The next two years passed over in much the same way--or a careless
spectator might have thought so. I have heard people say, that if you
look at a regiment advancing with steady step over a plain on a review-
day, you can hardly tell that they are not merely marking time on one
spot of ground, unless you compare their position with some other object
by which to mark their progress, so even is the repetition of the
movement. And thus the sad events of the future life of this father and
daughter were hardly perceived in their steady advance, and yet over the
monotony and flat uniformity of their days sorrow came marching down upon
them like an armed man. Long before Mr. Wilkins had recognised its
shape, it was approaching him in the distance--as, in fact, it is
approaching all of us at this very time; you, reader, I, writer, have
each our great sorrow bearing down upon us. It may be yet beyond the
dimmest point of our horizon, but in the stillness of the night our
hearts shrink at the sound of its coming footstep. Well is it for those
who fall into the hands of the Lord rather than into the hands of men;
but worst of all is it for him who has hereafter to mingle the gall of
remorse with the cup held out to him by his doom.
Mr. Wilkins took his ease and his pleasure yet more and more every year
of his life; nor did the quality of his ease and his pleasure improve; it
seldom does with self-indulgent people.
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