Poor woman! poor _girl_, still,--whose life had never truly taken
root!

"I suppose," said Uncle Titus, soberly, "that God shines all round.
He's on this side as much as He is on that."

Mrs. Ledwith looked up out of her handkerchief, with which at that
moment she had covered her eyes.

"I never knew Uncle Titus was pious!" she said to herself. And her
astonishment dried her tears.

He said nothing more that was pious, however; he simply assured her,
then and in conversations afterward, that he should take nothing
"hard;" he never expected to bind her, or put her on parole; he
chose to come to know his relatives, and he had done so; he had also
done what seemed to him right, in return for their meeting him half
way; they were welcome to it all, to take it and use it as they best
could, and as circumstances and their own judgment dictated. If they
went abroad, he should advise them to do it before the winter.

These words implied consent, approval. Mrs. Ledwith went up-stairs
after them with a heart so much lightened that she was very nearly
cheerful. There would be a good deal to do now, and something to
look forward to; the old pulses of activity were quickened. She
could live with those faculties that had been always vital in her,
as people breathe with one live lung; but trouble and change had
wrought in her no deeper or further capacity; had wakened nothing
that had never been awake before.