I could not stop her, about the views of his family for him!”
“What views?”
“Views which, I imagine, it by no means follows that he has for himself. If she has been impertinent to me, she has been even more so to him. I wonder how she dares meddle in his concerns as she does.”
“Well, but what views?” persisted Margaret.
“Oh, about his marrying:—that he is the darling of his family—that large family interests hang upon his marrying—that all his relations think it is time he was settling, and that he told her last week that he was of that opinion himself:—and then she went on to say that there was the most delightful accordance in their views for him;—that they did not much value beauty—that they should require for him something of a far higher order than beauty, and which indeed was seldom found with it—”
“Insolent creature! Did she say that to you?”
“Indeed she did: and that her brother’s wife must be of a good family, with a fortune worthy of his own; and, naturally, of a county family.”
“A county family!” said Margaret, half laughing. “What matters county or city, when two people are watching over one another for life and death, and for hereafter?”
“With such people as Mrs. Rowland,” said Hester, “marriage is a very superficial affair. If family, fortune, and equipage are but right, the rest may be left to Providence. Temper, mind, heart—. The worst of all, however, was her ending—or what was made her ending by our being interrupted.”
“Well! what was her finish?”
“She put her face almost under my bonnet, as she looked smiling at me, and said there was a young lady—she wished she could tell me all about it—the time would come when she might—there was a sweet girl, beloved by them all for many years, from her very childhood, whom they had hopes of receiving, at no very distant time, as Philip’s wife.”
“I do not believe it,” cried Margaret. After a pause, she added, “Do you believe it, Hester?”
“I am sure I do not know. I should not rate Mrs. Rowland’s word very highly: but this would be such a prodigious falsehood! It is possible, however, that she may believe it without its being true. Or, such a woman might make the most, for the occasion, of a mere suspicion of her own.”
“I do not believe it is true,” repeated Margaret.
“At all events,” concluded Hester, “nothing that Mrs. Rowland says is worth regarding. I was foolish to let myself be ruffled by her.”
Margaret tried to take the lesson home, but it was in vain. She was ruffled; and, in spite of every effort, she did believe in the existence of the nameless young lady. It had been a day of trouble; and thus was it ending in fresh sorrow and fear.
Morris came in, hesitated at the door, was told she might stay, and immediately busied herself in the brushing of hair and the folding of clothes. Many tears trickled down, and not a word was spoken, till all the offices of the toilet were finished. Morris then asked, with a glance at the book-shelf, whether she should go or stay.
“Stay, Morris,” said Hester, gently. “You shall not suffer for our being unhappy to-night. Margaret, will you, can you read?”
Margaret took the volume in which it was the sisters’ common practice to read together, and with Morris at night. While Morris took her seat, and reverently composed herself to hear, Margaret turned to the words which have stilled many a tempest of grief, from the moment when they were first uttered to mourners, through a long course of centuries, “Let not your heart be troubled.” “Believe in God; believe in me.” Morris sometimes spoke on these occasions. She loved to hear of the many mansions in the House of the Father of all; and she said that though it might seem to her young ladies that their parents had gone there full soon, leaving them to undergo trouble by themselves, yet she had no doubt they should all be at peace together, sooner or later, and their passing troubles seem as nothing. Even this simple and obvious remark roused courage in the sisters. They remembered what their father had said to them about his leaving them to encounter the serious business and trials of life, and how they had promised to strive to be wise and trustful, and to help each other. This day the serious business and trials of life had manifestly begun: they must strengthen themselves and each other to meet them. They agreed upon this, and in a mood of faith and resolution fell asleep.
Chapter Ten.
Mediation.
Mr. Hope’s case turned out more favourably than any of his attendants and friends had ventured to anticipate. For some days the symptoms continued as alarming as at first; but from the hour that he began to amend, his progress towards recovery was without drawback, and unusually rapid. Within a month, the news circulated through the village, that he had been safely brought home to his own lodgings; and the day after, the ladies at Mr. Grey’s were startled by seeing him alight from a gig at the door, and walk up the steps feebly, but without assistance. He could not stay away any longer, he declared. He had been above a month shut up in a dim room, without seeing any faces but of doctor, nurse, and Mrs. Grey, and debarred from books; now he was well enough to prescribe for himself; and he was sure that a little society, and a gradual return to his usual habits of life, would do him more good than anything.
Mrs. Grey kept all her own children out of sight during this first visit, that Mr. Hope might not see too many faces at once. She admitted only Hester and Margaret, and Alice, who brought him some refreshment. The girl made him a low curtsey, and looked at him with an expression of awe and pleasure, which brought tears into the eyes of even her mistress. Mr. Hope had been a benefactor to this girl. He had brought her through a fever. She had of late little expected ever to see him again. Mr. Hope replied to her mute looks:
“Thank you, Alice, I am much better. I hope to be quite well soon. Did not you make some of the good things Mrs. Grey has been kind enough to bring me?—I thought so. Well, I’m much obliged to you; and to everybody who has been taking pains to make me well. I do not know how it is,” he continued, when Alice had left the room, “but things do not appear as they used to do. Perhaps my eyes are dim still; but the room does not seem bright, and none of you look well and merry.”
Mrs. Grey observed that she had drawn the blinds down, thinking he would find it a relief after the sunshine. Margaret said ingenuously—
“We are all well, I assure you; but you should not wonder if you find us rather grave. Much has happened since we met. We have been thinking of you with great anxiety for so long, that we cannot on a sudden talk as lightly as when you used to come in every day.”
“Ah!” said he, “I little thought, at one time, that I should ever see any of you again in this world.”
“We have thought of you as near death,” said Margaret; “and since that, as having a sick-room experience, which we respect and stand in awe of; and that is reason enough for our looking grave.”
“You feel as if you had to become acquainted with me over again. Well, we must lose no time; here is a month gone that I can give no account of.”
Hester felt how differently the case stood with her. The last month had been the longest she had ever known—tedious as to the state
