going up to 
 Parson Wesley for one shake of his hand, one word 
 of encouragement or welcome, to which they could 
 only respond by a sobbing, " The Lord bless you," 
 or tears without any words at all ; and others linger- 
 ing to pour out the grief of consciences awakened 
 to see their sins, but not yet seeing the remedy; 
 and to observe Mr. Wesley's kindly, patient, dis- 
 criminating words for each ! As Father said, when 
 in the gathering dusk we were riding away among 
 the slowly dispersing multitudes (who seemed scarely 
 able to tear themselves away), — 
 
 " Men who do not know him may talk lightly of 
 those multitudes, as a bragging boy at home may 
 talk lightly of a battle. But, right or wrong, it is 
 no light matter. There is power in these words, as 
 there is in a battery, or a thunder-storm ; and Kitty," 
 he continued softly to me, as I sat on my pillion 
 behind him, " I believe, in my soul, it is power from 
 heaven. So help me God, I will never say a word 
 against those men again." 
 
 The next evening when we sat around the fire, 
 Mother said gently in answer to our description of 
 the scene, — 
 
 " I am only afraid that all this excitement will pass 
 away, and leave the poor people colder and harder 
 than it found them." 
 
 Father replied, — 
 
MRS. KITTY trevylyan; 289 
 
 " Mother, you are as good a woman as there is in 
 the world, and a very gentle touch would set you in 
 the way to heaven ; but I tell you some people want 
 a wrench, enough to part soul from body, to drag 
 them out of the way to hell. A¥hy, but for such 
 preaching as this nine-tenths of those people would 
 never have prayed except for a ' godsend ' in the 
 shape of a wreck, and would scarcely have thought 
 of a church except as a place to be married in or 
 buried near." 
 
 " Well, my dear," replied Mother, " we shall see. 
 * By their fruits ye shall know them.' " 
 
 *' My dear," exclaimed Father, becoming rather 
 irritated, " I liaxe seen. I do call it good fruit for 
 ten thousand people to be weeping for their sins, as 
 people commonly weep for their sorrows, and to feel 
 if it were only for that one hour that sin is the worst 
 sorrow, and the pardon of God and his love the 
 greatest joy." 
 
 " And if only ten of the ten thousand believe that 
 truth and live by it for ever. Aunt Trevylyan," said 
 Evelyn, " is not that fruit ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Mother gently, but not very hopefully. 
 " I am very old-fashioned. But I confess I am afraid 
 of conventicles." 
 
 But afterwards when she was expressing the same 
 dread of religious excitement, and these good feel- 
 ings passing away, to Betty ; Betty replied, — 
 
 " Bless you, Missis, of course it '11 pass away, 
 ninety-nine hundredths of it. And so does the rain 
 from heaven, goes back to the sea and down into the 
 rocks, and no one knows where. But the few drops 
 that doTi't pass away make the fields green, and bring 
 the harvest." 
 
240 THE DIART OF 
 
 Eveiy other Sunday evening through the winter a 
 few of our poor neighbors have long been used to 
 gather round the fire in the hall, while Mother reads 
 parts of the evening service, especially the psalms 
 and lessons, with such bits as she thinks they can 
 understand out of the homilies or some of our few 
 Sunday books. We are too far from the church to 
 attend it always twice, and too far for the aged and 
 sickly of our neighbors to attend it at all ; besides, 
 the fact of the walk to church being one of the 
 stormiest we have. Father says he thinks the legends 
 are right enough in attributing to the Devil the 
 choice of the sites of many of our Cornish churches, 
 for they seem placed exactly where it is hardest to 
 get at them. 
 
 Last Sunday was the first day this winter our little 
 congregation had assembled. Father had generally 
 found it necessary at such times to be busy about the 
 farm, but this evening he kept hovering in an un- 
 settled way about the room, while Mother, also in an 
 unsettled and nervous state, turned over the leaves 
 of the Prayer-Book. At last she called him to her, 
 they spoke for a moment or two softly together, and 
 when the poor old men and women came straggling 
 in I saw a look of surprise on many faces as they 
 whispered to each other, — 
 
 " The Captain's going to be parson to-night I" 
 
 There was a little tremor in his clear, deep, manly 
 voice as he began, — 
 
 " Dearly beloved brethren ;" but when he knelt 
 down with us and said, — 
 
 " Almighty and most merciful Father, we have 
 erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep," 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN-. 241 
 
 the tremulousness had passed, and deep and firnD 
 came out the words of confession and prayer. 
 
 When the evening hymn was sung (and 1 never 
 enjoy the evening hymn as on those Sundays when 
 those poor old quavering voices join us in it), and 
 the neighbors had gone, no one made any remark on 
 the change. Mother sat veiy quiet all the evening. 
 But now and then her eyes were glistening, and 
 when, as she went to bed. Cousin Evelyn said, mis- 
 chievously, — 
 
 " Dear Aunt Trevylyan, I like your little conven- 
 ticle very much." 
 
 Mother did not defend herself ; she only said, — 
 
 " I am not too old to learn, Evelyn, and, certainly, 
 not too old to have much to learn. But God forbid 
 I should be setting my feeble hand against any good 
 work of His." 
 
 And from Mother such words as these mean much. 
 
 Much as Cousin Evelyn admires our wild coast 
 Bcenery, her favorite excursions are to the cottages of 
 the fishermen and miners in the hamlets around us. 
 
 To-day we went to see old Widow Treflfry, Toby's 
 mother. Her cottage lies alone near the entrance of 
 a little sheltered cove guarded by very high cliffs, 
 the points of which the sea has worn into fantastic 
 pinnacles, divided by whirlpools of seething waters 
 from the shores. In the calmest weather the steady 
 pressure of the tide through those narrow twisted 
 channels, makes them a perpetual battle-field ; the 
 contending waves, writhing in a deadly embrace 
 dashing each other high into the air in jets and 
 flashes of foam, or charging the black rocks with 
 21 
 
243 THE DIARY OF 
 
 their thundering cannonade, to recoil from their 
 jagged edges in cascades into the black cauldron 
 below, and be sucked back in a gurgling death- 
 struggle by the retreating wave. But in stomas, 
 when winds enter into the strife, the conflict is fear- 
 ful indeed, as many a brave ship has proved, her 
 strong timbers shivered into a thousand fragments 
 in the mere by-play cf the fierce strife of the ele- 
 ments with each other. 
 
 Strange relics are washed up on the white sands 
 at the head of the little ( reek near Widow Treffi'y's 
 cottage, and no one wonders much to see a quaint 
 patchwork of the produce and manufactures of 
 various nations, in the rude little dwelling. Rare 
 Indian woods, and mahogany from Honduras, which 
 would be the pride of Aunt Beauchamp's saloons, 
 are ruingled with the old deal tables and chaii*s. 
 
 During the last year or two the old woman has 
 recovered her strength sufficiently to creep once more 
 about her cottage. This morning we found her in a 
 very rare attitude for her, thrifty, stirring old crea- 
 ture that she is. She was crouching close to the fire 
 with her elbows on her knees, while from the cham- 
 ber within came every now and then the soimd of a 
 low moan. 
 
 " Is it the rheumatism again, granny ?'' I said. 
 
 ** Worse than that, worse than that, Mrs. Kitty," 
 she moaned, scarce moving or noticing either of us. 
 "Toby's gone mazed, clean mazed, all through the 
 Methodists. He came home from one of their preach- 
 ings last week like one out of his mind, and so he's 
 been ever since ; bellowing like a bull one hour, and 
 moaning like a sick baby the next. He says it's all 
 along of his sins. And what they be worse than 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN-. 24o 
 
 other folk's I can't see at all ! The Lord is merciful, 
 and if He sends us a ' godsend' now and then, He 
 surely means us to be the better of it. It was not us 
 who raised the storm. And Toby never set a false 
 light upon the rocks, nor gave any man a push back 
 into the sea, like some other folks. And if, as he 
 keeps crying out, he didn't take the pains he might, 
 always, to bring the drowned to life, it can't be ex- 
 pected we should do the same for Indians and Popish 
 foreigners as for our own flesh and blood. Would 
 they do more for us ? And if he has picked uj) f 
 stray bit of good luck now and then, were we t 
 save things for the dead, or for the folks from Lon 
 don who come prowling about where they've nr 
 business, with their pens and paper, to rob them 
 who've got the natural right to what the Almighty 
 sends on the shore ? Yesterday I got Master Hugh 
 to him, and he prayed like an angel, and did him a 
 sight of good for the time, but to-day he's woi-se 
 than ever, he's gone clean mazed, and sv/ears he'll go 
 and give up everything he ever got from a wreck to 
 the justices. And that," continued the old woman, 
 breaking into a wail, " that's what I call throwing 
 the Almighty's gifts back in His face." 
 
 At this moment Toby's face appeared at the door 
 of the inner chamber, pale, and haggard, and wild. 
 But his voice w^as quite calm and steady as he 
 said, — 
 
 " Mrs. Kitty, I told Master Hugh, and he said it 
 was the right thing to do, and Parson Wesley said 
 the same, when I heard him on the moors. He said 
 the Bible speaks of ' the fire,' and of ' their w^orm,' 
 and that that means that every sinner who is lost iu 
 hell will have hia own torment mad^ out of his ovrn 
 
244 THE DIARY OF 
 
 sinB. And he said that worm begins to gnaw at >ur 
 souls noiD when we are wakened up to feel our sins. 
 And the words had scarcely left his mouth, Mrs. 
 Kitty, when there was the gnawing begun in my 
 heart ! And it has never stopped since. And if it 
 has made me faint away like a sick woman with the 
 anguish, and has most driven me mazed in a week, 
 what would it be for ever ? For Parson Wesley said 
 there's no fainting away, and no going mazed in hell. 
 We shall always be wide awake to feel the torment. 
 Bui, Mrs. Kitty, he said there is a way of escape now 
 for all, and for me. He said there is a way to have 
 our sins forgiven. He said the Almighty gives his 
 pardon as free as air, and the blood of the Lord can 
 wash all the sins of the world whiter than snow. 
 But he and Master Hugh both say, the Lord sees us 
 through and through, and there's no way of making 
 Him believe we are sorry for our sins but by giving 
 them up, and making up for them as far as we can. 
 They say sin and hell go together and can't be parted, 
 nohow. So I've nought to do but to go to the jus- 
 tices." 
 
 Evelyn was deeply moved, and when we reached 
 home and told Mother, she wept many tears, and 
 said at length as she wiped her eyes, — 
 
 "Kitty, my dear, I cannot make out about the 
 rubrics and the canons. They were made by very 
 holy men ; and Mr. Wesley does not seem to mind 
 them as one would wish, and I cannot think it wise 
 to set ignorant men u^ to preach and teach. But 
 his words are those of the Prayer-Book and Bible. 
 And his works are those of an angel sent from God. 
 And what can we do but give God thanks." 
 
 " I used to be afraid," she continued, after a pause, 
 
MKS. KITTY THEVYLYAX 24! 
 
 "that Mr. Wesley's was blind fanatical zeal, well 
 meant but misguided ; but the zeal cannot surely be 
 fanatical which spends itself in labors of love ; nor 
 blind since it leads so many into the light." 
 
 " Mr. Wesley says," responded Evelyn, " that true 
 seal is hit the flame of love, and that all zeal is false 
 which is full of bitternesB, or has not love for its in- 
 spiration." 
 
 And Mother said, thoughtfully, — 
 
 "-ETw zeal will certainly stand that test. God for- 
 bid that ours should not." 
 
 21* 
 
Vlli. 
 
 fT is a trouble, certainly, about Hugb and the 
 parish, and I don't think it helps me at all to 
 try and think it is not. Because I haxe tried 
 to persuade myself that we could be quite as happy 
 and a& useful elsewhere, and have succeeded again 
 and again ; yet it always comes back how dear the 
 old home is, and how the jDeople love " Master 
 Hugh," and how impossible it is for any one to be 
 to them what he could, or for him to be to others 
 what he is to them. 
 
 So that I have come to the conclusion that it is 
 best to confess to Hugh and to myself that it is a 
 trouble, and rather a great trouble, and to confess 
 this al"»o to God, and then, vdt\\ all my heart, to trust 
 myself and mine to Him and to submit. 
 
 I have also felt much perplexed as to what sub- 
 mission really is, whether we ought really to like all 
 that happens to us, as well as to take it without 
 complaining. 
 
 But Hugh says submission does not mean that we 
 are to call bitter things sweet, or to try to feel them 
 BO, but that we are to take them, however we dislike 
 them, without a murmur, being sure that the bitterest 
 are really good because God sends them. 
 
 We are to yield up our hearts a living sacrifice to 
 
MRS. KITTY THEVYLYAK 247 
 
 God, he says, with all their joys, and sorrows, and 
 fears, and hopes, just as they are; not dried into 
 insensibility, or frozen from a fountain of life and 
 feeling to an icy conglomeration of principles. 
 
 He says it is a good test to ask ourselves in any 
 trial, *' if we could, would we take the choice out of 
 God's hands into our own ?" 
 
 And I do find this test comforting, for if God were 
 to say to us this very day, '^ Choose which you think 
 best," I do feel sure both Hugh and I would say 
 from our inmost hearts, " Lord, we cannot see what 
 is best. Do Thou choose for us." And He Ms 
 chosen for us without offering us the choice ; and 
 that, after all, is just the same. 
 
 It was a very bright future that seemed to spread 
 out before us, when poor Dr. Spencer died. We had 
 «o many plans, Hugh and I, for getting at every cot- 
 Cage in the parish, and ministering to the sick and 
 aged, and collecting the children to teach them, and 
 mducing the men and women to come to church. I 
 pictured the old church full of earnest attentive 
 faces, such as we had seen at Gwennap Pit, drinking 
 m the " words of this life" from Hugh's lips, and 
 ^'in their eagerness and affection ready to eat the 
 preacher," as Mr. Wesley said. 
 
 And Mother there too, and Father, and by and by 
 Jack, — all in the old pew Sunday after Sunday, re- 
 ceiving help and comfort from Hugh's words ! 
 
 But I must not think of it now. It is a great 
 blessing Mother does not think so badly of the Metho- 
 dists as she used, or it would have been a terrible 
 sorrow to her to know that Hugh had lost the living 
 because the patron had heard he had " a dangerous 
 leaning to the Methodists." 
 
248 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Cousin Evelyn is especially indignant because the 
 clergyman appointed instead of Hugh is her great- 
 uncle, the Fellow of Brazennose, who has exchanged 
 a living in the east of London for this. She says he 
 is a mere dry scholar, and only looks on human be- 
 ings in general as a necessary but very objectionable 
 interruption to books. 
 
 Men and women, she says, begin to be interesting 
 to him when they have been dead about a thousand 
 years, and his sermons will probably be either ele^ 
 mentary treatises on the impropriety and danger of 
 stealing, and resisting magistrates, or acute dissec- 
 tions of the controversies of the Anti-Nicene cen- 
 turies, which Betty will have to apply as best she 
 can. 
 
 Hugh told me first of this appointment when we 
 were alone. We had walked to our own dear old 
 cave. The tide was very low, and we had wandered 
 on over the sparkling sand almost to the very en- 
 trance of the little bay. The ebbing waves broke 
 feebly on the shore as if they felt the struggle hope- 
 less, and only continued it with a kind of sullen 
 courage, as a warfare they had to wage whether it 
 succeeded or not. 
 
 And as we paced up and down there Hugh told 
 me of the change which makes all our future uncer- 
 tain. But he told it me in such a way as made me 
 feel, I scarcely know how, a kind of sad pleasure. I 
 felt it was the first trial we had had to bear togetlier. 
 And it is certainly a wonderful help in trouble to 
 have some one else for whom we must try to lighten 
 it. Besides, Hugh's presence is such a help and 
 comfort, that it is only since he has left me that I 
 have felt really what the trouble is. 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAir, 249 
 
 After a little while he said, — 
 
 " Kitty, do you remember that evening in the ship 
 on our way from Bristol, when I spoke of God's call- 
 ing us to preach His gospel to those who never had 
 heard it ?" 
 
 I remembered it but too well, and the recollection 
 eeemed to benumb me ; the three calls he had spoken 
 of; the call in God's Word to proclaim it, of His 
 voice in the heart, and the call of His providence. 
 The last only had been wanting then. It flashed 
 on me, only too clearly, that nothing was wanting 
 now. 
 
 " So many can do the work at home, Kitty," he 
 said, " and so few have health, or leisure, or means 
 for the work abroad ; and since the one place in the 
 world which was home to us, to which we had ties 
 it seemed WTong voluntarily to break, is closed— 
 what ought I do ?" 
 
 " Oh, do not ask me to decide, Hugh !" I said, 
 " only decide, and I shall be sure it is right." 
 
 " It is a sacrifice we can only make togetlier., Kitty," 
 he said. 
 
 " I cannot leave Mother and Father alone, Hugh," 
 I said, " now that Mother is so feeble, that we may 
 wander about the world together." 
 
 " It would be little sacrifice to me, Kitty," he said 
 in a very low voice, *' if you would." 
 
 We did not speak for some minutes. I felt how 
 truly the sacrifice was for us both, and how very 
 great it w^as. At last I commanded my voice to 
 say,— 
 
 " Hugh, I cannot judge what is right for you, be- 
 cause I cannot know what you feel ; but if you do 
 vndeed feel that God is telling you to do this, then it 
 
250 THE DIARY OF 
 
 is simply duty and obedience to do it, and it must, 
 of course, be done. And my duty is to help jou as 
 much as I can. And I will, Hugh," I said, " and 
 may God help us both." 
 
 Then Hugh said a great deal in my praise ; I do 
 not mean many words, but a great deal in a few 
 words, about my being fit to be a great hero's wife, 
 and about no man having ever been given such a 
 brave tender heart to sustain and insx^ire him as 
 mine. 
 
 And I am afraid I was foolish enough to believe 
 what he said, not remembering how much I have 
 always to put down to his love, and not to my excel- 
 lence. For I did actually begin to feel myself quite 
 a heroine, until Hugh went away, and I came into 
 the kitchen and saw Betty polishing up one of the 
 old oaken chairs Hugh and I had foraged out from 
 the lumber-room for our home that was to be. And 
 .liat broke down all my high courage at once and sent 
 me to my chamber to cry bitterly, all by myself, and to 
 learn what kind of a heroine or hero's wife I should 
 make. 
 
 And that is a week since, yet I have never found 
 courage to tell Mother of Hugh's purpose, or scarcely 
 to look at the rooms which were to have been Hugh's 
 and mine. 
 
 I have told Evelyn, however, and she enters into it 
 with all the noble enthusiasm of her character. 
 Cousin Evelyn, indeed, would have made a wife for a 
 hero, or a heroine in her own person. She talks 
 beautifully of the wonderful joy of teaching the 
 truth that makes the heart free to the poor slaves in 
 the West Indies, and of preaching the life-giving 
 gospel to the American colonists who have never 
 
MI!S. KITTY TREVrLTAN-, 251 
 
 perhai)s heard of it except as a faint echo of what 
 their forefathers were taught. There are scarcely 
 twenty clergymen, she says, in all the southern 
 colonies, and many of those are men who have taken 
 refuge there, because their characters were too bad for 
 them to remain in England any longer. And then, 
 she says, there are the convicts, our outcast countiy- 
 men, working out their sentences beside the negroes 
 in the plantations. 
 
 *' How they must want the consolations of the 
 truth," she said, " and what a glorious destiny to 
 carry it to them." 
 
 Cousin Evelyn seems to feel for these people and 
 their wants as if she had seen them. But it is 
 always so difficult for me to feel anything like real 
 love and interest for masses of unknown people. If 
 I had seen one of those poor slaves, had known tho 
 temptations and sins of one of those poor convicts, 
 it would be so different. And here at home I know 
 V every man, w^oman and child, and it was such a 
 delight to think of Hugh teaching and helping 
 them all. 
 
 When the Bible says " God loved the world," it 
 means that he knows and loves eveiy individual man, 
 woman, and child in it, loves and pities each one 
 according to the needs, and character, and sorrows 
 of each. But we ? When we talk of loving a whole 
 mass of people in America, of not one of whom we 
 know anything, what does it raean 'i If half of tbem 
 were to be swallow^ed up by an earthquake i might 
 be sorry for the rest ; but I should not shed as many 
 real tears as if anything melancholy were to happen 
 to Betty or Eogcr. And our hearts do not beat 
 quicker for hearing of their prosperity and joys. 
 
253 THE DTARY OF 
 
 To hear that thousancls of tliem really repented 
 and had found forgiveness and peace through be« 
 lieving in our Lord Jesus Christ, would certainly 
 give me great pleasure ; but it would scarcely make 
 my whole heart glad as it would to know that poor 
 Toby Treffry was able to rejoice in his Saviour, and 
 was proving the sincerity of his repentance by doing 
 all the good he could. 
 
 I ventured to speak of this, a few days since, to 
 Hugh. I am afraid it is such a great defect in me 
 not to be able really to love a multitude of people 
 I have never seen, as other Christians seem to do. 
 But Hugh did not seem much troubled, he only 
 said, — 
 
 " Kitty, our Father in heaven really loves those 
 multitudes, each one of them. Our Saviour shed 
 real tears over such, and really died for them all. 
 And you love Him. Is not that enough to make you 
 care to help them V 
 
 And that helped me ; for I feel that is enough* 
 It would have been reward for any toil or any sacri- 
 fice to cause one look of joy to beam on the face of 
 our Saviour when it was buffeted and crowTied with 
 thorns for us. And He is the same, and the joy of 
 pleasing Him the same now. 
 
 I have told Mother Hugh's pur^DOse of going as an 
 evangelist to America. And she is not displeased. 
 Blie says she has often wondered how it was that thft 
 l.i'. ;(l()m of Christ has not seemed to spread for so 
 •..j;\' y years ; that it should be limited to one quartei 
 ot i.u; world when all the rest are still lying in 
 (larUncsH. She even said that she would have thought 
 It U'T greatest glory that a son of hers should have 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYaN. »03; 
 
 gone on such an errand to the outcast, and wretched, 
 and lost. 
 
 Cousin Evelyn had been urging much that we 
 should all return with her to Loudon. She says dear 
 Mother has a very delicate and suffering look, and 
 she feels sure some of the learned physicians Aunt 
 Beauchamp knows could restore her to health, since 
 there seems nothing dangerous the matter. More- 
 over, change of air, she says, works wonders, espe- 
 cially with a little troublesome imconquerable cough 
 such as Mother has. 
 
 Betty, on the other hand, is very much opposed 
 to the move. She says it is a plain flying in the face 
 of Providence. The Almighty, she says, knows what 
 is the matter with Missis, and He can cure her, if she 
 is to be cured, and if not, all the journeys from one 
 end of the world to the other will do nothing but 
 wear out her strength the sooner. Least of all 
 should she expect any good thing to come out of 
 London, Vvhich she considers a very wicked place, 
 where people dress in purple and scarlet, and fare 
 sumptuously every day. 
 
 She knows indeed, sure enough (this in answer 
 to my humble remonstrances) that we are to " use 
 the means;" but she will never believe that it is 
 using the means to fly all over the country, like any- 
 thing mazed, after doctors. There is peppermint 
 and horehound, and a sight more wholesome herbs 
 which the Almighty has set at our doors. And 
 there's a doctor at Falmouth who has blooded, 
 leeched, and blistered all the folks for fifty years: 
 and if the folks haven't all got better, there's some 
 folks that never will get better if you blooded and 
 
254 THE DIARY OF 
 
 blistered them for ever. She says also that there is 
 plenty against doctors in the Bible, and nothing for 
 them that ever she saw. King Asa got no good by 
 seeking after them, and the poor foolish woman in 
 the Gospels spent all her living on them and was 
 nothing better, but rather worse. She hopes it may 
 not be the same with Missis, although if it were, she 
 adds significantly, it is not Missis she should blame, 
 poor, dear, easy soul I 
 
 Nevertheless Evelyn has carried her point, and in 
 a week we are to start. 
 
 To-day Hugh and I went to bid Widow Trefiry 
 good-bye. She was out, but we found Toby cower- 
 ing over the fire in much the same hopeless attitud : 
 as Evelyn and I had found his mother. He had been 
 to the justices, he said, and given up the purse, but 
 he was no better. 
 
 " Master Hugh," he said, in a hollow, dry voice, 
 which made me think of the words, " All my mois- 
 ture is turned into the drought of summer," " Master 
 Hugh ! I do believe that poor hand that clutched the 
 purse was dead! They say dead hands do clutch 
 fast like that. But yet, I'd give the world to have 
 that poor lad's body on the sands again, just to bring 
 it up to the fire and chafe it as mother did father's 
 when he was brought home drowned. All her chaf- 
 ing and wailing never brought father's eyes to open 
 again. And it mightii't that poor lad's. Oh, Master 
 Hugh, the devils nmy s^^ay whnt they will, but I do 
 think it wouldn't. But oh, Td give the woikl to 
 try." 
 
 '* Toby," said Plugli, very gently, stooping down, 
 taking both his hands, so that his face was uncovered, 
 
MRS. KITTY TliEVYLYAN^. 255 
 
 and he looked up, — " Toby, you will never see that 
 poor lad's face on the sands again." 
 
 "Don't I know that. Master Hugh I" said Toby, 
 with almost a sob of agony. 
 
 " Suppose that poor lad was not quite dead," Hugh 
 continued, " and you might have brought him to life, 
 what would your crime be V 
 
 " Oh, don't make me say the word. Master Hugh," 
 said the poor fellow. " I can't, I can't, though the 
 devils seem yelling it in my ears all night." 
 
 " It would have been murder /" said Hugh, very 
 distinctly and slowly, in a solemn tone. 
 
 Toby trembled in every limb, his eyes were fixed, 
 and he opened his lips but could not bring out a 
 word. Convulsively he sought to pull his hands 
 from Hugh's grasp as if to hide his face from our 
 gaze. But Hugh held him fast, and he looked at 
 him with steadfast kind eyes. 
 
 " It would have been murder," he repeated. " But 
 there is a pardon even for murder. The thief on the 
 cross had committed murder, I have no doubt, for 
 he felt crucifixion no more than he deserved. King 
 David had committed murder, and meant to do it. 
 Listen how David prayed when he felt as you do." 
 
 And Hugh repeated the fifty-first Psalm. As he 
 spoke the fixed look passed from Toby's face. He 
 was listening, the words were penetrating. When 
 Hugh came to the verse, "Purge me with hyssop, 
 and I shall be clean ; wash me, and I shall be whiter 
 than snow," he said, " The hyssop was an herb with 
 which the blood of the slain sacrifices was sprinkled 
 on the guilty. That prayer is clearer to us, Toby, 
 than it was to King David, for since then the Lord 
 Jesus has really offered himself up for us, and His 
 
S50 THE DIARY OF 
 
 blood cleansetb us from all sin, and cleanses us wliiter 
 than snow, so that we may start afresh once more." 
 And then he repeated on to the end of the Psalm. 
 
 " There is forgiveness, you see, even for murder. 
 Suppose it possible that the Tempter is right, Toby, 
 in whispering that terrible word to your conscience. 
 Yet he is not right when he says * there is no forgive- 
 ness for you.' That is the lie with which he is seek- 
 ing to murder your soul. You must meet whatever 
 terrible truth he says, by laying your heart open to 
 God and confessing all to Him, and you must meet the 
 Devil's lie with the truth, * The blood of Jesus Christ 
 cleanseth from all sin.' There is nothing els6 that 
 can, and I am sure if you do this the Devil will flee, 
 and you will overcome and be saved." 
 
 We knelt down and prayed together, and as we 
 rose Toby gasped out, *' God bless you, Master Hugh ! 
 You do think that there is hope !" 
 
 Before we went, Hugh found Widow Treffry's 
 Prayer-Book and set Toby to learn the fifty-fii*st 
 Psalm. When we left, he was sitting toiling at it, 
 spelling it over as if it had been a letter written 
 fresh from heaven for him. 
 
 " I hope I was not abrupt and harsh," he said, as 
 we walked home, " but I felt the poor fellow's an- 
 guish was too real to be lightly cured, that the only 
 chance was to probe it to the bottom. It is a blessing 
 for Toby that reading is such hard work for him. 
 Every verse he reads costs him more labor than car- 
 rying a heavy load up from the shore. The work 
 will bring calm to his poor bewildered mind, so that 
 he will better be able to estimate what his sin really is. 
 And the words I do trust will bring peace to his 
 poor tossed heart." 
 
MES. KITTY TREVYLYAX. 257 
 
 And Hugh and I were to have spent our lives in 
 bringing such help and comfort to our neighbors in 
 their sorrows and bewilderments I But I will not 
 murmur. If I could see all the way instead of only 
 a step, I should wish things to be as God orders 
 them, so I will trust Him who does see all the way. 
 
 A letter has come at last from Jack. It is short, 
 and full of the most exuberant spirits. He has been 
 in one or two skirmishes which he describes at some 
 length. He is only longing for a battle. Hitherto 
 his adventures have only brought him a scratch or 
 two, a little glory, and some friends. He mentions 
 one or two young noblemen as his intimate com- 
 panions, at whose names Evelyn looked doubtful. 
 She says they had the reputation in London of being 
 very wild, and one of them is a notorious gambler. 
 He finds his pay, he says, very nearly sufficient so far 
 with prudence, and the kind XMrting gifts he received 
 at home. A young officer, he says, and the son of 
 an old Cornish house, must not be outdone by upstart 
 fellows, the sons of cockney tradesmen ; and if he is 
 now and then a little behindhand, some good luck is 
 sure to soon fall in his way, and set all right. 
 
 He has not yet made his fortune. But there are 
 yet cities to be won, and after all, he remarks, there 
 are nobler aims in life than to make fortunes. In a 
 postcript he adds, — 
 
 *' Tell Kitty that some of her friends the Methodists 
 have found their way to Flanders. Some of those 
 fellovrs have actually hired a room where they preach 
 and sing psalms, and make loud, if not * long' prayers 
 to their hearts' content. They are, of course, laughed 
 at unmercifully, and get pretty rough usage from 
 
358 THE DIARY OF 
 
 their comrades, which they receive as their portion 
 of martyrdom, due to them by apostolical succession, 
 and seem rather to glory in. But we must give even 
 the Devil his due, and I must say that one or two of 
 the best oflBcers we have, and our colonel among 
 them will not have them reviled. Our colonel made 
 quite a sermon the other day to some young ensigns 
 who were jeering at a Methodist sergeant. * Keep 
 your jests till you have smelt as much i)owder and 
 shot as he has,' said the colonel, and as we were turn- 
 ing away, he continued, * At Maestricht I saw one of 
 them (poor Stamforth) shot fatally through the leg ; 
 he had been a ringleader in vice before he became a 
 Methodist, and as his friend was carrying him away 
 (for they stick to each other like brothers), the poor 
 dying fellow uttered not a groan, but said only, 
 " Stand fast in the Lord." And I have heard them, 
 when wounded, cry out, " I am going to my Saviour I" 
 or, " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly P' When 
 Clements, one of their preachers, had his arm shot 
 off, he would not leave the battle ; he said, " No, I 
 have another ann to hold my sword ; I will not go 
 yet." When a second shot broke his other arm, he 
 said, " I am as happy as I can be out of Paradise." I 
 saw the preacher, John Evans, laid across a cannon 
 to die, both his legs having been shot off, and I 
 heard him praising God, and calling on all to love 
 Him, till he could speak no more. I call that a brave 
 death for any man. Indeed,' said the colonel, *it 
 might be better for all of us, if we were more like 
 them Drinking and dicing may be very gentlemanly 
 amusements, but they don't make quite so good a 
 preparation for a battle or an hospital-bed as the 
 psalm-singing and preaching you despise. At least/ 
 
dlES. KITTY TREYYLYAK 250 
 
 he added, rather sarcastically, * not for privates and 
 non-commissioned officers. It is easier at all events 
 to collect the men from the meeting-house than from 
 the tavern, and on the whole their hands are steadier. 
 But however that may be, in my regiment I choose 
 to have religious liberty.' And," concluded Jack, 
 " some of the young officers went away looking rather 
 foolish, for there had been a little difficulty in our last 
 affair, in collecting officers who were sober enough to 
 lead the men. And we all know our colonel is not a 
 man to be trifled with." 
 
 " I am glad Jack has such a commanding officer," 
 said Father. "But as to those Methodists, Kitty, 
 they seem to overrun the world, like the locusts." 
 
 To-morrow we are to start for London, Mother and 
 Father, and Hugh and I. 
 
