We had a special meeting of the Mothers'-Small-Clothes-Conversion
Society that night, summoned expressly with a view to obtaining
Mr. Godfrey's advice and assistance. Instead of sustaining
our sisterhood, under an overwhelming flow of Trousers which
quite prostrated our little community, he had arranged to take
coffee in Montagu Square, and to goto a ball afterwards!
The afternoon of the next day had been selected for the Festival of the
British-Ladies'-Servants'-Sunday-Sweetheart-Supervision Society. Instead
of being present, the life and soul of that struggling Institution, he
had engaged to make one of a party of worldlings at a morning concert!
I asked myself what did it mean? Alas! it meant that our Christian Hero
was to reveal himself to me in a new character, and to become associated
in my mind with one of the most awful backslidings of modern times.
To return, however, to the history of the passing day. On finding myself
alone in my room, I naturally turned my attention to the parcel which
appeared to have so strangely intimidated the fresh-coloured young
footman. Had my aunt sent me my promised legacy? and had it taken the
form of cast-off clothes, or worn-out silver spoons, or unfashionable
jewellery, or anything of that sort? Prepared to accept all, and to
resent nothing, I opened the parcel--and what met my view? The twelve
precious publications which I had scattered through the house, on the
previous day; all returned to me by the doctor's orders! Well might the
youthful Samuel shrink when he brought his parcel into my room! Well
might he run when he had performed his miserable errand! As to my
aunt's letter, it simply amounted, poor soul, to this--that she dare not
disobey her medical man.
What was to be done now? With my training and my principles, I never had
a moment's doubt.
Once self-supported by conscience, once embarked on a career of manifest
usefulness, the true Christian never yields. Neither public nor private
influences produce the slightest effect on us, when we have once got our
mission. Taxation may be the consequence of a mission; riots may be the
consequence of a mission; wars may be the consequence of a mission: we
go on with our work, irrespective of every human consideration which
moves the world outside us. We are above reason; we are beyond ridicule;
we see with nobody's eyes, we hear with nobody's ears, we feel with
nobody's hearts, but our own. Glorious, glorious privilege! And how is
it earned? Ah, my friends, you may spare yourselves the useless inquiry!
We are the only people who can earn it--for we are the only people who
are always right.
In the case of my misguided aunt, the form which pious perseverance was
next to take revealed itself to me plainly enough.
Preparation by clerical friends had failed, owing to Lady Verinder's
own reluctance. Preparation by books had failed, owing to the doctor's
infidel obstinacy. So be it! What was the next thing to try? The next
thing to try was--Preparation by Little Notes. In other words, the books
themselves having been sent back, select extracts from the books, copied
by different hands, and all addressed as letters to my aunt, were, some
to be sent by post, and some to be distributed about the house on the
plan I had adopted on the previous day. As letters they would excite no
suspicion; as letters they would be opened--and, once opened, might be
read. Some of them I wrote myself. "Dear aunt, may I ask your attention
to a few lines?" &c. "Dear aunt, I was reading last night, and I chanced
on the following passage," &c. Other letters were written for me by my
valued fellow-workers, the sisterhood at the Mothers'-Small-Clothes.
"Dear madam, pardon the interest taken in you by a true, though humble,
friend." "Dear madam, may a serious person surprise you by saying a
few cheering words?" Using these and other similar forms of courteous
appeal, we reintroduced all my precious passages under a form which not
even the doctor's watchful materialism could suspect. Before the shades
of evening had closed around us, I had a dozen awakening letters for
my aunt, instead of a dozen awakening books. Six I made immediate
arrangements for sending through the post, and six I kept in my pocket
for personal distribution in the house the next day.