The time was not long past, since even this mild resistance would have only confirmed me in a favourite purpose; but I was becoming less confident in my own judgment, and Miss Mortimer's consistent worth had established an influence over me beyond even that to which my obligations entitled her. Though her natural abilities were merely respectable, her opinions upon every point of duty had such precision and good sense that, without being aware of it, I leant upon her judgment of right and wrong, as naturally as the infant trusts his first unsteady steps to his mother's sustaining hand. She prevailed upon me to pause, ere I forsook the forms in which my fathers had worshipped; and though her own principle has since connected me with a church of simpler government and ritual, I have never seen reason to repent of the delay.
And now, deprived as I was of all the baubles which I had once imagined necessary to comfort, almost to existence, I was nearer to happiness than I had ever been while in the full enjoyment of all that pleasure, wealth, and flattery can bestow; for I now possessed all the materials of such happiness as this state of trial admits,--good health, constant employment, the necessaries of this life, and the steady hope of a better. And let the lover of pleasure, the slave of Mammon, the sage who renounces the light of heaven for the spark which himself has kindled, smile in scorn whilst I avow, that I at times felt rapture, compared with which their highest triumph of success is tame. I can bear the smile, for I know that they are compelled to mingle it with a sigh; that they envy the creature whom they affect to scorn; and wish--vainly wish, that they could choose the better part.
The bitter drop which is found in every cup, was infused into mine by the increasing illness of Miss Mortimer; and by a strong suspicion, that poverty aggravated to her the evils of disease. This latter circumstance, however, was conjectural; for Miss Mortimer, though confidingly open with me upon every other subject, was here most guarded. From the restraint visibly laid upon inclinations which I knew to be liberal in the extreme,--from my friend's obstinate refusal to indulge in any of the little luxuries which sickness and debility require,--from many trifles which cannot evade the eye of an inmate, I began to form conjectures which I soon accidentally discovered to be but too well founded. A gentleman happened to make a visit of business to Miss Mortimer one day when she was too much indisposed to receive him; and he incautiously committed to me a message for her, by which I discovered, that her whole patrimony had been involved in the ruin of my father; that, except the income of the current year, which she had fortunately rescued a few weeks before the wreck, she had lost all; that, while she made exertions beyond her strength to seek and to comfort me, while she soothed my sullen despair, she was herself shrinking before the gaunt aspect of poverty; and that, while she contrived for me indulgences which she denied to herself, her generous soul abhorred to divulge what might have rendered my feeling of dependence more painful.