Nor did the old lady interpose a word to
arrest the alienation of her property.
CHAPTER XXIV.
BOOT FOR BALE.
Mary St. John was the orphan daughter of an English clergyman, who
had left her money enough to make her at least independent. Mrs.
Forsyth, hearing that her niece was left alone in the world, had
concluded that her society would be a pleasure to herself and a
relief to the housekeeping. Even before her father's death, Miss
St. John, having met with a disappointment, and concluded herself
dead to the world, had been looking about for some way of doing
good. The prospect of retirement, therefore, and of being useful to
her sick aunt, had drawn her northwards.
She was now about six-and-twenty, filled with two passions--one for
justice, the other for music. Her griefs had not made her selfish,
nor had her music degenerated into sentiment. The gentle style of
the instruction she had received had never begotten a diseased
self-consciousness; and if her religion lacked something of the
intensity without which a character like hers could not be evenly
balanced, its force was not spent on the combating of unholy doubts
and selfish fears, but rose on the wings of her music in gentle
thanksgiving. Tears had changed her bright-hued hopes into a
dove-coloured submission, through which her mind was passing towards
a rainbow dawn such as she had never dreamed of. To her as yet the
Book of Common Prayer contained all the prayers that human heart had
need to offer; what things lay beyond its scope must lie beyond the
scope of religion.
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