The heirs of the farmstead Author:Robert Holmes Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 48 CHAPTER V. ANSWEBS THE QUESTION, "WHO WAS HILDA?" Hilda was the eldest daughter of Thomas and Dinah Sykes. She was a laughing, light-hearted, but mod... more »est aiid virtuous, young woman. Of course she had failings ; but she had withal such a frank, easy way of confessing and deploring them, that Luther Lee actually liked to see them appear, just because of the better and beautiful dispositions they were sure to bring out. He used to say that the appearance of those dispositions far more than compensated for any pain her failings had caused him. We have met more than once with such a combination of infirmities and excellences, and have thanked God for them. Being imperfect creatures, we are prone to wound one another by our follies and waywardness ; but we are so constituted and circumstanced, that we may, if we will, amply compensate one another by frank, easy, genuine confessions and apologies. We may, we can, distil a balm, that shall more than kill any sting we may have given; a balm, that shall so ease and soothe the irritation, as to cause men almost to covet the latter, that they may experience the sweet pleasure of the former. Oh, then, let us not be backward to acknowledge and deplore our failures in duty ! There is moral beauty in true penitence, and in honest endeavours to correct errors of conduct. The sight of such beauty gives joy to angels ! Perhaps Hilda's redeeming features of mind and ways derived a little interest, in Luther's eyes, from her personal charms ; for a sweet disposition will derive interest from sweet looks and a sweet face, just as the central figure of a picture will appear all the more beautiful, when the several objects around it, and in the background, are artistically grouped and properly pencilled. She had soft, auburn hair ; a round,...« less