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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground in my memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr. Wickfield taking no wine, and I desiring none, we went up-stairs; where Agnes and her little charges sang and played, and worked. After tea the children left us; and we three sat together, talking of the bygone days. 'My part in them,' said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, 'has much matter for regret - for deep regret, and deep contrition, Trotwood, you well know. But I would not cancel it, if it were in my power.' I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him. 'I should cancel with it,' he pursued, 'such patience and devotion, such fidelity, such a child's love, as I must not forget, no! even to forget myself.' 'I understand you, sir,' I softly said. 'I hold it - I have always held it - in veneration.' 'But no one knows, not even you,' he returned, 'how much she has done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear Agnes!' She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was very, very pale. 'Well, well!' he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my aunt had told me. 'Well! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her mother. Has anyone?' 'Never, sir.' 'It's not much - though it was much to suffer. She married me in opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. She prayed him to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was a very hard man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her. He broke her heart.' Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck. 'She had an affectionate and gentle heart,' he said; 'and it was |
