Had
_she_ for a moment given way to apprehension, had _her_ step been a
thought less firm, her eye less peaceful, then indeed the world itself
would have seemed to be sinking under his feet. Meanwhile she was to him
that kind of relief which we derive from a person to whom we may say
everything without a fear of its harming them. He felt quite sure that,
say what he would, Mary would always be hopeful and courageous; and he
felt some secret idea that his own gloomy forebodings were of service in
restricting and sobering what seemed to him her too sanguine nature. He
blindly reverenced, without ability fully to comprehend, her exalted
religious fervor and the quietude of soul that it brought. But he did not
know through how many silent conflicts, how many prayers, how many tears,
how many hopes resigned and sorrows welcomed, she had come into that last
refuge of sorrowful souls, that immovable peace when all life's anguish
ceases and the will of God becomes the final rest.
But, unhappily for this present crisis, there was, as there often is in
family life, just enough of the father's nature in the son to bring them
into collision with each other. James had the same nervously anxious
nature, the same intense feeling of responsibility, the same tendency
towards morbid earnestness; and on that day there had come collision.
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