 It is getting late, but I must write down a few 
 words Cousin Evelyn has just said, before I pack up 
 my Diary, because they have made me so thankful 
 and happy. 
 
 We had been speaking about dear Mother's illness, 
 and about the journey. 
 
 Cousin Evelyn said, — 
 
 "Do you remember. Cousin Kitty, my being so 
 shocked at your idea of praying about a love letter? 
 I have learned, since then, we may pray about every- 
 thing. And when I do, Kitty, nothing seems too great 
 to do or to bear, or too little for God to care for. 
 Often I have been lost in wonder at seeing such 
 majesty as His stoop to such requests as mine. But 
 since I have been with you," she continued, " I won- 
 der at it less." 
 
200 THE DIARY OF 
 
 " Wonder less at tlie condescension of God ?" I 
 said. 
 
 " Yes, Kitty," she said, " I wonder less and adore 
 more. For in your home I have learnt more of what 
 love is than I ever knew before. And I see that love 
 explains everything. It is no wonder that love 
 should stoop to any care or rise to any sacrifice. 
 The only wonder is the love — ^that God should love 
 us. But He does^ and that explains all." Then she 
 took my hands in hers, and fixed her large dark eyes 
 on me with that soft vdstful look which always goes 
 so far into my heart, and she said, " Oh, Kitty, how 
 much you have taught me !" 
 
 " Taught you, Cousin Evelyn," I said ; " why you 
 have more thoughts in a day than I have in a 
 year." 
 
 *' You dear, foolish, wise, little Kitty !" she said, 
 *' as if thoughts made people wise ! Do you not know 
 that there is more power and more wisdom in one 
 true loving heart than in all the wise heads in the 
 world ? Yes, more power," she added, " for com- 
 pared with love things are mere shadows; we really 
 possess nothing exce^jt as love inspires us to use it, 
 and compared with love thoughts themselves are only 
 the mere inanimate things that are moved ; whilst 
 love is the wind, the fire, the sun, that moves and 
 quickens all ; the motive force, the life-giving power 
 of the world." 
 
 Our journey to London was like a holiday trip all 
 the way, after Aunt Beauchamp's coach met us at 
 Plymouth. It was stored by the special care of 
 Aunt Beauchamp's housekeeper, with a travelling 
 larder of plum-cake, Dutch gingerbread, Cheshire 
 cheese, Naples' biscuit, neat's tongues, cold boiled 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK, 261 
 
 beef, with bottles of usquebaugh, black cherry bran- 
 dy, cinnamon water, and strong beer, to which were 
 added sundry homely manufactures of Betty's in the 
 shape of pasties and pies, and a private store of 
 Mother's containing various wholesome and medi- 
 cinal herbs. Two old servants had been sent on 
 horseback to guard us from the dangers of the way ; 
 and two Flemish cart-horses were added to the four 
 sleek carriage-horses to pull our massive machine up 
 the Devonshire hills, or out of the deep rats in the 
 miry roads through the marshy grounds of Somerset- 
 shire. In addition to our escort, Hugh rode beside 
 us armed with two pistols, and Father, inside the 
 coach with us, carried a loaded cavalry pistol, so 
 that we could have opposed a formidable front even ' 
 to a combined attack of mounted highwaymen. We 
 met, however, mth no adventure beyond being once 
 01 twice nearly " stugged," as Roger would say, in 
 the mud, and once or twice being, as he would be- 
 lieve, "piskyled" and missing our way, and being 
 belated on the moors. 
 
 Mother's conscience was rather disturbed by the 
 pomp in which we travelled, especially when the 
 landlords and landladies came bowing and courtesy- 
 ing to receive " her ladyship's orders." 
 
 " Kitty, my dear," she said, " I really think I ought 
 to tell them this is not our coach. I feel like an im- 
 postor." 
 
 She was consoled, however, by the reflection that 
 but for a few accidents as to priority of birth. Father 
 might have been riding, by his own right, in a coach 
 quite as magnificent ; wherefore for his sake she ab- 
 stained from such confessions. And during our brief 
 stay at the various inns she generally penetrated 
 
»0» THE DIARY OF 
 
 deep into the medical confidences of chambermaids 
 and landladies, so that by the time we reached Lon- 
 don her store of bitters and lotions had sensibly 
 diminished. 
 
 We did not enter the city till midnight, by which 
 time the street-lamps are all extinguished; so that 
 we plunged into the deep puddles and ruts, in spite 
 of our huge coach lanterns and two volunteer link 
 boys, who terrified Mother by flaring their torches at 
 the windows. Once or twice her terrors were in- 
 creased by encountering some noisy parties of gentle- 
 men returning drunk from various entertainments, 
 and showing their valor by knocking down the poor 
 old watchmen, or wrenching off the street-knockers. 
 One of these parties actually surrounded our coach, 
 armed with pistols, bludgeons, and cutlasses, watli 
 hideous yells and demoniacal laughter ; when Father 
 (Hugh having left us), taking them for highwaymen, 
 presented his cavalry pistols, with some very strong 
 military denunciations, at the head of one, demand- 
 ing to know their names, w^hereupon the w^hole com- 
 pany decamped, leaving Father in great wrath at 
 the constables, the King's ministers, and the whole 
 " sluggish Hanoverian dynasty." 
 
 At length we arrived at Great OiTaond Street to 
 Mother's unspeakable relief. She recommended me 
 to add to my devotions selections from the Form of 
 Thanksgiving after a Storm with that after Victory 
 or Deliverance from an Enemy ; " for certainly, Kitty, 
 my dear," she said, " at one time I thought we were 
 in the jaws of death, and gave all for lost-— our 
 goods and even our lives. And now being in safety, 
 we must give all praise to Him who has delivered 
 us." 
 
3rnS. KITTY TREVYLYAN-. J:63 
 
 Hugh and I had more than one quiet talk by the 
 way. The last was one eyening when we had ar- 
 rived at an inn early in the day, and were taking a 
 walk in a wood near at hand, when the first prim- 
 roses were beginning to dart up little golden flames 
 through the earth. We were speaking of Jack's let- 
 ter, and I was saying how his principles about money 
 troubled me, and especially his delusion of imagining 
 it is generosity to spend more than you have, and 
 then beg of other people. 
 
 Hugh said, " It is very difficult for people to be 
 convinced of faults which go with the grain of their 
 character. If a man of tender feelings says an un- 
 kind word, it rankles in his conscience for days ; 
 while a hard man inflicts a score of wounds in a day 
 on his family and dependents, and never has a re- 
 proachful pang. A truthful person will not be easy 
 until he has repaired an accidental inaccuracy, where- 
 as a man who habitually boasts and exaggerates, tells 
 a hundred lies or conveys a thousand false impres- 
 sions in a day, and never feels a weight on his con- 
 science. I suppose a miser who has been grinding as 
 much out of eveiy one as he can all his days, living 
 for nothing but to make his hoards more and more, 
 and safer and safer, lies down at night pitying his 
 foolish extravagant brother, and thanking God that 
 he has not the love of money which led his poor 
 tempted neighbor to forge a bank-note. It is easy 
 to repent of the sins which some temptation has led 
 us into against the current of our character ; but it 
 does seem as if iiothing but AlmigLty jjower i!0uld 
 make us feel the sins which go with the current of 
 our characters. And yet this is exactly what consti- 
 tutes our sin,'''' 
 
364 THE DIARY OF 
 
 " I am so afraid, Hugh," I said, "that Jack actually 
 prides himself on being an open-handed, generous 
 fellow, just on the strength of what seem to me 
 his most selfish acts. And what is to awaken him ?" 
 
 " Only One Voice can," he replied, gravely, " and 
 no one can say how. Sometimes people are aroused 
 to the sense of their habitual sins by falling into 
 some sin which is against their habits ; sometimes by 
 a revelation of the true excellence of which their 
 fault is the parody." 
 
 *' But," I said, " what you say about our ignorance 
 of ourselves is really fearful. How can we ever know 
 ourselves really ?" 
 
 " I do hot know that we ever can," he said, " any 
 more than we could heal ourselves if we did. There 
 is one prayer which seems to me the only fathoming- 
 line for our hearts. — ' Search me and try me, and see 
 if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in 
 the way everlasting.' God hears us, and with Hia 
 dews and His storms He does search our hearts, and 
 sweeps and cleanses every comer. Our poor brooms," 
 he added, " only transfer the dust from one corner to 
 another, and often blunderingly remove the soil with 
 the refuse. But God's rains and winds make the 
 ground fruitful as well as pure. That very primrose, 
 Kitty," he said (pointing to one which was sj^ringing 
 out of the cleft of an old tree), " a trim gardener 
 would have broomed away the soil on which it has 
 found board and lodging, and impoverished the 
 world of a little world of beauty. Ah I no eye }>ut 
 God's is tme enough to search the heart, and no 
 hand but His is tender enough to probe it. There- 
 fore, the strongest weapon which we have with which 
 to help each other is prayer." 
 
MUS, KITTY TREyYLYAK. 265 
 
 It always gives me so much hope to talk these 
 troubles over with Hugh. The mere bringing one's 
 fears into the light is a help, and how much more his 
 faithful counsel ! It will be very hard to separate ; 
 but he has obtained Father and Mother's consent to 
 our marriage when he has made one or two of his 
 missionary voyages to America. And after all, it 
 will not be more difficult for me than for the be- 
 trothed of a sailor or a soldier. So why shou\«i we 
 venture to call it a sacrifice ? 
 
 Aunt Beauchamp was at first full of the most san- 
 guine hopes of curing Mother. She had herselt ishe 
 declared) experienced unspeakable good from a con- 
 coction called " angelic snuff," which cured (at least 
 for a time) the most agonizing headaches, the most 
 distressing attacks of vapors ; indeed, all and each 
 of the various contradictory and inexplicable mala- 
 dies to which her sensitive nerves were liable. She 
 knew, moreover, an incomparable doctor who had 
 effected cures that could only be called miraculous, 
 although the ordinary physicians and surgeons, in 
 their bigotry, were narrow-minded and envious enough 
 to ridicule him. This benefactor of his species after 
 driving about the provinces in a coach and six, at- 
 tended by four footmen in blue and four in yellow 
 liveries, and followed everywhere by the tears and 
 blessings of the grateful multitudes, had settled in 
 London on his fortune ; but still at the entreaties of 
 those who knew his worth, consented to practise in 
 private for the benefit of a few friends of distinction. 
 " He one day showed me," continued Aunt Beau- 
 champ, " a patent from the Sultan of Egypt, a medal 
 from the Emperor of Persia, and a certificate from 
 33 
 
266 THE DIARY OF 
 
 tlie King of Bantam ; but this was only as an especial 
 favor. The excellent creature has not a particle of 
 vanity in his composition, and sedulously avoids all 
 display." 
 
 This gentleman, after many entreaties, at length 
 consented to undertake dear Mother's case. 
 
 Feeling her pulse, as Aunt Beauchamp said, *' in 
 that inimitable manner of his, at once tender and 
 scientific," and asking a few questions (evidently, 
 Aunt Beauchamp declared, only for form's sake, since 
 he had already anticipated all the answers), he drew 
 from the silken pocket of his laced azure coat a pill- 
 box, which, he said, he had placed there that very 
 morning, and which contained precisely the one only 
 sovereign remedy for Mother's ailments. 
 
 Such penetration and prescience combined Aunt 
 Beauchamp declared to be nothing short of inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 But these laudations he modestly disclaiined as 
 extravagant. " The medical faculty," he admitted, 
 " like the poetical, like beauty (and he bowed pro- 
 foundly to Aunt Beauchamp), could not be made or 
 called up at will. The gift was congenital ; it was 
 incommunicable by inspiration. Beyond this he 
 humbly disclaimed any merit. 
 
 Then, after minutely describing the nature ol 
 Mother's symptoms in English which sounded like 
 Latin, and which delighted Aunt Beauchamp as 
 much as it bewildered me, he took his leave, assur- 
 ing Mother that with time, the pills, and reliance on 
 himself, her cure was as good as accomplished. 
 
 But whether because Mother's reliance is not per- 
 fect 01 because she is not a lady of sufficient distinc- 
 tion for such sublime and sovereign remedies, or 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA1\ 267 
 
 •vvhotlier Betty's medical views are right after all, I 
 cannot say ; she is worse rather than better, the noise 
 of the streets distracts her, and Aunt Beauchamp is 
 becoming every day more annoyed with her for not 
 recovering, and so doing justice to those marvellous 
 pills ; and accordingly it is decided that we are to 
 move to Aunt Henderson's to-morrow. 
 
 I do not iind the household in Great Ormond 
 Street the same as when I left. Evelyn has more to 
 suffer at home than she ever hinted at to me ; not, in- 
 deed, exactly persecution, but little daily annoyances 
 which are harder to bear — those little nameless irri- 
 tations which seem to settle like flies on any crea- 
 ture that is patient and quiet, as Evelyn certainly is. 
 
 Poor Aunt Beauchamp has become fretful and 
 irritable, and keeps u^) a continual gentle wail 
 against Evelyn and her eccentricities. Cousin Harry ^ 
 from his masculine heights of the race-course and 
 the gaming-table, treats her " Methodism " with a 
 lofty sujoeriority as a feminine peculiarity. 
 
 Uncle Beauchamp alternately storms and laments. 
 He was very seriously annoyed at her refusing the 
 neighboring Squire, whom she mentioned in her letter 
 to me, and since then had absolutely forbidden her 
 attending any of those " canting conventicles," as he 
 calls the preachings at Lady Huntingdon's, the 
 Tabernacle, or the Foundery. Moreover he actually 
 made an auto-da-fe of all her religious books. But 
 this Evelyn considers to have been rather a help than 
 a hindrance, as at the particular time when her fur- 
 ther acquaintance with this literature was arrested, 
 it was falling deep into fiery controversy concerning 
 the Cahdnistic and Arminian doctrines; and she 
 says she finds it more profitable to draw the water 
 
268 THE DIARY OF 
 
 of lilj from the source, before tlie parting of tlie 
 streams. By tlie time the streams are open to her 
 again, she hopes they will have met once more, 
 and each have left its own deposit of mud behind. 
 
 But although I've seen her face flush and her lip 
 quiver often at many an unjust and bitter word, she 
 will by no means be pitied. 
 
 " I am so sorry for you all," I ventured to say to 
 her one day ; '' I wish you understood each other. 
 You have many things to suffer, dear Evelyn." 
 
 " I am no martyr. Cousin Kitty,-' she replied, with 
 something of her old scomfulness, though it was 
 turned on herself; "and please do not try to per- 
 suade me I am. Half my troubles are no doubt 
 brought on by my own willfulness, or want of tact, and 
 the other half are not worth calling troubles at all. 
 I think w^e sometimes miss the meaning and the good 
 of little trials, by giving them too long names. We 
 biing a fire-engine to extinguish a candle, and the 
 candle probably bums on, while we are drenched in 
 our own shower. We take a sword to extract a 
 thorn, and drive it further in. It is a great thing to 
 know at what page to look for our lessons, because 
 if we look for the multiplication-table among the 
 logarithms, we shall probably persuade ourselves we 
 are advanced scholars, yet not be clear about two 
 and two making four." 
 
 "But, Cousin Evelyn," I said, "we must not, I 
 think, on the other hand, call God's chastening rod 
 a trifle, because I suppose He means it to hurt us, 
 if it is to do us good. And all the time while wo 
 arc setting our faces not to show the pain. He knows 
 it k hurting us, and perhaps He is only waiting for 
 vs to be humbled and to sob out our sorrow at His 
 
MRS. KITTY tbevylyan: 269 
 
 leet, to lay it aside and take us to His heart. At 
 least, Cousin Evelyn," I said, " I think I have found 
 it so sometimes." 
 
 She colored, her lip quivered, and after a little 
 struggle with herself, she looked up with her eyes 
 full of tears, and said in a broken voice, — 
 
 " It does hurt me, Kitty, oh, so much, so terribly I 
 Perhaps after all it was pride and not humility that 
 made me try to think it did not. But I was so afraid 
 of flattering myself that I was a martyr, and that 
 I was suflering for my virtues and not for my faults. 
 If you had been in my place, Kitty," she said, " I 
 have thought so often you would have made them 
 all love you and religion together." 
 
 " Dear Evelyn," I said, " perhaps I might have 
 made them content with me, it is so natural to me 
 as to all creatures without horns, and hoofs, and 
 stings, to creep out of difficulties. And perhaps I 
 might have persuaded myself that, in escaping re- 
 proach I was recommending religion. But our 
 blessed Lord did not make every one pleased either 
 with religion or wdth Him. And when we have 
 really painful things to take up and bear, unless we 
 glide out of the way to avoid them, I think it ought 
 to help us to remember what He said about taking 
 up our cross." 
 
 " But Kitty," she said, " the Cross I think what it 
 was to Him — shame, agony, death, worse than death. 
 Shall I call my little discomforts crosses ?" 
 
 " Jesus said. Every one w^ho followed Him w^as to 
 take up His cross," I said. 
 
 '' He did," she replied thoughtfully. Then look- 
 ing up with one of her bright looks, she said, — 
 
 " Well, Kitty, no 'hing on earth shall persuade me 
 2:1* 
 
270 THE DIARY OF 
 
 I should not get on better with every one, if I were 
 better ! But perhaps some little portion of my 
 troubles could not be avoided ; and if this is my 
 cross, it certainly makes it feel lighter to call it so. 
 Remembering that if it hurts me so much, it is not so 
 much because it is so heavy, as because I am such a 
 child, and so little used to bearing it. So, Kitty," she 
 continued, " by no means draw my portrait as a meek- 
 eyed maiden bowed down under a picturesque bur- 
 den beautifully fashioned into the shape of a cross : 
 but as a foolish and awkw^ard little child, stumbling 
 along under a load which other people could lift 
 with their fingers. But, O Kitty," she said, her 
 whole countenance suddenly changing into an ex- 
 pression almost of anguish, " what miserable selfish- 
 ness to talk of my burdens ! Think of the void, the 
 pangs of those w^ho are dying from the hunger of 
 their hearts for God, and will not call it hunger, but 
 * sensibility,' or ' repressed gout,' or ' the restlessness of 
 youth,' or ' the irritability of old age,' or the ' inevit- 
 able worries of life,' or anything but that great 
 hunger of the souls God created for himself, which 
 proves their immortality, and proves their ruin, and 
 might lead them to Him to be satisfied. How am I 
 to help them to find it out ?" 
 
 " You can pray. Cousin Evelyn, and show them 
 your whole soul has found that rest in God ; and the 
 time wdll surely come when you may tell them how. 
 Who knows how many of the bitterest words come 
 from the sorest hearts ? No doubt the writhing of 
 his poor hands on the nails, and the very sight of 
 the patience of Jesus on the cross beside him, made 
 the reviling of the thief all the bitterer. But in 
 another moment that patience had overcome : the 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 271 
 
 railing was changed to — *We indeed justly;' the 
 reviling to — '- This man hath done nothing amiss ;' 
 the curses into — * Lord, remember me ;' and the 
 agonizing beginning of an eternity of anguish into 
 the — * Paradise to-day.' Ah, Evelyn," I said, " who 
 knows how near the joyful answer to your prayers 
 may be ? who knows how soon your cross may blos- 
 som into a tree of life ?" 
 
 She made no reply for some minutes; she had 
 buried her face in her hands. But when she looked 
 up again, it was with a look clear and solemn and 
 awed and bright as a child's in prayer, and she said, — 
 
 " Kitty, I think I understand better. Henceforth I 
 will not try to trijj on under my burden as if it were 
 nothing. I will confess to myself and to God when 
 it wounds, and humbly ask him to lighten or to heal. 
 But hope shall make my tread lighter than ever pride 
 could. For who knows how soon my cross may 
 blossom into a tree of life ? It is in the nature of all 
 crosses made from the fragments of His, is it not ? 
 Not nothing^ Kitty. Our trials are not even trifles, 
 they are the poor withering grains of a harvest of 
 eternal joys ; they are the fiery furnace of incorrupti- 
 ble graces for us, and, perhaps, for others too." 
 
 We are at Hackney, Father, and Mother, and I. 
 This grave orderly household, too, is changed. 
 
 Cousin Tom is gone. I knew he had made a voy- 
 age to America, but until I came here I thought it 
 was only on some business of his father's. 
 
 But when I asked Uncle Henderson for him, he 
 scarcely made any answer, so that I felt something 
 was wrong. And the first time I was left alone with 
 Aunt Henderson, to my great amazement she sat 
 
272 THE DIARY OF 
 
 down, and covering her face, burst into a flood of 
 tears. I think I should scarcely have been more sur 
 prised if it had been the stone effigy of the lady in a 
 ruff in our church at home, or more entirely at a loss 
 what to do to help her. 
 
 " Ah, Kitty," she sobbed out at length, " Kitty, 
 child, you loved the poor lad, you were always kind 
 to him, and he loved you like a sister. And I must 
 speak. Your uncle won't have his name mentioned. 
 He calls him an ungrateful wretch, an Absalom, and 
 he says he is not going to behave like King David in 
 his dotage, that he will never have him under his 
 roof again. My poor Tom, my boy, my only son I" 
 
 " But what has he done ?" I asked ; " it cannot be 
 so very bad." 
 
 *' No I" she exclaimed, passionately, " it is not in- 
 deed, it's your uncle's hard, cold, miserable religion 
 that makes him judge the poor lad as he does. Poor 
 Tom," she wailed again, " poor misguided lad, if I'd 
 known better before, he'd never have run away." 
 
 And then she told me how he had come and openly 
 confessed to his father one evening about his going 
 to the theatre and other amusements, and having 
 contracted some debts, and Uncle Henderson had 
 called him a liar and a coward, and had wondered 
 how many more sins he would confess now he had 
 begun ; and how Tom had grown crimson, and had 
 said that if it had not been for his Cousin Kitty and 
 John Wesley, he would never have confessed what he 
 had, for he believed they had true religion, and they 
 showed him the sin of deception, and the little re- 
 ligion he had got from them was what had given 
 him courage to speak the truth now. And then 
 Uncle Henderson was more angry than ever, and 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. .273 
 
 said Jolin Wesley was an Arminian and a Jacobite, 
 and Tom was a tliief and a hypocrite ; and Tom grew 
 very white, and said if he had been a hypocrite he 
 would be one no more, that he would never set foot in 
 those Pharisaical meeting-houses again, nor have any 
 more to do with a religion which had no kind word 
 for the returning prodigal ; and then uncle had turned 
 purple with anger, and had ordered him from his pres- 
 ence, and dared him not to enter his house again until 
 he could come on his knees and say he was ashamed 
 and sorry, as such an ungrateful wretch should be. 
 
 " I could say nothing, Kitty," Aunt Henderson con- 
 tinued, " and I was humbled and bewildered so that 
 I did not know what to think ; but I resolved to go 
 the next morning to the poor lad's chamber and try 
 to soothe him. But when I went, oh, Kitty !" and 
 she broke out sobbing again, " he was gone — he was 
 gone! The bed was cold — he had been gone for 
 hours. Plis chest was there, but not a thing was 
 taken from it except one change of linen in his little 
 valise. On the table was a note to me. I have kex)t 
 it in my bosom ever since." 
 
 She gave it to me to read. 
 
 " Dear Mother," it says, " we shall be best apart. 
 I trust my clothes and books will pay my debts if 
 father will sell them. (Here follows a list of the 
 amounts owed — not large.) You will not grieve 
 much, I hope, at my going, for I have been a poor 
 comfort to you. I shall write when I have anything 
 good to tell you. I am going to the American col- 
 onies. Perhaps I may yet live to show father that I 
 am not such a wretch as he thinks me, and to be 
 more of a son to you than I have been. — Your poor 
 son, ' Tom." 
 
274: THE DIARY OF 
 
 " All, Kitty," she said, " lie hoped I should not 
 grieve. Poor dear lad, if he had only known how I 
 loved him ! If I could only see him for a moment to 
 tell him. I am afraid I made the house too dull for 
 him, Kitty, but I did it for the best. I thought I 
 had kept him so safe from temptation, and oh, I used 
 to glory in my foolish heart over poor Sister Beau- 
 champ. I have little enough to glory in now, and 
 little to comfort me except John Wesley's sermons, 
 which I attended first for his sake, poor fellow, and 
 a talk with Aunt Jeanie and our old gardener. They 
 tell me very good things he said, and we cry together 
 over him. They loved the lad ; he w^as a kind lad, 
 Kitty ; all the servants loved him. Oh, I might have 
 won him, it might have been so different. But it is 
 too late now. Your uncle has taken a nephew of his 
 from Glasgow into partnership — a hateful, smooth, 
 demure man, who never laughs or looks you in the 
 face. And this stranger sits at our table and fares 
 sumptuously every day, while our Tom is working 
 for aught I know for a crust of bread." 
 
 Poor Aunt Henderson I I had little comfort to 
 offer, but she said it was a comfort to speak of him 
 to one who loves him, as I do. 
 
 Aunt Henderson is indeed much changed in many 
 ways. She is softened and hum]:)led ; and even more 
 than that her heart seems to have opened and grown. 
 She has become a devoted disciple of Mr. Wesley. 
 Yet I cannot say her example is altogether calculated 
 to recommend Methodism to dear gentle Mother, 
 who, not knowing how far trouble and a more 
 humbling religion have altered her, sees only the 
 rather controversial spirit, and the self-assertion 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 275 
 
 which yet remain. For the conviction that what- 
 ever she did, and believed, and said was the one 
 standard of right, having been rooted out as regarded 
 lier domestic life and plans, has taken refuge in her 
 religion. She is vehemently persuaded that Method- 
 ism is not only a good thing but the one good thing ; 
 that Mr. Wesley's arrangements about his societies 
 and his bands, class meetings, prayer meetings, and 
 dress and demeanor, are the sole model left upon 
 earth of Scriptural piety ; that his Arminian doctrine 
 is the truth, the one truth, which all Christians 
 w^ould receive in every detail, if sin did not unhap- 
 pily darken their eyes. And since no conviction re- 
 mains passive in her mind, not only does she lay aside 
 every ornament as a vestige of the corrupt world, 
 . but she deems it her duty to bear plain testimony on 
 the subject to all around her. Golds and pearls and 
 costly array are, she declares, plainly prohibited to 
 women professing godliness, and she glances signifi- 
 cantly at the little gold brooch encircling a lock of 
 Father's hair, with which Mother clasps her necker- 
 chief. The one Scriptural direction for females she 
 vehemently and authoritatively asserts is a meek and 
 quiet spirit. And dear Mother's own meek and quiet 
 spirit has certainly been sorely tried by these attacks 
 against the cherished keepsake which was her one 
 bridal gift, and is her one ornament. 
 
 Aunt Henderson's chief controversies, however, are 
 with the cool and demure Scotch nephew, who she 
 declares to be at once a red-hot Calvinist, a lukewarm 
 Jjaodicean, and a frozen Antinomian. She attacks 
 liis doctrines with bitter and fiery assertions of the 
 universal love of God ; and he meets her with cool 
 irresistible logic about the eternal predestination and 
 
276 THE DTARY OF 
 
 final perseverance of tlie saints, until between them 
 tlie texts of the Scriptures fly about more like bullets 
 than the sweet dews of life. The Bible seems to be- 
 come no more than a book of arithmetic, men and 
 women the figures, heaven or hell a kind of sum total, 
 God himself a mere term, and eternity a cipher to give 
 value to the figures. 
 
 Aunt Henderson's favorite doctrine, however, is 
 the perfection of the saints in this life. She is very 
 indignant with the Moravians for denying this, and 
 declaring that to the end of life we remain '• pooi 
 sinners," in daily need of pardon, and only safe in 
 distrust of self. She has several lamentable stories 
 and very severe sayings against this "poor sinnerism" 
 of theirs and its consequences ; although, from what 
 Hugh told me once about the Moravian settlement 
 at Herrnhut, and their self-denying labors among 
 the slaves and outcasts abroad, if by creed they 
 are "poor sinners," in life they seem to be great 
 saints. 
 
 But this favorite doctrine of j^erfection is unhap- 
 pily precisely the one against which dear Mother 
 thinks herself bound in conscience to do battle. 
 How the love of God to every human being is com- 
 bined with the election of grace and the perpetuity 
 of faith in the elect, is, she says, a great mystery 
 which she cannot fathom, and will not discuss. But 
 it is no mystery at all to assert that any poor sinful 
 man or woman can ever in this life get beyond the 
 need of confession and daily absolution. Aunt 
 Henderson admiv3 that she herself has never lived 
 mider the same roof with one of the " perfect," al- 
 though she has had many pointed out to her as suet 
 in the pews at the preaching-house. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAy. 277 
 
 The effect of all this controversy on Mother is to 
 make her cling more than ever, " like a bewildered 
 child" (she says) to the arms of her dear mother 
 the Church. At every Lent she and I attend morn- 
 ing and evening prayers in a church close at hand 
 every day, to which Aunt Henderson, as a disciple 
 of Mr. Wesley, cannot openly object, although she 
 drops many strong hints about depending on exter- 
 nal ceremonies. 
 
 Both Mother and I find the quiet of the old 
 church and the calm lowly devotion of the old 
 prayers very great refreshments. It does seem to 
 me a blessing to have a set of beautiful fixed prayers, 
 which cannot be turned by the party spirit of the 
 moment against some other section of Christians. 
 Because, when the makers of the Prayer-Book itself 
 had to make prayers against people (as against the 
 PajDists, in the service for the Gunpowder Plot, and 
 against the rebels, in the Restoration service) they 
 did make them so very bitter, they sound very much 
 like curses. 
 
 But the controversies recorded in the Prayer-Book 
 w^ere finished so very long ago that the bitterness has 
 faded out of the most of them for us, and in general 
 there is very little controversy in it exce^Dt with the 
 world, the flesh and the Devil. 
 
 Yet I cannot help seeing that rougher and less 
 melodious words seem needed to startle people out 
 of their slumber, so that they may awake and learn 
 to pray at all. 
 
 It is rather a relief sometimes wiien Aunt Hen 
 
 derson's warfare is turned from all the misbelieving 
 
 Christians against " poor Sister Beauchamp's cxuack 
 
 24 
 
278 THE DTAKY OIP 
 
 doctor," as she irreverently calls that benevolent 
 gentleman who failed to cure Mother. 
 
 Aunt Henderson has on this subject a theory of 
 her own. She says it is evident folly to imagine that 
 medicine can be anything but nasty, and the process 
 of being cured anything but difficult. And this 
 theory she has carried out by inflicting on the pa- 
 tience of Mother such a series of unpalatable nos- 
 trums and irritating applications, that yesterday 
 Father rebelled on Mother's behalf; and Aunt Hen- 
 derson, after expressing her hiind very plamly on the 
 consequences that ensue when people presumptuously 
 refuse to use the means and expect (" like the Cal- 
 vinists") to get well by an irresistible decree, or 
 (" like the Moravians ") by " sitting still and doing 
 nothing," has subsided from a very severe physician 
 inio a very tender nurse, overwhelming Mother with 
 beef-teas and jellies, and sick-room delicacies of 
 every description ; sparing no trouble or expense in 
 behalf of her infatuated jDatient. 
 
 It is in this matter of expense that I see the 
 greatest change wrought on Aunt Henderson by 
 Cousin Tom's flight and Mr. Wesley's preaching. 
 
 With Tom she seems to have lost the object of 
 saving. 
 
 '*Why," she says, "should I hoard up for that 
 Antinomian Scotchman, who is a Jacobite into the 
 bargain, I have little doubt, if he had the manliness 
 to confess it?" And Mr. Wesley's teaching is no 
 mere mysticism, contemplating the heavens from a 
 height only to be climbed on Sundays ; and no mere 
 bristling fence of prohibitory rules. If it is anything 
 it is " ijpirit and Zi/e," inspiring labors of love, open- 
 ing the heart, and the hand, and the purse ; it does 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN: 270 
 
 not sell the trinket to change it into banknotes as a 
 better investment ; it does teach and inspire to give 
 abundantly and cheerfully, it creates a link between 
 rich and poor, the golden link of common faitli 
 working by love. 
 
 The most pleasing change in Aunt Henderson's 
 house is in the kitchen, where the servants are now 
 recognized, not as a kind of animated brooms and 
 cooking machines, but as " sisters in the society," 
 and where the sick and aged are bountifully pro- 
 vided for, and hospitably welcomed and fed. 
 
