Felicia Skene

“ Richard, you have taken a step which you were perfectly aware could only meet with the most severe and unqualified disapprobation from me; but you will doubtless say that you have long since cast off the trammels of paternal authority--that you are no longer of an age when it is necessary for you to be influenced by my opinions, or to consult my wishes--that we stand together as man with man, the one as likely to be right in his ideas as the other, each holding his own views in independence, acting by his own standard of right and wrong. ”

“ Thank Heaven, I need not scruple to come to you, were you in sickness or in sorrow: suffering casts down all barriers for the servant of Him who in all our afflictions was afflicted. Meantime, do not think to change my resolution in any way; there is but one path opened for me in this, as in all other earthly trials--the path of duty--and that alone will I follow."
Agnes turned away, weeping bitterly. Richard flung himself into a chair, and hid his face on his arm. There was a painful silence for a few minutes, till Mr. Clayton spoke again. ”

“ Agnes Clayton had never been accustomed, as we have said before, to control her feelings. She did not remember, that there is a profound selfishness in allowing those around us to be saddened with the aspect of our suffering; there is enough of sorrow in this world without our adding to it by constraining others to feel for us a painful sympathy. We have a Friend most merciful, to whom we may pour out the bitterness of our soul ”

“ She looked up, she dashed the tears from her eyes, and said calmly:--
"I will endeavour to please you; you need not be afraid; I will look sad no more." She said this with a bitter conviction of his unkindness--with a sullen morbid feeling rankling at her heart; and Richard understood, readily enough, what was passing in her mind, but from that hour she obeyed him so implicitly to the letter, that it was impossible for him to find fault with the thoughts which he could only guess to be in her heart ”

“ She was herself under the full belief that Agnes had returned to her guardian's protection; and when she heard of their marriage, she was, to do her justice, sincerely and deeply shocked. In fact, no person, even worldly minded and unrefined as Mrs. Sharp was, could fail to be otherwise on first hearing of a union of that description, unless their mind had received a bias to a contrary opinion from the sophistical arguments of those who fear not to show a practical contempt of God's laws and ordinances ”

“ However fearfully corrupt may be the internal machinery of society, they yet have outwardly a code of laws, against which they allow none to rebel with impunity."
It was evident that this idea was as new as it was bitter to Richard. He saw at once, that if his marriage was a sin against the world's rule of propriety, he might expect to be visited with no light punishment. He literally groaned as he thought of what he had done, and of what was to come. The union he had contracted, suddenly appeared before him in the light of an irretrievable mistake. Agnes saw what was passing in his mind ”

“ But it is a peculiarity of the lower classes which must have been remarked by many, that they display a singular delicacy of feeling in their reverence for the dead. They seem to consider it a holy duty to be most scrupulous in all things pertaining to the honour of those helpless ones departed. ”

“ Mary had been left entirely to the care of the servants, and to the tender mercies of Mrs. Sharp, and they had not failed to fill her young mind with many painful ideas respecting her father and aunt, which, with all the strength and power of early impressions, were destined to influence her feelings towards them during the remainder of her life. ”

“ You know that I have always most strongly prohibited amongst them such marriages as that which you have contracted. I have turned away persons so connected from the very steps of the altar where they came to be united. ”