[60] "'Catherine! Life is harder, the narrower way narrower than ever. I die--and memory caught still the piteous long-drawn breath by which the voice was broken--'in much--much perplexity about many things. You have a clear soul, an iron will. Strengthen the others. Bring them safe to the day of account.'" And then the smaller--some of them, ethically, very small--women; Lady Wynnstay, Mrs. Fleming, Mrs. Thornburgh; above all, Robert's delightful Irish mother, and Mrs. Darcy; how excellent they are! Mrs. Darcy we seem to have known, yet cannot have enough of, rejoiced to catch sight of her capital letter on the page, as we read on. In truth, if a high and ideal purpose, really learned in the school of Wordsworth and among the Westmorland hills which Mrs. Ward describes so sympathetically, with fitting dignity and truth of style, has accompanied the author throughout; no less plain, perhaps more pleasing to some readers, is the quiet humour which never fails her, and tests, while it relieves, the sincerity of her more serious thinking:-- "At last Mrs. Darcy fluttered off, only, however, to come hurrying back with little, short, [61] scudding steps, to implore them all to come to tea with her as soon as possible in the garden that was her special hobby, and in her last new summer-house. "'I build two or three every summer,' she said; 'now there are twenty-one! Roger laughs at me,' and there was a momentary bitterness in the little eerie face; 'but how can one live without hobbies? That's one--then I've two more. My album--oh, you will all write in my album, won't you? When I was young--when I was Maid of Honour'--and she drew herself up slightly--'everybody had albums. Even the dear Queen herself! I remember how she made M. Guizot write in it; something quite stupid, after all. Those hobbies--the garden and the album--are quite harmless, aren't they? They hurt nobody, do they?' Her voice dropped a little, with a pathetic expostulating intonation in it, as of one accustomed to be rebuked."