 I have w^atched Uncle Henderson very closely, and 
 I am not sure he does not feel Cousin Tom's de- 
 parture almost more than Aunt. He is so vei*y 
 silent, and he goes so much less to business ; and 
 when his nephew brings him home tidings of the 
 money-market, and the state of trade, and the pros- 
 pects of his ships, he listens with a kind of forced 
 and languid attention, so different from his old 
 keen though repressed eagerness about loss and 
 gain. 
 
 And then what makes him so peculiarly tender to 
 me ? He was always kind. But now, when I bring 
 him his pipe or a footstool for his gouty foot, his 
 voice almost trembles as he thanks me. And he said 
 once to Mother that a daughter was a good gift from 
 God. 
 
 And his hair has grown so w^hite ! 
 
 Oh! Cousin Tom has done so wrong, has made 
 such a terrible mistake. I am sure he will never find 
 any real peace or good, nor really learn what fne love 
 of God is, until he humbles himself and comes back, 
 however hard it may be, and submits. 
 
380 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Unless indeed (for I must not presume to make 
 predictions as to the way in which God in His 
 wonderful love may lead any one), he should learn 
 first the love and forgiveness of our Father in heaven, 
 and then come home to confess and amend, and 
 learn the love of his father on earth. For if he only 
 did learn that, he would learn the rest, I have no 
 doubt. 
 
 And then we have a little secret hope of our own, 
 Hugh and I (for Hugh is gone ; he went a week 
 since ; but I am not yet able to sit down and 
 write about our parting, it was so wry hard). We 
 hope Hugh and Tom will meet, for he knows all 
 about Tom ; and although America is a very large 
 place, it is not so full of people, Hugh says, as Corn- 
 wall. And there is more chance of people finding 
 each other on our Cornish moors, I think, than in 
 this crowded London. 
 
 But it is not to chance Hugh and I trust. It 
 made it a little easier for me to part with Hugh, to 
 think of this plan of rescuiug poor Cousin Tom. 
 It makes me feel as if he were safer — as if that 
 loving plan were a kind of shield thro^vn around 
 him. 
 
 Yet I know he has a better shield than that. And 
 I do not really believe God will take care of him 
 because he has this one good work to do, but because 
 God loves us both — oh so tenderly 1 — and because we 
 trust and love Him. 
 
 Of all the people Mother has seen in London, she 
 likes Aunt Jeanie best of all. Whenever I miss her, 
 I always know where she is ; and when I go across 
 the garden to dear Aunt Jeanie's bedside (she does 
 not leave her bed now), there I find Mother sitting 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 281 
 
 beside her singing a liymn of her beloved George 
 Herbert's, or perhaps reading one of Aunt Jeanie's* 
 beloved Scotch psalms, or, oftener still, the Bible. 
 
 Those two have taken a wonderful love for each 
 other, which it is very sweet to me to see. 
 
 One day dear Mother was expressing to Aunt 
 Jeanie her great perplexities at all those contro- 
 versies and divisions of which we have been hearing 
 so much. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Trevylyan," said Aunt Jeanie, 
 " I think if we could see back through all the years, 
 we should find it had always been just the same. 
 The Apostle Paul was sore tormented with the good 
 people of his time, and their bit notions and fancies. 
 One thought the resurrection was past already ; and 
 a stranger fancy than that has, I consider, never yet 
 possessed any crazy brain among poor sinful moi-tal 
 men. It is less difficult, surely, even to fancy our- 
 selves or others perfect than to fancy ourselves raised 
 from the dead : though I'll not say it's less danger- 
 ous. But my bairns," continued Aunt Jeanie, who, 
 from the height of her three-score and ten, some- 
 times seems to confound Mother and me in one 
 generation, — " my bairns, I think it would be a 
 wonderful help in quarrels among Christians, if in- 
 stead of trying to find out how bad each others 
 mistakes may be, they would try each to find out 
 what the other really means. Now, as to this ' per- 
 fection,' Mistress Henderson bewildered me not a 
 little when she began about it. But then I thought 
 Mr. John Wesley is a good man, and no doubt has 
 his meaning ; not so very far out of the way, per- 
 , if we could find it out. But he's a mar of 
 24* 
 
283 THE DIARY OF 
 
 strong will, or he'd not have done and foregone what 
 he has ; and perhaps his will has got mixed up with 
 his faith, and made him say more than he would, if 
 people had tried to understand him right at first. 
 And so after pondering it over, I came to think that 
 maybe Mr. Wesley had seen too much of people 
 talking of forgiveness, as if it were to make sin 
 easy, instead of making holiness possible, which is 
 no doubt, its true end — as if their faults could as 
 little be helped as the rain or sunshine. And if Mr. 
 Wesley saw this, I can conceive his honest heart ris- 
 ing against it and saying, " You are not called to 
 keep sinning and repenting ; you are called to he lioly^ 
 to be perfect. And, what God calls you to be, he 
 means you to be, and will enable you to be.' And 
 that is what I think Mr. Wesley must mean by 
 ' perfection.' The rest followed when he began to 
 cut and shape his desires into a doctrine, and to send 
 it out bristling at all points, to fight its way through 
 the world. It alters a house awfully when it is 
 turned from a home into a fortress, as I've seen done 
 in my time ; when the nurseries are turned into 
 ammunition rooms, and the fireside into a guard- 
 room, and great guns bristle out at the windows, 
 where the children's faces used to smile, and the 
 garden fences are spiked into palisades. And it 
 fares sometimes just as ill with doctrines when they 
 have to take to the wars. You would scarcely know 
 them again." 
 
 This was a very long speech for Aunt Jeanie ; but 
 it comforted Mother greatly, and also what she said 
 cne day about the great Calvinistic and Arminian 
 controversy. 
 
 *'God forbid," said Aunt Jeanie, "that I should 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN, 383 
 
 think His truth so low or so small as that I should 
 see to the bottom or to the top of it. But I have 
 sometimes thought a great j)art of the difficulty 
 springs simply from people getting out of God's 
 presence. In the Gospels it is mostly '/' and ^ye"* 
 and ' now,'' But when men write theology, they make 
 it^he'' and '•they'' and HJien^^ which makes all the dif- 
 ference. The Lord says to us, * Come now,' ' Come 
 ye;' and our now is to-day^ but His is eternity. I 
 would like to hear John Wesley," she added, " and 
 George Whitefield, and my early friends of the Cov- 
 enant, and yours, good Mr. Herbert and the others 
 on their knees — not together^ Mistress Trevylyan, in a 
 j)ublic prayer-meeting, for the prayers in public are 
 apt to freeze into sermons ; but alone before God, I 
 think we should find the prayers wonderfully simple, 
 and wonderfully alike." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Mother, " before long it may be 
 given you to hear such prayers and to join them 
 where prayers in the company of the great multitude 
 will be as simple as that in solitude ; and where we 
 shall learn all we are to know by looking, not at the 
 past or the future, but on the face of God !" 
 
 But when Aunt Jeanie and dearest Mother begin 
 to talk about heaven, it is almost more than I can 
 bear; their faces light up, and their voices grow 
 deep with such an intimate and reverent joy, tliat it 
 seems as if they must be very near it, and it always 
 makes me tremble. 
 
 For Mother does look very wan and thin, and does - 
 not improve as we hoped, in spite of all the doctors, 
 and all the care and change. 
 
 But Aunt Jeanie says I am one of those who al- 
 V. ays want to be living on " a land like the land of 
 
384 MRS, KITTY TllEVYLYAN. 
 
 Egypt, which is watered by the foot." " And a ery 
 wisely you would water it all, my poor baini, no 
 doubt," she said. " But the Lord will not have it 
 so," she added, taking my hand in her dear thin old 
 hand, and smiling on me with her old tender smile. 
 " The Lord will not have it so for any of us. He 
 will have us live in * a land that drinketh of the rain 
 and dew of heaven.' And although you may have 
 to prove hunger and drought thereby, my poor 1am- 
 bie," she added, solemnly looking upward with a far 
 seeing look, as if she saw into things invisible, " you'll 
 be sure to find it best in the end, and one day — one 
 day, my sweet bairn — ^I shall hear you say so. And 
 we shall turn it into a hymn together, you and yours, 
 and I and mine ; and it will be a hymn to which all 
 the holy angels will delight to listen. And as far as 
 they can they will join in it, m far as they can^'* she 
 added, rising, as she did now and then when very 
 deeply moved, it seemed almost unconsciously into 
 prayer, " For, O Lord, thou tookest not on thee the 
 nature of angels ; and it is we, it is ue only who can 
 say, * Thou hast led us all that long way through the 
 wilderness. Thou hast humbled us and sufferei us 
 to hunger, and fed us with manna. Thou has( "^ 
 deemed us to God by Thy blood.' " 
 
IX. 
 
 April, 1T50. 
 
 fE^tvNK God we are at home again, wMcli a 
 month since I scarcely expected to be. 
 
 At Hackney on Friday morning, March the 
 8th, I was startled out of my sleep in the early dusk 
 before dawn by a heaving and a jarring, which made 
 me think in the confusion of waking that I was at 
 sea again with Father and Hugh, and that the ship 
 had struck agamst a rock, and was grating over it. 
 
 I sjDrang up instantly, mth a vague fear of drown- 
 ing ; but I shall never forget the horror of utter 
 helijlessness which followed, when I perceived that 
 it was Aunt Henderson's great crimson-damask four- 
 post bed which was thus tottering — that it was the 
 gigantic polished oak wardrobe whose doors were 
 flying open, and the familiar white jug and bason 
 which were lattling in that unaccountable way against 
 each other. 
 
 It flashed on me at once that it was the earth that 
 was moving — ihe solid earth itself heaving like the 
 sea ! 
 
 My first impulse was to throw myself on my knees 
 by the bedside. Then I committed myself to God, 
 and felt there wasi something yet that " could not bo 
 moved." 
 
2W THE DIAltY OF 
 
 Then followed another shock and jarring motion. 
 The fire-irons rattled, the water jug fell and waf 
 broken, the wardrobe tottered and strained. And 
 there seemed something more awful in the unwonted 
 noises among these familiar things than there would 
 have been in the roar of a cannonade or any other 
 strange sound. 
 
 But besides these noises, and through, and behind, 
 and underneath them, came a low distant rumble 
 like thunder, which yet was not thunder ; not above, 
 but beneath, for it seemed quivering through the 
 earth. 
 
 I sprang to my feet, and wrapping myself in my 
 great cloak, rushed out to Mother's room. 
 
 The frightened servants were already gathered on 
 the landing, ciying that the end of the world was 
 come, and wringing their hands and wondering what 
 would become of mistress, who has gone to the early 
 X)rayers at the Foundery. Uncle Henderson appeared 
 in a night-cap and blanket, and then Father in a 
 military great-coat. 
 
 All had rushed together with the instinct of fright- 
 ened cattle. No one had thought of striking a 
 light. 
 
 I crept to Mother's bedside, and kneeling down, 
 pressed her hand in both mine. 
 
 *' My darling," she said, " I am so thankful we are 
 together. If only Jack were here, Kitty ! If only I 
 could feel he was safe, whatever happened ! Kitty, 
 let us be still, and pray for Jack." 
 
 For Mother thought, like most of us, that the end 
 of the world was come. 
 
 Another shock, and jar, and rumble of that awful 
 underground thunder ; and then a fearful crash above 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. " 287 
 
 US, and a piercing shriek from all outside, with sobs, 
 and cries of " Lord, have mercy on me." Another 
 crash, and another burst of shrieks and sobs. 
 
 And Mother said nothing, but solemnly clasj^ed her 
 hands in prayer. 
 
 Then there came a stillness and a hush in the 
 voices outside, and through the silence we heard the 
 wind rustling in the tall elm-tree close to the win- 
 dow, and saw that the dusk was slowly creeping into 
 dawn. 
 
 And Mother said solemnly, — 
 
 *' It was to be in the morning, Kitty ! At least I 
 always thought so. And O child, it must be less 
 terrible than death ! If only I were sure about Jack I 
 What are lightnings and thunders, and the rolling 
 together of heaven and earth as a scroll, compared 
 with the severing of soul and body, of husband and 
 wife, of mother and child ? And then," she said, as 
 if that hope absorbed all terror, and all other hopes, 
 ^''Eia appearing ! His glorious appearing ! It is to 
 come one day, and suddenly, we are told. Who can 
 say when it may not come ?" 
 
 It was very strange, the awful apprehension which 
 terrified so many that night out of all their dreams 
 of security, seemed to give Mother a calm and an as- 
 surance I never heard her express before. 
 
 If at other times the question had been asked her, 
 "Lovest thou me?" she would have answered, "I 
 hope so. I fear it is very little ; but I only trust it 
 may be called love." 
 
 But now that she thought He might indeed be at 
 hand, all thought of her short-comings seemed ab- 
 sorbed in the thought of Him. She never thought 
 of her love. She loved, and looked for Him. 
 
288 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 I remember it all so distinctly, because, after that 
 little prayer by my own bedside, I cannot think why, 
 but my terror seemed to vanish, and almost my awft. 
 I felt almost ashamed of myself, as if it were an irrev- 
 erence, that I could not feel the apprehension others 
 did. But after all, though the house trembled, it 
 did seem to stand quite firm. And when that great 
 crash came, I could not help thinking it was like a 
 chimney falling; for afterwards I heard the stones 
 and mortar rolling down ; and when no harm fol- 
 lowed, I thought, " now all that is likely to fall has 
 come down, and the danger is over." 
 
 I felt quite angry with myself for being so insen- 
 sible, but I could not help it. I suppose it was be- 
 cause I have so little imagination. 
 
 In a few minutes I heard Father's voice rising in a 
 tone of quiet command above the sobs of the maids, 
 desiring one of them to bring him a tinder-box. 
 Then the house-door was unbarred, and very soon 
 Father re-entered the room with a light, and said, — 
 
 *' It is an earthquake, but not very violent. I have 
 felt far severer shocks when I was on service in the 
 West Indies. The crash was the chimney falling 
 through the roof of the old part of the house. The 
 danger is over for the present, but it may recur ; and 
 we should be prepared." 
 
 Not long after. Aunt Henderson came back in her 
 sedan-cliair from the Foundery. 
 
 She told us that they were all assembled in the 
 large preaching-house, when the walls were shaken 
 BO violently that they all expected the building to 
 fall on their heads. A great cry followed, and 
 shrieks of agonized terror. But Mr. Charles Wes- 
 ley's voice immediately rose calmly above the tumult, 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYA2r, 289 
 
 Baying, " Therefore will we not fear though the earth 'be 
 moved., and the hills he carried into the midst of the sea ; 
 for the Lord of hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is 
 our refuge,^'"^ Evelyn was there, Aunt Henderson 
 said, and observed to her that " it would be worth 
 while to have an earthquake a week, to see the hearts 
 of the people shaken as they were then." " Evelyn 
 is a strange girl, but there is more in her than I 
 thought," she concluded. 
 
 And I thought, " how strangely we shall all be re- 
 vealed to each other, when the Day really comes 
 which will strip off all disguises and take the blind- 
 ing" beams " out of all eyes !" 
 
 The danger was not over. One messenger after 
 another continued to arrive with accounts of the tot- 
 tering walls and falling chimneys they had seen, and 
 with wild, incoherent rumors of the ruin and destruc- 
 tion of which they had heard. 
 
 At eight o'clock Aunt Beauchamp's coach drove 
 up to the door, and she herself crept out of it with 
 Evelyn, her grey hair streaming in dishevelled locks 
 imder her hood, her face wan and haggard with ter- 
 ror and the absence of rouge. 
 
 " ]My dearest sister," she exclaimed, throwing her- 
 self hysterically into Aunt Henderson's arms, "the 
 chimney-stacks were crashing through the roofs in 
 Great Ormond Street, the tiles raining like hail on 
 the pavements, the people shrieking and crying, the 
 streets full of flying coaches and men on horseback. 
 I wanted to have escaped from the city at once, but 
 Sir John said it was impossible for a day or two, so 
 I have taken refuge with you for the night." 
 
 * Tide Wesley's Journal, 
 
 25 
 
290 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Poor Aunt Beauchamp was very teuder and sub- 
 dued. She was ready to listen to any amount of 
 Bcrmons (provided she were in a safe place), from 
 Aunt Henderson, even when they descended to such 
 details as hair-powder and rouge-pots ; although 
 she decidedly objected to accompanying her to Mr. 
 Wesley's five o'clock early morning service at the 
 Foundery. 
 
 " My dear Sister Henderson," she sobbed, " you 
 and Kitty, and Evelyn, and every one, have become 
 so good I and I am a poor, foolish, worldly old 
 woman. I am sure I do feel I want some kind of 
 religion that would make me not afraid to meet 
 whatever might happen. If you really think it 
 would make me safe, I would attend that Chapel 
 at the Foundery, or Mr. Whitefield's Tabernacle, or 
 anything. But I cannot go back among the totter- 
 ing houses now. It is too much to expect. If you 
 could only find any one to preach in the open air, 
 we might go in our chairs, and there would be no 
 danger.'* 
 
 " My dear Sister Beauchamp," replied Aunt Hen- 
 derson, grimly, *' we cannot go in our chairs to 
 heaven." 
 
 " What do you mean, sister ?" was the reply ; '' the 
 Methodists do not recommend pilgrimages, do they ? 
 I am sure I have often wished we Protestants had 
 something of that kind. Lady Fanny Talbot comes 
 back from her retreat in Lent looking so relieved an 
 comfortable, feeling she has arranged everything for 
 the year. But the worst of the Methodists is, they 
 seem never to have done." 
 
 Aunt Henderson's horror at this suggestion was so 
 great, she seemed to have lost the power of reply. 
 
MES. KITIY TREVYLYAK 991 
 
 And then Mother said very quietly, — 
 
 " Dear Sister Beauchamp, the Bible and good men 
 say religion is not only a shield against destruction, 
 it is a staff in all the troubles of life, and a cordial 
 which we never want to Tiave done with. For, if reli- 
 gion does anything for us, I think it leads us to God, 
 and that is our joy and our rest." 
 
 Tears gathered in Aunt Beauchamp's eyes, not 
 hysterical tears ; and she looked at Mother with 
 something like one of Cousin Evelyn's wistful, ear- 
 nest looks, and said very softly, — 
 
 " I am afraid I do not know much of that, sister ; 
 I wish I did." 
 
 On the following night Aunt Beauchamp insisted 
 on whirling Father, and Mother, and me away to 
 Bath in her coach. 
 
 She would not wait an hour after Sir John was 
 ready ; and we started at midnight. Link boys ran 
 beside us through the dark and silent streets. The 
 city seemed deserted. We met no noisy rollicking 
 parties. Only in two places did we encounter a 
 crowed. One of these places was Moorfields, where a 
 crowd of men, women, and children had collected, 
 weeping and lamenting with no one to comfort them ; 
 and the other was Hyde Park, where Mr. Whitefield 
 Avas preaching to a multitude who had gathered 
 around him in their terror, as little children round a 
 mother's knee. 
 
 It was a strange scene, as we drove slowly on the 
 outskirts of the crowd. Here ana there the uncer- 
 tain flare of torches revealed a group of awe-stricken 
 faces, many of them wet with silent weeping ; while 
 the dense throngs beyond were only manifest from 
 
202 THE DIART OF 
 
 that peculiar audible hush which broods over a list- 
 ening multitude, broken here and there by an irre- 
 pressible sob or wail, or by agonized cries, such as, 
 " Lord, have mercy on me a sinner," or " What shall 
 I do to be saved ?" 
 
 We scarcely spoke to each other all that night, 
 and it was very strange when the dawn crept up the 
 sky to see the highways thronged with coaches, and 
 horsemen, and pedestrians flying as from a doomed 
 or sacked city, and to feel of how little avail it was 
 to fly if, after all, it was the earth itself, the solid, 
 immovable earth that was being shaken. 
 
 It was very pleasant to me to see what a kind 
 o^ tender reverence crept over the manner of both 
 Father's sisters towards Mother, before we left Lon- 
 don. 
 
 Aunt Henderson, as she packed up for us a hamper 
 full of jellies and cordials, on the night of our de- 
 parture (inserting one large phial of her favorite 
 compound of snails and mashed slugs), said to me 
 authoritatively, as if she were completing an act of 
 canonization, — 
 
 " Kitty, my dear, your Mother and Aunt Jeanie are 
 the best women I know. They are as good examples 
 of perfection as I ever wish to see. They may argue 
 against the doctrine as much as they like, but they 
 prove it every day of their lives. You understand, 
 my dear, Mr. Wesley only argues for Ch'nstian^ not 
 for Adamic or angelic perfection. He admits that 
 even the perfect are liable to errors of judgment, 
 which, your poor Mother also proves, no doubt, by 
 her little bigotry about the Church, and Aunt Jeanie 
 by two or three little Presbyterian crotchets. But 
 your Mother's patience, and her gentleness, and her 
 
MES. KITTY TREVYLYAK 293 
 
 humility, Kitty, and her calmness in danger I shall 
 never forget. I should be very happy, Kitty," she 
 concluded, decisively tightening the last knot of one 
 of her packages, " with all my privileges, to be what 
 she is. And how she attained such a height in that 
 benighted region is more than I can comprehend." 
 
 "But, dear Aunt Henderson," I ventured to say, 
 " the grace of God can reach even to Cornwall !" 
 
 The parting between Mother and dear Aunt Jeanie 
 was like a leave-takiag of sisters ; and for keepsakes 
 Mother gave a beloved old volume of Mr. George 
 Herbert's hymns, and Aunt Jeanie an old worn copy 
 of the letters of Mr. Samuel Rutherford. 
 
 We stayed three or four days at Bath, during which 
 Aunt Beauchamp's sjDirits revived, and also her color, 
 and her interest in cards, " For, after all," she observed 
 to Mother, " we have our duties to our children, and 
 to society, and there is no religion, at least for us 
 Protestants, in making ourselves scarecrows." 
 
 But on the morning we went away, when we went 
 to her bedside to wish her good-bye, she said to 
 Mother, — 
 
 " My dear Sister Trevylyan, if ever I should be ill, 
 for we are all mortal, and my nerves have been so 
 terribly shaken, promise me that >ou will come and 
 see me. For I am sure you would do me more good 
 than any one." 
 
 And nothing would satisfy her but to send us all 
 the way to Plymouth in her coach although the coach- 
 man vehemently remonstrated, and declared he would 
 not answer for the consequences to the horses on those 
 break-neck Devonshire hills, and Evelyn said such an 
 instance of rebellion against that potentate's decree 
 had never been known in the family before. 
 25* 
 
204 THE DIARY OF 
 
 And so we reached home again, and dear Mother 
 thinks (as Evelyn says no doubt the sun does), that 
 this is a very warm and genial world. 
 
 There was a strange tenderness in Aunt Hender- 
 son's manner as she took leave of Mother and me ; 
 and as we sat in the coach at Hackney waiting for 
 the horses to start, she came forward again and took 
 Mother's hand with a lingering eagerness as if she 
 had some especial last words to say. Yet after all 
 she said nothing, she onl^ murmured, " God bless 
 you both." 
 
 And when T glanced back at Cousin Evelyn when 
 we left Bath, expecting one more of her bright looks, 
 she was gazing at Mother with a strange wistfulness, 
 and then suddenly she burst into a flood of tears and 
 turned away. 
 
 Can Mother, and Father, and I, have been deceiv- 
 ing ourselves ? She says she feels better and stronger, 
 and so often on the journey, she used to plan how we 
 would resume all our old habits, and she would rise 
 early again. " There is such life," she said, "in the 
 morning air at home," and I should bring her the 
 new cup of milk as of old to the porch-closet, and 
 " then, Kitty," she said, " we will read the lessons 
 for the day always together; perhaps I have not 
 sought the especial blessing promised to the * txco or 
 three gathered together^'' as I ought. And you shall 
 read me sometimes one of those hymns of Dr. Watts 
 or of Mr. Charles Wesley. I an an old-fashioned ^^f\ 
 woman, and I shall never be able to understand 
 why people cannot be satisfied with the Bible 
 and the Prayer-Book, nor how they can speak 
 of their inmost feelings in those Bands and Classes 
 
MRS. KITTY TliEVYLYA^r, 295 
 
 your Aunt Henderson speaks of, without danger. 
 But I do like the hymns, and I am sure we ought all 
 to feel grateful to the Methodists for helping the peo- 
 ple no one else ever thought there was any hope of 
 helping, or of teaching anything good." 
 
 And although dear Mother has not been able to 
 begin all the old ways just yet, that is no more than 
 is natural. She is fatigued with the journey. In a 
 few days it will be all right. 
 
 And as to Betty, it is of no use asking what she 
 thinks, or minding what she says, because it is her 
 way always to take the dark side, especially if other 
 people look on the bright. And Betty's reputation 
 as a prophetess, moreover, is bound up with the ill 
 success of this London expedition. 
 
 It was rather a sad greeting the night we came near 
 home. It was growing dusk, and everything was 
 very still, when a low chaunt broke on us from the 
 opposite hill. Solemnly the measured music rose 
 and fell, like the rise and fall of waves on a calm day, 
 until, as we drew nearer, the hill-side sent the sound 
 back to us so clearly we could distinguish it to be 
 the deep voices of men singing as they moved along 
 the moorland. From the slow, steady movement we 
 knew too well what the sad procession must be. We 
 did not say anything to each other. But when we 
 were sitting at supper in the hall, Mother asked 
 Betty which of the neighbors was dead. 
 
 " It was old Widow Treffry," said Betty, '' and 
 Toby has joined the Methodists lately, and the mem- 
 bers of his class carried her to the church-yard to- 
 day, singing one of Parson Wesley's hymns as they 
 went" 
 
396 THE DIARY OF 
 
 " It was very solemn and sweet," said MotLer. " Ifc 
 made me think of the stories my father used to tell 
 me, when I was a child, of the ancient Church, and 
 the funeral of the martyrs." 
 
 " Poor old Widow Treffry was no martyr, and not 
 much of a saint," said Betty candidly, " though they 
 do say, poor soul, she changed latterly. Nothing 
 would save her. It was spotted fever. Poor Toby 
 ♦ takes on dreadful. He did all that could be done for 
 her, and spared no expense, and they gave her sack, 
 cold milk, apples, and preserved plums, as much as 
 she could swalloAv.* But it was all of no use, as of 
 course nothing is, when the Almighty's time is come 
 for any of us." 
 
 "I wish we had returned a little sooner," said 
 Mother. *' I have a wonderful prescription for fever." 
 
 " So had the doctor from Falmouth," said Betty 
 grimly. 
 
 Trusty's welcome was far more manifest. Having 
 exhausted all his ordinary modes of expressing satis- 
 faction with his tail, and gone through all his limited 
 vocabulary, from a rapturous bark to a certain whine, 
 he let off the remainder of his exuberant spirits in an 
 eccentric excursion into the poultry-yard, causing 
 great quacking and cacklings and. flutterings there, 
 by his rough extempore jokes ; and finally spent the 
 evening in a sober and intelligent way, snuffing about 
 each of us, until he evidently felt satisfied that he had 
 smelt out the whole history of our absence. 
 
 The contrast between Betty's deeds and words was 
 even more apparent than usual on our return home. 
 
 Every little detail of Father's and Mother's comfort 
 
 • See Wesley's Jouxnal. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN, 297 
 
 and even of my fancies, was remembered, on the sup- 
 per-table, in our chambers, everywhere; the chairs 
 set in the very comer we liked, the preserves and 
 biscuits we preferred, a little fresh packet of Virgin- 
 ian tobacco for Father, and in Mother's chamber her 
 favorite books placed on a little table by her bedside, 
 every corner of every room sweet and fresh with 
 laborious sweeping and rubbmg. Welcome glistened 
 from every white tablecloth and sheet, and gleamed 
 from every bit of metal or polished wood in the 
 house. 
 
 It was evident, indeed, that for weeks Betty had 
 been revelling in a paradise of washing-tubs, scrub- 
 brushes, wax and oil, and soap, uninterrupted by any 
 of the hindrances interposed by the disturbing pro- 
 cesses of ordinary life. But in words and manner 
 she received us like a band of delinquents who, after 
 vainly flying from home and duty, had at length per- 
 ceived their folly, and were now returning in peni- 
 tence and humiliation. 
 
 I knew there was much bottling up in Betty's 
 mind to be uncorked on the first convenient occasion ; 
 and to-night the occasion arrived, as I was going to 
 bpd, when I took her out of my chest a beautiful 
 copy of Mr. Wesley's collection of hymns bound in 
 red morocco, as a present from Cousin Evelyn, with 
 her affectionate remembrances. 
 
 " Good reason, indeed, Mrs. Kitty, we have to re- 
 member Mrs. Evelyn," she said, " and are likely to 
 have. However, it's a mercy Missis has come back 
 at all." 
 
 *' The doctors all say she is better, and she feels so, 
 Betty," I said. 
 
 " Poor, dear Missis," said Betty, " yes, sure, she's 
 
298 THE DIARY OF 
 
 ready enough to feel what the doctors or any one 
 else like to impose on her. However, after all the 
 signs and tokens I have had, it's a mercy we're all 
 together again, and I'll say no more." 
 
 " What signs and tokens ?" I asked. 
 
 " I am not superstitious, Mrs. Kitty, my dear," 
 said Betty. " Some folks be always looking out for 
 wonders, and of course such folks see plenty ; but 
 I'm not one of them. I never see'd a ghost in my 
 life, man, woman, or beast, though my mother did ; 
 and of course I've heard of many. But the house has 
 been mortal wisht, I can't deny, these last days. The 
 dog don't howl all night in that way for nothing. 
 He was glad enough to see you all come back, poor 
 fool ; and no doubt he had his reasons. They do say 
 beasts see more than we see at times. Nor do the 
 birds come pecking at the window after dark with- 
 out being sent ; nor will the old white owl hoot liim- 
 self hoarse only to please himself; nor the dishes 
 tumble down from the dressers, where I set them as 
 firm as a rock, nor the bells ring without ever a hand 
 going near them." 
 
 *' There are mice, Betty," I suggested. 
 
 *' There he mice, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, solemnly , 
 " but it's my belief no mouse or rat pulled Missis' 
 bell that way three times at midnight, leastways no 
 rrwrtal mice or rats ; for what beasts there may be in 
 the other world is not for me to say." 
 
 A strange chill came over my heart at Betty's 
 words, and still more at her tones ; and at length I 
 said, — 
 
 " But, Betty, whatever strange things or creatures 
 there may be about us, the other world is God's 
 world R5 much as this, and nothing can go beyond 
 
MliS. KITTY THEFYLYAJ^. 299 
 
 His will. There is no dark, terrible comer of the 
 World left out of his presence, Betty ; and where He 
 is there is light." 
 
 " That's been my only comfort, my dear," said 
 Betty. " No doubt there's no darkness with the 
 Almighty ; but there be a good deal that's not quite 
 light and plain to me. Do you think, Mrs. Kitty," 
 she concluded in an awe-stricken whisper, " that I'd 
 have bided here alone all this time, with all these 
 noises going on, and no one but Roger to speak to, 
 and he with not as much sense as the dog, if I hadn't 
 had the Almighty to look to, and if He hadn't taught 
 me to pray ? I'm not timorsome nor fancical, but the 
 sweat has stood on my face like dew many a time ; 
 and I be cruel glad to see you all home again !" she 
 concluded. And these were Betty's first words of 
 welcome ; and she left me to go to bed in her own 
 room inside mine, but in a minute she came out 
 again and said, — 
 
 " Don't you take on about anything I said, my 
 dear. You know it may have been only poor Widow 
 Trefiry after all ; and anyway we must trust the 
 Lord, Mrs. Kitty, my dear ; we must trust the Lord." 
 
 But somehow poor Betty's attempts at consolation 
 have made my heart fail more than all her signs and 
 tokens. 
 
 I have always prayed so much that I might not 
 blind my eyes, but look in the face whatever God 
 sends, and try to bear it as it is. It always seems to 
 me that we should meet troubles as Mr. Wesley says 
 he likes to meet mobs : " I always like to look a mob 
 in the face," said he. Yet we ought not to go out of 
 our way to meet the mob. That would not be true 
 courage. It would be a nervous apprehension and 
 
800 THE DJARY OF 
 
 fear, able to bear anything better than the suspense 
 of waiting to see what is to come. It seems to me to 
 require far less courage to rush at the enemy than to 
 wait for him ; and yet this waiting courage^ this pa- 
 tience, is just what we, at least we women, seem 
 most to need in this life. 
 
