Probably such sacrifices of selfish ease and comfort are never quite in
vain; they tend in many ways to heal our own wounds: I won't say that
bodily suffering is worse than mental; but it is realised far more
vividly by a spectator. The grim heart-breaking sights she saw arrayed
Julia's conscience against her own grief; the more so when she found some
of her most afflicted ones resigned, and even grateful. "What," said she,
"can they, all rags, disease and suffering, bow so cheerfully to the will
of Heaven, and have I the wickedness, the impudence, to repine?"
And then, happier than most district visitors, she was not always obliged
to look on helpless, or to confine her consolations to good words. Mrs.
Dodd was getting on famously in her groove. She was high in the
confidence of Cross and Co., and was inspecting eighty ladies, as well as
working; her salary and profits together were not less than five hundred
pounds a year, and her one luxury was charity, and Julia its minister.
She carried a good honest basket, and there you might see her Bible
wedged in with wine and meat, and tea and sugar: and still, as these
melted in her round, a little spark of something warm would sometimes
come in her own sick heart.
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