Julia Kavanagh

“ Ask them too, if you like, to enter life, to view it under all its aspects; why, they have travelled over the whole earth; and life, they know from the palace down to the hovel; but bid them think! They stare aghast: it is the task of Sisyphus—the labour of the Danaide; as fast as thought enters their mind, it goes out again. Bid them commune, one day with God and their own hearts—they reply dejectedly that they cannot; for their intellect is quick and brilliant, but their heart is cold. And thought springs from the heart, and in her heart had Rachel Gray found it. ”

“ Gray and Jane went out. Rachel remained alone with Mary.
"Why, how merry you are to-day, Miss!" said Mary, looking with wonder at
Rachel, as she busied herself about the house, singing by snatches.
"It is such a fine day," replied Rachel; she opened the parlour window; in poured the joyous sunshine—the blue sky shone above the dull brick street, and the tailor's thrush began to sing in its osier cage. "A day to make one happy," continued Rachel; and she smiled at her own thoughts; for on such a beautiful day, how could she but prosper? ”

“ Gray railed at the poor little Frenchwoman, as little better than an idolater or an infidel, Rachel felt as if it touched her honour, not to suffer this slur on her humble friend.
"Mother," she said, with some firmness, "you cannot tell what she is; for you know nothing of her, save by idle reports. I have watched her life day after day, and I have seen that it is holy. And, mother," added Rachel, slightly colouring, from the fervour with which she felt and spoke, "you know it as I do: all holiness comes from God." ”

“ She darted in and out, among wheels and horses, with reckless audacity; and once, to the infinite wrath of a fat liveried coachman, she suspended herself—she was rather short—from the aristocratic reins he held, and boldly attempted to turn the heads of his horses. On week days, Madame Rose stayed in her cellar, and knitted. It was this part of her life which Rachel knew, and it was the most beautiful; for this little, laughed-at being, who lived upon charity, was, herself, all charity. Never yet, for five years that Rachel had watched her, had she seen Madame Rose alone in her cellar. ”

“ The morning was gray and dull. He had sat up all night by Mary; for Rachel, exhausted with fatigue, had been unable to come. Poor little Mary, her hour was nigh; she knew it, and her young heart grieved for her father, so soon to be childless. She thought of herself too; she looked over the whole of her young life, and she saw its transgressions and its sins with a sorrow free from faithless dismay; for Rachel had said to her: "Shall we dare to limit for ourselves, or for others, the unfathomed mercy of God?" ”

“ For, though it may be sweeter to love, than to be loved, yet it is hard always to give and never to receive in return; and when Jane died, Rachel knew well enough that all the love she had to receive upon earth, had been given unto her. Like the lost Pleiad, "seen no more below," the bright star of her life had left the sky. It burned in other heavens with more celestial light; but it shone no longer over her path—to cheer, to comfort, to illume.
Mrs. Gray was kind; after her own fashion, she loved Rachel. ”

“ And when Richard Jones, after sitting up with them until twelve, went upstairs to rest awhile, and Rachel heard Mary talk of her recovery, and of projects and hopes, vain to her as a dream, she could not help feeling that it was her duty to speak. They were alone, "yes, now," thought Rachel, "now is the time to speak."
Oh! hard and bitter task: to tell the young of death; the hoping that they must not hope; to tell those who would so fondly delay and linger in this valley, that they must depart for the land that is so near, and that seems so far. Rachel knew not how to begin. ”

“ It is evening, as you know, and three are sitting in the little parlour of Rachel Gray. An autumn evening it is, somewhat chill with a bright fire burning in the grate, and lighting up with flickering flame the brown furniture and narrow room. And of these three who sit there, one is a grey, childish old man in an arm-chair; another, a man who is not old, but whose hair has turned prematurely white with trouble and sorrow; the third is a meek, thoughtful woman with a book on her knees, who sits silently brooding over the words her lips have uttered ”

“ Outwardly, calm as ever did Rachel seem, but there was a strange sorrow— a strange tumult in her heart.
That day the hope of years had been wrecked, that day she had offered herself, and been finally rejected. In vain she said to herself: "I must submit—it is the will of God, I must submit." A voice within her ever seemed to say: "Father, Father why hast thou forsaken me!" until, at length, Rachel felt as if she could bear no more.
Sorrows endured in silence are ever doubly felt. The nature of Rachel Gray was silent; she had never asked for sympathy ”

“ She looked around her, moved at seeing familiar objects under an unusual aspect. In that old chair she had often seen her father sitting; on such a moonlight night as this she and Jane, then already declining, had sat by the window, and looking at that same sky, had talked with youthful fervour of high and eternal things. And now Jane knew the divine secrets she had guessed from afar, and Thomas Gray, alas! was a stranger and an alien in his own home.
"Who knows," thought Rachel, "but he will return some day? Who knows— who can tell? Life is long, and hope is eternal. ”

“ No doubt it was some miserable, poorly paid task. Yet he only spoke the truth, when he said it mattered little. He lived and laboured, like thousands; but he cared not for to-day, and thought not of to-morrow; the Time of Promise and of Hope had for ever departed. What though he should feel want, so long as he could pay his weekly rent to Rachel Gray, he cared not. There is an end to all things; and as for his old age, should he grow old, had he not the parish and the workhouse? And so Richard Jones could drag on through life, of all hopes, save the heavenly hope, forsaken. ”

