His was not the charity which thinks no evil, which loves, and hopes, and endures; the scorn which he felt for a brother's weakness, the anger roused by a brother's sin, were tokens--had he closely examined their source--of the baneful presence of pride. CHAPTER XVIII. YES OR NO. "Everything seems to have gone wrong with me here!" sighed Emmie, as she sat alone by the drawing-room window, watching the descent of large flakes of snow, which melted as they came in contact with earth. "I have been at Myst Court for a month, and what have I to look back upon since I came here but feeble attempts to do what is right, melting into failure, even like those flakes? Yes, my uncle's warning was not unneeded by me. Fear, the child of Mistrust, is indeed the haunting spirit that mars my peace, cripples my usefulness, and takes from me the power of glorifying God. I am afraid to rule my own household; I shrink from meeting an angry look; I wink at what I know to be wrong,--because I am too timid to enforce what I know to be right. I am afraid to enter the dwellings of the poor, though conscience pricks me whenever I drive past those wretched hovels which it is my duty to enter as a messenger of mercy and comfort. The good which I might have done, I do not; and oh! is it not written, _To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, it is sin?_ I have given up my own appointed work to a substitute in whom I have no trust, all through fear--my mistrustful fear! Timidity haunts me in my house--in my family. I cannot conquer my foolish repugnance even to drawing back that curtain which divides the right wing of Myst Court from the more inhabited part of the dwelling, though my brother every night passes beyond that curtain to sleep without fear or harm in that room which I dreaded to enter. Reason tells me that my misgivings are folly, but superstitious fear is too strong for reason. And, though it appear in a different form, is it not the same mistrust that makes me so fearful to offend my brothers by speaking, in tender love, truths which they are unwilling to hear? Vibert, my own dear Vibert, whom I remember as the bright beautiful boy who was my mother's darling, the very sunshine of our home, Vibert has entered, I fear, on a course that imperils his peace here and his happiness hereafter. I might exert an elder sister's influence over his frank and kindly nature; but I dread to rouse his anger, and risk the loss of his affection. And, alas! I am conscious that the weakness of character at which Vibert so often has laughed, has lessened my influence with him for good. Vibert loves--but he does not look up to his sister; on one point, at least, I am in his eyes but as a silly, unreasoning child!"