"Good evening, Miss Faith; what an age it is since we have seen you. How are the rest of the cardinal virtues? and what new book-torture is Miss Charity inflicting on you? By-the-bye, ladies, have you heard the wonderful intelligence? the new doctor has made his appearance."
"No; oh, tell us all about it!" exclaimed the three. "Who is he? What is his name? Is he young and nice-looking; or is he old, and stout, and horridly uninteresting?" this last from Cathy.
Garth looked benignantly at their agitated countenances. Their curiosity imparted a relish to the news. Here he had been in possession of the latest intelligence for at least half an hour; had met the new-comer with Mr. Logan, and had shaken hands with him; had discussed the weather and the crops, after the usual manner of Englishmen, while Hepshaw was buried in profound ignorance of the acquisition it had gained.
"So you have not heard the news?" he repeated, calmly.
"No; of course not. Do be quick, Garth. Who is he?"
"Ah, that is the question."
"Have you seen him? has any one told you about him? will he live in Dr. Morgan's old house? is he married? has he a tribe of children?"
"One question at a time, ladies. Who asked if he were married? Cathy, of course. No; I believe not; but I never asked him."
"You have seen him then. Oh, Miss Faith, does he not deserve to be shaken, to keep us in this suspense? Perhaps, after all, he is only a red-headed little apothecary."
"That I am sure he is not."
"He is nice then?" stimulated to fresh efforts by the twinkle in her brother's eye. Garth was evidently bent on enjoying himself at their expense.
"That depends on what you call nice. He seemed tolerably pleasant, talked good English without a twang, and had no disagreeable provincial accent."
"Young or old?"
"About forty, I should say; couldn't answer for a year or two."
"Over forty! Then he must be an old bachelor. How dreadfully uninteresting!"
"I will repeat that speech to Mr. Logan."
Cathy moved aside as if she had been stung.
Miss Faith hazarded the next question rather timidly: "Was he tall or short?"
"Neither the one nor the other."
Still further questioning elicited no remarkable items of information. He was not very stout, neither was he particularly thin; had a pleasant voice and manner; was somewhat sallow in complexion; and was becoming decidedly grey; did not wear spectacles, and had shrewd and rather humorous eyes.
"Where was he going to live?"
"Did not ask him; is at present putting up at the Deer-hound. Comes from Carlisle, so he says."
"From Carlisle?" in a faint voice from Miss Faith.
"Yes. His name is Stewart, Angus Stewart, or rather Dr. Stewart, as he is now. On the whole he is a gentlemanly sort of fellow, and likely to prove an acquisition to our little circle. I say, Cath, won't Mrs. Morris set her cap at him?"
"I think we had better walk on now," returned Cathy, abruptly, at the mention of the name. She had started violently, and had shot a quick, sidelong glance at Miss Faith. "Come, Miss Faith, we shall be late for tea."
"Yes; we shall be late," she returned, mechanically, putting a shaking hand on the girl's arm, as though to steady herself. There was not a tinge of color in Miss Faith's fair face; her breath came and went unevenly; she spoke in little gasps. "Are you sure that we heard right, Cathy? did your brother say his name was Stewart?"
"Yes; Angus Stewart," returned Cathy, in a brisk, off-hand voice; "he comes from Carlisle. Ah, by the-bye, I should not be surprised if he should prove an old hospital acquaintance of yours, Miss Faith. What fun that will be! After all, the world is not so large as one thinks it."
"It is very strange," rejoined Miss Faith, and her lips trembled nervously over her words. "The coincidence of the name and the place startled me a little. I knew some one of that name in Carlisle—let me see—ten years ago."
"How very odd!" returned her companion, with well-counterfeited surprise, and looking straight before her. "Only ten years ago? Ah, then it must be the same; besides, the name is so very uncommon."
"Angus? ah, that is what he used to say. He was very proud of his name. He told me once that was all of which he had to be proud. He was so poor, he meant. He was the house surgeon, and one used to see a good deal of him. He had a mother and sister, I remember, who lived in such a tiny house in the town."
"And you have never seen him since?"
"No," hesitating and faltering; "I had to give up nursing, and come back to Cara. One loses friends sometimes in that way. It was hard, of course; for I loved my work and my children; but one must do hard things sometimes in this world," finished poor Miss Faith, with unconscious philosophy.
