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.
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