"What is the use of this dreadful
struggle?" thought he. "What suffering this self-denial has cost me!
and yet what is gained? Nothing, but to know that I am ridiculed and
despised."
"It is the first time," said Fanny to herself, as she parted with Alice
that night--"the first time that I have ever acted a part: but I would
not have her suspect my feelings; and why do I feel so?"
Thus thought Fanny, as she sat down upon a rock by the roadside, and
could not keep back the tears which came from a heart never so sad
before. And why so sad? Fanny had been, for a few hours, in close
converse with one who every day was becoming more and more meet for an
inheritance with the saints in light. She had ridiculed and set at
defiance the most common rules of politeness; but what was she to do
with the self-forgetting, affectionate courtesy which she had seen, not
forced nor constrained, but beaming forth so sweetly, so naturally,
from those young disciples of Christ? Fanny felt that, however
deceitful the world's polite intercourse might be, _this_ was
holy:--and how can sin approach purity without fear and trembling? She
felt this mysterious fear. The reckless girl, whose highest boast had
always been that she feared nothing, now trembled, as in imagination
she changed places with Emma, and stood where she saw her
standing,--upon the brink of the tomb.
It was on this evening that Emma was summoned to her mother's room.
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