When she got out
at last, sedate as she was, she could hardly help skipping along
the street by her father's side. Far better than chapel was their
nice little cold dinner together, in their only sitting-room,
redolent of the multifarious goods piled around it on all the
rest of the floor. Greater yet was the following pleasure--of
making her father lie down on the sofa, and reading him to sleep,
after which she would doze a little herself, and dream a little,
in the great chair that had been her grandmother's. Then they had
their tea, and then her father always went to see the minister
before chapel in the evening.
When he was gone, Mary would put on her pretty straw bonnet, and
set out to visit Letty Lovel at Thornwick. Some of the church-
members thought this habit of taking a walk, instead of going
again to the chapel, very worldly, and did not scruple to let her
know their opinion; but, so long as her father was satisfied with
her, Mary did not care a straw for the world besides. She was too
much occupied with obedience to trouble her head about opinion,
either her own or other people's. Not until a question comes
puzzling and troubling us so as to paralyze the energy of our
obedience is there any necessity for its solution, or any
probability of finding a real one. A thousand foolish
_doctrines_ may lie unquestioned in the mind, and never
interfere with the growth or bliss of him who lives in active
subordination of his life to the law of life: obedience will in
time exorcise them, like many another worse devil.
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