There was some space, while she gave him the book, and he showed her the verses. Then he rose to go.
‘I wish I had not spoilt the visit,’ she said, wistfully, at last.
‘We shall see you again, and we shall know each other better,’ he said, kindly. ‘You are my godchild now, Sophy, and you know that I must remember you constantly in prayer.’
‘And will you promise me to try my remedy? I think it will soften your heart to the graces of the Blessed Comforter. And even if all seems gloom within, look out, see others happy, try to rejoice with them, and peace will come in! Now, goodbye, my dear godchild, and the God of Peace bless you, and give you rest.
Mr. Dusautoy had given notice of the day of the Confirmation, when Mr. Kendal called his wife.
‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘my dear, whether Sophia can spare you to take a walk with me before church.’
Sophy, who was well aware that a walk with him was the greatest and rarest treat to his wife, gave gracious permission, and in a few minutes they were walking by the bright canal-side, under the calm evening sunshine and deep blue sky of early autumn.
Mr. Kendal said not a word, and Albinia, leaning on his arm, listened, as it were, to the stillness, or rather to the sounds that marked it--the gurgling of the little streams let off into the water-courses in the meadows; the occasional plunge of the rat from the banks, the sounds from the town, softened by distance, and the far-off cawings of the rooks, which she could just see wheeling about as little black specks over the plantations of Woodside, or watching the swallows assembling for departure sitting in long ranks, like an ornament along the roof of a neighbouring barn.
Long, long it was before Mr. Kendal broke silence, but when at length he did speak, his words amazed her extremely.
‘Albinia, poor Sophia’s admission into the Church has not been the only neglect. I have never been confirmed. I intend to speak to Dusautoy this evening, but I thought you would wish to know it first.’
‘Thank you. I suppose you went out to India too young.’
‘Poor Maria says truly that no one thought of these things in our day, at least so far as we were concerned. I must explain to you, Albinia, how it is that I see things very differently now from the light in which I once viewed them. I was sent home from India, at six years old, to correspondents and relations to whom I was a burthen. I was placed at a private school, where the treatment was of the harsh style so common in those days. The boys always had more tasks than they could accomplish, and were kept employed by being always in arrears with their lessons. This pressed less heavily upon me than on most; but though I seldom incurred punishment, there was a sort of hard distrust of me, I believe because the master could not easily overwhelm me with work, so as to have me in his power. I know I was often unjustly treated, and I never was popular.’