Time passed, and under the holy influences of duty and love and hope their hearts began to cover with flowers their furrows of grief. Hester’s birthday was at hand. The major went to London to buy her a present, determined if he could to make the occasion a cheerful and memorable one.

He wrote to his cousin, Helen, asking if he might bring a friend with him. He did not think, he said, she or her husband knew him, but Hester did. He was a young doctor by the name of Christopher. He had met him among “Hester’s friends” and was a great deal taken with him. He had been ailing for some time and had persuaded him to take a little relaxation. After Hester told them something of the man’s history, saying that she had the highest esteem for him and the work he was doing among London’s poor, Mr. and Mrs. Raymount expressed their delight in the major’s proposal.

Corney gradually began to show a little practical interest in the place—first in the look of it, and then in its yield. Next he took to measuring the land and the major gave him no end of help. Having found a point of common interest, they began to be drawn a little together and to develop a mild liking for each other’s company. By degrees, Corney saw that the major knew much more than he, and the major discovered that Corney had more brains than he had given him credit for.

Everything was now going on well at Yrndale—thanks to the stormy and sorrowful weather that had of late so troubled its spiritual atmosphere, and killed so many evil worms in its moral soil!

As soon as the distress caused by Corney’s offences was soothed by reviving love for the youth and fresh hope in him, Hester informed her parents of the dissolution of her engagement to lord Gartley. Her mother was troubled, for the simple reason that she knew how the tongue of the world would wag against her daughter. But those who despise the ways of the world need not fret that low minds attribute to them the things of which low minds are capable. The world and its judgments will pass. The poisonous tongue will one day become pure, and make ample apology for its evil speaking. The tongue is a fire, but there is a stronger fire than the tongue.

Mr. Raymount and the major cared little for this aspect of the matter, for they felt that the public is only a sort of innocent, whose behaviour may be troublesome or pleasant, but whose opinion is worth considerably less than that of a wise hound. The world is a fine thing to save, but a wretch to worship. Neither did the father care much for lord Gartley, though he had liked him. The major, we know, both despised and detested him.