“ The society of Rachel Gray was to him a want of his life, for to her alone he could talk of Mary; he spoke and she listened, and in listening gave the best and truest consolation. Now and then, not often, for Rachel felt and knew that such language frequently repeated wearies the ear of weak humanity, she ventured to soothe his grief with such ailments as she could think of. And her favorite one, one which she often applied to herself and her own troubles was: "We receive blessings from the hand of God, shall we not also take sorrow when it pleases Him to inflict it?" ”

“ Rachel stooped over her; the fast tears poured from her face on Mary's pale brow, "yes, my darling," she said softly, "yes, you must leave this miserable earth of trouble and sorrow, and go to God your friend and your father."
The weakest, the frailest creatures often rise to heroic courage. This fretful, pettish child heard her sentence with some wonder, but apparently without sorrow.
"Don't cry, Miss Gray," she said, "I don't cry; but do you know, it seems so odd that I should die, doesn't it now?" ”

“ Harshness and indifference had no power to quench a feeling, to which love in kindness had not given birth. She loved because it was her destiny; because, as she once said herself, when speaking of another: "A daughter's heart clings to her father with boundless charity."
Young as she was when Thomas Gray left his home, Rachel remembered him well. His looks, the very tones of his voice, were present to her. Not once, during the years of his absence, did the thought of her father cease to haunt her heart. ”

“ Poor as this cellar was, a painter would have liked it well; he would surely have delighted in the brown and crazy clothes-press, that stood at the further end, massive and dark; in the shining kitchen utensils that decorated the walls; in the low and many-coloured bed; in the clean, white deal table; in the smouldering fire, that burned in that dark grate, like a red eye; especially would he have gloried in the quaint little figure of Madame Rose.
She had been cooking her supper, and she now sat down to it. In doing so, she caught sight of Rachel's figure ”

“ And to the imminent danger of her own knuckles, she rapped so pertinaciously, that Jane and Mary were unable to feign deafness, and replied, the former acting as spokeswoman, that Mrs. Gray needn't be making all that noise; for that they heard her, and were getting up. "I thought I'd make them hear me," muttered Mrs. Gray, hobbling down stairs.
There are some beings who lead lives so calm, that when they look back on years, they seem to read the story of a few days; and of these was Rachel Gray. Life for her flowed dull, monotonous and quiet, as that of a nun in her cloister. ”

“ In vain, thinking of her tyrant, Rachel said to herself, "I forgive that woman—I forgive her freely." She felt that she did not; that anger against this pitiless tormentor of her life smouldered in her heart like the red coal living beneath pale ashes; and Rachel was startled, and justly, to feel that so strange and unusual an emotion, anger against another, had found place in her bosom, and that though she bade it go, it stayed, and would not depart.
To be gentle is not to be passionless. The spirit of Rachel had been early subdued, too much subdued for her happiness ”

“ By the fire an elderly woman of grave and stern aspect, but who had once been handsome, sat reading the newspaper. Near the window, two apprentices sewed, under the superintendence of Rachel Gray.
A mild ray of light fell on her pale face, and bending figure. She sewed on, serious and still, and the calm gravity of her aspect harmonized with the silence of the little parlour which nothing disturbed, save the ticking of an old clock behind the door, the occasional rustling of Mrs. Gray's newspaper, and the continuous and monotonous sound of stitching. ”

“ Religion is love. Rachel wanted thought, that child of the intellect, as love is the child of the heart. She did not know herself what it was that she needed, until she discovered and possessed it—until she could read a book, a pamphlet, a scrap of verse, and brood over it, like a bird over her young, not for hours, not for days, but for weeks—blest in that silent meditation. ”

“ CHAPTER XIX. Richard Jones still hoped: "Mary was so young!" He would hope. But it was not to be; he had but tasted the cup of his sorrows; to the dregs was he to drink it; the earthly idol on which he had set his heart was to be snatched from him; he was to waken one day to the bitter knowledge: "there is no hope!"
How he felt we know not, and cannot tell: none have a right to describe that grief save they who have passed through it; we dare not unveil the father's heart: we deal but with the external aspect of things, and sad and bitter enough it was. ”

“ Before leaving, she went up to her other's chair, he was not now quite so helpless as at first, and did not require her constant presence or assistance; though he still did not know her.
"I shall try and not be too long away," said Rachel in a low voice.
"Never mind," he muttered, shaking his head, "never mind."
"There's a precious old fool for you!" said Mrs. Brown laughing coarsely.
A flush of pain crossed Rachel's cheek, but to have replied, would have been to draw down a storm on her head; she silently left the house.
She found Mary feverish, restless, and full of projects. ”

“ And who but Rachel found Jane's first tooth? Who but Rachel taught Jane to speak; and taught her how to walk? Who else fulfilled for the helpless infant and wilful child every little office of kindness and of love, until at length there woke in her own childish heart some of that maternal fondness born with woman, the feeling whence her deepest woes and her highest happiness alike must spring. When her father was unkind, when her step-mother was hasty, Rachel turned for comfort to her little sister. ”