Had _she_ for a moment given way to apprehension, had _her_ step been a thought less firm, her eye less peaceful, then indeed the world itself would have seemed to be sinking under his feet.

Meanwhile she was to him that kind of relief which we derive from a person to whom we may say everything without a fear of its harming them.

He felt quite sure that, say what he would, Mary would always be hopeful and courageous; and he felt some secret idea that his own gloomy forebodings were of service in restricting and sobering what seemed to him her too sanguine nature.

He blindly reverenced, without ability fully to comprehend, her exalted religious fervor and the quietude of soul that it brought.

But he did not know through how many silent conflicts, how many prayers, how many tears, how many hopes resigned and sorrows welcomed, she had come into that last refuge of sorrowful souls, that immovable peace when all life's anguish ceases and the will of God becomes the final rest.
But, unhappily for this present crisis, there was, as there often is in family life, just enough of the father's nature in the son to bring them into collision with each other.