other's
strange silence about the matter. Why had she put away the subject,
carelessly, and yet peevishly, when it was mentioned? Yes. Why? Did
her mother know anything? Was she--? Grace dared not pronounce the
adjective, even in thought; dashed it away as a temptation of the
devil; dashed away, too, the thought which had forced itself on
her too often already, that her mother was not altogether one who
possessed the single eye; that in spite of her deep religious feeling,
her assurance of salvation, her fits of bitter self-humiliation and
despondency, there was an inclination to scheming and intrigue,
ambition, covetousness; that the secrets which she gained as
class-leader too, were too often (Grace could but fear) used to her
own advantage; that in her dealings her morality was not above the
average of little country shopkeepers; that she was apt to have two
prices; to keep her books with unnecessary carelessness when the
person against whom the account stood was no scholar. Grace had more
than once remonstrated in her gentle way; and had been silenced,
rather than satisfied, by her mother's commonplaces as to the right of
"making those who could pay, pay for those who could not;" that "it
was very hard to get a living, and the Lord knew her temptations,"
and "that God saw no sin in His elect," and "Christ's merits were
infinite," and "Christians always had been a backsliding generation;"
and all the other commonplaces by which such people drug their
consciences to a degree which is utterly incredible, except to those
who have seen it with their own eyes, and heard it with their own
ears, from childhood.

Once, too, in those very days, some little meanness on her mother's
part brought the tears into Grace's eyes, and a gentle rebuke to her
lips: but her mother bore the interference less patiently than usual;
and answered, not by cant, but by counter-reproach. "Was she the
person to accuse a poor widowed mother, struggling to leave her child
something to keep her out of the workhouse? A mother that lived for
her, would die for her, sell her soul for her, perhaps--"

And there Mrs. Harvey stopped short, turned pale, and burst into such
an agony of tears, that Grace, terrified, threw her arms round her
neck, and entreated forgiveness, all the more intensely on account of
those thoughts within which she dared not reveal. So the storm passed
over. But not Grace's sadness. For she could not but see, with her
clear pure