CHAPTER VI.
Matilda, after a long silence, in which she was endeavouring, but in vain,to arrange her ideas and calm the incessant beating of her heart, said,timidly and abruptly, with her eyes fixed on the carpet--"Do you think,ma'am, that if Ellen had ever been very, _very_ naughty and saucy to _you_,who are so good to _her_, that you could ever really in your heart forgiveher?"
"I certainly should consider it my duty to punish her for herdisobedience, by withholding my usual expressions of love and my generalindulgences from her; but I should undoubtedly forgive her, because, in thefirst place, God has commanded me to forgive all trespasses, and in thesecond, my heart would be drawn naturally towards my own child."
"But surely, dear Mrs. Harewood, it is worse for an _own_ child to behaveill to a parent than any other person?"
"Undoubtedly, my dear, for it unites the crime of ingratitude to that ofdisobedience; besides, it is cruel and unnatural to be guilty of insolenceand hard-heartedness towards the hand which has reared and fostered us allour lives--which has loved us in despite of our faults--watched over ourinfancy--instructed our childhood--nursed us in sickness, and prayed forus before we could pray for ourselves."
"My mamma has done all this for me a thousand times," cried Matilda,bursting into tears of bitter contrition, which, for some time, Mrs.Harewood suffered to flow unrestrained; at length she checked herself, butit was only to vent her sorrow by self-accusation--"Oh, ma'am! you cannotthink how very ill I have behaved to my dear, dear mother--I have beensaucy to her, and bad to every body about me; many a time have I vexed heron purpose; and when she scolded me, I was so pert and disobedient--you canform no idea how bad I was. If she spoke ever so gently to me, I used totell my papa she had been scolding me, and then he would blame her andjustify me; and many a time I have heard deep sighs, that seemed to comefrom the very bottom of her heart, and the tears would stand in her sweeteyes as she looked at me. Oh, wicked, wicked child that I was, to grievesuch a good mamma! and now we are parted such a long, long way, and Icannot beg her pardon--I cannot show her that I am trying to be good;perhaps she may die, as poor papa did, and I shall never, _never_ see hermore."
The agonies of the repentant girl, as this afflictive thought came overher mind, arose to desperation; and Mrs. Harewood, who felt much for her,endeavoured to bestow some comfort upon her; but poor Matilda, who was everviolent, even in her better feelings, could not, for a long time, listen tothe kind voice of her consoler--she could only repeat her own faults,recapitulate all the crimes she had been guilty of, and display, inall their native hideousness, such traits of ill-humour, petulance,ungovernable fury, outrageous passion, and vile revenge, as are thenatural offspring of the human heart, when its bad propensities are maturedby indulgence, particularly in those warm countries, where the mindpartakes the nature of the soil, and slavery in one race of beings givespower to all the bad passions of another.
At length the storm of anguish so far gave way, that Mrs. Harewood was ableto command her attention, and she seized this precious season of penitenceand humility to imprint the leading truths of Christianity, and those plainand invaluable doctrines which are deducible from them, and evident to thecapacity of any sensible child, without leading from the more immediateobject of her anxiety; as Mrs. Harewood very justly concluded, that if shesaw her error as a child, and could be brought to conquer her faults assuch, it would include every virtue to be expected at her time of life, andwould lay the foundation of all those which we estimate in the femalecharacter.
"Oh," cried Matilda, sobbing, "if I could kneel at her feet, if I couldhumble myself lower than the lowest negro to my dear mamma, and once hearher say she forgave me, I could be comforted; but I do not like to becomforted without this; I am angry at myself, and I ought to be angry."
"But, my dear little girl," replied Mrs. Harewood, "though you cannot thushumble yourself in your body, yet you are conscious that you are humbled inyour mind, and that your penitence will render you guarded for the time tocome; and let it be your consolation to know, though your mother is absent,the ears of your heavenly Father are ever open to your sorrows; and that,if you lament your sins to him, he will assuredly accept your repentance,and dispose the heart of your dear mother to accept it also. I sincerelypity you, not as heretofore, for your folly, but for your sorrow; and inorder to enable you to comprehend what I mean by repenting before God, Iwill compose you a short prayer, which will both express your feelings,and remind you of your duty towards yourself and your mother."
Matilda received this act of kindness from her good friend with realgratitude; and when she had committed it to memory, and adopted it inaddressing Almighty God, she found her spirits revive, with the hope thatshe should one day prove worthy of that kind parent, whom, when she livedwith her, she was too apt to slight and disobey. As her judgment becamemore enlightened, she saw more clearly into the errors of her pasteducation, and became perfectly aware that the love of her too-indulgentfather had been productive of innumerable pains, as well as faults. Shefound herself much more happy now than she had ever been in her life; yetshe had never so few indulgences--she had no slaves to wait on her, nolittle black children to execute her commands and submit to her temper; shewas not coaxed to the dainties of a luxurious table, nor had costly clothesspread before her to court her choice, nor any foolish friend to repeat allshe said, as if she were a prodigy of wit and talent; and all these things,she well remembered, were accorded to her as a kind of inheritance inBarbadoes; but, along with them, she remembered having violent passions, inwhich she committed excesses, for which she afterwards felt keen remorse,because she saw how they wounded her mother, and shamed even her dotingfather--ill-humour and low spirits, that rendered every thing irksome toher, and many pains and fevers, from which she was now entirely free; andshe found, in the conversation, books, and instructions of her youngfriends, amusement to which nothing she had enjoyed before would bearcomparison; for what in life is so delightful as knowledge, except thesense of having performed some particular benefit to our fellow-creatures?