"I learn'd at last submission to my lot,But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot."Cowper.
"I wonder how women of thirty-five feel under these circumstances," thought Cathy, as she followed the others up the narrow dark staircase leading to Miss Cosie's neat sanctum. "I should have imagined all sentiment would have been worried out of them by this time, in this dismal old mill-pond they call life. It is very odd, but it is amusing too," she continued, with a certain girlish curiosity at the elderly romance that was impending before her eyes. After all it was not without its pathos. "Perhaps he will not recognize her when they meet, or most likely he has a wife and two or three children somewhere; I would not answer for him. It is the women who are faithful in these cases. In my opinion Jacob is the exception, not the rule. Poor old Jacob, how threadbare they have worn him! He was very patient and deep, but I liked Esau best."
Cathy mused on in her rambling fashion. Now and then she and Queenie exchanged glances full of meaning.
"Is it—can it really be he?" whispered Queenie, as she tied and untied Cathy's velvet.
"Not a doubt of it," replied the other. "Hush! we shall hear more by-and-bye."
Miss Faith looked at them both with soft dazed eyes. She had no idea that they were talking of her. "Angus Stewart! there cannot be two of that name," she said to herself, as she smoothed out her ruffles with trembling hands, and tried to adjust her pearl brooch to her liking. "I wonder when I shall see him, and if he will know me again." But here Miss Cosie rushed upon them with a small whirlwind of interjections and exclamations.
"Oh, my dears; there, there, you all look as fresh as rosebuds. What do you think? The most wonderful thing has happened. Just fancy Christopher taking it into his head to bring him here!"
"To bring whom, dear Miss Cosie?" asked Cathy quickly, for Miss Faith's color was varying dangerously.
"Why, Mr. Mac'ivor, or what's his name—something Scotch I am sure. The new doctor, I mean. And there they are talking as comfortably as though they had known each other for years, instead of minutes. Christopher has taken him over to the church already.'
"If Mr. Stewart be here we had better go down," observed Cathy, demurely, but her eyes danced with fun.
"Ah, Stewart, of course. There, there, my dear, my head is like a sieve, as Kit always tells me. 'Why, Charlotte, there must be a hole in your brain somewhere,' as he often says. And there he is, dear fellow, looking as pleased as though he had got some one to his liking; and indeed he seems a pleasant, sociable sort of person."
"Yes; but your tea will be spoiled if we stand talking any longer," put in artful Cathy; and Miss Cosie took the hint, and trotted off in her velvet high-heeled slippers, looking like a little grey mouse of a woman, in her dove-colored gown and soft Shetland shawl.
"There, there, my dear, if I had not forgotten all about the tea!" they could hear her exclaim. as she whisked down the passage.
"Now we will go down," exclaimed Cathy, promptly. "Come, Miss Faith, you are just as nice as possible;" for the nervous fingers were still adjusting the troublesome ruffle. "Think what a loss you have over those last chapters of 'Trench's Parables,' and how Cara will miss you," continued the mischievous girl, as she hurried on her trembling companion. "You have exchanged 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul' just for Miss Cosie's junket and fruit."
"I wish—I almost wish I were back with Cara," gasped poor Miss Faith at the parlor door; and indeed the ordeal was a trying one even to a woman of thirty-five.
Mr. Logan made the necessary introductions as easily as possible. "Here, ladies, is our new doctor, Mr. Stewart; give him a hearty welcome to Hepshaw. This is our girls' school-mistress, Miss Marriott, and this is Miss Catherine Clayton, but Miss Faith Palmer ought to have come first."
"Miss Faith Palmer?" queried a pleasant voice, for the parlor was somewhat dim; "here at least I ought to require no introduction," and the new-comer pressed forward to catch a farther glimpse of Miss Faith's pale face.
"Yes, we are old friends, Mr. Stewart," she returned, putting a very cold hand in his. She was glad of the half-light; he could not see her, she thought. How his voice thrilled her? Was it really ten years ago since she had last heard it?
"You are the last person I expected to see to-night," he continued, still standing near her. "It was very forgetful of me. I remember now that you said you lived at Hepshaw, but all sorts of things have driven it clean out of my head."
"All sorts of things! He is married then," argued Cathy, shrewdly. "Oh, you men, you men!"
"Ten years is a long time, a very long time," faltered Miss Faith. She experienced a chill feeling at the same moment. Was it a presentiment?
