Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

RHYS LEWIS. 149
And althougli we know about as much as tiie mountain-hurdle
where these good things haye come from, I don't think we shall
be doing wrong in using them."
Inasmuch as she never asked me could I guess, I did not
give her the slightest hint whence the package came. Had
I done so, I question whether she would have touched the
contents, for I strongly suspected that the sender had not
acquired them, honestly.
My noble friend ! I know very well thou would' st have shared
the last bit with me, and that, although thou did'st not after-
wards mention that parcel to me, nor I to thee, I was as certain
thou wert the sender as I am that it was from thy hand I
received the broad and butter of the previous day.
CHAPTER XX.
Tllli VICAR OP THE PARISH.
I HAVE said that mother possessed a sort of foolish pride and
independence of mind, and that had she been more pliable and
clamorous, we need not have euQ'ered much destitution. I
fear I must confess, also, to seeing her once— only once — guilty
of rudeness, and of speaking to a gentleman of position as if she
were his equal, when in reality she was in want of the daily
necessaries of life. I trust I shall be forgiven by those friends
into whose hands this autobiography may fall — and the more
readily because, by that time, the earth, a yard deep, will be
covering my face — for believing that mine was the best mother
in the world. But I should be dissembling, and unfaithful to
my promise of telling the truth and the whole truth, did I hide
her weaknesses. She was a woman of warm temper and strong
feeling, and, I rather fancy, gloried a little in being a " plain
speaker." My experience of such people is that, while they
excel in straightforwardness, they run the risk of forgetting the
feelings of others and of showing a want of that suavity and
good taste vrLich should adorn the character of every true
Christian.