 failed; or
rather, I should say, he believed that a stronger, severer hand than hers was
required for the management of the lad. But, when she heard Mr. Benson say so,
she pleaded with him.
    »Have patience with Leonard,« she said. »I have deserved the anger that is
fretting in his heart. It is only I who can reinstate myself in his love and
respect. I have no fear. When he sees me really striving hard and long to do
what is right, he must love me. I am not afraid.«
    Even while she spoke, her lips quivered, and her colour went and came with
eager anxiety. So Mr. Benson held his peace, and let her take her course. It was
beautiful to see the intuition by which she divined what was passing in every
fold of her child's heart, so as to be always ready with the right words to
soothe or to strengthen him. Her watchfulness was unwearied, and with no thought
of self-tainting in it, or else she might have often paused to turn aside and
weep at the clouds of shame which came over Leonard's love for her, and hid it
from all but her faithful heart; she believed and knew that he was yet her own
affectionate boy, although he might be gloomily silent, or apparently hard and
cold. And in all this, Mr. Benson could not choose but admire the way in which
she was insensibly teaching Leonard to conform to the law of right, to recognise
duty in the mode in which every action was performed. When Mr. Benson saw this,
he knew that all goodness would follow, and that the claims which his mother's
infinite love had on the boy's heart would be acknowledged at last, and all the
more fully because she herself never urged them, but silently admitted the force
of the reason that caused them to be for a time forgotten. By-and-by Leonard's
remorse at his ungracious and sullen ways to his mother - ways that alternated
with passionate, fitful bursts of clinging love - assumed more the character of
repentance, he tried to do so no more. But still his health was delicate; he was
averse to going out-of-doors; he was much graver and sadder than became his age.
It was what must be: an inevitable consequence of what had been; and Ruth had to
be patient, and pray in secret, and with many tears, for the strength she
needed.
    She knew what it was to dread the going out