 Not a year since, as regarded those dearest to me, 
 I could walk by sight rather than by faith ; Mother, 
 and Father, and Jack, and Hugh, all here together. 
 And now Jack is in the army in Flanders, and Hugh 
 on the Atlantic Ocean. At any hour I know not 
 what may be happening to them. Mother, indeed, 
 our precious Mother, I can be with every moment ; 
 I can watch her every look, I can anticipate her every 
 want ; and yet sometimes it seems as if Mother were 
 even less within my grasp, less to be kept by any 
 clinging touch of mine, than either Jack or Hugh ! 
 
 I watch her night and day, and yet I cannot tell 
 whether my fears delude me, or my hopes. 
 
 She has not, indeed, gained much since last year, 
 but to-day she looks a little brighter than yesterday, 
 and to-morrow she may be a little stronger than to- 
 day ; and so by degrees all will be well. 
 
 Yet it is just when I have reasoned myself into 
 most hope that the old fears come back most power- 
 fully. 
 
 And then, as now, I have but one resource — but 
 one. 
 
 Thinking may drive away many cares and lighten 
 many sorrows ; but for suspense, for uncertainty, for 
 anxieties whose issues we cannx>t know, it seems to 
 me there is no remedy at all but prayer. 
 
 But oh, how could we bear the overwhelming 
 thought, " Thm lcn(nDe»t^^''—i\iQ thoaght that there ih 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 801 
 
 a certainty somewhere, — unless we had also the con- 
 viction warm at our hearts, " Thou loxeat^'''' — the cer- 
 tainty that the deepest certainty of all is the love of 
 Him who orders all ? 
 
 Yesterday afternoon, when Mother and I returned 
 from a little walk to the entrance of our cave, where 
 she had rested a little while on a rock, to drink in 
 the air from the sea, which was as soft as milk, and 
 made the heart glad, like wine when one is weary, 
 we found the parlor occupied by our new vicar, 
 Cousin Evelyn's great-uncle. Betty was talking to 
 him at the door ; and when he had greeted us, the 
 vicar observed in rather a nervous way to mother 
 (Evelyn had not told us how shy and nervous he 
 was), — 
 
 " Your servant, madam, seems a woman of shrewd 
 sense and much observation ; and I grieve to say she 
 confirms the worst reports I have heard of the parish 
 as to wrecking and other lawless proceedings." 
 
 "Indeed, sir," said Mother, smiling, "we have lived 
 here very peacefully for many years ; and Betty does 
 not always see the world on its brightest side." 
 
 " Madam, you relieve me considerably," he replied; 
 "the accounts that good person gave were really 
 appalling — I may say, without exaggeration, in many 
 respects really appalling. A clergyman, madam," he- 
 resumed, after taking a pinch of snuff from his gold 
 snuff-box, " has many things to discover on his first 
 arrival in a new locality, especially, I may say, I trust 
 without offence, in a locality which has, at all events, 
 not as yet attained the point of civilization on which 
 we stand at Oxford, — that is," he continued, qualify- 
 ing his assertions in a nervous way, as if he were cor- 
 26 
 
803 THE DIARY OF 
 
 recting something written, " not in all particulars — 
 not precisely in all particulars." 
 
 As the assertion was, at least in that modified form, 
 rather undeniable, Mother could only say, — 
 
 " You must, indeed, sir, find the contrast great." 
 
 " Madame," he replied, " I do ; yes, I think I must 
 admit I do." And then, fortifying himself with 
 another pinch of snuff, he rushed at once (as I have 
 noticed nervous people frequently do) at the point 
 he had to reach. 
 
 "Madam," he resumed, "I have been informed that 
 there is a conventicle held on Sunday evenings in this 
 house." 
 
 Mother colored, and rose ; but it evidently cost the 
 vicar too much to make the assertion not to pursue it ; 
 he could not rely on his own courage for a second 
 charge, and accordingly pressed it. " Yes, madam, a 
 conventicle, in which is also perpetrated the further 
 enormity of female preaching. I was also informed 
 that in this conventicle the most pointed allusions 
 are made to the clergy ; that it is spoken of as a great 
 marvel that any good gift or grace should be given 
 to the bishops or curates : and that last Sunday eve- 
 ning it was actually stated, in the most offensive man- 
 ner, that it would be a good thing indeed if the 
 priests showed forth God's glory, cither -by their 
 preaching or by their living. Madam," concluded 
 the vicar, having, I suppose, exhausted his ammuni- 
 tion, and relapsing into his usual nervous and cour- 
 teous manner — "madam, a clergyman, a stranger, 
 does not know what to believe. I would have pre- 
 ferred seeing Captain Trevylyan ; but since your ser- 
 vant told me he was out, I did not like to wait." 
 
 " Sir," said Mother, who by this time had resumed 
 
3fBS. KITTY TREVYLYAN', 803 
 
 hor seat and her composure, " you have acted with 
 true courtesy and frankness. On the winter Sunday 
 evenings we have been in the habit of collecting our 
 two servants, wdth a few of our ailing and aged neigh^ 
 bors to read the Church service to them and some 
 passages from the Homilies." 
 
 '''The Church service and the Homilies? Avery 
 primitive and praiseworthy custom, madam !" said 
 the vicar, evidently greatly relieved, " and only a few 
 aged people, within the legal number, no doubt ; not 
 more than thirty-nine ?" 
 
 " I never counted, sir," said Mother. 
 
 " No doubt, my dear madam, no doubt ; but you 
 would in future be particular on that score. The 
 times are perilous, madam, and these Methodists 
 seem to have penetrated even here. No doubt my 
 informant was mistaken." 
 
 " Perhaps, Mother," I ventured to suggest, " the 
 vicar's informant was a Dissenter. You always read 
 the prayer, ' O God, who alone workest great mar- 
 vels, send down on all bishops and curates, — and 
 last Sunday Father read the Litany, — and you re- 
 member ' both by their preaching and living.' " 
 
 " Exactly," said the vicar, seizing at the escape, 
 " the young lady's suggestion shows great acutencss. 
 And my informant may himself be a dangerous per- 
 son, a nonconformist, perhaps even himself a Metho- 
 dist." 
 
 At this point Father entered ; and over a bottle of 
 claret, the unequalled greatness of Marlborough and 
 the degeneracy of the times, the misundei*standing 
 was finally adjusted, the only combustible element 
 again introduced being Cousin Evelyn, on the men- 
 tion of whose name and our relationship the vicar 
 
804 THE DIARY OF 
 
 observed that she was a young person of much abil 
 ity, but with a tendency to dangerous opinions, a 
 decided tendency to very dangerous opinions. 
 
 At last he left with many profound bows, saying, — 
 
 " Madam, such society and such hospitality as I 
 have found under your roof have gone far to remove 
 the unfavorable impressions previously produced by 
 that good person, your housekeeper's statements. 
 Her accounts of the moral state of the district were 
 alarming, I may say appalling, to the highest de- 
 gree." 
 
 " It is very strange, however," said Mother, when 
 the vicar had left, and she related the interview to 
 Father, " that any one should confound me with the 
 Methodists, and suspect me of holding conventicles. 
 It is very strange," repeated Mother, in a tone of no 
 little annoyance. 
 
 *' Very strange, my dear," said Father with a mis- 
 chievous twinkle in his eye ; " but I have always ob- 
 served it is the cautious people who get into the 
 worst scrapes." 
 
 •' But, Betty," I said this morning, " what did you 
 tell the vicar, to frighten him so about the parish ?" 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, '' I told him pretty 
 nigh everything I could think of : about the wreck- 
 ers tying lanterns to the horses' tails to entice ships 
 on the rocks, and murdering the crews, and firing on 
 the King's men, and about the poaching, and the 
 fights among the miners, and all the worst things 
 that have happened these last thirty years. I was 
 set on it he should know. What right had he or 
 any stranger to come here a prying or spying into 
 our country, and specially into our owti town-place. 
 
JilliS. KITIY TEEVYLYAK 805 
 
 and tc lurn away Master Hugh, who has got the 
 hearts c f every man, woman, and child in the parish ? 
 I only wish I could teriify the old gentleman out of 
 the country." 
 
 Finding Betty in an approachable mood, I took 
 the opportunity of asking what her opinion was on 
 Mr. Wesley's doctrine of " perfection." 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Kitty," she said, "IVe got my thoughtfe 
 on that matter," and she began to elaborate the orna- 
 ments on the pie-crust in a way that betokened a 
 long discourse. '' In the first place, my dear, it's my 
 belief that when a man's not a fool in general, ^\ lien 
 you do understand him, it's a wdse thing to tuink 
 he's not a fool when you don't understand him, but 
 to try to make out what he does mean. That\i my 
 way; some folks, Mrs. Kitty, go just the other way, 
 however that's no concern of mine. Kow, my dear, 
 when I heard the folks say that Parson Wesley said 
 there are some poor mortals on earth who've got be- 
 yond sinning, I said to myself. Parson Wesley's no 
 fool, that's plain if nothing else is, and he must have 
 8ome meaning. And so I said to some of the folks, 
 * Did he say you were perfect and had got beyond 
 sinning V And when they said ' No,' I cftid ' Well, 
 leastways, he's right enough there.' And that quieted 
 them for a bit. So I was left to think it out for my- 
 self. 
 
 "And, Mrs. Kitty, it's my belief Faroon Wesley 
 means this. He has seen, maybe, some folks sit 
 down moaning and groaning over their dns as if 
 their sins were a kind of rheumat5rim in their bones 
 and they had nothing to do with ic but to bear it. 
 For Fve seen such folks, Mrs. Kitty, I can't deny, 
 folks calling themselves Christians^ who'd speak of 
 26* 
 
806 THE DIARY OF 
 
 their tempers or their laziness, or their flesh as they 
 call it, as if their flesh were not themsehes, but a 
 kind of ill-natured beast they'd got to keep, that 
 iDould bark and snap at times, and no fault of theirs. 
 Some folks, if you speak to them of their faults, will 
 shake their heads and say, ' Yes, we're poor sinners 
 and the flesh is weak, but when we get to heaven, 
 it'll be all right. We can't expect, you know, to be 
 perfect here.' And if Parson Wesley ever came 
 across such I can fancy Ms being aggravated terrible, 
 for they he aggravating, and have many a time an- 
 gered me. And I can fancy his going up to them in 
 his brisk way and saying, ^ You poor foolish souls, 
 you'll never get to heaven at all in that way, and if 
 you don't get sin out of your hearts now you'll find 
 it'll be death by-and-by. Get up and fight with your 
 sins like men. The Almighty never meant you to go 
 on sinning and groaning, and groaning and sinning. 
 He says you are to be holy^ you're to be perfect^ and 
 what the Almighty says He means. Get up and try, 
 and you'll find He'll he/p you. And if they do try, 
 the Almighty does help them ; and instead of keep- 
 ing on sinning and moaning, they'll be singing and 
 doing right. They'll be loving the Lord and loving 
 each other. And," continued Betty, " that's what I 
 think Parson Wesley means by ' perfection.' " 
 
 *' Some folks," she resumed after a pause, " seem 
 to think going to heaven is a kind of change of air, 
 that'll make their souls well all in a moment, just as 
 other folks think going to London '11 make their 
 Dodies well all in a moment. But I don't see that 
 changes of place make the body any better, and 1 
 don't see why it should the soul. Parson Wesley 
 Bays eternity and etoraal life, and forgiveness of sins. 
 
MRS, KITTY TREYYLYAK. 807 
 
 and holiness, and heaven itself, must begin in the 
 soul, here and now, or they'll never begin there and 
 then.' And," she concluded, " Mrs. Kitty, my dear, 
 it's my belief that's what Parson Wesley means by 
 * perfection ;' and if he means anything else, or any- 
 thing wrong, it's no concern of mine, my dear, for 
 Parson Wesley's not the Bible, and it isn't at Ms 
 judgment-seat we've got to stand." 
 
 And so saying, Betty laid her pie-crust on the 
 dish, put the dish in the oven, and finished the inter- 
 view. 
 
 She seems to have arrived at much the same con- 
 clusion as Aunt Jeanie. 
 
 Mother said this morning she thought all danger 
 of infection from the spotted fever from which poor 
 Widow Trefty died must be over, and that we 
 might go and see how poor Toby was getting on. 
 
 '^ I cannot bear the idea of his being alone in that 
 dreary place," she said, " with all those melancholy 
 thoughts he had when Hugh and you went to see 
 ^im ; and he must want many little comforts." 
 
 So Mother and I went off together, she on the old 
 ^rey pony, a basket full of " little comforts" hanging 
 from the pommel of the saddle. We found the cot- 
 tage-door open, but no one within. The widow's 
 donkey, now in a good old age, was standing with 
 closed eyes and an expression of the most stupid 
 repose near the door. As I went a few steps from 
 the cottage towards the sea, I heard the sound of 
 low singing broken by occasional hammering, and 
 mingling with the plash of the ebbing waves which 
 were creeping lazily up the sands in the calm of the 
 summer noon. 
 
808 THE DIARY OF 
 
 In a few minutes we found Toby mending his boat 
 on the shingle, the grey pony was turned loose to 
 graze on the short sweet turf near the cottage, the 
 contents of the basket were disposed of within, and 
 Mother and I seated ourselves on a rock beside 
 Toby. 
 
 There was a look of order about the cottage and 
 about Toby's dress, rather new to both, and Mother 
 commended it. 
 
 "Well, Missis," said Toby, after a shy pause, 
 " there u a difference. There's something more like 
 order and comfort inside, I trust, than there was, 
 thank the Lord." 
 
 "You think Mr. Wesley and the Methodists helped 
 you, Toby," said Mother. 
 
 " Bless your heart, Missis, I hnow they did. But it 
 was not them only," he resumed with some hesita- 
 tion, pulling his hair and making a shy nod at me, 
 " it was partly Mrs. Kitty and Master Hugh. The 
 first thing I believe that did me any good was seeing 
 Mrs. Kitty in a rage all along of the old donkey." 
 And then he went on to tell us how on that morning 
 many years ago when I met him on the cliff, beating 
 his donkey (he said), and had spoken so shaq^ly to 
 him about it, and then looked so kind and given him 
 a drink of new milk, he had ridden on laughing in 
 himself at the " tantrums" of young ladies, and won- 
 dering equally why I should care about the beast 
 being beaten or about his being liungr}\ 
 
 But he said it was curious how my words and 
 looks stuck to him. It seemed somehow to weaken 
 him to the thought that there was such a thing as 
 right and wrong, and that the right thing was kind- 
 ness and goodness ; and he said that from that time- 
 
MRS. KITTY TEEVYLYAK 809 
 
 lie had never lifted his hand against the donkey 
 without somehow feeling a soft kind hand pulling 
 him back ; and in time (it was very odd), but he 
 found the donkey went as well for good words as 
 for bad. 
 
 Then Master Hugh used to go out with him in the 
 boat, and in return for what Toby taught him of 
 fishing and boating, offered to teach Toby to read. ' 
 And Toby used to say in a eurly way that "he didn't 
 mind trying ;" not that he or his mother saw much 
 good in it, but he didn't like to vex Master Hugh. 
 And Master Hugh made him learn many good words 
 out of the Bible, and although he heeded the words 
 little then, they came back afterwards, and often 
 were just the end of the rope which kept his soul 
 above water. But the great lesson that got into his 
 heart from Hugh, Toby thought, was that goodness 
 and mercy are not the mere softness and ornament of 
 women, but the strength of men. 
 
 But all this time, his own life was rough and dark 
 enough ; their cottage had always been a refuge and 
 plotting-place for wreckers and wild characters of 
 various kinds. Often when Toby as a boy lay in bed 
 in the inner chamber on stormy nights, he had heard 
 eager voices discussing the harvest likely to be reaped 
 from the tempest, the chances of wrecks on various 
 points of the coast, and the hope of prizes, as eagerly 
 as if the poor tossing ship had been freighted with 
 no human lives, and worked by no trembling human 
 hands, but charged with a mere inanimate cargo of 
 merchandise for their especial benefit. Toby said 
 some of their words haunted him to this day. " She's 
 making straight for the rocks." " Couldn't you 
 
310 THE DIARY OF 
 
 help her, Granny, by a little friendly light in the 
 
 window ?" " She's on them !" " Tliat's a bed she's 
 not likely to rise from !'' *' She has gone down like 
 a shot !" or " She makes a good fight !" '' Fire 
 your guns, there's no hand to help, the wind '11 beat 
 you I" " Never- mind ; the waves '11 do the rest !" 
 " There '11 be a godsend for some lucky folks in the 
 morning I" 
 
 And then in the early dusk he has heard mysterious 
 rollings of casks into the outhouse by his bed. 
 
 In time he grew up to take his share in the watch- 
 ing, the w^ork, and the spoils, to look on the storms 
 as his natural harvest-field, and to think with scarely 
 more tenderness of a wreck than of a haul of 
 mackerel. 
 
 The crews struggled, he reasoned with himself, 
 and so did the fish. Of course they neither of them 
 liked it ; but ships he supposed were made most of 
 them to be wrecked one day on some coast or other, 
 just as fish were made to be caught in some net or 
 other ; and if some folks must be better for it, why 
 not theyl There was indeed a dull sense of the 
 work not being quite as harmless as fishing, which 
 prevented his ever speaking of it to Hugh. He 
 knew there was something " up to London," which 
 objected to such proceedings, and occasionally came 
 down fiercely, in a blundering way, on some unlucky 
 poor soul or other, although very commonly not 
 on the worst man, or when he was doing the worst 
 work. 
 
 And he knew there was also something somewhere 
 up in heaven which shared these objections, and 
 also in a blind blundering way (lik« a great water- 
 wheel if you get entangled in it) came down every 
 
3IRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 311 
 
 now and then on soirc chance offender and hurt or 
 crushed him. 
 
 And he had also a dim notion that there was 
 some mysterious connection between this great de- 
 structive and avenging something and the Ten Com- 
 mandments. 
 
 There were moments, also, when the dull sense of 
 all not being right with him, which made him afraid 
 in passing lonely burial-grounds, or in the dark in 
 strange places, or at any strange noises in familiar 
 l^laces, would be quickened into a sharp pain, when 
 on the bodies of the drowned was found some linen 
 marked by careful hands, or some little fond relic or 
 locket containing a child's or a woman's hair, show- 
 ing that the dead belonged to some who had loved 
 them at home, a pain which became intolerable after 
 the death of that poor drowned sailor-lad, whose 
 face he never could forget. 
 
 " And then," he said, '' came Parson Wesley, preach- 
 ing on the downs not far away," and made him feel 
 that the something which was against him in heaven 
 was no blind machine, but the living God, whose 
 eyes are in every place beholding the evil and the 
 good, and searching to the bottom of every heart 
 and every work ; that the thing God is against is 
 sin ; that sin is in great part doing wrong to others, 
 or not doing them the good we could; that there is 
 nothing in the least uncertain in His ways, but the 
 most absolute certainty that sooner or later, but in 
 exact proportion to the sin, will come the punish- 
 ment ; that the most terrible things that can happen 
 to wicked men on earth are nothing but the prick 
 of a momentary gnat-bite to the gnawing of the 
 worm that dieth not ; but as the tingling of a hand 
 
SiZ THE BURY OF 
 
 placed for an Instant too near the fire, to being 
 plunged in the heart of the flames which never will 
 be quenched ; " tlw fire " for all sinners, " thdr worm " 
 for each ; and yet that the most terrible agonies of 
 hell are the agonies that begin now ; the gnawing of 
 hopeless remorse at the conscience, the sense of the 
 presence of God, from whom we cannot escape, and 
 whom we dare not approach, who holds us full in 
 His searching gaze, and through His eyes, which we 
 cannot avoids looks down our eyes, wJiich we cannot 
 veil, into the black spots in our hearts, which He 
 knows, and we know, which we cannot cover or 
 wash out, and which He abhors. " And that was 
 how I felt, Mrs. Kitty," said Toby, " when you came 
 to see Mother, and heard me moaning in the chamber 
 inside." 
 
 " But that is changed now," Mother said. 
 
 " Yes, Missis," said Toby solemnly, " my sin is the 
 same. I think I hate it more, it's seldom out of my 
 sight. King David says, ' My sin is ever before me,' 
 and I find him pretty right. And the eyes of the 
 living Lord are on me searching me through and 
 through, it seems to me deeper and deej)er 'most 
 every day ; and I can't avoid them any more than I 
 could, but thank the Lord, I douH want to. There's 
 the difference, — I don't want to. I wouldn't be out 
 of the sight of His eyes for the world." 
 
 " And what helped you thus at last ?" said Mother. 
 
 "It was mostly the hymns," said Toby ; " fii*st the 
 Bible and then mostly the hymns, for they are the 
 Bible for the UKst part, only set to music, like, so 
 that it rings in your heart like a tune. It was the 
 hymns, and what they said at the class-meetings. 
 Before I went to class, and heard what they had to 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAK 813 
 
 say there, I thought I was all alone, like a castaway 
 on a sandy shore under a great sheer wall of cliffs — 
 a narrow strip of sand which no mortal man had ever 
 trod before, and which the tide was fast sweeping 
 over bit by bit. To spell out the hymns in the book 
 by myself was like finding footprints on the sands, 
 and that was something. It made me feel my trouble 
 was no madness, as poor Mother called it ; no mad 
 dream, but leaking up from the maddest dream that 
 could be. It made me see that others had felt as I 
 felt, and struggled as I was struggling, and got througJi. 
 But when I went to the class and heard them sing the 
 hymns, it was like hearing voices on the top of the 
 cliffc cheering me up, and pointing out the way. Our 
 class-leader is no great speaker, but he's got a won- 
 derful feeling heart, and a fine voice for the hymns, 
 and it's they that has finished Parson Wesley's work, 
 and healed the wound he made : — 
 
 " ' Depths of mercy, can there be, 
 Mercy still reserved for me ?" 
 
 That was the first which settled down in my heart. I 
 couldn't listen any further, and I couldn't get that out 
 of my head for days, until another took its place : — 
 
 *' * Jesu 1 let thy pitying eye, 
 
 Call hack a wandering sheep ; 
 False to thee, like Peter, I 
 
 Would fain like Peter weep. 
 Let me be by grace restored. 
 
 On me be all long-suffering shown: 
 Turn and look upon me, Lord^ 
 
 And break my heart of stone. 
 
 •* * For thine own compassion's sake, 
 The gracious wonder show ; 
 Cast my sins behind thy back. 
 And wash me white as snoi» . 
 
 27 
 
314 THE DIARY OF 
 
 If thy bowels now be stirred, 
 
 If now I would myself bemoan. 
 Turn and look upon m«, Lord^ 
 
 And break my heart of stone, 
 
 •* * Look as when thy languid eye 
 
 Was closed that we might live ; 
 *' Father" (at the point to die 
 
 My Saviour gasped), " Forgive I*' 
 Surely with that dying word, 
 
 He turns, and looks, and cries, '**Ti8 donel" 
 OA, iny bleeding, loving Lord, 
 
 Thou break' 8t my heart of stone /•' 
 
 " That hymn," Toby said, " seemed to put a new 
 picture" in his heart. Instead of the pale face of the 
 poor lad lying lifeless on the sands, which had lately 
 haunted him night and day, another countenance rose 
 before him, pale and all but lifeless, but with the hol- 
 low eyes, large with pain, fixed in the tenderest pity 
 on him. He understood that " God was in Christ 
 reconciling the world unto himself. "^"^ He felt that it was 
 the face of the Judge that looked so tenderly on him 
 from the cross ; that suffering beyond any he had 
 ever dreaded had been borne for him by the Lord 
 himself, made sin for him. And he felt he was for- 
 given. 
 
 Then all day his heart seemed bursting with the 
 joy of reconciliation, and he was singing, — 
 
 ** Thee will I love, my joy, my crown. 
 Thee will 1 love, my Lord, my God, 
 
 Thee will I love, beneath thy frown 
 Or smile, thy sceptre or thy rod : 
 
 What though my flesh and heart decay. 
 Thee shall I love in endless day." 
 
 Everywhere that dying face of his Saviour seemed 
 beaming on him in the fullness of pity and love, and 
 
MES. KITTY TREVYLTAN. 815 
 
 those words, '•''"'Tis done! Father^ for gimV filled 
 all the world with music. He could see or hear 
 nothing else. 
 
 " And now V said Mother. 
 
 " Now, Missis," said Toby, " I see all things once 
 more, as they are ; but it seems as if everything were 
 changed inwardly, though the outside is the same. 
 The curse is taken out of everything. Even that 
 poor dead lad's face, I see it now, and I am not 
 afeared. For it seems to say, ' Not to me, Toby, it's 
 too late, I want nothing ; not to me^ but to all the rest, 
 for my sake. And the two faces seem to get mixed 
 up in my mind. Missis, the poor drowned lad's and 
 His ; and still the words the dumb lips speak are the 
 same, * Not to Me^ all is well with Me ; lut to aU the 
 rest, for My sake,'' And that," concluded Toby, '* is 
 what I live in hopes it'll be given me to do, before I 
 die." 
 
 " How, Toby ?" said Mother. 
 
 " Wliy, Missis," he said, " I watch for the wrecks 
 more than ever I did in old times. I watch for the 
 crews as I never watched for the cargoes. And one 
 of these days it's my belief the Lord '11 give me to 
 save some of them, and to see some poor lifeless souls 
 wake up to life again up there by mother's fire. And 
 then I shall feel those two faces smiling on me up in 
 heaven, the poor drowned lad's, Missis, and the 
 blessed Lord's himself. And that '11 be reward 
 enough for an angel, let alone that an angel could 
 never know the shame, and the sin, and the bitter 
 reproaches in my heart that makes it like heaven to 
 me to dare to look up in His face at all." 
 
 " And meantime ?" said Mother. 
 
 " Meantime, Missis," said Toby, " Parson Wesley 
 
816 MRS, KITTY TRE7YLYAN. 
 
 says that the end of all the commandments of God is 
 love, and since I once saw that, — that what pleases 
 the Lord is for us to be good and kind to each other, 
 it's wonderful how many chances I've got of pleasing 
 Him. There's hardly a day without them." 
 
 And as she rode home on the grey pony Mother 
 said, *' Kitty, our Saviour said, ' The last shall be 
 first,' and I think I never understood so well what He 
 meant as to-day. As I left that poor fellow's cottage, 
 with the open Bible on the window ledge, it seemed 
 to me as sacred as a church." 
 
X. 
 
 yHE post-mistress at Falmouth will begin to 
 think me quite an important personage. This 
 morning two letters arrived for me — one from 
 London from Jack, and another from New York from 
 Hugh. 
 
 Hugh's letter contains a kind of brief narrative of 
 his travels, which I read to Father and Mother. 
 
 It also contains a little especial piece for me, which 
 T do not read to any one. 
 
 I am quite surprised to find what large towns and 
 what a number of people there are in the American 
 colonies. 
 
 I always thought America was a kind of place of 
 exile where every one always looked unsettled, as if 
 they were only staying there for a short time, and 
 -where things were always at a beginning. I never 
 thought of people being really at home there. Of 
 course it was a foolish thought. Hugh says some of 
 the towns are a hundred years old, and some of the 
 houses looked quite venerable. 
 
 Hugh went through a great deal of Ireland on foot 
 on his way, and took ship at Cork. During his 
 wanderings he lodged in the little, dirty, smoky 
 Irish cabins, or wherever he could find shelter, and 
 preached in all kinds of wild places, or in crowded 
 
^18 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 Btreets, wherever he could find people ready to 
 listen. 
 
 " Sometimes," he writes, " the poor peasants at fii*st 
 took me for a new kind of mendicant friar, and seemed 
 rather disappointed when at the end of my sermon I 
 did not proceed to beg. Their warm Irish hearts are 
 easily touched— tears and r',cssings pour forth readily 
 (as also on other occasions curses). The spontaneous 
 responses are strange enough at times. As I read the 
 
 * prodigal son,' a voice cried out, * By all the saints 
 that's me ;' or, on some home-thrust, in angry tone, 
 
 * What traitor then told you that of Pat Blake V per- 
 haps accompanied with a handful of mud ; — or oftener, 
 
 * Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us miserable 
 sinners ;' or, * Sweet Jesus, have mercy on us I' or, 
 
 * By the mass, that's true.' I try to speak of the love 
 of God to men, and the sacrifice of the Cross, and of 
 the joy of God in welcoming the returning sinner, 
 and of the joy of the forgiven child ; and those truths 
 which we hold in common with the church of Rome, 
 although, unhappily, too much as the green meadow 
 where Daisy feeds has a common soil with the bare 
 patch beyond it, which the tinners have covered with 
 destructive rubb^'sh. It is more and more amazing 
 to me, the more 1 see of the world, to find to what an 
 extent, and by what an infinite variety of means, the 
 enemy has contrived to bury out of sight the great 
 life-giving truth that God is love and loves the world 
 — that He has redeemed us at infinite cost — that His 
 one command to us is to return to Him and be wel- 
 comed and blessed, and find the joy we were made 
 for in serving Him. 
 
 " Sometimes, however, my reception is very differ- 
 ent. The reputation of the new heresy of Methodism 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 819 
 
 has gone before me. * SwaddUrs ' is the term of re- 
 proach here taken up by the ignorant mob, from a 
 sermon preached by Job Cennick on the text, * She 
 took the babe and wrapped it in swaddling clothes, 
 and laid it in a manger.' In such cases the whole 
 population rise together, especially the women, and 
 vociferate and curse as I think only Irish voices can, 
 until they are tired, and give me a hearing from sheer 
 exhaustion, or until they excite themselves to a fury 
 ready for any violence, and pelt me out of the i)lace. 
 " In Cork the excited mob attacked the * Swad- 
 dlers ' in the streets with clubs and swords, wounded 
 many dangerously, and began to pull do^vn one of 
 their houses. In spite or in consequence of this per- 
 secution, nowhere, Mr. Wesley says, have there been 
 more living and dying witnesses of the power of re- 
 ligion than at Cork. Already Methodism has had 
 more than one martyr in Ireland. Persecution draws 
 the persecuted together with a wonderful strength 
 of affection. It is not the mobs we have to dread as 
 the worst hindrance to religion in Ireland ; it is the 
 excitable, variable spirit of the people themselves, so 
 easily touched and so easily turned aside. And Mr. 
 Wesley says the lifeless Protestants, who hate Chris- 
 tianity more than they do Popery or Paganism, are 
 the worst enemies of the gospel in Ireland. But the 
 excitement of speaking to an Ii'ish audience is great. 
 The quick comprehension of any illusion, the quick 
 response in the expressive faces to every change in 
 your own emotions, are very exhilarating, after thcj. 
 slower and heavier masses of our Saxon countrymen. 
 Yet to see an English multitude once really stirred to 
 the heart, is a sight which moves me more deeply than 
 anything. It is like the heaving of the great sea on 
 
820 
 
 THE DIARY OF 
 
 our own coasts. Those great massive waves do not 
 easily subside, and rocks crumble before their steady 
 power like sand-banks. 
 
 " Charles Wesley's hymns have immense power in 
 Ireland. There is a strange story of a bitter perse- 
 cutor at Wexford hiding himself in a sack in a bam 
 where the persecuted Methodists assembled, with the 
 doors shut for fear of the people. He intended to 
 open the door to the mob outside. But in his hiding- 
 place the singing laid such hold on his heart, that he 
 resolved to hear it through before he disturbed the 
 meeting. After the singing, the prayer laid hold on 
 his conscience, and he lay trembling and moaning in 
 the sack, to the great alarm of the congregation, who 
 thought it was the Devil. At length some one took 
 courage to open the sack, and there lay the persecutor, 
 a weeping penitent. His heart had really been 
 reached, and his conversion proved permanent. 
 
 " Thus again and again the hymns lull the jealous 
 sentinels of Prejudice to sleep, and leave the fortress 
 of Conscience open to the assaults of the Truth. 
 
 " I have only once myself encountered a really fu- 
 rious mob. I had been speaking to an attentive crowd 
 in an open space in the middle of a town. Some had 
 been moved to tears, and the general attention had 
 been profound. AVhile I spoke, I had observed the 
 keen eyes of one old woman intently fixed on me with 
 an ominous, searching gaze. When I finished with 
 prayer and a hymn, her eyes suddenly flashed into 
 rage, and she exclaimed in a shrill, piercing voice, 
 * Where^^ your Hail Mary,'' 
 
 The change in the audience was as if a spell of 
 witchcraft had been cast on them. Loud cries and 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 32i 
 
 deep curses suddenly poured forth against tlie here 
 tic, the deceiver ; stones and sticks began to fly from 
 all sides around me. 
 
