<h2>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2>
<p>The fare which the Henrys partook at the cottage of the female
Rymers was such as the sister had described—mean, and even
scanty; but this did not in the least diminish the happiness they
received in meeting, for the first time since their arrival in
England, human beings who were glad to see them.</p>
<p>At a stinted repast of milk and vegetables, by the glimmering
light of a little brushwood on the hearth, they yet could feel
themselves comparatively blest, while they listened to the
recital of afflictions which had befallen persons around that
very neighbourhood, for whom every delicious viand had been
procured to gratify the taste, every art devised to delight the
other senses.</p>
<p>It was by the side of this glimmering fire that Rebecca and
her sisters told the story of poor Agnes’s fate, and of the
thorn it had for ever planted in William’s bosom—of
his reported sleepless, perturbed nights; and his gloomy, or
half-distracted days; when in the fullness of <i>remorse</i>, he
has complained—“of a guilty conscience! of the
weariness attached to a continued prosperity! the misery of
wanting an object of affection.”</p>
<p>They told of Lord Bendham’s death from the effects of
intemperance; from a mass of blood infected by high-seasoned
dishes, mixed with copious draughts of wine—repletion of
food and liquor, not less fatal to the existence of the rich than
the want of common sustenance to the lives of the poor.</p>
<p>They told of Lady Bendham’s ruin, since her lord’s
death, by gaming. They told, “that now she suffered
beyond the pain of common indigence by the cutting triumph of
those whom she had formerly despised.”</p>
<p>They related (what has been told before) the divorce of
William, and the marriage of his wife with a libertine; the
decease of Lady Clementina, occasioned by that incorrigible
vanity which even old age could not subdue.</p>
<p>After numerous other examples had been recited of the dangers,
the evils that riches draw upon their owner; the elder Henry rose
from his chair, and embracing Rebecca and his son,
said—“How much indebted are we to Providence, my
children, who, while it inflicts poverty, bestows peace of mind;
and in return for the trivial grief we meet in this world, holds
out to our longing hopes the reward of the next!”</p>
<p>Not only resigned, but happy in their station, with hearts
made cheerful rather than dejected by attentive meditation, Henry
and his son planned the means of their future support,
independent of their kinsman William—nor only of him, but
of every person and thing but their own industry.</p>
<p>“While I have health and strength,” cried the old
man, and his son’s looks acquiesced in all the father said,
“I will not take from any one in affluence what only
belongs to the widow, the fatherless, and the infirm; for to such
alone, by Christian laws—however custom may subvert
them—the overplus of the rich is due.”</p>
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