He was ashamed, and not a little humbled by what she told him. He
did not wait for Donal to come to him, but went to the castle early
the next morning. Nor was he mistaken in trusting Donal to believe
that it was not from eagerness to retrace in his own interest the
false step he had taken, but from desire to show his shame of having
behaved so ungenerously: Donal received him so as to make it plain
he did not misunderstand him, and they had a long talk. Graeme was
all the readier for his blunder to hear what Donal had to say, and
Donal's unquestionable disinterestedness was endlessly potent with
Graeme. Their interview resulted in Donal's thinking still better of
him than before, and being satisfied that, up to his light, the man
was honest--which is saying much--and thence open to conviction, and
both sides of a question. But ere it was naturally over, Donal was
summoned to the earl.
After his niece's death, no one would do for him but Donal; nobody
could please him but Donal. His mind as well as his body was much
weaker. But the intellect, great thing though it be, is yet but the
soil out of which, or rather in which, higher things must grow, and
it is well when that soil is not too strong, so to speak, for the
most gracious and lovely of plants to root themselves in it. When
the said soil is proud and unwilling to serve, it must be thinned
and pulverized with sickness, failure, poverty, fear--that the good
seeds of God's garden may be able to root themselves in it; when
they get up a little, they will use all the riches and all the
strength of the stiffest soil.
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