It is Never Too Late to Mend. Charles Reade Reade

simple cry of a suffering heart—was very touching, and Mr. Eden, spite of his many experiences, was not a little moved. He sat silent, looking on her as an angel might be supposed to look upon human griefs, and as he looked on her various expressions chased one another across that eloquent face. Sweet and tender memories and regrets were not wanting among them. After a long pause he spoke in a tone soft and gentle as a woman's, and at first in a voice so faltering that Susan, though her face was hidden, felt there was no common sympathy there, and silently put out her hand toward it.

      He murmured consolation. He said many gentle, soothing things. He told her that it was very sad the immense ocean should roll between two loving hearts, “but,” said he, “there are barriers more impassable than the sea. Better so than that he should be here and jealousy, mistrust, caprice, or even temper come between you. I hope he will come back; I think he will come back.”

      She blessed him for saying so. She was learning to believe everything this man uttered.

      From consolation he passed to advice.

      “You must do the exact opposite of what you have been doing.”

      “Must I?”

      “You must visit those poor people; ay, more than ever you did; hear patiently their griefs; do not expect much in return, neither sympathy nor a great deal of gratitude; vulgar sorrow is selfish. Do it for God's sake and your own single-heartedly. Go to the school, return to your flowers, and never shun innocent society, however dull. Milk and water is a poor thing, but it is a diluent, and all we can do just now is to dilute your grief.”

      He made her promise: “Next time I come tell me all about you and George. 'Give sorrow words, the grief that does not speak whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break.'”

      “Oh! that is a true word,” sobbed Susan, “that is very true. Why a little of the lead seems to have dropped off my heart now I have spoken to you, sir.”

      All the next week Susan bore up as bravely as she could, and did what Mr. Eden had bade her, and profited by his example. She learned to draw from others the full history of their woes; and she found that many a grief bitter as her own had passed over the dwellers in those small cottages; it did her some little good to discover kindred woes, and much good to go out of herself a while and pity them.

      This drooping flower recovered her head a little, but still the sweetest hour in all the working days of the week was that which brought John Meadows to talk to her of Australia.

      CHAPTER VIII.

       Table of Contents

      Susan Merton had two unfavored lovers; it is well to observe how differently these two behaved. William Fielding stayed at home, threw his whole soul into his farm, and seldom went near the woman he loved but had no right to love. Meadows dangled about the flame; ashamed and afraid to own his love, he fed it to a prodigious height by encouraging it and not expressing it. William Fielding was moody and cross and sad enough at times; but at others a little spark ignited inside his heart, and a warm glow diffused itself from that small point over all his being. I think this spark igniting was an approving conscience commencing its uphill work of making a disappointed lover, but honest man, content.

      Meadows, on his part, began to feel content and a certain complacency take the place of his stormy feelings. Twice a week he passed two hours with Susan. She always greeted him with a smile, and naturally showed an innocent satisfaction in these visits, managed as they were with so much art and self-restraint. On Sunday, too, he had always a word or two with her.

      Meadows, though an observer of religious forms, had the character of a very worldly man, and Susan thought it highly to his credit that he came six miles to hear Mr. Eden.

      “But, Mr. Meadows, your poor horse,” said she, one day. “I doubt it is no Sabbath to him now.”

      “No more it is,” said Meadows, as if a new light came to him from Susan. The next Sunday he appeared in dusty shoes, instead of top-boots.

      Susan looked down at them, and saw, and said nothing; but she smiled. Her love of goodness and her vanity were both gratified a little.

      Meadows did not stop there; wherever Susan went he followed modestly in her steps. Nor was this mere cunning. He loved her quite well enough to imitate her, and try and feel with her; and he began to be kinder to the poor, and to feel good all over, and comfortable. He felt as if he had not an enemy in the world. One day in Farnborough he saw William Fielding on the other side of the street. Susan Merton did not love William, therefore Meadows had no cause to hate him. He remembered William had asked a loan of him and he had declined. He crossed over to him.

      “Good-day, Mr. William.”

      “Good-day, Mr. Meadows.”

      “You were speaking to me one day about a trifling loan. I could not manage it just then, but now—” Here Meadows paused. He had been on the point of offering the money, but suddenly, by one of those instincts of foresight these able men have, he turned it off thus: “but I know who will. You go to Lawyer Crawley; he lends money to people of credit.”

      “I know he does; but he won't lend it me.”

      “Why not?”

      “He does not like us. He is a poor sneaking creature, and my brother George he caught Crawley selling up some poor fellow or other, and they had words; leastways it went beyond words, I fancy. I don't know the rights of it, but George was a little rough with him by all accounts.”

      “And what has that to do with this?” said the man of business coolly.

      “Why, I am George's brother.”

      “And if you were George himself and he saw his way to make a shilling out of you he would do it, wouldn't he? There, you go to Crawley and ask him to lend you one hundred pounds, and he will lend it you, only he will make you pay heavy interest, heavier than I should, you know, if I could manage it myself.”

      “Oh, I don't care,” said simple William; “thank you kindly, Mr. Meadows,” and off he went to Crawley.

      He found that worthy in his office. Crawley, who instantly guessed his errand, and had no instructions from Meadows, promised himself the satisfaction of refusing the young man. He asked, with a cringing manner and a treacherous smile, “What security, sir?”

      Poor William higgled and hammered, and offered first one thing, which was blandly declined for this reason; then another, which was blandly declined for that, Crawley drinking deep draughts of mean vengeance all the while from the young man's shame and mortification, when the door opened, a man walked in, and gave Crawley a note and vanished. Crawley opened the note; it contained a check drawn by Meadows, and these words: “Lend W. F. the money at ten per cent on his acceptance of your draft at two months.”

      Crawley put the note and check in his pocket.

      “Well, sir,” said he to William, “you stay here, and I will see if I have got a loose hundred in the bank to spare.” He went over to the bank, cashed the check, drew a bill of exchange at two months' date, deducted the interest and stamp, and William accepted it, and Crawley bowed him out cringing, smiling, and secretly shooting poisoned arrows out of his venomous eye in the direction of William's heels.

      William thanked him warmly.

      This loan made him feel happy.

      He had paid his brother's debt to the landlord by sacrificing a large portion of his grain at a time the price was low; and now he was so cramped he had much ado to pay his labor when this loan came. The very next day he bought several hogs—hogs, as George had sarcastically observed, were William Fielding's hobby; he had I confidence in that animal. Potatoes and pigs versus sheep and turnips was the theory of William Fielding.

      Now the good understanding between William and Meadows was not to last long. William, though he was too wise to visit Grassmere Farm much, was mindful