 " It is a terrible experience to find yourself thus 
 suddenly face to face with an angry mob, every mem- 
 ber of which is a human being with a heart like your 
 own, capable of pity and kindness, and physically no 
 stronger than yourself; but which altogether is a 
 fierce, inhuman monster, capable of tearing you in 
 l)ieces, with no more difl&culty and no more j)ity than 
 a hungry lion. It is a trial to courage to feel your- 
 self, with all your strength of manhood, helpless as 
 an infant in the grasp of hundreds of men, no one of 
 whom, perhaps, could make you yield an inch. But 
 it is a far sorer trial to faith and love to find hun- 
 dreds of your fellow-men, and even of women, no one 
 of whom, perhaps, alone, would refuse you help and 
 shelter, transformed into a dreadful, merciless mon- 
 ster, with the brain of a man, the heart of a wild 
 beast, and the strength of the sea in a storm. 
 
 " To me the danger seemed lost in the sorrow. It 
 was like having a glimpse into hell, thus to have 
 unveiled before me the terrible capacities for evil in 
 the heart of man, which make it possible for men to 
 be transformed into a mob. 
 
 *' The danger was soon over, for (I know not how) 
 a division arose among my assailants ; they began 
 fighting among themselves, and I escaped with a 
 graze or two on my forehead. 
 
 " But, Kitty, it was not until I had spent more 
 than one night in prayer, it was not until I recollected 
 another mob, which accom])li8hed its purpose^ until once 
 more above such a sea of cruel, mocking, inhuman, 
 human faces, I had seen by faith, One sublime, suffer- 
 
0»» THE DIARY OF 
 
 ing, human Face uplifted, divine in unruffled love 
 and pity ; until once more by faith, I had heard those 
 tones faltering with pain, but unfaltering in compas- 
 sionate love, * Father, forgive them ; for they know 
 not what they do.' It was not till then that I could 
 take heart, and hope to go forth once more with the 
 message of pardon and grace. But then^ I think I 
 never gave the message, I am sure I never felt it with 
 half the power before. 
 
 " And then I recollected yet another mob which 
 also accomplished its purpose, mercilessly pelting its 
 victim with stones until he ' fell asleep,' and what oiu 
 of that merciless mob became. Such possibilities of 
 good are there even in hearts out of which fanaticism 
 may seem to have scorched all humanity. 
 
 *' Here in America I have found no mobs, but, 
 instead, throngs of eager listeners ; men, women, and 
 children, riding scores of miles through forest and 
 wilderness, and encamping in the open country for 
 nights to hear the preacher. 
 
 " The honored name here is not so much Wesley's 
 as Whitefield's, and the love for him is immeasurable. 
 I think the accents of this apostle from our country 
 have to the colonists the double charm of novelty 
 and of home. There is still much aficctionate rever- 
 ence here for the 'old country,' although I think, 
 with many, partaking more than we should think 
 flattering of the reverence for old age. Perhaps they 
 have as little idea here in the colonies of the freshness 
 and youth left in the heart of the old country, as we 
 have in England of the manhood and strength which 
 hhe new country has attained. 
 
 " The field labor in the warm Southern States is 
 
3ri!S. KITTY TREYYLYAN. 328 
 
 mostly carried on by black slaves imported from 
 Africa. Some of the simplest and most fervent con- 
 verts are among these negroes. Susceptible and im- 
 pressible even more than the Irish, easily moved to 
 tears and laughter, their circumstances of bondage 
 (and in many cases), of exile, make the tidings oifre^ 
 grace^ of a Saviour loving black and white alike, and 
 paying the ransom for all, peculiarly welcome. 
 
 '* The first missions to the slaves were those of the 
 Moravians in the West Indies. And there have been 
 persecutions there for Christ's sake, in some respects 
 like those of early times, bonds and imprisonments, 
 * cruel mockings and scourgings,' inflicted, not by 
 mobs, but by masters. 
 
 " These diabolical possibilities of cruelty which un- 
 limited power (whether in masters or mobs, kings or 
 priests) develops in the hearts of men, are things I 
 dare not dwell on, except on my knees. 
 
 ** But God is stronger than Satan ; and love is 
 mightier and more enduring than malice. 
 
 " The Cross, not the Sanhedrim, has triumphed." 
 
 :ic ^ ^ 4( ^ H: 
 
 " P. 8, — I have seen Tom Henderson. 
 
 " He has been successful in his schemes, and is on 
 Ms way in time to be a rich man. He was full of 
 magnificent projects of returning to his father's house 
 like a prince, and entreating forgiveness with a for- 
 tune in his hands, that should make it plain he 
 r.ought forgiveness for its own sake and not for the 
 sake of any advantages it might bring. I have en- 
 deavored to persuade him that his duty is to write if 
 not to go home at once, not as a prince, but as a 
 repentant runaway — ' ) throw himself on his father's 
 
tf24 TEE DIAllT OF 
 
 forgiveness, bear his reproaches, and help him in any 
 way he can. 
 
 " He fought against this very much at first, but I 
 told him, Kitty, what you told me you had seen of 
 his mother^s grief, and had suspected of his father's ; 
 and I can perceive it is working, if by nothing else, 
 by the vehemence and testiness with which he meets 
 my arguments." 
 
 Jack's letter is very brief and very different from 
 Hugh's. It begins a little bitterly, alluding dispar- 
 agingly to some former friends, especially to one 
 young gambling nobleman Cousin Evelyn warned us 
 against. He has found them out, he says, and al 
 though his reliance on human nature has sustained 
 a shock, and although (as he writes emphatically) he 
 will never be able to understand the pretensions to 
 gentlemanly diaracter of people who live on the 
 fnendliest terms with you as long as your purse is 
 full, and cannot see you across the street when you 
 happen to be in want of a little assistance ; — still he 
 has no doubt the wheel of fortune has yet its good 
 turn for him. But in the postscript his tone changes 
 from these rather cynical reflections to the most 
 sanguine anticipations. He has found, he says, a 
 mine of gold, in the shape of a company for farming 
 the mines in Peru, where, as he observes, the Sj^an- 
 iards found the half civilized natives, centuries ago, 
 eating off silver, and drinking out of gold. And if 
 these simple natives with their poor implements con- 
 trived to extract such untold icealth from merely 
 Bcratcliing^ as it were, the surface of the earth, what 
 may not Englishmen in the Eighteenth Century dis- 
 cover by penetrating into its heart f The secretary, 
 
MRS, KITTY TREVYLYA2T. 825 
 
 he says, who has suggested these 'cery obvious conclu- 
 sions to a hitherto marvellously Minded public, is a 
 wonderfuUy clever fellow, and his particular friend. 
 He is appointed under-secretary, good names being 
 of great value, he says, in the commencement of 
 such enterprises, and already he has received a 
 hundred pounds as the first instalment of his salary. 
 
 In the second postscript he adds, that the sale of 
 his commission^ now, of course, with such lyrilliant 
 prospects^ useless to him ; especially since the war is 
 over, and there is no honor to be won^ and no service 
 to be rendered the country^ has brought him in a 
 trifle to meet his more pressing debts. So that (he 
 adds, considerately) we need not have an anxious 
 thought of his trifling liabilities^ which are, indeed, 
 already all but discharged. 
 
 " Poor, dear fellow," said Mother, with a sigh, as 
 she laid down the letter ; " he is always full of kind 
 intentions." 
 
 Father was out when the letters arrived, and he 
 did not read them till to-day. I never saw him in 
 such a passion as Jack's letters put him in. 
 
 '•'' Brilliant prospects^ indeed," he said, "to be the 
 servant of a beggarly trading company ! ' Good 
 names P too good, at least, to be dragged through 
 the mire by a set of scoundrelly swindlers, ji'^'c like 
 the South Sea Bubble." 
 
 Irritated more and more by his 0>vc indignant 
 words, he first attacked Jack, next himself, and 
 finally Mother and me. He said we had all been a 
 eet of doting idiots, and that the only way to have 
 saved Jack would have been to have let him have 
 his own way from the first, and go to sea. It had 
 been an instinct of self-preservation in the lad, and 
 28 
 
»»D THE DIARY OF 
 
 we were all more to blame than he. Now he had 
 been crossed, everything had gone wrong. But it 
 was too late now. He would go to Falmouth the 
 next morning, have the old place put up to auction, 
 take the first sliip that sailed for the colonies, and so 
 be out of hearing when Jack came to the gallows, 
 for there it would end ; nothing short of that, there 
 could be no doubt." 
 
 At first Mother's tears fell fast, while I was too 
 frightened to cry ; but afterwards I saw Mother 
 growing whiter and whiter, until at last her tears 
 quite dried, and she sat quite still with steady eyes 
 and compressed lips, and her hand pressed firmly on 
 her heart. Then I burst into tears, and knelt beside 
 her, and took her hands in mine and sobbed out, 
 ^' Oh, Father, look, look, see what you are doing." 
 He stopped in the full current of his wrath, looked 
 at Mother, stooped and kissed her forehead, and said 
 in a husky voice, — 
 
 *' Polly, I am a brute. I always have been ; and 
 you are an angel. Don't take it so to heart. You 
 know I don't mean half I say. There, the boy's a 
 kind fellow after all. It '11 all come right ; be sure 
 it will. I'm ten times as good-for-nothing as he is. 
 Polly. Cheer up sweetheart. The wild oats must 
 be sown. Jack 'II be an honor to the old name 
 yet." 
 
 But words cannot heal the wounds words can 
 make. Mother did not say a bitter word or shed a 
 tear ; but I do not like her look. 
 
 All day she has been moving gently about, saying 
 cheering words to us all, especially to Father, who is 
 as subdued and gentle as she is. But her face lias 
 had an unnatural fixedness, and when I kissed her 
 
31 RS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 827 
 
 ^u(>J-night ill the porcli-closet, she folded me in her 
 arms and said, — 
 
 "Kitty, darling, indeed I would not have kept 
 him from sea, if I had been sure his heart was set 
 on it. I am afraid I have been very selfish ; but oh, 
 Kitty, God knows, I would have given up seeing him 
 again all my life to do him good. Poor Jack ! God 
 forgive me ! Yet, Kitty, it cannot be too late ! Say 
 you do not think it can ?" 
 
 There was something in that child-like appeal to 
 me which pierced my heart more than if I had seen 
 her sob in auguish. 
 
 But she did not shed a tear. Her eyes were dry 
 and blight, and I tiied to keep my voice quite firm 
 and cheerful, as I said, — 
 
 " Of course, it is not too late, Mother. TVe will have 
 him back to us. He shall take up the farm again 
 vv^ith Father ; and they will get on so much better 
 than they ever did before. You will see." 
 
 She shook her head ; but she smiled, as if a faint 
 hope began to dawn in her heart ; and I said, — 
 
 *' Mother, it is 7iever too late. We can pray for 
 him night and day. And that must help him." 
 
 But as I sit down here alone, my own heart sinks, 
 and sinks below the worst fears Father expressed in 
 his anger. 
 
 What ever will make Jack understand about ri</At 
 and wrong f Ob, if Hugh were only here." 
 
 Yet, alas ! if Hugh had been here, could he ward 
 off all evils ? Could he have warded off one of thestj 
 evils from those he loves ? 
 
 The echo of my own words brings the words O'' 
 another sister to my heart, — 
 
828 THE DIARY OF 
 
 "If TTwu hadst been here, my brother had not 
 died." 
 
 He could have been there ! He knew all. But He 
 kept away. The sisters drank the bitter cup to the 
 dregs. The brother died. 
 
 Then through the anguish came the deliverance 
 and the unutterable joy. 
 
 I will trust. I will never give up trusting. There 
 is reason. " The same yesterday, and to-day, and for 
 ever." 
 
 We have passed through a storm of trouble since 
 I wrote last. For weeks I have not had heart to write 
 a word, if I had had time. 
 
 Have we got tTirough the storm ? Are we on dry 
 land once more ? This trembling and anxiety, and 
 restless expectation of something worse, is it only 
 like the uncertainty and giddiness one feels when one 
 steps on dry land after a rough Toyage ? Or are we 
 still on the waves, and is this only a temporary lull ? 
 
 The day after Father's reading that unhappy letter 
 of poor Jack's, Mother tried to rise as usual, and 
 come down stairs ; but she fainted whilst dressing ; 
 and Betty and I found it difficult to lift her into the 
 bed again, so heavily did her slight frame lie in our 
 arms in its helpless unconsciousness. 
 
 Father was distracted with alarm when he came to 
 breakfast, and heard that Mother was ill. He would 
 not touch a morsel of food, but saddling a horse j t 
 once galloped off to Falmouth for the doctor. 
 
 When the doctor came. Mother was better, and 
 made so light of her ailments, that he, himself a stout, 
 florid little man, who looked as if he had never been 
 ill in his life, persuaded us we had all been unneccs* 
 
MRS. KITTY TBEVYLYAm 829 
 
 sarily alarmed. "A momentary suspension of the 
 action of the heart, a slight disturbance of the circu- 
 Lilion, would frequently bring on consequences,'* he 
 said, " of the most alarming kind. Of the most 
 alarming kind, Mr. Trevylyan, to the uninitiated ! 
 There is a slight flushing and trembling. Sometimes, 
 in ordinary cases, I would have recommended bleed- 
 ing or a blister ; but your good lady seems not quite 
 in a state to bear much additional loss of strength. 
 This evening I will send an especial messenger with 
 an electuary, of which I had the prescription lately 
 from the surgeon of a Spanish ship. I have no doubt 
 we shall be well enough to do anything — to ride after 
 the hounds if we please. Captain Trevylyan, in a 
 week or two. A generous diet, and, above all, cheer- 
 ful conversation, such as I am sure (he concluded, 
 making a bow to me) cannot fail, my dear young lady, 
 with you for the nurse. Above all, cheerfulness. The 
 first and last ingredient . in all my prescriptions is 
 cheei-fulness. Life is not long enough, with all our 
 science, Mr. Trevylyan ; with all our science, life is 
 not long enough for care." 
 
 And the rosy doctor mounted his horse, and rode 
 cheerily away, leaving Father, Betty, and me in very 
 different states of mind. 
 
 '' A very sensible man," said Father; " a veiy skill- 
 ful and penetrating man. Kitty, you see we must 
 cheer up." 
 
 And going up to Mother's bedside, he said, — 
 
 " My dear, the doctor gives us the most cheering 
 accounts. In a few days you will be as usual ; in- 
 deed, perhaps, better than ever. It really seems quite 
 a blessing, Kitty," he said to me, as he took his long- 
 delayed breakfast, " that your Mother had this little 
 28* 
 
830 THE DIARY OF 
 
 attack. It may be her restoration, quite her restora- 
 tion. That doctor has such a quantity of life in him 
 he seems to put it into his patients." 
 
 But Betty took a very different view, and a very 
 j^loomy one. She would do nothing but shake her 
 head ominously, except when she launched out into 
 an attack on the medicine recommended by the Span- 
 ish doctor, who, she had little doubt, was sent ex- 
 pressly by the Pope or the King of Spain to murder 
 as many English folks as he could in a quiet way. 
 *' Not," she concluded, " that I think medicine has 
 much to do with poor dear ^Rlissis, one way or the 
 other." 
 
 So I went back to Mother's chamber to look as 
 cheerful as I could, with my heart full of a ter- 
 rible dread, of which Betty's tokens were but the 
 echoes. 
 
 All day the flush in Mother's face deepened, and no 
 effort of mine could keep her from talking with an 
 eager rapidity quite unlike herself, of having Jack 
 back to us, and how bright we would make the old 
 home for him, and how this was the turning-point, 
 and all would soon be well. *' For you know it is 
 not too late, Kitty," she kept saying. "It is never 
 too late." 
 
 Fathei kept restlessly hovering about the house all 
 day, occasionally coming in with a gentle step, and 
 saying some pleasant word to her. And at meals, 
 those desolate meals, he repeatedly said to me, — 
 
 " You must not be so anxious, child. You have 
 Reen so little of illness. You take on too much. The 
 doctor said there is nothing to alarm any one who 
 understands the matter, nothing in the least alarm- 
 ing ; and whenever I go in, Kitty, she is quite cheery, 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 831 
 
 Kitty, quite clieery. There is nothing to be anxious 
 about." 
 
 And then he would rise with his food scarcely 
 tasted, and go to the door and whistle for Trusty, 
 and come back in a minute to assure me, with more 
 vehemence than ever, there was nothing to be anxious 
 about, nothing at all ; and to beg me to keep up 
 heart, and look very cheery in Mother's chamber. 
 
 But when, as night came on. Mother's eyes seemed 
 to grow brighter and larger than ever, and her utter- 
 ance more rapid, and at last instead of those sanguine 
 eager plans about Jack, she began to talk about all 
 kinds of trifles, and at length I crept out to tell Fa- 
 ther I was sure she was not belter, and he came in, 
 and she asked him eager rapid questions about things 
 she did not care about in the least, I shall never for- 
 get the look of anguish which came over his face. 
 
 " Oh, Kitty," he said, when I came down aftisr- 
 wards and found him sitting by the untasted supper 
 with his face in his hands, " Oh, Kitty, I have killed 
 her." 
 
 After that we were obliged to keep him away from 
 her room. His presence seemed to excite her so 
 j)ainfully. Again and again, when I left the room 
 for anything during that night, I found him standing 
 listening at the door with hushed breath, and a face 
 haggard and sunken as if he had been watching * for 
 nights. 
 
 It was a dreadful time. Mother's dear gentle voice 
 raised to that unnatural eager tone, saying things that 
 were no thoughts of hers, demanding replies to all 
 kinds of wild questions, — with the knowledge that 
 that other dear despairing face was watching at the 
 
382 THE DIARY OF 
 
 door outside, and that every one of those quick un- 
 natural tones was piercing his heart. 
 
 In the morning when I came out of the room he 
 was standing at the head of the stairs with Trusty 
 sitting bolt upright beside him. Father laid his 
 hand on my shoulder with questioning looks, which 
 he did not dare to put in words, while the x)oor 
 faithful old dog licked my hand with a little p^er- 
 plexed whine. There was something in his old kind 
 familiar ways which broke the spell of unnatural 
 calm to which the excitement had kept me strained, 
 and I laid my head on Father's shoulder and wept. 
 
 " Poor little Kitty," he said, '' my poor little maid !'* 
 and we went down to the hall together, while Betty 
 stayed in Mother's room. 
 
 After that Betty took us all in hand, and reigned 
 as I suppose the most capable people always will for 
 a time when there is a storm, and every one feels in 
 danger. 
 
 I made a faint proposition that we should send again 
 for the doctor, chiefly because I thought the ride to 
 fetch him would be the best thing for Father. 
 
 But Father's confidence in the cheery man's skill 
 was broken, and Betty decidedly prohibited any such 
 expedition. 
 
 " There be strange tales," she said, *' of folks that 
 live on the lives of other folks. I don't say I believe 
 them altogether, but I can't abide his double chii; 
 and his round fat face ; nor I believe can Missis." 
 
 " But the ride might do Father good, I said. 
 
 " I don't see folks have any right to go imposing 
 on grown up people as if they were babies," said 
 Betty. " Poor dear Missis was too much that way 
 herself always, and if Master musn't go into the 
 
MES. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 833 
 
 room, and can't be kept from hovering about the 
 door like a ghost, the best thmg is to make him of 
 some use." 
 
 So Father was appointed carrier ; and now, many 
 a time, it was as difficult to bear as Mother's wander- 
 ing words to see him creeping up and down stairs 
 without his shoes, carrying little cups and trays as 
 laboriously as if they had been tons weight, with his 
 efforts not to let a drop be spilt or a spoon jmgle. 
 
 Betty's treatment was very simple. She let dear 
 Mother have what she liked, and do whatever she 
 thought would make her most comfortable. 
 
 " It's my belief tliey Iniow oft-times, Mrs. Kitty," 
 she said to me mysteriously, " what's good for them. 
 And if not, God Almighty only can keep the life in 
 any of us, and in my opinion we've no right to make 
 them more wretched than they need be." 
 
 Therefore, contrary to all rules I ever heard of, 
 when dear Mother seemed oppressed for breath, 
 Betty opened the window and let the sweet fresh air 
 in, and when she complained of thirst Betty brought 
 her cool fresh water. 
 
 On the third night she insisted on sending me and 
 Father to bed. 
 
 "You can't work miracles, my dear," she said, 
 * and the Almighty doesn't see fit to work them now- 
 a-days. And if you sit up gazing at Missis another 
 night, you'll be as bad as she is, and that'll be more 
 of a handful than I can manage." 
 
 So at last, on the condition that I should have 
 !RIother all to myself on the following night, while 
 Betty rested, and with the solemn promise that I 
 should be called instantly if Mother asked for me, I 
 went to my chamber. 
 
834 
 
 THE DIARY OF 
 
 How hard it was to turn from those dear wander- 
 ing unt onscious eyes ! To close the door between ns 
 seemed Hke rolling the stone before a sepulchre. I 
 should have turned back by as irresistible an attrac- 
 tion as that which draws a poor bird with clipped 
 wings down to the earth from which it struggles, but 
 for the knowledge how the opening of the door made 
 that fragile frame start and tremble, and how eagerly 
 she looked for that unknown something any sound 
 seemed always to rouse her to expect. I did not 
 expect to sleep for a moment. 
 
 Yet after I had laid down and had begun a prayer 
 for Mother, comforting myself with the thought I 
 could help her in that way, the next thing I waf 
 conscious of was the quiet dawn stealing up through 
 my casement, and a sound, not in my ears, but in my 
 heart, of these words, '' I shall not die hut live^ and de- 
 clai'e the works of the Lord^ 
 
 I rose up and looked around towards the window. 
 Everything was so still in that sacred calm of early 
 morning, that I think it would not have surprised 
 me to catch the glistening of the white garment of an 
 angel going up through the still pure air beyond the 
 old thorn, beyond the old elms, beyond the green 
 hill, beyond that soft grey cloud into the pure light 
 of the dawn, pure as if it streamed through the gates 
 of pearl. 
 
 But there was nothing to be seen, nothing to tell 
 whose whisper that was which was echoing softly 
 through my heart when I woke. 
 
 For it teas a Voice, I am sure, a heart and spirit 
 speaking to mine ; so distinct, so outside me were tlie 
 words, and yet so mysteriously within. 
 
 They lingered in my heart with a power beyond 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLTAK 885 
 
 that of any music, and filled it with an unspeakable 
 rapture of calm and peace. 
 
 So I rose and dressed, and said my morning- 
 prayers, looking out of my open window. 
 
 Those words seemed to have taken all fluttering 
 and hurrying haste and terror from me. 
 
 I said to myself, — 
 
 *' I will not be superstitious — I will not build my 
 hopes on signs, or omens, or even on these words. 
 Oh, my Saviour, my Father, I will build on nothing 
 but Thy love. But yet I will not put away the com- 
 fort of those words from me. They are Thy words, 
 and whatever else they mean, they mean love. And 
 I will lean — I will rest — I do lean and rest my whole 
 heart and soul on that — on Thee." 
 
 It seemed to me as if my whole being had been 
 bathed in a well of living water, when I went back to 
 Mother's chamber, so fresh it felt, and strong. At 
 the door stood Father listening as if he had been 
 there long. I stood and whispered him some words 
 of comfort. And when I opened the door so noise- 
 lessly that Betty did not turn to look, and crept to 
 Mother's bedside, she Iool:ed at me. She looked into 
 my eyes, with quiet conscious love, she stretched out 
 her thin hand and laid it in mine ; and then as I sat 
 down and held it in both mine — afraid to show too 
 much of what I felt — the feeble grasp relaxed, her 
 breathing came and went, evenly, softly as a child's. 
 It was the soft even breathing of sleep. 
 
 She slept on until dawn had deepened into day, 
 and all the many colored changes by which the hours 
 are illuminated and distinguished from each othei 
 when the day is new, had passed into the changeless 
 radiance of mid-dav, and there was nothin^^ left bv 
 
886 THE DIARY OF 
 
 wMcli to mark the time, but my own hopes, countmg 
 every minute of such repose as a priceless treasure ; 
 and my fears for Father watching, ignorant of all, at 
 that closed door. 
 
 At length she opened her eyes, and Betty who had 
 been watching her, as still and silent as I had been, 
 rose and brought her some jelly. 
 
 And then she asked for Father. 
 
 There was no need for me to call him. As soon as 
 the words had left her lips the door opened without 
 a sound, and his poor haggard face appeared, in- 
 quiring with mute touching looks what he ought 
 to do. 
 
 I rose and leu ^^m to the bedside. 
 
 Mother held out her hand to him, and said, — 
 
 "- Dear, I shall get well." 
 
 As he had been so often enjoined by Betty, he tried 
 hard not to betray his feelings, but just to look quietly 
 pleased, as if it was just what he had hoped, and to 
 say, some easy, cheering, natural words. But the 
 quiet look was quite a failure from his j^oor sunken 
 eyes, and mth the attempt at the cheering word, his 
 quivering lips failed altogether, and with one pas- 
 sionate sob he sought to withdraw his hand from 
 hers and leave the room. 
 
 But she laid her other hand on his, and he had no 
 resource but to fall on his knees and bow his face 
 over her hands, and weep like a child. 
 
 Betty lifted up her hands in horror, but when she 
 tried to speak, her voice failed too ; so she turned 
 away, and I knelt down by father, and in a few 
 minutes led him gently away. 
 
 It was not till Mother was sleeping again, and we 
 were in the hall together, and Betty brought in the 
 
MRS, KJTTY THEVYLYAN. 337 
 
 Slipper, or whatever that nondescript meal might be 
 called, which was our first and last that day, that she 
 recovered her self-command enough to say in answer 
 to an apologetic remark of Father's concerning his 
 disturbing Mother, — 
 
 '* Well, Master, I don't see that there's much to 
 choose between us all as to that matter; it is no 
 doing of ours, and we've nothing to boast of, if the 
 Almighty has seen fit to work a miracle ; for that it 
 is a miracle I have no manner of doubt. There have 
 been signs and tokens enough to prepare anybody for 
 another drowning of the world, and we've all done 
 our best to kill her ; and there's Missis sleeping as 
 innocent and as quiet as a lamb !" 
 
 Sweet hallowed nights of hopeful watching, when 
 I lay awake till I heard her breathing fall into the 
 even cadences of sleep, and woke to hand some little 
 nourishing draught or refreshing drink to her, and 
 to hear her dear voice murmur thanks, or perhaj^s 
 some sweet old verses of gratitude from her beloved 
 George Herbert. 
 
 Then those delicious days of her gradually return- 
 ing strength ! To watch day by day the precious 
 little steps of recovery ! It was like watching the 
 leaves ojjen, and the flowers in spring, each day being 
 a new delight ; only the life whose precious tide was 
 slowly rising thus from point to point, was no uncon- 
 scious flood of natural growth — it was Mother's life ! 
 
 Then that first Sunday when she was lifted into 
 her own little x^orch-closet, and laid on the couch by 
 the window ! She had insisted on being lifted there 
 in the morning, and that all but Betty should go 
 to church ; she had wanted Betty also to accompany 
 us, but no authority in the house reached to that. 
 29 
 
338 THE DIARY OF 
 
 As I left her, she broke out agair. into Ifcrbert 
 (which is her music), murmuring, — 
 
 " Christ hath took in this piece of ground, 
 And make a garden there for those 
 Who want herbs for their wound. 
 
 " Thou art a day of mirth : 
 
 And where tlie week-days trail aground, 
 
 Thy flight is liigher, as thy birtli : 
 Oh, let me take thee at one bound. 
 
 Leaping with thee from seven to seven ; 
 
 Till that we both, being tossed from earth. 
 Fly hand in hand to heaven." 
 
 With such holy strains echoing in our ears, and 
 such gratitude in our hearts, a very happy walk was 
 Father's and mine to church that Sunday, across the 
 corn-fields, with the little waves dashing against the 
 rocks far below. 
 
 And very real and living were the prayers, and 
 thanksgivings, and responses of the service. They 
 seemed just as if they were a new song, made ex- 
 pressly for Father and me that morning. 
 
 As we returned. Father said to me confidentially, — 
 
 *' Kitty, do you understand that poetry of Mr. Her- 
 bert's?" 
 
 I said, " I thought I did, and that I liked it." 
 
 " You do I" replied Father despondingly ; " well, 1 
 suppose all really religious people do. But I never 
 could." 
 
 When I sat by Mother in the quiet afternoon, I told 
 her something of what Father had said, and she told 
 me how it had gladdened her as she lay there to hear 
 Betty singing hymns in her dear old cracked voice, 
 as &he went about her work, 
 
 *' I am afraid, Kitty," she said, "• I have been toe 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 3S9 
 
 dainty about words and forms. The Loly angels no 
 doubt do not need the delicate spices of quaint fan- 
 cies, to make the true prayers and praises of the 
 j)oorest sweet as incense to them. I felt it to-day as 
 I lay here, and found the smell of the dewy grass, 
 and the new mown hay, sweeter than any perfume, 
 and the sound of Betty's Wesleyan hymns sweet as 
 the singing of a cathedral choir. Yet still," she 
 added smiling, " my own thoughts flowed back into 
 the channel of old Herbert's poetry, and I sang in my 
 heart, — 
 
 *' ' My joy, my life, my crown 1' 
 
 My heart was meaning all the day ; 
 
 Somejyhat it fain wonld say ; 
 And stili it runneth muttering up and down. 
 With only this, ' My joy, my life, my crown."' 
 
 And when Father joined us, she made me read to 
 ^him the hymn, — 
 
 *' O dreadful justice, what a fright and terror 
 Wast thou of old. 
 When sin and error 
 Did show and shape thy looks to me, 
 And through their glass discolor thee 1 
 He that did but look up was proud and bold. 
 
 " But now that Christ's pure vail presents the sight, 
 I see no fears : 
 Thy hand is white. 
 Thy scales like buckets which attend, 
 And interchangeably descend, 
 Lifting to heaven from this well of tears. 
 
 •* For where before thou still didst call on me. 
 Now I still touch 
 And harp on thee, 
 God's promises hath made thee mine 
 Why should I justice now decline ? 
 Against me there is none : out for mc much.*' 
 
840 THE DIARY OF 
 
 Father endeavored to look pleased, but I could see 
 that he was much perplexed. Nor was his cheerful- 
 ness restored until I repeated to him, at Mother's 
 request, Mr. Charles Wesley's hymn, — 
 
 *' Hark I a voice divides the sky: 
 
 Happy are the faithful dead, 
 In the Lord who sweetly die ; 
 
 They from all their toils are freed. 
 Them the Spirit hath declared 
 
 Blest, unutterably blest: 
 Jesus is their great Reward, 
 
 Jesus is their endless Rest. 
 
 " Followed by their works they go 
 
 Where their Head hath gone before! 
 Reconciled by grace below, 
 
 Grace had opened Mercy's door : 
 Justified through faith alone. 
 
 Here they knew tlieir sins forgiven, 
 Here they laid their burden down. 
 
 Hallowed, and made meet for heaven. 
 
 " Who can now lament the lot 
 
 Of a saint in Christ deceased ? 
 Let the world, who know us not, 
 
 Call us hopeless and unblest : 
 When from flesh the spirit free, 
 
 Hastens homeward to return. 
 Mortals cry, ' A man is dead'— 
 
 Angels sing, 'A child is born.' " 
 
 In the evening, when Father and I were alone, ne 
 asked me what I thought Mr. Herbert meant by that 
 poetry. 
 
 I repeated to him the text, '' Wliom God hath set 
 forth to be a propitiation, through faith in Ilis blood, 
 that He might be just, and the justifier of him that 
 believeth on Jesus." *' I suppose that is what Mr. 
 Herbert meant. Father," I said. 
 
 " Then if he meant that," replied Father, rather 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN; Mt 
 
 testily, "wliy couldn't lie say it? Religion is good, 
 and riddles are good ia their way, but I don't see the 
 good of mixing them up together. I shall never he 
 able to understand the pleasure of twisting the Bible- 
 texts into a puzzle for the sake of untwdsting tliera 
 again. It's rather hard on me, Kitty, for I've taken 
 more pains than I can tell to like that stuff for your 
 Mother's sake. However, Mr. Charles Wesley 's been 
 a great friend to me with his hymns. It's a great 
 mercy for me that I've fallen on times when a man 
 may hear sermons as easy to make out as command- 
 ing orders, and religious poetry as plain as prose." 
 
 I little thought that hymn of Herbert's would so 
 soon come into use as an apology for Mother. 
 
