One ought to be very thankful for the blessings of good health and strong nerves, but I sometimes wish I could cry more easily.  I should not like to be like poor Mrs. Rampant, whose head or back is always aching, and whose nerves make me think of the strings of an AEolian harp, on which Mr. Rampant, like rude Boreas, is perpetually playing with the tones of his voice, the creak of his boots, and the bang of his doors.  But her tears do relieve, if they exhaust her, and back-ache cannot be as bad as heart-ache—­hot, dry heart-ache, or cold, hard heart-ache.  I think if I could have cried I could have felt softer.  As it was I began to wish that I could do what I felt sure that I could not.

If I dragged myself to Philip, and got out a few conciliatory words, I should break down in a worse fury than before if he sneered or rode the high horse, “as he probably would,” thought I.

On my little carved Prayer-book shelf lay with other volumes a copy of A Kempis, which had belonged to my mother.  Honesty had already whispered that if I deliberately gave up the fight with evil this must be banished with my texts and pictures.  At the present moment a familiar passage came into my head: 

“When one that was in great anxiety of mind, often wavering between fear and hope, did once humbly prostrate himself in prayer, and said, ‘O if I knew that I should persevere!’ he presently heard within him an answer from GOD, which said, ’If thou didst know it, what would’st thou do?  Do what thou would’st do then, and thou shalt be safe.’”

Supposing I began to do right, and trusted the rest?  I could try to speak to Philip, and it would be something even if I stopped short and ran away.  Or if I could not drag my feet to him, I could take Aunt Isobel’s advice, and pray.  I might not be able to speak civilly to Philip, or even to pray about him in my present state of mental confusion, but I could repeat some prayer reverently.  Would it not be better to start on the right road, even if I fell by the way?

I crossed the room in three strides to the place where I usually say my prayers.  I knelt, and folded my hands, and shut my eyes, and began to recite the Te Deum in my head, trying to attend to it.  I did attend pretty well, but it was mere attention, till I felt slightly softened at the verse—­“Make them to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting.”  For my young mother was very good, and I always think of her when the choir comes to that verse on Sundays.

“Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.”  “It’s too late to ask that,” thought I, with that half of my brain which was not attending to the words of the Te Deum, “and yet there is a little bit of the day left which will be dedicated either to good or evil.”

I prayed the rest, “O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.  O Lord, let Thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in Thee.  O Lord, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded!” and with the last verse there came from my heart a very passion of desire for strength to do the will of GOD at the sacrifice of my own.  I flung myself on the floor with inarticulate prayers that were very fully to the point now, and they summed themselves up again in the old words, “In Thee, O Lord, have I trusted, let me never be confounded!”