She was a
sweet-tempered, good-humoured, loving, timid woman, ever listening
and believing and learning, with a certain aptitude for gentle
mirth at her heart which, however, was always being repressed and
controlled by the circumstances of her life. She could gossip over a
cup of tea, and enjoy buttered toast and hot cake very thoroughly, if
only there was no one near her to whisper into her ear that any such
enjoyment was wicked. In spite of the sorrows she had suffered she
would have taught herself to believe this world to be a pleasant
place, were it not so often preached into her ears that it is a vale
of tribulation in which no satisfaction can abide. And it may be said
of Mrs. Ray that her religion, though it sufficed her, tormented her
grievously. It sufficed her; and if on such a subject I may venture
to give an opinion, I think it was of a nature to suffice her in that
great strait for which it had been prepared. But in this world it
tormented her, carrying her hither and thither, and leaving her in
grievous doubt, not as to its own truth in any of its details, but as
to her own conduct under its injunctions, and also as to her own mode
of believing in it. In truth she believed too much. She could never
divide the minister from the Bible;--nay, the very clerk in the
church was sacred to her while exercising his functions therein. It
never occurred to her to question any word that was said to her. If a
linen-draper were to tell her that one coloured calico was better for
her than another, she would take that point as settled by the man's
word, and for the time would be free from all doubt on that heading.
So also when the clergyman in his sermon told her that she should
live simply and altogether for heaven, that all thoughts as to this
world were wicked thoughts, and that nothing belonging to this world
could be other than painful, full of sorrow and vexations, she would
go home believing him absolutely, and with tear-laden eyes would
bethink herself how utterly she was a castaway, because of that tea,
and cake, and innocent tittle tattle with which the hours of her
Saturday evening had been beguiled. She would weakly resolve that she
would laugh no more, and that she would live in truth in a valley of
tears. But then as the bright sun came upon her, and the birds sang
around her, and some one that she loved would cling to her and kiss
her, she would be happy in her own despite, and would laugh with a
low mus