 The Monday after that Sunday which was such a 
 great high day to us, Betty, coming down in the dusk, 
 and going to the dairy, fell over the stable-bucket, 
 which Roger had left in the way, and broke her leg. 
 The Falmouth doctor came at once and set it, and 
 says it is not at all a difficult or serious case. 
 
 But Betty, never having had an illness which pre- 
 vented her moving about in her life, grimly sets the 
 cheery doctor at defiance, and takes it for granted 
 that she is dying. 
 
 " And it's a comfort to me, Mrs. Kitty," she said to 
 me this evening, " to think I am. Leastways a com- 
 fort in some ways. It '11 be a warning to Roger as 
 long as he lives, that's one thing ; for if I've told him 
 once, about leaving the bucket in the way, and said 
 it would be the death of some one, I've told him so 
 scores of times ; and now he'll see that I told him the 
 truth. That is one thing, Mrs. Kitty ; and another 
 is the signs and tokens. They'll all be made plain, — 
 29* 
 
843 
 
 THE DIARY OF 
 
 the pulling of bells, the howling of the dog, poor fool, 
 und all. And I'm mortal glad, Mrs. Kitty," she contin- 
 ued, " that it's me after all, and not Missis." Here her 
 voice faltered, and she hesitated a minute before she 
 went on, and said, " I may as well speak out, Mrs. Kitty. 
 It's my way, and maybe you won't be troubled with me 
 or my ways much longer. I'm mortal glad it's me 
 and not Missis, Mrs. Kitty, because of the assurance, 
 tlie inward witness in the heart. I got it, my dear, 
 last year. And one day when Missis was ill, poor 
 lamb, and I asked her, she said she hadn't. So it's 
 better I should be taken first." 
 
 At first I felt a flush of indignant surprise that 
 Betty could possibly think herself more ready to go 
 to heaven, than Mother ; but gentler thoughts came 
 as soon as I looked at the poor, kind, rugged face, 
 dowTi which a few tears were trickling slowly, not I 
 knew from pain ; and I said as steadily as I could, 
 " Betty, you surely don't mean that you are more fit 
 to meet God than Mother is ?" 
 
 *' My dear," she said, " it's the inward witness. 
 Poor dear Missis, when I spoke to her about it, I'm 
 not even sure if she knew what I meant. It's God's 
 gift, my dear, and He gives freely to the poorest 
 sinners. Better than Missis ? I might as well think 
 I'm better than an angel. But I've got to feel my 
 sins are forgiven, my dear, and I'm afraid Missis has 
 not. And there's the tokens ; so, if the Almighty 
 would take me instead of her, — I'm a cross, cantank- 
 erous old woman, my dear, at best, and can never 
 look for anything but quite an under-place in heaven 
 if the Lord spares me ever so long. So I'd as lief go 
 at once." 
 
 Then as I looked at her as she turned her face 
 
MRS. KITTY TI^EVYLYAK, 343 
 
 away t*^ hide the tears, like an old Spartan as she is, 
 my heart bowed down before her, and I would have 
 knelt to her. 
 
 She would have died for any of us with joy, to 
 gain us time to be made more ready for heaven, or to 
 win us a higher place there. 
 
 For some time I could scarcely speak. And then 
 I remembered that hymn of Herbert's on God's 
 justice, and said part of it to Betty (explaining as I 
 went), where he says to Justice, — 
 
 *' For where before thou still didst call on me, 
 Now I still touch 
 And harp on thee, 
 God' s promises have made thee mine : 
 Why should £ justice now decline ? 
 Against me there is none, but for me much." 
 
 And I told her how dear Mother's eyes had glistened 
 as she listened to those words. "Is not that as- 
 surance of being accepted by God ?" I said. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, "it do sound 
 cruel like it. And I suppose the Almighty must 
 allow folks to say things in their own way ; and if it 
 isn't as plain as might be — it isn't given to every one 
 to speak plain — and the Lord can understand — Mrs. 
 Kitty, my dear, the Almighty can understand, no 
 doubt. I do think sometimes we are like lisping 
 babes before Him ; and if we don't always make out 
 other folk's lispings, He is the Father of us all, and 
 no doubt He can. No doubt He stoops down and 
 listens till He does make it all out ; and by and by, 
 no doubt. He'll teach us all to speak jDlainer, so that 
 we may understand each other. Mrs. Kitty, my 
 dear," she concluded, wiping her eyes in a candid 
 way with a comer of the sheet, " you've given me 
 
844 MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN-. 
 
 wonderful comfort — ^wonderful comfort, and the Al- 
 mighty bless you for it, my dear." 
 
 " And so, Betty, you mustn't lie yet," I said, 
 smoothing back a wandering lock of her grey hair 
 which was falling over her eyes ; " you must do your 
 best to get well. "We can't spare you, any of us, for 
 a long time." 
 
 " That's as the Almighty pleases, my dear," she 
 said, "we can all be spared a deal easier than we like 
 to think when His time comes. But there 1)6 the 
 cows and the pigs, and the poultry, and the butter, 
 and it would be a trial to leave the beasts and fowls, 
 poor fools, to nobody but Roger. I don't deny that 
 it would ; not but that he means well, and didn't set 
 that bucket on purpose to break my leg, poor soul, 
 I've no doubt, and all folks can't be blessed with 
 brains. But if I do get over it, Mrs. Kitty," she con- 
 cluded, " don't you ever say it was the doctor, for I 
 couldn't abide it ; and if anything could have killed 
 me it would have been his grinning face, clucking 
 and chuckling away like an old hen when he was 
 nigh driving me mazed with the pain. If I do get 
 well, it will be the Almighty, my dear, — the Al- 
 mighty, and you, Mrs. Kitty. I only hope, my dear," 
 she said, shaking her head ominously, "you're not 
 bom to trouble, for surely the Lord gives you a 
 wonderful gift of cheering and nursing folks, and 
 the Almighty don't most times give His gifts in 
 vain." 
 
XL 
 
 /rjHfHBEE months since I wrote a line in these 
 iNp) pages ! The last words seem faint and dis- 
 tant, like a voice across a chasm, as if the 
 earth had opened beneath my feet and made a great 
 gulf between me and the day when they were writ- 
 ten. 
 
 Mother had recovered wonderfully. It was as if 
 some lingering malady had been lowering over her 
 life, which spent itself in the tempest of that fever 
 and left her relieved and almost refreshed, like the 
 ajr after a thunder-storm. The enforced rest, the 
 duty of saving and considering herself, and letting 
 herself be taken care of, had no doubt much to do 
 with it. 
 
 Also, no doubt, there was a merciful hand at work, 
 and a most tender Providence. 
 
 One day Mother and I were sitting sewing at the 
 great window of the hall. Betty, although limping 
 a little, was once more in office in dairy, and kit 
 chen. Father had just whistled for Trusty and was 
 off for the furthest part of the farm. It was the 
 stillest part of the day, early in a hot afternoon. 
 There was not a sound but the trickling of the 
 water into the cattle-trough in the court, the occa- 
 sional buzzing of a fly against the window or the 
 
846 THE DIARY OF 
 
 hum of a stray bee settling on the marigolds and 
 thyme outside, and Betty's yoice humming at her 
 work in the kitchen with scarcely more variety of 
 intonation than the bee. 
 
 Mother and I had been talking of Jack. We had 
 written to him some time since begging him to come 
 back to us, at least for a time, saying we thought the 
 farm was becoming too much for Father, that the 
 old place was large enough for us all, and that we 
 were all longing to have him with us again, and then 
 at all events we could talk over his future plans to-, 
 gether. 
 
 We had not had any answer. We had explained 
 to each other again and again how natural it was 
 there should be some delay. The posts were so irre- 
 gular at all times, and although Father had repeat- 
 edly ridden to Falmouth to inquire if there were any 
 letters and had found none, there were endless ways 
 in which accidents might have occuiTed before letters 
 reached Falmouth. Besides Jack would no doubt 
 have many things to arrange, especially if he decided 
 on coming back to us ; and perhaps, being no very 
 ready writer, he might not send a letter at all, but 
 bring us the answer in person. We were planning 
 how the counti-y might be made less dull for him, 
 and entering into all kinds of arrangements by which 
 we would make home bright for him Q^artly, I be- 
 lieve, to persuade oui-sclves of the reality of our 
 pleasant picture by multiplying its details), when 
 suddenly a horseman galloped on a foaming hoi*se 
 into the courtyard, making the old walls echo and 
 the windows vibrate with the noise. 
 
 Mother and I looked at each other. I suppose I 
 was as pale as she was, for she said, — 
 
MRS. KITTY trevylyan; 847 
 
 " Sit still, Kitty. Let Betty see wliat it is." 
 
 Betty, never easily hurried, was always especially 
 deliberate when she thought other people were in an 
 unnecessary bustle. It seemed an age while she 
 stood lecturing the horseman, and then before she 
 limped to the open window, and gave me the letter, 
 muttering that some folks always liked to make a 
 dash at the end of anything, and finish in a fume ; 
 putting themselves and other folks in as much fuss 
 as they could, but that it was her belief such hurry- 
 scurry w^as most times only a cover for their own 
 dawdling. 
 
 " Bless your heart, Mrs. Kitty, my dear," she con- 
 cluded, catching the alarm in my face, "don't look 
 so scared. It's only a servant of Sir John Beau- 
 champ's ; nothing but some fancy of Mrs. Evelyn's, 
 startling folks out of their wits." 
 
 " Betty, give the man refreshment and ask him to 
 stay and rest as long as he can," said Mother quietly. 
 
 And Betty retired. 
 
 It was indeed a letter from Evelyn to me. 
 
 It began with tender, soothing, lingering w^ords, 
 tiuite unlike her usual way of dashing into the midst 
 of things. It was meant to " break the news." It 
 only threw my brain into such a bewilderment, that 
 when I came to the news my heart beat and my head 
 swam so that I could scarcely read it. But when I 
 did take it in, I was calm again in an instant. For 
 I could only think of Mother. 
 
 I stood a minute afraid to look at her, and irreso- 
 lute what to do, when she said softly, — 
 
 " Kitty, don't read it, tell it me. I know quite 
 well it is not good news. And it's about Jack." 
 
 I looked at her. She was sitting with her hands 
 
848 THE DIARY OF 
 
 clasped as if in prayer. And I knelt down by her 
 and whispered (how, I can never remember, for the 
 words seemed to hiss from my lips like some one 
 else's voice), that Jack had done something for 
 which he was arrested, and was in prison at New- 
 gate. 
 
 " Kitty," she said, " there is no time to be lost. Go 
 and fetch your Father." 
 
 Poor Father ! When I found him, and told him, 
 he never uttered a word of reproach against Jack or 
 any one. He said, *' Poor fellow, poor fellow, I was 
 too hard with him !" and that was all. We walked 
 home across the fields in silence. 
 
 When we returned Mother beckoned to us from 
 the window of the porch-closet. Father joined her 
 there. I remained in the hall below. In a few min- 
 utes Mother called me, and I went up. 
 
 *' It is quite plain, darling, w^hat we must do," said 
 Mother, '* it is a great mercy it is so plain." 
 
 " Father and I must go to him at once," said I. 
 
 " Yes," said Mother, " to-morrow." And she 
 pointed to a postscript of Evelyn's letter, which in 
 my excitement I had not noticed, and in which she 
 desired us, if we liked, to send the servant home 
 by sea, and take his horse to ride to London on at 
 once. 
 
 Everything was arranged before dawn the next 
 day. 
 
 Father was to take his own horse, and I the man's. 
 We might be in London in less than a week, and have 
 besides the great comfort of making the journey alone, 
 not exposed to the questions or prying looks of fel- 
 low-passengers. 
 
 Betty was too thoroughly one of us not to know 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAy. B49 
 
 om trouble, at least as far as that Jack wai* in 
 prison. She believed it was for debt ; indeea we 
 scarcely understood ourselves whether it was for that 
 or worse. 
 
 All night she was up making provision for the 
 journey, insisting that I should keep quiet in my bed. 
 In the morning as I was dressing, she said in a rapid 
 eager way, as she was packing and pressing my things 
 into as small a bundle as possible, without pausing a 
 moment in word or work so as to give me a chance 
 of interrupting her : — 
 
 " Mrs. Kitty, I've put five guineas in an old stock- 
 ing in a coiTier of the bundle. I should have given 
 them to Master Jack when he went to the wars. But 
 mother told me to keep them for my burying, and I 
 promised I would. But I've been thinking well 
 about it, and I don't see it would be any sin to break 
 my word. 
 
 " For a long tim.e I've been of two minds about it ; 
 for what's the use of a fine burying to me, any more 
 than to the rich man in the Bible ? Fine buryings 
 won't keep sinners out of the fire, nor will the sores 
 of the poor body, nor the licking of the dogs, poor 
 fools, keep off the blessed angels from carrying the 
 soul home. When I die, Mrs. Kitty, it's my wish 
 that the class members should carry my body to tbe 
 grave singing Mr. Wesley's hymns, while the angels 
 are carrying my soul, singing their hymns. Not that 
 I'm altogether sure, Mrs. Kitty, the angels even will 
 be wanted ; for heaven seems nearer a good bit now, 
 since the Lord died, than it was before ; and maybe 
 we shall step into it all at once, quite natural, witb- 
 out help from any one. But that's neither here no> 
 there. It wasn't the burying that made me of two 
 50 
 
850 THE DIARY OF 
 
 minds, but my word to mother. I've prayed many 
 times about it ; and last night I saw it all as clear as 
 the sun. It's my belief that we are to do as we'd be 
 done by, by the dead as well as by the living. And 
 if I were dead and had got any one to make a foolish 
 promise like that I should think it the greatest kind- 
 ness if they broke it, and put the money to a better 
 use. So I shall do the same by mother, Mrs. Kitty. 
 You needn't say anything to Master Jack about 
 what I've told you. But it's my belief mother '11 
 be smiling on them guineas from heaven if she 
 knows about it, if it helps Master Jack ; which is 
 more than she could do in conscience, if they were 
 spent making brutes of folks on rum and gin at my 
 burying." 
 
 So saying Betty limped down the stairs, leaving 
 me sobbing out the first easy natural tears I had shed 
 since the dreadful news came. 
 
 Mother insisted on coming down to breakfast with 
 us, and she bid me good-bye, while Father was seeing 
 to the bits and girths ; she looked so calm and cheer- 
 ful, I could not help saying, — 
 
 " Oh, Mother, don't keep up so. You will break 
 down so much the worse when we are gone." 
 
 " No, Kitty," she said, " I shall not. I am not 
 keeping up. I believe I am Tcept up. I cannot un- 
 derstand myself. I cannot feel hopeless about this. 
 I have a persuasion not like persuading myself, but 
 like a prophesy, that good is to come out of this for 
 Jack and all of us, and not evil, and the hope 
 strengthens me to pray for him, as I never prayed for 
 him in my life." 
 
 And so we parted. 
 
 It was certainly a comfort that the rapidity of our 
 
MRS, KITTY TREVYLYAN- 851 
 
 journey depended not on the will and convenience 
 of indifferent coachmen or sailors, to whom we could 
 not have explained our terrible reasons for haste (and 
 who would have looked on our trembling eagerness 
 to get on merely as the fussiness of a fretful old gen- 
 tleman and of an impatient girl), but on our own 
 exertions and on those of our horses. 
 
 How the noble generous creatures seemed to catch 
 the infection of our eagerness ! until, for their own 
 sakes, and for the sake of greater speed in the long 
 run, we had rather to restrain them than urge them 
 on. 
 
 I only remember distinctly two incidents of that 
 journey, so completely were we absorbed bj its pur- 
 pose. 
 
 One was on a fine clear morniQg as we were riding 
 down a steep, stony hill in a narrow lane, when we 
 saw before us a gentleman, in clerical dress, on a horse 
 which was shambling along at its own pace, with the 
 reins on its neck, whilst the rider was reading from 
 an open book laid on the saddle before him. 
 
 Father was so impressed with the peril of the 
 proceeding, especially as the clergyman's horse made 
 a very awkward stumble just as we passed him, that 
 he took off his hat, and said to the stranger, — 
 
 " Sir, you will excuse an old soldier ; but I should 
 think myself safer charging a battery than riding in 
 that way on that beast of yours." 
 
 The stranger bowed n ost politely, said something 
 in a calm, pleasant voice about himself and the horse 
 understanding each other ; but as he thanked Father 
 for his advice, his face quite beamed with that 
 cloudless benevolent smile no one who had seen it 
 can forget ; and I saw it was ]Mr. John Wesley. 
 
853 TUE DIARY OF 
 
 Th) second incident which, stands out from the 
 dreaxj mist of anxiety which hangs about that 
 jourrej^, happened on the next morning. 
 
 It was not five o'clock, and still rather dusk. AYe 
 were always in the saddle as soon as we could see. 
 But ?t the end of the town we were leaving, a large 
 crowd was already gathered. We had to ride through 
 it, and I never liked the look of faces in a crowd less. 
 Many were of the very lowest type, dull and bruitish, 
 or fierce with a low excitement, and above them rose 
 a dreadful black thing vdth arms. At the outsldrts 
 of tl/© crowd w^e encountered some rough jests. But 
 when we got into the thick of it, all was quite still. 
 Every eye was riveted on one spot, and every ear was 
 li&t(ning to one calm, solemn voice, fervent and deep, 
 but always natural and never shrill (he held it a sin 
 to V '^ream) ; and before we came in sight of him I 
 kn*? T it was Mr. John Wesley preaching. 
 
 *' €ome on, Kitty," said Father, in a low, trembling 
 yoh >, laying hold of my rein as I jDaused an instant ; 
 *' c'/ n't you see what the people are waiting for V 
 
 1 looked at his quivering lips, and did not venture 
 to ask. But as I glanced back for a moment, it 
 flashed on me what it was. It was Mr. Wesley 
 preaching to a crowd collected to see an execution. 
 That terrible black thing with arms was the gallows. 
 
 I shall never forget the respectful kinchiess with 
 whdch Uncle Beauchamp welcomed Father when we 
 reached Great Ormond Street, nor his tender gentle- 
 ness to me. 
 
 Aunt Beauchamp was as kind in her way ; but she 
 went into hysterics ; which was perhaps a relief to 
 eveiy one, as they converted her into an invalid vho 
 
MBS. KITTY trevylyan: 853 
 
 must be kept quiet, and left Cousin Evelyn and me 
 free for each other. 
 
 Evelyn explained everything to me, as Uncle Beau- 
 champ did to Father. 
 
 Jack was in Newgate ; not on the debtor's side, but 
 worse. 
 
 He had taken some money from that Company, 
 only anticipating his salary, he said, by a few weeks, 
 and, of course, intending to replace it. But the law 
 does not deal with intentions, and the act was felony, 
 and he had to stand his trial. Uncle Beauchamp 
 and Uncle Henderson had engaged the best lawyers 
 to defend him, and Evelyn said they assured them 
 there was much hope. 
 
 " But if the defence fails," I said, looking into 
 Evelyn's face, " what is the penalty ?" 
 
 " It may be anything, or it may be nothing," she 
 said, avoiding my eyes with an evasiveness quite un- 
 usual with her, " the law is so uncertain, every one 
 
 " It might be anything P^ Evelyn and I understood 
 each other, and we said no more. 
 
 Father and I went the next day to Newgate. It 
 was arranged that we should each see Jack alone to 
 spare his feelings. 
 
 Grim walls with windows placed so as to let in as 
 little light and pleasantness as possible, clanking of 
 chains on prison bolts, grating of clumsy keys, tlic 
 careful locking behind us of reverberating iron doors, 
 and through all a sense of being watched by curiousj 
 prying eyes, and then the dreadful certainty that to 
 so many these cells were but the ante-chamber to a 
 dishonored grave, made me feel like a prisoner my- 
 30* 
 
354 THE DIARY OF 
 
 self, almost like one buried alive myself, ag) I stood 
 alone in a gloomy little room with barred windows 
 looking on a dull court, trying to pray, ti^^ing to 
 think what I would say to Jack, but unable, try as I 
 might, to do anything but mentally repeat words 
 without meaning, and count the window-bars and 
 chimney-stacks ; so that when at last Father came, 
 and I was led into Jack's cell and left alone with him, 
 I was entirely unprepared, and could only throw my 
 arms around his neck, and sob out entreaties that he 
 would forgive me for all the rough and cross words 
 I had ever spoken to him. 
 
 "Poor little Kitty," he said with a deej^ voice 
 more like father's than his own, '* my poor little sis- 
 ter, you and Father are both alike, not a reproach, 
 not a complaint ;" and then placing me on a chair, 
 while he paced up and down the cell, he said, " I 
 did think he would have been in a passion, Kitty, 
 and, I am sure, I wish he had ! It would have been 
 much easier." Then, after a pause, in a tone more 
 like his own old easy, careless way, " It is the most 
 unlucky thing in the world. I am the most unlucky 
 man in the world. Only three days and my salary 
 would have been paid, and everything would have 
 been right. However, one must never look on the 
 dark side. Something may turn up yet." And then 
 he asked eagerly all that the lawyers thought. 
 
 I said they seemed to have much hope of success. 
 
 He seized at this in his old sanguine way, as if s'lc 
 cess had been certain, and after talking some time 
 about his unluckiness, he concluded, — 
 
 *' But you know, Kitty, it's a long lane that has no 
 turning. I always knew that there would be & 
 change of fortune for me some day. And now I 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAU: 855 
 
 shouldn't wonder, if it's on the point of beginning ; 
 for, to confess the truth, they were rather a low 
 money-making set after all, that Company. The 
 secretary's a screw and a perfidious hypocrite into 
 he bargain. Although not exactly in the way one 
 might have chosen, I've no doubt it will turn out a 
 good thing in the end to have done with them. 
 And as to any little hasty words you may ever have 
 said, Kitty," he concluded, as Ave heard footsteps 
 approaching, " never mention such a thing again. 
 We all have our little infirmities, and you were 
 always the best little soul in the world." 
 
 But as I drove back with Father my heart seemed 
 absolutely frozen. Here were we all breaking our 
 hearts about the sin, and doing what we could to 
 make it weigh less heavily on Jack. And his con- 
 science seemed as light as air. He seemed to have 
 QO conception that he was anything but unlucky. 
 
 How could he ever be made to understand about 
 ight and wrong ? 
 
 The next evening Uncle Beauchamp came to me 
 
 rom an interview with the lawyers, in the greatest 
 
 perturbation. They said Jack would not enter into 
 
 their line of defence, and it seemed doubtful if he 
 
 could be got to plead not guilty. 
 
 ^' You must go and talk to him, Kitty," he said, 
 * and persuade him. If any one can you will. For 
 as to myself," he added, " people's ideas of morality 
 and religion seem to me so incomprehensibly turned 
 upside down since the Methodists came into the 
 world, that I cannot make out anybody or anything." 
 
 So next morning early I was admitted to Jack's 
 call. 
 
85i TUE DIARY OF 
 
 " Uncle Beauchamp says you and the lawyers can- 
 not understand each other, brother," I said, " and I 
 have come to see if I can be of any use." 
 
 " The lawyers and I perfectly understand each 
 other," said Jack. " They want me to swear to a lie, 
 and I can't. I did take the money ; and if my only 
 defence is to swear I did not, why then, Kitty, there 
 is no defence, of course, and I see no way out of it. 
 I thought they would have found some other way, 
 but it seems they can't." 
 
 I felt my whole heart bound with a new hope for 
 Jack, and I went up to him, and took his hands, and 
 said looking up in his face, — 
 
 *' You would rather suffer any penalty than tell a 
 lie, brother ?" 
 
 " Of course, I couldn't swear to a lie, Kitty. What 
 do you mean ?" 
 
 "Thanlc God!" I said; and I could not help burst- 
 ing into tears. 
 
 Jack paced up and down the cell a minute or two, 
 and then he paused opi)osite to me and said very 
 gravely, " Are you surprised^ Kitty, that I will not 
 tell a falsehood? that I will not perjure myself? 
 Did you think I icould f Did you think because I 
 had anticipated a few days the salary due to me from 
 a set of beggarly trades-fellows, I could tell a delibe- 
 rate lie, and take a false oath ?" 
 
 " Oh Jack," I said, hiding my face in my hands, 
 *' how could I tell I since you took what did not 
 belong to you ? It troubled us so much !" 
 
 Jack turned from me angrily, and as I sat leaning 
 my head on my hands, I heard him pacing hastily 
 up and down. And then after some minutes, not 
 
2IRS, KITTY CREVYLTAK 357 
 
 angrily but softly^ and in slow, deep accents, very 
 unlike his usual careless manner, lie said, — 
 
 '*I understand, Kitty; you thought if your bro- 
 ther could steal^ he could do anything else." 
 
 " But you will not^ Jack !" I said, kneeling beside 
 hini. " You will not. You will suffer anything 
 rather than do what you feel to be wrong — to be sin. 
 Thank God, thank God r 
 
 He sat for some time quite silent, and then he said, 
 a little bitterly, — 
 
 " You seem very thankful, Kitty, for what every 
 one might not think a very great mercy, to have the 
 way cleared to the gallows, as it is to me. I suppose 
 you know a poor woman was hanged the other day 
 for stealing sixpence ; and I have stolen fifty pounds. 
 Do you think Father and Mother will be as glad as 
 you are ?" 
 
 "Oh, Jack!" I said, "you Icnow what I mean, 
 you feel what I feel. "We will move heaven and 
 earth to get you set at liberty, and I feel such a 
 hope that we shall succeed. I feel that God is 
 on our side now, brother. And He is so strong to 
 help." 
 
 But I felt that if we succeeded beyond my bright- 
 est hopes (and I was full of hopes, for there was 
 prayer, and I thought of a plan), I think I shall 
 never know a truer thrill of joy than that morning in 
 Jack's gloomy cell, when he chose anything rather 
 than do what he felt wrong. 
 
 For it seemed to me my brother was then for the 
 first time his true self, the self God meant him to be. 
 He was in the far country still, in the country of 
 husks, where no man gave him even husks ; but 
 might I not hope he was "coming to himself?"— 
 
858 THE DIARY OF 
 
 that the sin foreign to his character was (as Hugh 
 once said it might) awakening him to the sin habit- 
 ual to his character, which was indeed Tiis sin f 
 
 My plan was at first regarded as exceedingly wild 
 by every one but Evelyn. But at last one objection 
 after another gave way ; and Cousin Evelyn and I 
 were suffered to drive in Aunt Beauchamp's coach 
 to the residence of Elias Postlethwaite, Esq., Sec- 
 retary of the Original Peruvian Mining Company. 
 
 Mr. Postlethwaite wore beautiful ruffles and very 
 brilliant jewels, but his face wanted that indescri()- 
 able something which makes you tirust a man, and 
 his manners wanted that indescribable somethipg 
 that makes a gentleman. He received us with most 
 officious politeness, taking it for granted that we had 
 come for shares (many fashionable ladies, Evelyn said, 
 having lately acquired a taste for such go^mbling as 
 more exciting than cards). He was afraid that at 
 present not a share was to be purchased at any price. 
 The demand was marvellous. But he did not seem 
 much relieved when Evelyn told him we had no inten- 
 tion of investing in the Company. And his manner 
 changed very decidedly when I contrived to stammer 
 out the object of our visit. 
 
 " It is a most painful business, young ladies, a 
 most painful business. The young gentleman was, 
 moreover, an intimate friend of mine. I thought it 
 would have been an openmg for the poor young 
 fellow." 
 
 I pleaded Jack's youth, I j^leadcd his refusal to 
 plead not guilty, I even pleaded for Father's sake 
 and Mother's, though it seemed like desecration to 
 make them anf. their sorrows a plea with that man. 
 
IfRS. KITTY TREVYLYAIT. 859 
 
 But he could not be moved. He said it was exceed- 
 ingly painful, and quite against his nature, but there 
 were duties to the public which young ladies, of 
 course, could not understand, but which, at any cost, 
 must be perfonned. At last he grew impatient, the 
 boor's nature came out under pressure, and he re- 
 marked with a sneer that those kind of scenes were 
 very effective on the stage, in fact, always brought 
 down the house ; but that, unhappily, society had to 
 be guided not by what was pretty, but what was 
 necessary. In conclusion he said that, in fact, it did 
 not rest with him ; the Governors were susi)icious, 
 and had found fault with the accounts before, and it 
 was essential an example should be made. 
 
 Meantime Evelyn had been reading (I thought 
 absently) over the printed paper on the table, de- 
 scribing the objects of the company, and giving a 
 list of the Governors, and at this moment fixing her 
 fingers on two or three of the principal names, she 
 read them aloud, and said calmly, — 
 
 " These are the Governors, Mr. Postlethwaite ; 
 and you say the decision rests with the Governors. 
 We will drive to their houses at once. Lord Clinton 
 is one of my Father's most intimate friends." 
 
 The manner of the Secretary changed again. 
 *' Lord Clinton," he said nervously, " Lord Clinton, 
 madam, knows very little of our affairs. In fact, he 
 will no doubt refer you back to me." 
 
 " We will see, sir," said Evelyn coolly, fixing her 
 calm, penetrating eyes on him. 
 
 He winced evidently. 
 
 " Lord Clinton," he said, pressing his forefinger on 
 his forehead, as if endeavoring to recollect some- 
 thing ; " ah, I remember, there was a little mistake 
 
860 THE DIARY OF 
 
 there, a little mistake Tvhich, but for press of busi^ 
 ncss, should have been corrected long ago. Lord 
 Clinton's name was put down inadvertently, without 
 his having been consulted." 
 
 "Then the Hon. Edward Bernard, or Sir James 
 Delaware will do as well," said Evelyn ; *' come, 
 cousin," she added, rising, " there is no time to be 
 lost. I suppose, Mr. Postlethwaite, those two gen- 
 tlemen w^ere consulted before their names w^ere 
 printed ?" 
 
 " Certainly, my dear madam, certainly I" he re- 
 plied. " But, excuse me, what will you say to these 
 gentlemen that they do not know already, or that 
 I could not explain as well, and save you the 
 trouble ?" 
 
 " Thank you, the trouble is nothing, Mr. Postle- 
 thv/aite," said Evelyn quietly. *' I will recommend 
 these gentlemen," she continued very deliberately, 
 "who, you say, have had their suspicions roused 
 about the accounts, to look into the accounts and to 
 see if no other victim can be selected for the office 
 of scape-goat except my cousin, Mr. Trevylyan." 
 
 His keen fox-like eyes quailed visibly before her 
 clear, open gaze. 
 
 "My dear Madam," he said after a pause, "iMr. 
 Trevylyan is your cousin ; your cousin, and an inti- 
 mate friend of mine. The Governors, I confess, are 
 much irritated, but we must not too easily despair. 
 Leave the matter to me, and we will see what can bo 
 done." 
 
 " Very well, sir," said Evel}^ ; " if you ttUl see 
 what can be done, I will not. You will let us know 
 to-morrow." 
 
JIBS. KITTY TREVTLYAN. 861 
 
 And she swept out of the room, Mr. Postlethwaite 
 bowing her to the steps of the carriage. 
 
 " What do you think will be the end of it, Eve- 
 lyn V I said when we were alone in the carriage, for 
 I felt very much bewildered. 
 
 " The end of what V said Evelyn. 
 
 " Of this terrible affair of Jack's," I said. 
 
 " I cannot see quite as far as that, sweet little cou 
 sin," she said ; " but I think I see the end of Mi 
 Postlethwaite and the Original Peruvian Company." 
 
 " And the prosecution ?" I said. 
 
 " How can there be a prosecution, dear little 
 Kitty," she said, "when the prosecutor is hiding 
 his head, for fear of finding himself in Jack's place, 
 and when the Company is scattered to the winds ?" 
 
 " He seemed a terribly hard man," I said ; "I 
 never saw any one like him before, Evelyn. It makes 
 me quite shudder to think of him. And you really 
 thiak the whole thing was a deception ?" 
 
 "Well, children," said Uncle Beauchamp, when 
 we returned, smiling as he caught Evelyn's triumph- 
 ant glance, " safe out of the lion's den at all events ! 
 I thought Kitty was to have brought the lion him- 
 self in chains of roses, like a fairy queen as she is. 
 But she looks as if she had suffered in the encoun- 
 ter," he said, kissing my cheek, which was wet with 
 tears. 
 
 " Kitty is only half-pleased," said Evelyn. " She 
 scarcely knows whether to rejoice about Jack, or to 
 weep over the wickedness of human nature in the 
 person of Mr. Postlethwaite ; whereas I, on the other 
 hand, having a hard and impenetrable heart, scarcely 
 know whether to be most pleased that Cousin Jack 
 26 
 
862 THE DTART OF 
 
 is safe, or that Mr. Postletliwaite is not safe. I al- 
 ways have thought it one of the most delightful 
 prospects held out to us in the Psalms, that the 
 "wicked are to be taken in their own net. But to 
 draw the net tight with my own hands was a luxury 
 to which I scarcely dared to aspire." 
 
