[3]
These statements of Lady Burton and Miss Stisted have been placed one
after another, in order that the dispassionate reader may be able to
judge not only of their conflicting nature, but of the different spirit
which animates them. Lady Burton writes from her heart, reverently,
as a good woman would write of the most solemn moments of her life, and
of things which were to her eternal verities. Would she be likely to
perjure herself on such a subject? Miss Stisted writes with an
unconcealed animus, and is not so much concerned in defending the purity
of her uncle's Protestantism as in vilifying her aunt and the faith to
which she belonged. It may be noted too that Miss Stisted has no word of
womanly sympathy for the wife who loved her husband with a love passing
the love of women, and who was bowed down by her awful sorrow. On the
contrary, with revolting heartlessness and irreverence, she jeers at her
aunt's grief and the last offices of the dead. We may agree with the
doctrines of the Church of Rome, or we may not; the solemn rites may be
unavailing, or they may be otherwise; but at least they can do no harm,
and the death-chamber should surely be sacred from such vulgar ribaldry!
Good taste, if no higher consideration, might have kept her from mocking
the religious convictions of others.
Miss Stisted's indictment of Lady Burton on this point falls under
three heads:
First, that Sir Richard was dead before the priest arrived.
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