What she saw and loved
in the doctrines of her church was not the truth, but the assertion;
and whoever questioned, not to say the doctrine, but even the
proving of it by any particular passage, was a dangerous person, and
unsound. All the time her acceptance and defence of any doctrine
made not the slightest difference to her life--as indeed how should
it?
Such was the only friend lady Arctura had. But the conscience and
heart of the younger woman were alive to a degree that boded ill
either for the doctrine that stinted their growth, or the nature
unable to cast it off. Miss Carmichael was a woman about
six-and-twenty--and had been a woman, like too many Scotch girls,
long before she was out of her teens--a human flower cut and
dried--an unpleasant specimen, and by no means valuable from its
scarcity. Self-sufficient, assured, with scarce shyness enough for
modesty, handsome and hard, she was essentially a self-glorious
Philistine; nor would she be anything better till something was sent
to humble her, though what spiritual engine might be equal to the
task was not for man to imagine. She was clever, but her cleverness
made nobody happier; she had great confidence, but her confidence
gave courage to no one, and took it from many; she had little fancy,
and less imagination than any other I ever knew. The divine wonder
was, that she had not yet driven the delicate, truth-loving Arctura
mad.
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