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And when, on the night of the colonel's funeral, he opened, at hazard, Argemone's Bible, and his eyes fell on the passage which tells how 'one shall be taken and another left, great honest tears of gratitude dropped upon the page; and he fell on his knees, and in bitter self-reproach thanked the new found Upper Powers, who, as he began to hope, were leading him not in vain, that he had yet a life before him wherein to play the man.
The vicar had had great disadvantages, by the bye, in fulfilling the latter function; for his visits at the Priory had been all but forbidden; and Argemone's 'spiritual state' had been directed by means of a secret correspondence, a method which some clergymen, and some young ladies too, have discovered, in the last few years, to be quite consistent with moral delicacy and filial obedience.
But words would fail sometimes, and in default of them Lancelot had recourse to drawings, and manifested in them a talent for thinking in visible forms which put the climax to all Argemone's wonder. A single profile, even a mere mathematical figure, would, in his hands, become the illustration of a spiritual truth.
What the little imp, who managed this puppet-show on Argemone's brain-stage, may have intended to symbolise thereby, and whence he stole his actors and stage-properties, and whether he got up the interlude for his own private fun, or for that of a choir of brother Eulenspiegels, or, finally, for the edification of Argemone as to her own history, past, present, or future, are questions which we must leave unanswered, till physicians have become a little more of metaphysicians, and have given up their present plan of ignoring for nine hundred and ninety-nine pages that most awful and significant custom of dreaming, and then in the thousandth page talking the boldest materialist twaddle about it.
There was no hope, and the colonel knew it; but he said nothing. 'The second keeper, sighed Argemone, 'who has been killed here! Oh, Mr. Smith, must this be? Is God's blessing on all this? Lancelot said nothing. The old man lighted up at Argemone's voice. 'There's the beauty, there's the pride of Whitford. And sweet Miss Honor, too, so kind to nurse a poor old man!
Lavington began something about propriety, but was stopped with another pound's worth of oaths by the squire, who, however, had tolerably recovered his good humour, and hurried Mrs. Lavington and Honoria, laughingly, into the dog-cart, saying 'Argemone's safe enough with Smith; the servants will lead the horses behind them.
'As long as fish and game are your only society, you will become more and more morne and self-absorbed. 'Really fish were the last things of which I was thinking when you came. My whole heart was filled with the beauty of nature, and nothing else. There was an opening for one of Argemone's preconcerted orations.
But, lately, Argemone's letters had become less frequent and less confiding; and the vicar, who well knew the reason, had resolved to bring the matter to a crisis.
Sweet dreams blessed dreams! His eye met Honoria's. One big deep sigh swelled to his lips and burst. She seemed to recollect herself, rose, passed her arm through Argemone's, and walked slowly away. Argemone, sweet prude, thought herself bound to read Honoria a lecture that night, on her reckless exhibition of feeling; but it profited little.
And, in time, every fresh lesson on the Odyssey was accompanied by its illustration, some bold and simple outline drawing. In Argemone's eyes, the sketches were immaculate and inspired; for their chief, almost their only fault, was just those mere anatomical slips which a woman would hardly perceive, provided the forms were generally graceful and bold. One day his fancy attempted a bolder flight.
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