“Let us pause here a moment,” says the author of the MS.,
“and observe how events march onward obedient to the
great Chief of heaven; how personages of all ages and conditions
are but blind puppets in the hands of an all-seeing,
all-wise Providence. Heaven decreed that this young woman
should, in Virginia, be subjected to a persecution, more
systematic than she had ever experienced in any other land
before—and this persecution proceeded from one of that
class which social feeling then separated from her own by
barriers as striking and impassable as those existing between
the peasant and the great lord. This persecution was to be
a daily and systematic one, a trial of the temper and the

[figure description] Page 238.[end figure description]

heart—a test of the young girl's patience and her strength.
It was to come to her at the theatre, in the street, in her apartment—
every where. It was to insult, to worry, to irritate,
to wound the subject of its enmity. It was to try the character
of the young woman to the utmost, as the spur incessantly
plunged into the quivering side tests the endurance
of the noblest animal.

“Then, not satisfied with this systematic, chain-like train
of wounds and insults, Providence one day sent a child of
the same race as her arch-persecutor to her presence:—and
from that child's lips came words which wounded, mortified,
humiliated the already overburdened heart so cruelly, that
the poor heart had cried out passionately against the injustice,
and the bitter, cruel, terrible wrong.

“Then, having tried the young woman with such apparent
harshness, that same Providence began to unroll the chain
of circumstance—that chain formed of such a myriad of invisible
links, links which by the short-sighted are called
`small events' and `trifles,' but which hold the universe
together. The instruments of all this persecution were to
hasten the light upon its way to brighten Beatrice's life—
and to do this, spite of themselves, not knowing what they
did. All things were to work harmoniously to that end,
nothing was to fall short, or occupy its wrong position. The
trunks containing that much-coveted costume were at York—
hence the two men were led to open that other one,
wherein the secret of a life was shut up. The only obstacle
to the revelation, was the man who knew it—he was called
away. That this secret should dawn upon the proper person
first, the coat is not unrolled—the young man goes to ask
her advice. He becomes agitated, and in his agitation drops
the child's garment—then he returns, and instead of throwing
down the coat carelessly, replaces it with all the rest in
the trunk: the time has not arrived for the manager to know
that all is known. Thrown thus at her very feet, the young
girl does not see the frock, until having made her peace with
Clare, she returns to the stillness of her chamber. Then
she knows the whole, and all is clear to her. But she has
no harsh thoughts of the man she had called her father for
so long—she does not cry out in bitterness against the cruel
concealment which has made her so unhappy—which has

p520-244 [figure description] Page 239.[end figure description]

placed her in that position which renders acceptance of the
hand of Charles impossible. Why? Because the second
chain of circumstance had been unrolled also. A child had
been brought to the place by the presence there of him who
had persecuted her:—a coarse ruffian had frightened her:—
she had fled in her terror to the young girl's room:—there
she had left her Bible—that Bible which was to affect the
spirit of Beatrice, as the accident—the world would call it—of
the child's frock affected her life. That Bible was to make
her meek, to give her strength to bear the sneers and mockery
and reproaches she was to be subjected to in that fiery
interview. That Bible was to give her strength to hold fast
to the victory she had won over herself, when Charles went
from her in despair—the thought of which nearly bent her
resolution, broke her remaining strength.

“Those two personages, man and child, whose words had
wounded her more cruelly than all else, were thus fated to
become the instruments of Providence—the one to reveal
her far southern birth, the other to be the direct agent of
her purification—spiritual birth. There was the chain—no
link of it defective—bearing up the weight of a whole life;
shaped link by link by Providence, and slowly, certainly unwound
by hands which thought themselves at other work.
Is there no overruling Providence?”