fallen by the hand
of old Sir Guy, he began repeating, for the twentieth time, what an
excellent fellow Morville was; then said he should not have troubled
them with any of his pupils, but Morville would esteem their receiving
him as an act of forgiveness, and besides, he wished them to know
one whom he valued so highly. Guy thus found himself admitted into an
entirely new region. There were two sisters, together in everything.
Jane, the younger, was a kind-hearted, commonplace person, who would
never have looked beyond the ordinary range of duties and charities; but
Elizabeth was one of those who rise up, from time to time, as burning
and shining lights. It was not spending a quiet, easy life, making her
charities secondary to her comforts, but devoting time, strength, and
goods; not merely giving away what she could spare, but actually sharing
all with the poor, reserving nothing for the future. She not only taught
the young, and visited the distressed, but she gathered orphans into
her house, and nursed the sick day and night. Neither the means nor the
strength of the two sisters could ever have been supposed equal to what
they were known to have achieved. It seemed as if the power grew with
the occasion, and as if they had some help which could not fail them.
Guy venerated them more and more, and many a long letter about them
was written to Mrs. Edmonstone for Amy to read. There is certainly a
'tyrannous hate' in the world for unusual goodness, which is a rebuke to
it, and there was a strong party against the sisters. At the head of it
was Mrs. Henley, who had originally been displeased at their preferring
the direction of the clergyman to that of the ladies' committee, though
the secret cause of her dislike was, perhaps, that Elizabeth Wellwood
was just what Margaret Morville might have been. So she blamed them,
not, indeed for their charity, but for slight peculiarities which might
well have been lost in the brightness of the works of mercy. She spoke
as with her father's authority, though, if she had been differently
disposed, she might have remembered that his system and principles were
the same as theirs, and that, had he been alive, he would probably have
fully approved of their proceedings. Archdeacon Morville's name was of
great weight, and justified many persons, in their own opinion, in
the opposition made to Miss Wellwood, impeding her usefulness, and
subjecting her to endless petty calumnies.

These made