oning facts
instead of feelings, and promising to write to Aunt Catharine when he
should have time; but the time did not seem to come, and it was easy to
believe that his passiveness of will, increased by the recent stroke,
had caused him to be hurried into a condition of involuntary practical
activity.

Mary, meanwhile, was retracing her voyage, in the lull of spirits
which, after long straining, had nothing to do but to wait in patience,
bracing themselves for a fresh trial. Never suffering herself, at sea,
her first feelings, after the final wrench of parting, were interrupted
by the necessity of attending to her friend, a young mother, with
children enough to require all the services that the indefatigable Mary
could perform. If Mrs. Willis always averred that she never could have
gone through the voyage without Miss Ponsonby, Mary felt, in return,
that the little fretful boy and girl, who would never let her sit and
think, except when both were asleep, had been no small blessing to her.

Yet Mary was not so much absorbed and satisfied with the visible and
practical as had once been the case. The growth had not been all on
Louis's side. If her steadfast spirit had strengthened his wavering
resolution, the intercourse and sympathy with him had opened and
unfolded many a perception and quality in her, which had been as
tightly and hardly cased up as leaf-buds in their gummy envelopes. A
wider range had been given to her thoughts; there was a swelling of
heart, a vividness of sensation, such as she had not known in earlier
times; she had been taught the mystery of creation, the strange
connexion with the Unseen, and even with her fellow-men. Beyond the
ordinary practical kind offices, for which she had been always ready,
there was now mingled something of Louis's more comprehensive spirit of
questioning what would do them good, and drawing food for reflection
from their diverse ways.

She was sensible of the change again and again, when sights recurred
which once had only spoken to her eye. That luminous sea, sparkling
like floods of stars, had been little more than 'How pretty! how
funny!' at her first voyage. Now, it was not only 'How Louis would
admire it!' but 'How profusely, how gloriously has the Creator spread
the globe with mysterious beauty! how marvellously has He caused His
creatures to hold forth this light, to attract others to their needful
food!' And the furrow of fire left by their vessel's