 Then she narrated the interview. Uncle Beau- 
 champ assured Father and me that all would be 
 right ; and I was pennitted to go at once to Jack, 
 and tell him all we had accomplished. 
 
 Jack was very thankful, and most gentle and affec- 
 tionate to me ; but he said, — 
 
 " Don't think me the most ungrateful fellow in the 
 world, Kitty ; but I am not sure really after all, 
 whether it wouldn't have been easier on the whole to 
 have been sent to the colonies, or even put out of the 
 way altogether, than to have to meet every one, and 
 feel, as I do, that I have been the most selfish, cow- 
 ardly dog in the world, all the while I thought my- 
 self a fine, open-hearted, generous fellow. And," he 
 added in a lower voice, " I'm not sure that tliat isn't 
 easier than to have to look at one's self as I have had 
 to for these last few hours. It's a terrible thing, 
 Kitty, to be disgraced in your own eyes." 
 
 " Don't talk so. Jack," I said. " Say what you will 
 to yourself and to God, but not to me. It will do 
 you no good ; and I can't bear it. You don't know. 
 Jack, how good and noble you may be yet," I said, 
 ond I put my arm within his, and looked in his face, 
 and said, " I should feel proud to walk with you. 
 Jack, now through London, in that very dress ; I bo 
 people might say what they would, but I shouldn't 
 mind a bit, for I should feel ' that is my br::ther, who 
 would rather die than swear to a lie ' " 
 
3rBS. KITTY trevylyan: 863 
 
 " It's a brave little Kitty," lie said in rather a husky 
 voice ; " but, liush, Kitty !" he added hastily, " hush, 
 for God's sake ! don't lift me up on my fool's pedestal 
 again !" 
 
 But as I went away he called me back, an I said 
 s:.ftly,— 
 
 " You have hope of me, Kitty ; don't give it up, 
 for heaven's sake, don't ! and try to make Father 
 and Mother have hope of me. It does me good 
 to think you have, for God knows I have little my- 
 self." 
 
 The next day Father and I went to him together ; 
 but that interview I cannot describe, because I 
 never can think of it without crying, much less 
 write. How Father begged Jack's pardon, and 
 Jack Father's, and they both fell into weeping. It 
 is such an overwhelming thing to see men like 
 Father and Jack hopelessly break down, and cry 
 like children. 
 
 To women, I think tears are a natural, easy over- 
 flowing of sorrow. But from men they seem wrung, 
 as if every drop were almost bled in anguish from 
 the depths of the heart. With us tears are a com- 
 fort, to men they seem an agony. 
 
 But Evelyn was right. In a few days the Original 
 Peruvian Mining Company's splendid offices were to 
 be let, and Elias Postlethwaite, Esq., was nowhere to 
 be found. 
 
 And the prosecutor having come to nothing, of 
 course the prosecution came to nothing too. 
 
 But that was not the chief joy ; not by any means 
 the chief joy to me, great as it was. 
 
 The day after I had told Jack the effect of our in- 
 
864 THE DIARY OF 
 
 terview with the Secretaiy, I was permitted to sit 
 with him some time in his cell. 
 
 At first I talked to him about home, but I thought 
 he seemed absent, and after a little while he said ab- 
 ruptly,— 
 
 " Kitty, I had a very strange visitor yesterday 
 evening after you left, — an old sailor called Silas 
 Jold, — ^who it seems finds his way into all the prisons 
 and to the hearts of the prisoners in a very remark- 
 able way. He was a sailor in his youth, and a very 
 bad fellow from his own account ; involved in all 
 kinds of horrors in kidnapping blacks from the Afri- 
 can coast. At last he grew tired of his wild life, 
 and settled down in business in London, and maiiied. 
 Not long after this a poor workman got him and his 
 wife to go and hear Mr. Wesley at the Foundery. 
 They were not convinced in a moment, but before 
 long everything was thoroughly changed with them. 
 They found great happiness in religion ; and after a 
 time he gave up his business to teach poor outcast 
 children at a school in connection with Mr. Wesley's 
 meeting-house at the Foundery at a salary of ten 
 shillings a week. For seven years he worked from 
 morning till night for these destitute brys. He 
 trained three hundred of them, teaching them to 
 read and write, and fitting them for all kinds of 
 trades. But one morning, when he and his boys 
 were attending Mr. Wesley's five o'clock morning 
 preaching, the text was, 'I was sick and in prisor, 
 and ye visited me not.' The reproach [pierced his 
 heart, he said, as if our Lord had looked sorrowfully 
 at him while he spoke the words. For some days *ie 
 was wretched, and from that time he has made it his 
 work to visit every cell in every prison to which he 
 
MRS, KITTY TUEVYLYAK. 865 
 
 can find admittance. He has gone in the cart to the 
 gallows with criminals, praying for them all the way. 
 He has brought joy, absolute joy, wdth the news of 
 God's mercy, into condemned cells. He has made 
 the most hardened criminals weep in an agony of 
 sorrow for their sins, — such an agony, Kitty, that 
 afterwards, when they were able to believe God had 
 forgiven them their sins, it seemed nothing to go to 
 the gallows. And what seems to me more wonderf il 
 still* (this the jailer told me), sheriffs, hangmen, and 
 turnkeys have been seen weeping as he exhorted or 
 comforted the prisoners. The authorities, civil and 
 ecclesiastical, have tried again and again to keep 
 him out of the prisons, but he will not be kept out. 
 And so yesterday evening, Kitty, he found his way 
 to me." 
 
 I said nothing, but waited for him to go on. After 
 a little pause he continued, — 
 
 " He found his way to me, and when I am free, if 
 ever I am, I will find my way to him ; for he prayed 
 with me, and prayer like that I never thought there 
 could be. He prayed as if he saw my heart, and saw 
 our Saviour. I shall never forget it, — I trust I shall 
 never forget it. What the words were I am sure I 
 cannot tell. They did not seem like words, so fer- 
 vent, so sure, so reverent, so imploring, so earnest, it 
 seemed as if he would have stormed heaven, and yet 
 all the time the great power of them seemed to be, 
 that he felt God w^as on our side, willing to give, de- 
 llgliti7ig to give, stretching out His hands to give !" 
 
 "You had told him something of yourself," I said, 
 when he had been silent a little while. 
 
 * Stevens' " History of Methodism." 
 
 31* 
 
866 THE DIART OF 
 
 " I don't know what I told him, Kitty, or what he 
 found out. I only know I intended at first to tell 
 him nothing ; I thought he was going to treat me as 
 one case among a thousand of spiritual disease. But 
 he came to me like a friend, like a brother, so full of 
 respect, so full of pity, there was no standing it, and 
 before he left I was telling him what was in my in- 
 most heart." 
 
 " And it has done you good. Jack," I said. 
 
 " It has opened a new world to me," he said. " It 
 has made me see that what you and Father felt for 
 me in my sin and trouble, God felt infinitely more. 
 He has been grieved- at my doing wrong, because sin 
 is the worst misery, and His one desire and purpose 
 is to lift me out of it up to himself. And He will do 
 It, Kitty ; I do believe He will do it." 
 
 It was some days before the formalities about Jack's 
 liberation could be arranged, and very precious days 
 they were to him. Silas Jold saw him often, patiently 
 encountering his variable tempers, and meeting his 
 shifting difficulties ; for at first Jack had many diffi- 
 culties, and occasionally, I must confess, he was in an 
 irritable state that did not always contrast favorably 
 with his old complacent equanimity. He often re- 
 minded me of a sick child waking up with a vague 
 sense of hunger and discomfort which it could only 
 express by fretting. But the great fact remained. 
 He was no longer asleep, his whole being was awake. 
 At one time he would defend himself captiously 
 against his own previous self-accusations ; at another 
 he would bitterly declare that all hope of better days 
 for him was an idle dream, — he had fallen, not per- 
 haps beyond hope of forgiveness hereafter, but quite 
 
MRS. KITTY TEFVYLJAK 367 
 
 beyond all hope of restoration to any life worth 
 living here. Yet although often, when I seemed to 
 leave him on the shore, I found him again tossed back 
 among the breakers, and buffeted by them hither and 
 thither; nevertheless, on the whole, there was ad- 
 vance. There was a steadily growing conviction of 
 his own moral weakness, and a steadily growing con- 
 fidence in the forgiveness and the strengthening 
 power of God, until on the day when he came out, 
 when he and I were alone in the study in Great Or- 
 mond Street, he said, — 
 
 " It is the 'beginning with forgiveness, Kitty, that 
 makes all the difference I Easy forgiveness, indeed, 
 may make us think lightly of doing wrong, but God's 
 is no easy forgiveness. The sacrifice which makes it 
 easy for us was Ood''s. It is pardon proclaimed with 
 the dying words of the Son of God, and sealed with 
 His blood. It is wonderful joy to know that God 
 does not hate us on account of our sins ; but I think 
 it is almost greater joy to know that He hates our 
 dns for our sahes^ and will not let our sins alone, but 
 will help and encourage us, yes, and make us suffer 
 anything to conquer them, and to become just, and 
 true, and unselfish." 
 
 Many outside difllculties remained. It seemed 
 difficult to find any career open to Jack. He was 
 ready to try anything, and to bear any humiliation, 
 but the suspicions and distrust which doing wrong , 
 necessarily bring on people are a cold atmosphere for 
 anything good to grow in. If he smiled, for instance, 
 Aunt Henderson was apt to think him impenitent. If 
 he was grave, Uncle Beauchamp was disposed to con- 
 4der him sullen. It is so terribly difficult for any 
 
868 ^^^ DIARY OF 
 
 one who has fallen openly to rise again. If lie stands 
 upright and looks up, some people call him shame- 
 less ; if he stoops and looks down, others call him 
 base. At first we thought of home and the old farm 
 life ; but much as I should have liked to have him 
 with us again, I could not help seeing with some pain 
 that although Jack made not an objection, and en- 
 deavored to enter into it, the thought evidently 
 depressed him. 
 
 One morning while Father and I were debating 
 these matters, to our amazement the footman quietly 
 ushered in " Mr. Spencer." 
 
 Hugh had that day arrived with Tom from America. 
 Father left me to tell him all the sad yet hopeful his- 
 tory of the last few weeks, and when almost before 
 we had come to the end of it. Jack came in, I went 
 away and left them alone together. 
 
 Jack told me afterwards that Hugh's warm wel- 
 come, and his honest and faithful counsel, werebetter 
 than a fortune to him. " It is such a wonderful help," 
 he said, "to feel you are trusted by one everybody 
 can trust like Hugh." 
 
 I know so well what that is. At one time I used 
 to be afraid to give myself up to the feeling lest it 
 should be idolatry, but I have got over that fear now 
 after talking it over with Hugh, because he says I 
 am just as wonderful help to him, which makes it 
 plain that it must be because God makes it so. 
 Hugh says it is no more worshipping each other to 
 feel we can work twice as well together than it is 
 worshipping the sun to feel we can work better in 
 the daylight. 
 
3rRS. KITTY TKSVYLYAI^. 869 
 
 Hugh has set it all right for Jack — Hugh and 
 poor Cousin Tom, who came back with him. Hugh 
 thinks the old life at home would not be good for 
 Jack ; hq thinks Jack and Father naturally fret each 
 other a little, and if they control themselves so as not 
 to fret each other, they will fret themselves all the 
 more by the effort. Besides, he thinks the life would 
 be very depressing for Jack. It would be like a life 
 of old age begun in youth, that monotonous routine 
 of work pleasant and calm enough, with the busy day 
 of life leliind^ but most depressing and trying, with 
 nothing behind but lost opportunities, a closed . 
 career, and a wasted youth. 
 
 It was therefore arranged that Jack should go to 
 America, and take charge of a tobacco plantation, 
 which Tom had recently purchased in South Caro- 
 lina, while Tom remained at home to assist his. 
 father. The relief to Jack was evidently very great, 
 and I was glad it w^as all settled before we returned 
 home, as the discussions might have been painful to 
 Mother. 
 
 In order to complete these arrangements we spent 
 some days at Hackney. Aunt Henderson informed 
 me, with a grim satisfaction, that Uncle Henderson's 
 demure nephew had disappeared with a consider- 
 able sum of money. The loss of property was evi- 
 dently more than compensated by the fulfillment of 
 prophecy, and by the manifest discomfiture of Cal- 
 vinistic doctrine in the person of her Presbyterian 
 foe. 
 
 Uncle Henderson abandoned the field of contro- 
 versy altogether ; and if any one at any time lifted 
 up a faint protest in favor of Mr. Whitefield and 
 Tvady Huntingdon, the utmost Aunt Henderson 
 
370 THE DIARY OF 
 
 would concede was, that *' there were exceptions, 
 merciful exceptions; that there was, in sliort, no 
 limit to the divine mercy ; that she believed there 
 were even Papists that would be saved." 
 
 The disappearance of the nephew and the money 
 was, in its way, as great a relief to Cousin Tom as to 
 his mother. 
 
 " You see. Cousin Kitty," he said, " I was deter- 
 mined to submit to anything, for I felt I deserved it. 
 But it is a comfort to feel I can be of some use to 
 father, and that I am coming back to work for them, 
 and not only to eat fatted calves." 
 
 " I have no doubt, Cousin Tom," I said, " that after 
 the welcome no hired servant of his father's worked 
 like the forgiven son did." 
 
 " And I have no doubt," he replied, " that he en- 
 . joyed toiling in the sweat of his brow as much in its 
 way as the feast." 
 
 " I think the forgiven children our Lord meant all 
 do," I said. 
 
 A glimmer of understanding glanced out from 
 Cousin Tom's shaggy brows, and he said, — 
 
 " Do you remember. Cousin Kitty, once telling me 
 that conversion was not a closed door between us 
 and God, but an open door through which I must go ? 
 Well, I was a long while getting to understand that, 
 but I think I am beginning now." 
 
 Those were very happy days at Hackney. Aunt 
 Henderson was so interested to hear all about 
 Mother. When I related to her Betty's treatment 
 of the fever, she said Betty was quite right in con- 
 sidermg her recovery a miracle, for that such conduct 
 was nvAthing less than murder and madness. 
 
3rRS. KITTY TREVYLYAir. 371 
 
 But her heart was too softened and humbled with 
 joy — the joy of having her boy home again — to be 
 very severe on any one's errors — except the demure 
 nephew's, without y/hose delinquencies and misbe- 
 liefs her controversial weapons might have rusted on 
 the shelf. 
 
 When I attempted to thank her for Tom's generous 
 conduct to Jack about the plantation in South Caro- 
 lina, she stopped me at once, — 
 
 "Kitiy, rcy dear, every shilling we have in the 
 world would be nothing for me and mine to repay 
 to you and yours. What you and Mr. Spencer have 
 done for Tom and for us is beyond thanks or pay- 
 ment, and compliments are not in my way. Poor 
 dear Sister Beauchamp understands that kind of 
 thing. But I never did. But, my dear, if at any 
 time any of you are ill, don't hesitate to send for me 
 to come and nurse you. I do know something about 
 physic, which is more than can be said for any of you, 
 poor Sister Trevylyan among you ; and I'd go from 
 one end of the earth to the other, and w^ear myself to 
 a skeleton with pleasure to do any of you any good 
 in my power. So only you promise, Kitty, my dear, 
 and I should feel it quite a burden off my mind." 
 
 I could not help inwardly trembling at the thought 
 of the snails' broth, the severe medical discipline, and 
 the collisions that must inevitably occur in such a 
 case betv/een Aunt Henderson and Betty. I could 
 only say I trusted we should all keep well for a long 
 time, and that it would be a delight to me to render 
 the same service to Aunt Henderson. 
 
 So we were once more at the dear old home. Our 
 own ukl party, — Father, and Mother, and Jack, and 
 
873 777^ DIARY OF 
 
 Hugh, and 1 ; for Hugh always was one of us, al- 
 though now he is one of us in a nearer way. 
 
 How nearly we have all been severed in the storms 
 of this " troublesome world." And how sweet the 
 past dangers make the present calm. 
 
 There is much indeed still to remind us that we 
 are at sea, on the open sea, with no promise of ex- 
 emption from storms in time to come. But we are 
 not without a Pilot ! and we have proved Him, which 
 is something to gain from any stoim. 
 
 Mother is much more willing to part with Jack for 
 America than we dared to hope she would be. She 
 says she feels it easier to part with him now than 
 when he went to the army in Flanders. She feels 
 he is not going alone. And by that, we know well, 
 she does not only mean that Hugh is going with him 
 to settle him in the new country. 
 
 For Hugh is going, but with a hope that makes his 
 going easier for us both than when he left us last. 
 
 For a few days after our return, we had a visit 
 from Cousin Evelyn's great-uncle, our new vicar. 
 
 He looked more aged and thinner than when we 
 saw him last ; and he was more nervous than ever. 
 
 He said he believed it was too late to transplant an 
 old man like him from the centre of civilized and 
 learned life at Oxford to what he hoped he might 
 term, without offence, a region rather on the outskirts 
 of civilization. . He said, between wrecking and 
 poaching, aversion to paying tithes, their Cornish 
 dialect, and what he could not help calling remnants 
 of native barbarism on the one hand, and Methodism 
 on the other, he could make nothing whatever of the 
 people, and if any one else could, he was sure they 
 were welcome to try. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 373 
 
 He had therefore come to propose that Hugh should 
 take the curacy, with a liberal salary. He himself 
 would settle in London. He had spoken to the Pat- 
 ron, who, considering the circumstances, said perhaps 
 it was the best thing that could be done. So all is 
 settled. 
 
 Hugh and Jack are gone. They sailed from Fal 
 mouth. 
 
 I feel more anxious now they are actually gone than 
 when it was first proposed. From not having much 
 imagination I never can measure the pain of things 
 beforehand, which sometimes makes it worse after- 
 wards. 
 
 The shij? they sailed in is an old one. I heard 
 some sailors talking disparagingly of her as we left 
 the quay. 
 
 And the evening after they left was stormy. Heavy 
 masses of thunder-cloud gathered in the west as I 
 looked from the cliffs, just where I thought the ship 
 must be. 
 
 And Betty shakes her head again, and says it is of 
 no use boding ill, but she has seen and heard very 
 dismal things of late. 
 
 And when I combated her fears, and reminded her 
 what terrible things she had heard about Mother, she 
 only nodded and compressed her lips, and reminded 
 me that, if miracles were worked, and Mother was 
 spared, nevertheless she broke her own leg, to say 
 nothing of Master Jack ; and miracles can't be ex- 
 pected at all times. She only wishes she had not 
 been a poor crippled old woman, or she would have 
 gone herself to take care of Master Jack. She has 
 heard terrible tales of the Indians and blacks ; and 
 32 
 
874 TITE DIARY OF 
 
 who was to get up his linen and dam his stockings '{ 
 However, she will hope for the best. Folks ha'ce got 
 out of their hands alive, she believes, and she trusts 
 Master Hugh will, and that we shall see him back 
 again safe and sound ; but she shall be thankful 
 when we do, that is all. 
 
 " But, Betty," I said at last, struggling betweei 
 tears and anger, or rather between anger at her for 
 her forebodings and at myself for minding them, — 
 " Betty, it is no better than the heathens to heed such 
 fancies. We must open our hearts wide to the Bible, 
 and let the light of the truth and the breath of the 
 Spirit shine and search through every comer. What 
 are all the forebodings in the world to one hour of 
 hearty prayer ? Remember, prayer was stronger even 
 than St. Paul's forebodings; for he said, he 'j^er- 
 ceived that the voyage would be with much hurt and 
 damage, not only of the ship, but also of their lives.* 
 Yet, afterwards when he had fasted and prayed he 
 stood forth and said that Ood liad given him the lives 
 of all that were in the ship ; and though the ship 
 was wrecked, not one life was lost." 
 
 " There le some prayers," said Betty, " that can 
 move heaven and earth." 
 
 " xlnd prayer was stronger than prophecy once," I 
 said, — " not the prayer of an apostle, Betty, but of a 
 poor sinful heathen city. Nineveh was saved, let 
 Jonah be disappointed as he might at his words be- 
 ing set aside." 
 
 *'Well, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, drily, becoming 
 very busy and energetic about her work, *' I hardly 
 take it kind of you to put me down with that poor 
 seltish old Jew. I've thought many a time it as 
 wonderful the Almighty should speak by him as by 
 
3fBS. KITTY TREVYLTAK 375 
 
 Balaam's ass, — running away from his work, nearly 
 sinking the ship and the sailors, and then sulking 
 and creusling like a spoilt child, because the Lord 
 was more pitiful than he, and the poor sinful men 
 and women of that great city, and the poor harmless 
 dumb beasts were spared. I can't say but I do feel 
 hurt to be likened to him. All I know is, I pray 
 night and day for Master Jack and Master Hugh ; 
 and if Master Jack and Master Hugh do come back 
 safe and sound, cruel glad I shall be." 
 
 " Betty," said I, " you know I never meant to com- 
 pare you to the prophet Jonah ; I only said that God 
 even turned from his own threatenings when people 
 prayed to Him long ago ; and who can say how 
 much even our prayers may help those we love now ? 
 He can send His angels, and one of His angels is 
 stronger than all the storms on the ocean ; or He can 
 stretch out His hand, and the poor sinking Peter can 
 walk on the sea. I want you to think of God's 
 promises and not of signs, and tokens, and our fore- 
 bodings. I want you to hope, Betty, because I know 
 you love us all so dearly ; and the more we hope the 
 better, I think, we pray ; and sometimes I find it 
 hard to hope myself, and I want you to help and not 
 to hinder me." 
 
 *' Well, my dear," said Betty, relaxing, " young 
 folks most times find it easy enough to hope. If the 
 sun shines for an hour, they think there'll never be 
 winter again ; and if old folks don't keep their wits 
 about them, where'll the fire-wood be when winter 
 comes ? 
 
 " And Tilrs. Kitty, my dear, I meant no disrespect 
 to the Prophet Jonah ; poor fearful soul, he had his 
 troubles, sure ; and if Pd been in his place, I won't 
 
376 MRS, KITTY TREVYLYAN, 
 
 say I mightn't have been worse than he, althongh T 
 do hope the Almighty would have kept me from 
 caring for some poor bits of leaves, that grew up like 
 mushrooms in a night, just because they made me 
 cool, more than for all the people in that great town, 
 specially the innocent babes and the dumb beasts. 
 I'm a cross-grained old soul, Mrs. Kitty, my dear, and 
 my temper's a little particular at the best of times ; 
 but I'd be content to sit a helpless cripple all the 
 rest of my life in the chimney-comer and watch 
 Roger, poor fool, or that poor clumsy hussy blun- 
 dering away at the beasts and the butter (though I 
 won't deny it might worry me into my grave), if I 
 might see you and Master Hugh and Master and 
 Missis all here together, and know Master Jack was 
 doing well, — and who knows but I may ? For I 
 don't deny that the Lord's mercies are beyond every- 
 thing ; and if He disappoints folks, it's most times by 
 giving them more than they ask and better than they 
 hope. Leastways, Mrs. Kitty, my dear, that's been 
 His way with me." 
 
xn. 
 
 ^T is now two months since Hugh and Jack left 
 us. We have had letters full of hope and 
 promise ; and all the weight of foreboding 
 which settled down on me during the long days of 
 silence between their leaving and our hearing seems 
 meltuig away. Every breath of this soft spring air, 
 evei'y smile of this life-giving spring sunshine seems 
 to blow or shine my cares away. 
 
 I think the delight of seeing new things is nothing 
 compared to the delight of seeing old things grow 
 into a new beauty at the touch of a new season, or 
 in the light of a new joy. That is, living things, 
 things of God's making. I can never fancy taking 
 the pleasure in seeing even those wonderful forests 
 Hugh writes about in the New World, that I do in 
 watching these very same dear old elms which have 
 bent down over me from my childhood wake up 
 branch by branch, and twig by twig, and spread their 
 delicate young leaves in the air, until they grow thick 
 enough to hide in deep bowers of shade the soft nest 
 which those two thrushes have been so happy build- 
 ing and furnishing, and where the mate is now sing- 
 ing in low tender tones while the mother-bird broods 
 over her nestlings, and the gentle winds rock the 
 cradle. 
 
 32* 
 
87b TUE DIARY OF 
 
 Tnose American forests, with their depths of pil- 
 larea shade, and all the rich traceries of their brilliant 
 creepers, would be only a 'picture to me ; a glorious 
 picture indeed, painted by the Master's hand, but 
 wanting the sweet fragrance of time and home which 
 breathes to me from every blossom of the hawthorn 
 under my chamber wind r* . 
 
 And now there is another new light on all the dear 
 familiar old places. For Hugh is coming back so 
 soon, so soon ; and we are to work together, he and 
 I, all our lives long, for the good and happiness of 
 the old parish and the old friends; to bring new 
 eternal hope and life, I trust, into many a heart and 
 home. 
 
 It is the wonderful power of life in nature which 
 seems to thrill the heart with the conscious presence 
 of Him who is the Life ; far more than the most 
 glorious scene which we cannot look at long enough 
 to see it grow^ and bloom, and change, until, instead 
 of lying merely on the surface of our minds as a 
 vision, it possesses our hearts and grows into them 
 as a part of our life. The beauty of all beautiful 
 things says, " God has 'been lierey But the Life in 
 the lowliest living thing, in the tiniest moss which 
 puts forth a fresh green star to-day, in the little 
 opening leaf which has burst the gummy casing in 
 which it was encased yesterday, and flutters in the 
 air and sun this morning (with the crumples of its 
 long winter packing not yet fluttered out of it), — in 
 the trembling snow-drop which a touch can crush, 
 but which all the weight of the inanimate earth could 
 not keep from clearing its way up to the light, — 
 LIFE, in its lowliest developments, says, not merely, 
 " God has been here," but " God is here ;" not only, 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 379 
 
 " The Master's hand has been on us, see how perfect 
 His work is !" but *' The life of the Life Giver is 
 breathing through us, feel the joy of his presence !" 
 And that seems to me to go much deeper into the 
 heart. What is a remembrance to a presence ? What 
 is a letter to a voice ? What is a picture to a touch ? 
 
 I was sitting to-day by the well-spring in the wood 
 from which the water wells up so gently, so peace- 
 fully, without noise or stir, that it often makes me 
 think of the pool which the angel troubled, and 
 made its waters healing. So strong is the power of 
 life for every creature near it which seems to flow 
 from that little spring. The first spring flowers al- 
 ways come there, which is one of the reasons why I 
 know it so well, because every year I always gather 
 her first nosegay there for Mother. And so deej) and 
 hallowed is the quiet of the place, that, as a child, I 
 often used to fancy it must be something else than 
 mere common wind and water which made the flow- 
 ers quiver and the leaves flutter as at the silent touch 
 of a hand they loved. And, as it is, I sometimes 
 wonder if there are not a great many more Iking 
 heings busy in the world around us about God's work 
 than we know of. Because, we use machines to save 
 toil and to spare hands ; but where work is not toil, 
 but delight, and where the workers are " ten thou- 
 sand times ten thousand, and thousands of thou- 
 sands," why should lifeless machinery do what living 
 hearts always do so much better ? 
 
 But, however that may be, Hugh says, matters com- 
 paratively little, because nothing is done in God's 
 world by dead laws made ages since, nor by lifeless 
 machinery set going long ago, and only generally 
 
880 THE DIARY OF 
 
 superintended from a distaace. Everywliere tlie 
 agency, lie says, is living, not mechanical, whether 
 the work of happy ministering spirits, or of the One 
 Living Presence which is better and nearer and dearer 
 than all. 
 
 Mother and I have been having long talks as we 
 have been sitting at our spinning or sewing, and it 
 seems to me it is our transplanting these poor limited 
 thoughts of ours into heaven and eternity, that 
 makes half the difficulty, if not all, in these ques- 
 tions of predestination and assurance about which 
 some Christian people have been fighting so bitterly 
 of late. 
 
 We want to have everything sealed, and settled, 
 and written down in unalterable decrees and irrever- 
 sible title-deeds, forgetting that deeds and decrees 
 are of value simply because the people who made 
 them may die or change ; while the grand security 
 of the gifts of God is that it is God who gives them. 
 The Giver lives for ever and is always at hand. I do 
 not think He will give us any other security. I am 
 sure we can have none so strong. 
 
 Unbelief, like Eve, craves a security independent 
 of God. But independence of God is death; and 
 faith, accepting the living God as the security of 
 His own promises, finds in such dependence not only 
 security but life. Unbelief would have some sen- 
 tence, some irrevocable decision, to build on. God 
 gives us no such poor abstractions to rest on apart 
 from Him. His promises are all personal, all made 
 to present faith. He says, "My sheep shall nevei 
 perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My 
 hand.'' " I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.'* 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. 381 
 
 " What shall separate us from the love of Christ ?" 
 And if the cold heart, seeking security against itself, 
 asks, " But can I pluck myself out of Thy hand ? 
 Can / ever forsake Hiee ? Though neither things 
 present, nor things to come, nor life, nor death, can 
 separate, may not sin f " — still no answer comes but, 
 " I love. I keep. Abide in Jfe." 
 
 If we seek for one promise to past faith, for one 
 word of encouragement to any except those w^ho are 
 turning to God, we may search through the Bible in 
 vain. Turn to God, all is light. Turn from Him, 
 all is shade, your own shadow. God gives no prom- 
 ises except to faith, and to faith in exercise. 
 
 But if the trembling, clinging heart, weeping over 
 its own weakness, asks the same question, "Can I 
 ever pluck myself from Thy hand? Can I ever 
 forsake Thee ?" it is still the same answer, but in 
 a tone of tender pity which changes it into the 
 most enrapturing assurance. " Abide in Me. I l(yce, 
 I Iceep. 
 
 To strong faith this is absolute assurance. To 
 feeble faith no stronger assurance can be given. If 
 all the ingenuity of all the divines in the world were 
 taxed to find a formula stating in abstract terms the 
 security of the believer, despondency would bafiie 
 them all, and be sure to find some flaw to exclude 
 itself. Therefore, I think, God takes another w^ay, 
 and draws the trembling, doubting, desponding 
 heart through the very destitution of security to him- 
 self.^ to the security which is safety, whether it is felt 
 to be so or not, and which, when it is felt to be 
 safety, is life and joy besides ; to the fortress of 
 the Father's house, to the sanctuary of the Fatlicr' 
 heart 
 
382 THE DiAnr of 
 
 And once tJwre^ what child would not smile at all 
 the security of documents, — weej)ing on His bosom, 
 " I would rather trust Thee." 
 
 God will not suffer us to rest on things, on words, 
 on anything in our past, on anything even in His 
 promises apart from Mmself. 
 
 *' Restoration to God," Mother said, " is the very 
 end and object for which we are redeemed. * Thou 
 hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood.' And God 
 loves us too truly to suffer that anything shall be 
 a substitute for living, loving communion mth him- 
 self." 
 
 It seems that during our absence in London, when 
 Mother and Betty were left alone together, they had 
 many discussions. At fii*st, these were at times 
 rather hotly controversial. But one day Betty said 
 it made her head so dizzy she felt like going mazed, 
 to be spinning round and round always in the same 
 place, as it was her opinion Missis and she had 
 been doing. She therefore proposed that instead 
 of talking so much they should read the Bible to- 
 gether, with one of Mr. Wesley's hymns by way of a 
 prayer. And it was wonderful. Mother said, how 
 much better they grew to understand each other 
 after that. 
 
 " For," said Mother, " to confess the truth, Kitty, 
 I never forgot what Betty said to me, one day when 
 I was ill, about assurance and the witness of the 
 spirit." So at last one evening, after reading the 
 Bible together. Mother and Betty had the conversa- 
 tion which Mother thus related to me. 
 
 They had been reading together the eighth chapter 
 '^f the epistle to the Romans, and had dwelt pnilicu- 
 
Mmi KITTY trevylyan: 383 
 
 larly on the verses, " There is therefore now no condem- 
 nation to those who, are in Christ Jesus,^'' and " The 
 Spirit deareth witness icith our spirit^ tliat ice are children 
 of Oody Betty told Mother what she had told me, 
 how, after weeks of gloom and wretchedness, in which 
 the sense of her sins weighed on her like a darkness 
 that could be felt, one day she saw the burden of her 
 sins all laid on her Saviour ; she saw how He bore 
 them in His own body on the tree, and bore them 
 away and buried them in his own grave, and saved 
 her. And she felt she was forgiven, and her whole 
 heart overflowed with speechless gratitude and joy. 
 
