Emily Sarah Holt

“ I would I had known her; for to hear them talk of her,—Father, and Mother, and Aunt Joyce,—I could well-nigh think her an angel in human flesh. Now, wherefore is it, for I have oft-times marvelled, that we speak more tenderly and reverently of folk that be dead, than of the living? Were I to die a young maid, should Milly (that loves to mock me now) tell her children henceforward of their Aunt Helen, as though she had been somewhat better than other women? ”

“ Father laughed, and carried off his book, pausing at the door to observe—“There is some truth in much thou hast said, Joyce.”
“Lack-a-day, what an acknowledgment from a man!” cries Aunt Joyce. “Yet ’tis fenced round, look you. ‘There is some truth in much’ I have said. Ah, go thy ways, my good Aubrey; thou art the best man ever I knew: but, alack! thou art a man, after all.”
“Why, Aunt Joyce,” saith Edith, who was laughing rarely, “what should we do, think you, if there were no men?”
“I would do some way, thou shouldst see,” saith Aunt Joyce, sturdily. ”

“ Ah, dear heart, it is sore matter to find thy shrine deserted of the idol: yet not half so sore as to see the idol lie broken at thy feet, and to know thenceforward that it was nought but a lump of common clay. No god—only a lump of clay, that thy foolish heart had thought to be one! Well! all that lieth behind, and the sooner thou canst turn away and go on thy journey, the better. But for what lieth afore, Edith, look onward and look upward. Heaven will be the brighter because earth was darker than thou hadst looked for. ”

“ I cannot tell how it is, but I do never feel satisfied. ’Tis as though there were wings within me, that must ever of their nature be stretching upward and onward. Where should they end, an’ they might go forward? Would there be any end? Can one be satisfied, ever?
I believe Anstace and Helen are satisfied, but then ’tis their nature to be content with things as they be. I do not know about Mother and Aunt Joyce. I misdoubt if it be altogether their nature. But then neither do they seem always satisfied. Father doth so: and his nature is high enough. ”

“ Never, methinks, saw I any so changed as our Milly by the illness and death of poor Blanche. From being the merriest of all us, methinks she is become well-nigh the saddest. I count it shall pass in time, but she is not like Milisent at this present. All we, indeed, have much felt the same: but none like her. I never did reckon her so much to love Blanche. ”

“ We found old Nanny—that is too infirm for aught but to sit of a chair in the sunshine—so doing by the window, beside her a little table, and thereon a great Bible open, with her spectacles of her nose, that she pulled off and wiped, and set down of the book to keep her place.
“Well, Nanny!” saith Aunt Joyce. “‘Sitting down under His shadow,’ dear heart?”
“Ay, Mistress Joyce,” saith she, “and ‘with great delight.’”
I marvel if old folk do really like to read the Bible. I never did. And the older I grow, the lesser doth it like me. Can they mean it, trow? ”

“ Ah, dear maid, when some sin, or some matter that perhaps scarce seems sin to thee, yet makes a cloud to rise up betwixt God and thee—when this shall creep into thy very bosom, and nestle himself there warm and close, and be unto thee as a precious jewel—remember, if so be, that ‘it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than thou shouldst, having two hands, or two feet, be cast into everlasting fire.’ He that said that, Helen, knew what Hell was. ”

“ See you not, all the fellows think you a coward if you dare not spend freely and act boldly? Ay, and a miser belike.”
“Is it worser to be thought a coward than to be one?” saith Father.
“Who be ‘all the fellows’?” saith Aunt Joyce. “My Lord of Burleigh and my Lord Hunsdon and Sir Francis Walsingham, I’ll warrant you.”
“Now, Aunt!” saith Walter. “Not grave old men like they! My Lord of Oxenford, that is best-dressed man of all the Court, and spendeth an hundred pound by the year in gloves and perfumes only—”
“Eh, Wat!” cries Helen: and Mother,—“Walter, my dear boy!” ”

“ Christ will be the dearer Friend, because the dearest human friend hath failed thine hope. It is not the traveller that hath been borne through flowers and sunshine on the soft cushions of a litter, that is the gladdest to see the lights of home.”
“It is nobody’s fault,” I could not help whispering.
“I know, dear heart!” she saith. “Thine idol is not broken. Thank God for it. Thou mayest think of him yet as a true man, able to hold up his head in the sunlight, with no cause to be ’shamed of the love which stole into thine heart ere thou hadst wist it. ”

“ Now, if one might order one’s own life, methinks it should be a right pleasant thing. For I reckon I should not go a-fooling, like as some lasses do. Mine head is not all stuffed with gallants, nor yet with velvet and gold. But I would love to be great. Not great like a duchess, just a name and no more: but to make a name for myself, and to have folks talk of me, how good and how clever I were. That is what I would fain be thought—good and clever. I take no care to be thought fair, nor in high place; howbeit, I desire not to be ugly nor no lower down than I am. ”

“ Yet for all this is Aunt Joyce ever bright and cheery, and ready to do all kindly service for whoso it be that needeth it. And ’tis harder to carry an heavy burden that it shall not show under your cloak, than to heave it up on your shoulder. I did alway love Aunt Joyce, but never better, methinks, than sithence I have known somewhat more of her inner mind. Poor hasty spirits that we be, how do we misjudge other folk! But now I must tarry in my chronicling, for I hear Anstace’ voice below, and I reckon she is come to help in making ready for Twelfth Night. ”

“ What manner of mischief?—for old Mary was very mysterious. May-be I do not well to ask afore Edith?”
“Ay, Dulcie, well enough,” saith Aunt Joyce, sadly, “for Edith knows the worst she can already. And if you knew the worst you could—”
“Why, what is it?” quoth she.
“Leonard,” saith Aunt Joyce, curtly.
“Leonard!” Every drop of blood seemed gone out of my Lady’s face. “I thought he was dead, years gone.”
“So did not I,” Aunt Joyce made low answer.
“No, I wis thou never didst,” saith my Lady, tenderly. “So thy love is still alive, Joyce? Poor heart!”
“My heart is,” she saith. ”