 Mother replied that she had more than once felt 
 her heart melt into gratitude and joy when she had 
 looked at the Cross, but that afterwards the recollec- 
 tion of her sins had come back on her and weighed 
 her do^^^l again. She thought such an assurance of 
 salvation as Betty spoke of was only given to great 
 saints, and only to them when their faith and love 
 were all but perfected. And all she ventured to 
 hope for for herself was that one day perhaps, on her 
 death-bed, hope might at last overbalance fear, and 
 she might depart in trembling trust. 
 
 But Betty said she did not believe the Almighty 
 meant His children to creep through the world with 
 a halter round their necks, because it might keep 
 them humble to remember that if they didn't take 
 care, one day they might be hanged. No father on 
 earth with a heart in him would beat the worst child 
 who wanted to become better, like that. *• Least- 
 ways," said she, " that wasn't your way. Missis." 
 
 " Better, perhaps, if it had," said Mother, thinking 
 mournfully of Jack. " Earthly love is selfish at best. 
 But God will never indulge His children, because He 
 
884 'fHE DIAItY OF 
 
 loves them too much. Because He loves us He can 
 bear to see us suffer any tiling that will do us good, 
 and if it would keep us humbler and safer to wait 
 for our pardon till we are safe from sinning, God 
 could bear to hide His love from us, though it 
 might grieve Him at His heart." 
 
 " Yes, sure He could^'' said Betty, " if it would do 
 any poor soul good to be treated so ; but it's my be- 
 lief it wouldn't, and the Lord knows better than to 
 do such a thing. And as to Master Jack," she added, 
 *' please God, Missis, you and Master mayn't never 
 take to such a way with him. For I won't deny that 
 if you and Master were to sit in the hall like justices, 
 when he comes back, for him to come cringing and 
 bowing and making fine speeches before you ; and 
 then Master were to say quite high and stiffish, 
 * Well, sir, w^e shall see, — time will show,' and. were 
 to send him out into the kitchen to take his meat 
 along with Roger and me, I can't deny if I were 
 Master Jack I'd run away again for good, and as to 
 me, Missis, I wouldn't stand it." 
 
 And Betty all but cried at her o^^ti tragic notion, 
 when the matter struck her in a new light, and she 
 resumed, — 
 
 " But what an old fool I am to think of you and 
 Master setting up play-acting like that. Why, Roger 
 himself, poor innocent, would see through it, and 
 wait smiling in himself to see what was to come next. 
 And the dog wouldn't be taken in a minute, he'd 
 whine and fawn on Master Jack and jump from him 
 to you as much as to say, " Why, don't you see 
 it's young master !' But Master Jack would see 
 through it the first of all. Before you or Master 
 could say one of your fine improving si)eechcs, he'd 
 
JfliS. KITTY TREVYLYAK 885 
 
 "be at your feet, Missis, — he'd be on your heart, and 
 you'd be crying your eyes out over him for joy." 
 
 Mother made one more faint attempt at resistance. 
 
 " But God is better than we are," she said ; " and 
 what He sees good for us He will do, whatever it 
 costs Him." 
 
 " The Almighty is better than us," replied Betty 
 emphatically. *'The father in the Bible didn't sit 
 waiting in the house, saying, ^ We shall see, — time 
 mil show.' He was waiting at the door straining 
 his eyes for the first sight of the poor foolish lad, lest 
 he should be too ashamed to come near after all. 
 And the minute he saw him he ran to meet him, and 
 fell on his neck more like a mother than a father, 
 and stopped with kisses all the fine speeches he had 
 been making in them foreign parts, so that the poor 
 boy never got through with them. And they came 
 back into the house together^ that not a grudging soul 
 there might dare to cast up a thing at him. And he 
 set all the men and maidens to work, and afterwards 
 set them all to feasting and dancing and merry-mak- 
 ing, as if it had been a wedding or a christening, in- 
 stead of only a poor, wild lad creeping back home to 
 try and do right again, with scarce a rag to his back, 
 and not a shoe to his feet. He wasn't afraid the poor 
 fellow would make himself too much at home. He 
 couldn't do enough like to make him feel he was at 
 home again. And the Lord, who told us all about 
 it," concluded Betty, " He knows what the inside of 
 the father's house is, which is more, in my opinion, 
 than any one on earth can do yet awhile. So we may 
 as well give up guessing and trust to what He said 
 For He came from inside." 
 
 Mother admitted that the parable of the Prodigal 
 
OOD THE DIARY OF 
 
 Son did not sliow quite plainly the joy of God in 
 welcoming back the penitent sinner. " But how were 
 we to laiow we were penitent V she said. " It was 
 BO easy to deceive ourselves, and persuade ourselves 
 into anything we wished." 
 
 " Well, Missis," said Betty, " I can't say I found it 
 so easy. The more I wished it, the less I could be- 
 lieve it was for me." 
 
 Mother conceded that this might be the case 
 with honest and truthful and resented people like 
 Betty ; but who could answer for the delusions into 
 which sanguine and excitable people might fall if 
 they were told the beginning of religion was to feel 
 their sins were forgiven. 
 
 " Some folks always would deceive themselves," 
 Betty replied. '' The Apostles themselves couldn't 
 hinder that, try as they might." 
 
 Then Mother returned to her point. How was any 
 one to know, assuredly, the true penitence and the 
 true joy from the false ? 
 
 And to this all Betty could reply was, — 
 
 " Well, Missis, I can't say I think folks can know, 
 unless they try for themselves. But," she added, 
 " if we're always to be climbing up the rock out of 
 the waves ourselves, and never to feel w^e've got our 
 feet firm upon it, how are we to turn and have our 
 hands free to help the rest who are still clinging to 
 the wreck or fighting through the breakers ?" 
 
 *' And what did you spy next. Mother ?" I asked. 
 
 "I said nothing to Betty," Mother replied. "I 
 w^ent up into the little porch-closet, KiUy, and knelt 
 down, and prayed God to teach me." 
 
 *' And then, dear Mother ?" I asked. 
 
 " Why, then, Kitty, I read the Bible, and I thought 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN-. «5«r 
 
 a long time, and then I prayed again. And at last I 
 began to see that it was a sin not to believe in the 
 love God has for us, and. if we believe that it is as 
 much a necessity as a duty, to be glad." 
 
 And is not this the good news which the Method- 
 ists are bringing to thousands and tens of thousands 
 all over the world, a religion which promises present 
 life and joy and strength to all who believe it, and 
 which keeps the promise ? A gospel not only of a 
 past creation^ finished and very good, but of a present 
 living Creator^ creating now? Not only of a past 
 perfect redemption, but of a present living Re- 
 deemer; not only of a past miraculous Pentecost, 
 but of a present living Holy S^Dirit, teaching and 
 comforting here and now ? 
 
 " Not thankful when it pleaseth me, 
 As if thy blessings had spare days, 
 But such a heart whose pulse may be 
 Thy praise." 
 
 Tliis morning I woke with those words of good 
 Mr. Herbert's in my heart ; and before noon I felt 
 my need of them. There has been a letter from 
 Hugh. Jack's afiiiirs will take longer settling than 
 we thought. And meantime Hugh finds plenty of 
 missionary work among the poor blacks, so that 1 
 must try not to wdsh him back before the autumn, to 
 which time his return has been delayed ; and not to 
 let the intervening days be merely a kind of waste 
 border-land between two regions of life, but to fill 
 them with their own work, which, no doubt, if I ask 
 God, He will give me. 
 
888 THE DIARY OF 
 
 One ]3iece of work lias come already. Toby Tret- 
 fry, wlien Mother and I went to visit Mm to-day. 
 asked me, as a great favor, if I would let liim come 
 to our house for an hour now and then, and help 
 him on a ittle with his reading, which, with all 
 his pains, he still finds to be a very slow and not 
 very certain n ode of gaining information or edifica- 
 tion. 
 
 This evening he came for the first time, and with 
 some hesitation made known the chief reason for his 
 coming. He has contrived to collect a few of the 
 idle boys of the parish on Sunday afternoons to 
 teach them. And the attempt to teach others has 
 made him feel his own deficiencies. 
 
 This accounts for the sounds Father and I heard 
 issuing from Toby's cottage as we were walking 
 through the fields last Sunday. 
 
 The singing was hearty enough, at all events. 
 From time to time the voices seemed to grow uncer- 
 tain and scanty, and to wander up and down without 
 knowing where they were going. But after such 
 interval's Toby's voice was heard again like a cap- 
 tain's collecting his scattered forces after a chase, 
 and the whole body came in together at the close 
 with a shout, which Father and I concluded was the 
 chorus. 
 
 I suggested to Betty that a little elementary in- 
 struction in singing, such as I could give, might not 
 be useless to Toby, if he is to be choir-master as well 
 as schoolmaster. 
 
 "More than that, too, Mrs. Kitty," said Betty, 
 *' Toby is appointed local preacher in our district." 
 
 Tliis announcement was made as Betty was taking 
 away the supper, and the demand on Mother's faith 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVTLYAK ««« 
 
 m Methodist arrangements was more than it could 
 stand. 
 
 " Toby a preacher when he can scarcely read !" 
 she said. 
 
 " It's my belief, JVIissis," said Betty, " folks can 
 learn to read a deal easier than they can learn what 
 the Almighty's learned Toby's poor soul. There 
 be things seen in the dejpths Toby 's been brought 
 through never written in any lesson-book I ever 
 see." 
 
 " But whatever the profit may be to others," said 
 Mother, "it must certainly be dangerous to Toby 
 himself to set himself up to teach when he has still 
 BO much to learn." 
 
 " Well, Missis," said Betty, very respectfully but 
 very determinedly, " seems to me if folks weren't to 
 teach till they've no more to learn, they may wait 
 till doomsday, and beyond that, for aught that I 
 know by. And more than that, the folks that do set 
 uj) to teach because they've done learning be mosf. 
 times mortal dull teachers. Nothing comes so home, 
 it's my belief, as a lesson the teacher has just learned 
 himself from the Almighty, whether from His word 
 or His hand. However, Toby's not set himself up 
 to preach, any way. Folks felt the better for what 
 he'd got \o say, and they would make him preach, 
 and that's the end of it." 
 
 " A congregation who will listen is a good begin- 
 ning for any parson, certainly," said Father. " And 
 I suppose Toby's salary is not very high." 
 
 " The pay of them local preachers," replied Betty 
 
 drily, " is most times the wrong way as far as this 
 
 world goes. Toby often walks ten or twenty miles 
 
 to his preaching, and when it rains he's got to 
 
 33* 
 
890 THE DIARY OF 
 
 j)reacli in liis wet clothes, and sit in tliem till tlicy'ro 
 dry; so that his pay is like to be weary bones 
 now and rheumatics in old age. But he's content 
 enough." 
 
 But when afterwards I questioned Toby about his 
 self-denying labors, he colored and stammered, very 
 little like a man accustomed to public speaking, and 
 at last he said, — 
 
 *' They've only taken me on trial for a year. And 
 as to the pay, the times I have alone on my walks, 
 thinking over the Lord and His goodness, and all I've 
 got to tell them, is jDay enough for a prince, let alone 
 the joy of seeing the poor souls comforted and 
 cheered up a bit, while I talk to them, and the hope 
 of meeting them all and thanking the Lord together 
 by-and-by." 
 
 These last weeks have been full of events. Uncle 
 Beauchamp died rather suddenly two months since. 
 The shock of his death brought on a slight attack of 
 paralysis on Aunt Beauchamp, which has disabled 
 her from entering any more into society. 
 
 Cousin Evelyn is left in possession of a large for- 
 tune, bequeathed for her sole use, on her father's 
 death, by the will of her paternal grandmother. She 
 has announced her intention of paying us a visit. 
 Aunt Beauchamp keeps recurring, like a sick child, 
 to a promise she says Mother made her of coming to 
 nurse her if ever she should need it. And since it is . 
 impossible for Mother to leave home, the doctors 
 (Evelyn writes), think that difficult as the journey is, 
 the most probable chance of recovery is for her 
 mother to come for a tMue to us, if we can receive 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 891 
 
 her. Mo tiler's tender and quiet nursing may restore 
 her shattered nerves, or, at least, soothe them. Betty's 
 anticipations of tliis visit are not bright. A fine 
 London man and maid, and an old madam, who (she 
 has heard) paints her face (which no one ever did in 
 the Bible except Jezebel), are very serious apprehen, 
 sions to Betty. 
 
 Indeed, she said to-day, it was quite enough, in her 
 opinion, to account for all the evil signs and tokens ; 
 so that, she admits, there is some comfort even in 
 such an upset as this, for such sights and sounds 
 might have boded worse. 
 
 Betty's spirits are much relieved, now that our vis- 
 itors have come, by discovering that the " London 
 man" turns out to be a Methodist collier lad, pro- 
 moted by Evelyn to the dignity of groom ; that my 
 aunt's woman, Mrs. Sims, is entirely engrossed v/ith 
 her mistress ; that my poor aunt herself has relin- 
 quished the rouge ; and that in a very short time the 
 whole party are to emigrate from our house to the 
 parsonage. 
 
 For Evelyn has bought the next presentation of the 
 living for Hugh, for which, she says, we owe her no 
 thanks, as she intends ruthlessly to rob us of the par- 
 sonage, and to convert it, with the exception of such 
 rooms as she and her mother want, into an orphan- 
 house for some destitute little girls she has discovered 
 in London, for whom she believes the great hope is to 
 take them quite out of reach of their bad relations,^ 
 into such a new world as this will be to them. 
 
 We, she says, are to struggle on as we can in the 
 old house. She insists, however, on repaiiing or re- 
 
802 THE DIARY OF 
 
 building the fallen side of the old court, in which aro 
 situated the rooms formerly appropriated to us. The 
 masons and carpenters are at work already. There 
 is not much to be done. The old walls are as firm as 
 when they were built, and the stone muUions only need 
 to be repaired here and there. The chief renoyation 
 is the replacing of the broken floors and ceilings, the 
 glazing of the old windows, involving the dethrone- 
 ment of Betty's hens, who from time immemorial 
 have made their roost in the deserted old chambers. 
 Already, under Evelyn's eager hastening, the work is 
 advancing. And when Hugh comes back he will feel 
 as if an enchanter's wand had been waved over the 
 old place, so delightfully like and yet unlike is it to 
 its old self. 
 
 Evelyn is altogether graver and gentler and more 
 peaceable than I ever saw her. Her strong will 
 seems to find its true element in action, and no more 
 drives her restlessly against other people's wills, 
 merely by way of exercise. At the same time she 
 seems to me more of a queen than ever ; and I de- 
 light to watch how instinctively every one yields to 
 her control — every one except poor Aunt Beauchamp : 
 and in her sick-chamber T love to watch Evelyn even 
 better than anywhere else. The paralytic stroke, be- 
 reavement, and change of circumstances, have brought 
 a vague irritation and sense of helpless opposition 
 into my poor aunt's brain, very sad to see ; and this 
 chiefly vents itself on Evelyn. She seems to feel as 
 if something, she knows not what, were always pre- 
 venting her doing what she wishes ; and when Eve- 
 lyn appear.^, this tyrannical something seems to rep- 
 resent itself to her as poor Evelyn's will. At times 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAN. . 893 
 
 slie blames and reproaches Evelyn as if slie were a 
 willful child. At other times she weeps, and wrings 
 her hands, and entreats, as if she herself were the 
 child and Evelyn the harsh guardian, to be allowed 
 to do some impossible thing or other. And Eve- 
 lyn, so strong and commanding elsewhere, by that 
 sick-bed is tender and yielding, and patient with 
 every sick fancy. Now and then, after a paroxysm 
 of fretting and complaining, she is rewarded by a 
 few tender words of love and thanks, as a gleam of 
 clearer light breaks over the poor troubled brain. 
 And at such times it is always as to a little child 
 Aunt Beauchamp speaks to her, calling her old ten- 
 der nursery names, long disused, at which poor Eve- 
 lyn's eyes fill with tears. 
 
 The doctors say this form of the disease will prob- 
 ably pass ; and already Mother's presence, and firm, 
 kind nursing seems to have exercised a soothing in- 
 fluence. 
 
 The time for Hugh's arrival is come. Any day 
 may bring us tidings of his ship. Evelyn is hasten- 
 ing the preparation of the parsonage, for the recep- 
 tion of her mother and the orphans. Two rooms 
 looking on the garden she has fitted up with every 
 luxury her mother is accustomed to, China vases and 
 images on golden brackets, caskets of aromatic woods, 
 soft carpets and leopard's skins, mirrors with little 
 China Cupids peeping round at their own reflections 
 from the garlanded frame : everything to make poor 
 Aunt Beauchamp feel as much at home as if her win- 
 dows looked on Great Ormond Street, instead of over 
 a patch of garden sheltered with difliculty from the 
 storms of the Atlantic. 
 
894 • THE DIARY OF 
 
 The rest of the house is a straogj contrast. In 
 Evelyn's own rooms the only luxuries are books and 
 flowers, and a view, through an opening in the valley, 
 of the sea. The furniture is nearly as simple as that 
 of the dormitories and the school-room for the or 
 phans, to which the remaining portion of the house 
 is devoted. Every one of the little white beds in 
 these dormitories has its own chest of drawers, which 
 is also the toilette table and its washing stand. These 
 are all alike. Evelyn means to add by degrees little 
 gifts of pictures and books, as she learns the tastes of 
 the little inmates. She wishes to make a liome^ as far 
 as possible, for the children ; not, she says, by the 
 assumption of names of relationship which are untrue, 
 and but by getting to know each child individually, 
 by giving each some little peculiar possessions, so as 
 to make each feel not a little unit in a sum, or a thing 
 in a magazine, but a little person in a family. Her 
 plan is to give each of them, perhaps, a hen, or a 
 jQ*uit-tree, that they may learn early the connection 
 between taking care and Jiaving^ and between self-de- 
 nial and giving. And whenever this is possible, she 
 intends to encourage their cherishing little memorials 
 of the past, that they may feel they are not taken 
 into the orphan house to be taken out of the order 
 of God's providence, but only to be removed from 
 some of the world's dangers and Satan's tempta- 
 tions. 
 
 '* That is my blank sheet, Kitty," she said to me 
 one day. " It will be strange, in after years, to see 
 how what is written on it corresponds with my plans. 
 For, though the scheme is in my hands, the history, 
 you know, is not." 
 
 " Cousin Kitty," she said suddenly, as we were 
 
3£RS. KITTY TREVYLYAIT. 895 
 
 walking home across a reach of sandy shore, " I know 
 Mr. Wesley thinks riches the meanest of God's gifts, 
 but I do think they are a grand gift when one is 
 young and free. So few possess riches until their 
 wants and habits have grown uj) to them, so that 
 after all they are only enough to supply their wants, 
 — that is not riches to them at all. Now, with me, it 
 is different. My tastes are as simple as possible. I 
 have no pleasure in splendor and no need for luxu- 
 ries. God has given me riches in my youth and 
 health; and, moreover," she continued in a trembling 
 voice, " He has given me to see something of i\\Q 
 great poverty and misery there are in the world. 
 And also He has brought me at the threshold of my 
 life face to face with Death. And there is nothing 
 in the world I should like so much, I mean really 
 like or enjoy so much," she repeated emphatically, 
 " as, unentangled with any personal interests or cares, 
 to give myself up, that is, all I have and am, to help- 
 ing, and cheering, and serving the sorrowful and 
 neglected and destitute peoj)le around me, all my 
 life long, leading them to feel all the time that 
 the love and help they found in me was only a 
 little trickling from the great love and power of 
 God." 
 
 As she spoke, she was looking far out over the sea 
 to the west, where the sky was glowing with sunset. 
 But the glow and the life in her eyes and on her 
 beaming face, seemed to make the glow on the sky 
 lifeless in comparison. It came, I I'elt, from a Sun,^ 
 *' unseen am! eternal," and its light was not that of 
 Bunset but of sunrise. 
 
 While Evelyn and I stood together by the sea-side 
 
396 THE DIARY OF 
 
 that evening, I noticed, at one point, a bank of 
 clouds just rising slowly above the horizon. 
 
 As we walked home, the wind rose in those strange, 
 fitful gusts which Father says are like flying skirmish- 
 ing parties sent out to clear the way before the mail* 
 forces of a storm. 
 
 As the wind rose all through that evening, I bcgau 
 to feel terribly anxious ; and I knew they all felt as 
 I did, because every one made such lively efforts not 
 to let the conversation flag. They talked about 
 Evelyn's alterations at the parsonage, about the reno- 
 vations in our old house, about Father's old military 
 days — about every one except Hugh, about every- 
 thing except the tempestuous wind which had now 
 ceased to be gusty and kej^t surging up the valley 
 in great deafening waves, as regular and almost as 
 strong as the billows it had been urging on in its 
 course, and whose salt spray it kept dashing against 
 the windows, mingled with great plashes of rain. 
 
 Evelyn wished me good-night in an easy, careless 
 tone, as if it were quite an ordinary night, and no 
 one we cared about were on the sea ; and Mother 
 made no attempt to come to my chamber or to invite 
 me to hers, as she does in any common anxiety. 
 Only Father's voice betrayed his feelings by its ner- 
 vous abruptness, as he came back from an explora- 
 tion of the weather, and said, as we separated for tl; e 
 niglit,— 
 
 " This weather is nothing sudden. It cannot have 
 taken any good seaman by surprise. It has been 
 brewing since yesterday evening ; and no doubt any 
 one wlio knows this coast is either far enough from It 
 0^ safe in port." 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVTLYAN, 397 
 
 But long afterwards, I heard Mother's closet door 
 close, and low voices conclude what I felt had been 
 an earnest parley ; and, with every sense quick as it 
 was that night, I heard Evelyn's soft step glide 
 stealthily past my chamber to her own. 
 
 Only Betty ventured to speak to me. She knocked 
 at my door, and came into my chamber from her 
 own, while I was still standing at the window, listen- 
 ing to the storm. 
 
 " Mrs. Kitty, my dear 1" she said in her old tone 
 of authority, which carried me back to my childhood, 
 and made me feel submissive at once. " Mrs. Kitty, 
 my dear lamb, you mustn't stand staring and heark- 
 ening like that." And she began quietly to unfasten 
 my dress, as when I was a little child. "There's 
 aothing folks can't see and hear if they hearken on 
 lights like this, my dear," she continued. " I've 
 heard the wind creusle, and moan, and scream in 
 that way ; I would have sworn it was folks in mortal 
 trouble ; and in the morning when I came to ask, 
 nothing had happened out of the way. So take 
 heart, my dear, take heart I" 
 
 How thankful I felt to Betty for the want of tact 
 which made her full heart come blundering out 
 with all its sympathy, so that I could just lay my 
 head on her shoulder and cry like a child, and be 
 comforted. 
 
 " I'm not out of heart, Betty," I sobbed ; " why 
 should I be ? His ship may not have left America 
 yet, you know ; it may be in port quite safe, close at 
 hand, close at hand I" 
 
 " It may, my dear, it may," she said ; " but it isa't 
 maybes that'll comfort you, my lamb. You must 
 trust the Lord." 
 
 34 
 
OW TFTE DIARY OF 
 
 " I do," I said. " Indeed I do. But He promises 
 us no security from danger ; none from any danger, 
 does He V 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Kitty," she said, " I can't say I think 
 He do. But He promises to care for us, and He tells 
 us to trust, and we must, my dear, we must I The 
 Lord is sure not to hurt us more than He can help. 
 His promises are great, my dear, but the Lord him- 
 self is better than all His promises. He always 
 means more than He says ; more and never less ; be- 
 cause He is better than words can say. So Mrs. 
 Kitty, my dear," she concluded, "111 leave you alone 
 with Him. You'll find it better. For all the great- 
 est fights, it's mj'^ belief, have got to be fought out 
 alone with the Almighty. You'll find when you 
 kneel down and give yourself up, heart and soul to 
 Him, that you don't want any more promises than 
 he gives. For all the words in the world end some- 
 where, and have something they cannot reach. But 
 the love of the Lord has no end, and it flows down 
 to the bottom of every trouble." 
 
 And when Betty had gone, I did kneel down, and 
 I proved what she said to be true. I proved that all 
 possi1)le promises are included and absorbed by that 
 one, " I will never leave thee ;" that all hopes of 
 deliverance are weak to sustain, compared with sim- 
 ple trust in the Deliverer. 
 
 I would not blot out the lessons of that night for 
 twice its pain. For, at last, I was able to put out 
 the light and lie down in the darkness, without 
 shuddering, alone with the storm; although the rush 
 of the wind up the valley, as gust after gust broke 
 against the house, made the branches of the old 
 elms strain and groan like a shix^'s timbers, and the 
 
 Pr. 
 
MRS. KITTY TREYYLYAN. 899 
 
 windows rattle, and tlie old house tremble to its 
 foundations. For the tone of an enemy's voice had 
 passed from the tempest. I could take refuge with 
 the Arm that wielded it, for me and mine. And 
 this is something to prove ; for it would, doubtless, 
 have been easier to have been at sea by Hugh's side, 
 than in that quiet chamber ; far easier to have been 
 tossing helplessly, as I thought he might be, from 
 the crest of one wave to the trough of another, feel- 
 ing the ship stagger at every blow of the waves, than 
 to lie there, safe and sheltered, listening to the winds 
 as they surged up the valley after lashing the sea , 
 into fury. 
 
 In the morning Betty came to me, as I was dress- 
 ing, her face white and her eyes large v/ith fear. 
 Toby, she said, had just come down from the cliffs, 
 and had said there was a dismasted ship of British 
 build, out of her course and quite unmanageable, 
 making as fast as she could the fatal rocks at the 
 entrance of his little bay. He was going back to his 
 cottage, with two or three of his class, to pray for 
 the crew ; and then they were to keep watch on the 
 points of the coast, from which help was most prac- 
 ticable, ready to throve ropes, or to render any 
 possible assistance. 
 
 None of us could rest in the house with such a 
 catastrophe at hand. Father and Roger went up on 
 the cliff, to join the old seamen and the fishermen 
 already ther^. Evelyn and I tried to accompany 
 them, but we could stand before the wind ; and it 
 was arranged that we, with Mother and Betty, should 
 remain in Toby's cottage, keeping up the fire, taking 
 thither blankets and warm wraps and a)! kinds of 
 
400 TEE DIARY OF 
 
 restoratives, in case any of tlie ship-wrecked crew 
 could be rescued. ^ 
 
 But that moment on the cliflfs had been enough to 
 imprint the terrible sight on our hearts for ever. 
 
 Dismasted, helpless, full, wc knew, of our country- 
 men driven on our own shores, the shore they had 
 been eagerly looking for so long, to perish ! 
 
 Not one of us spoke a word as we busied our- 
 selves in making every possible preparation, or in 
 the still more terrible moments of inaction which 
 followed, when every possible preparation had been 
 made. 
 
 Then Toby came for an instant to the door and 
 shouted : 
 
 " There is hope I there is hope I Don't give over 
 praying I She is jammed in between two rocks. 
 If she can hold together till the ebb, there is hope I 
 
 A sob of relief broke from us all ; and we knelt 
 down together. But no one would utter a word. 
 
 Soon Toby came again. 
 
 " They are maldng signals !" he said. " We have 
 made signals to them to wait. But either they don't 
 make us out, or she won't hold together. One of 
 them is tying a rope round him to throw himself into 
 the sea. We can see him from the beach. AVe could 
 make him hear if it wasn't for the roar of the wind 
 and the sea." 
 
 Then we could remain in the cottage no longer. 
 Evelyn and I went back mth Toby to the point on 
 the beach nearest the wreck. 
 
 " He hopes to reach us, and get the rest in by the 
 rope," said Toby. " But he'll never do it, the sea is 
 too wild." 
 
 And then in a low tone, — 
 
MRS. KITTY TREVYLYAK. 401 
 
 " He must know the coast. He is climbing tlie 
 slippery rock at the only point it can be climbed, 
 where Master Hugh and I used to hunt for gulls' 
 nests." 
 
 He stopped. His eye met mine. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Eltty, take heart, take heart !" he said. 
 " Master Hugh knows what he's about. And the 
 Lord '11 never let him be lost." 
 
 The form we were watching plunged from the rock 
 and disappeared beneath the waves. There was a 
 shout among the fishermen. Again another ; he had 
 re-appeared above the breakers. Then again a terri- 
 ble breathless silence. 
 
 What happened next I did not see. A mist came 
 before my eyes, blotting out sound and sight. 
 
 And the next thing of which I was conscious was 
 waking up in Toby's cottage with my head on 
 Mother's bosom, and seeing some one stretched on 
 Toby's little bed beside the fire, but not too close, 
 while Toby and Betty, on each side, were chafing the 
 hands and feet, and the face was motionless and pale 
 as death. 
 
 But slowly, almost before I was fully conscious, his 
 breast heaved slightly ; the eyes feebly opened and 
 met mine. And the next instance I was kneeling 
 beside Hugh. 
 
 They had been chafing and rubbing, and trying 
 every means of restoration for an hour ; and it was 
 only just before I recovered consciousness, that the 
 first faint gasp, the first pale flush of color gave any 
 sign of returning life. 
 
 But as I knelt there beside him, his eyes opened 
 again and rested with such rest on mine, and ho 
 rather breathed than said, so faint was his voice, — 
 
402 THE DIARY OF 
 
 ** Are the rest saved V 
 
 And Toby answered, — 
 
 "They're all saved, all. The Lord bless you, 
 Master Hugh. The waves which dashed you, a 
 drowned man, as we thought, on the beach, did not 
 break the rope which bound you to the WTeck. 
 Three of the boldest clung to that and were saved at 
 once, and all the rest when the tide went out." 
 
 Then Hugh was satisfied, and asked no more ques- 
 tions, but kej^t firm hold of my hand and closed his 
 eyes. His lips moved, tears pressed slowly out from 
 under his closed eyelids, and an exj^ression of un- 
 utterable peace settled on his face. 
 
 Before night we were all kneeling there, beside 
 him, the shipwrecked crew around the door, while 
 in feeble, but distinct tones, he was thanking God 
 whose mercies are " new every morning," whose 
 " mercy endureth for ever." 
 
 That is the way in which God has answered a 
 thousand prayers at once. 
 
 Life was given back to the perishing by Toby's 
 fireside, and through his hands. The wrecker's 
 house of death became a threshold of life. The den 
 of thieves became a house of prayer. 
 
 And Hugh is given back to me. That was the first 
 service in which Hugh led the prayers and praises of 
 his flock. A "prosperous journey" had indeed been 
 given him (such as was given to St. Paul of old), 
 beyond all we could have dared to ask. 
 
 He had reached his native shores in a nobler tri- 
 umph than if he had been convoyed by all the 
 King's fleet, and greeted ])y a royal salute ; cast on 
 the beach a shipwrecked man, all but dying for 
 those ho had plunged into the waves to rescue. 
 
JinS. KITTY TliEVYLYAX. 403 
 
 Tlie Aniens of liis first thanksgiving service had 
 been sobbed from the lii)s of those whose lives he 
 had risked his own save. 
 
 We accept it as a token. 
 
 AYlien " the stonn of life is past ;" when we wake 
 to onr first thank sgiving-ser\'ice on the other shore, 
 vnll there (oh, will there not ?) be such a company 
 of rescued men and women around us then ? rescued 
 from wTeck more fatal, pouring out their praises, 
 not, indeed, to us, but to Him who loved us all and 
 redeemed us all to God by His blood ; not at the 
 risk of His life only, but, by giving it up, redeemed 
 us not from hell to heaven only, but from sin to God. 
 
 For the storms never cease on earth. And even 
 when Mr. Whitetield, and the AYesleys, and John 
 Nelson, and Silas Jold, have passed from this world, 
 with all the noble men and women who work with 
 them, rescuing wrecked souls from destruction, and 
 chafing fainting hearts into life, Hugh says the 
 storms will still continue, and the wrecks. For till 
 heaven and earth shall pass away, the work of 
 rescuing the lost "will have to begin again, generation 
 by generation, and day by day. 
 
 But there is no fear, Hugh is sure, but that with 
 the stomis God will send the deliverers ; the nev/ 
 workmen for the old work of rescue from the old 
 perils, wakening the new song of redemption, fresh 
 as the rlrst, in every heart that leams it fresh from 
 heavr-j 
 
 THE END. 
 
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