"Is it ten years since we met? I had no idea it was so long," he returned, pulling his whiskers reflectively. "Do you recollect the hospital and the boys' ward. What a capital nurse you used to be, Miss Faith, and how attached your little patients were to you!"
"Is it—is everything just the same?" she asked, nervously.
"As when I was house surgeon there, do you mean? I don't know; I have been away from Carlisle a good many years. The hospital work got humdrum somehow, and I had a berth offered me as army surgeon in Bombay; and as Alice was married, and my mother was dead, I thought I might as well try my luck. I got tired of it though."
"Alice married!"; with a quick flush of interest. They were sitting at Miss Cosie's tea-table now. Mr. Stewart was by his hostess, but he had found room for his old acquaintance beside him.
"You can't think how pleasant it is to meet an old friend in a strange place," he had observed confidentially to Miss Cosie, and the little woman had nodded and smiled delightedly.
"Yes, Alice is married; pretty girls will sometimes," with the humorous sparkle in his eyes that she remembered so well. "She married a clergyman in Lincolnshire, and has two fine boys of whom she is very proud; I have just been staying with them in their pleasant vicarage. By-the-bye, she asked after you."
"After me?" with another rush of sensitive color that made her look years younger.
"Yes; she asked if I had seen you, but I could not satisfy her on that point. Don't you think it was a shabby trick, Miss Faith, vanishing from Carlisle as you did, and never coming back? I always meant to ask you that question if we ever met again."
"I hoped to come back; I never meant to leave like that," she returned in such a low voice that Dr. Stewart had some trouble to hear her. "It was my sister's accident. You remember that I told you when I wished your mother and Alice good-bye."
"Yes; but I trusted that it was only a temporary affair, and that you might soon have been set free."
"I am not free yet," in a sad voice that went far to explain to Dr. Stewart the meaning of the worn, patient face and set lines.
The Faith Palmer of ten years ago had been a fair, pretty girl, with the lightest step and the happiest laugh imaginable, and all manner of bright winning ways. It was a sweet face still, he thought, only so thin and careworn, and all the soft coloring faded. Even her voice was subdued and quieted past recognition; the despondence of the key had touched him painfully from the first.
Faith's scrutiny had not been half so severe. Dr. Stewart was older, of coarse, and browner; well, and stouter, and he was becoming very grey; but what did that matter? There were the pleasant outlines, that had lingered for ten years in her memory, the shrewd, twinkling eyes, with their touch of humor, and the clear, genial voice.
"What does that mean? we are none of us free, for the matter of that," he asked abruptly, but not unkindly. "Here I am tying myself down for life in this northern village, because an Indian sun chose to play the most confounded tricks with my liver, and to make my existence a burthen to me. Do you mean that your sister is still an invalid?"
"Yes; I have been nursing her for ten years. There are the others, but she has got used to me. Poor Cara, she is to lie down all her life, they say."
"Humph! that accounts for it," with a dissatisfied glance, and pulling his whiskers rather fiercely. "Well, Miss Faith, I can't say home-nursing has agreed with you."
"That means that you find me changed," thought poor Miss Faith, trying to swallow down a very large lump in her throat. She had sustained her share in the conversation with tolerable success up to the present moment, but now the chilliness was creeping over her again. Why had he not tried to find out what had become of her? Hepshaw and Carlisle were not so very far apart after all. True, she had promised him to return, and had left him in perfect confidence that she would redeem her promise; but she had not been to blame for her failure. "I gave it all up, all that I knew was waiting for me, because Cara wanted me," she thought; "but he never tried to find out what had become of me."
It was well for Faith Palmer that Cathy, who was watching them from the other side of the table, struck in boldly at this juncture; it gave her time to swallow down the troublesome lump, and regain her lost self-command. During the animated talk that followed, and in which Dr. Stewart bore a chief part, she sat plaiting the snowy table-cloth with her slender fingers, and saying over and over to herself, "Ten years, and he never cared to know whether I was alive or dead."
When tea was over she moved away from him, and took refuge beside Miss Cosie and her knitting. He would amuse himself with the younger ones of course. She had noticed already that Cathy had seemed to interest him with her frank liveliness, and then there were Langley and Queenie. Queenie was looking so pretty this evening, with those deep-colored roses in her dark dress. If only she could sit quiet in her corner, and watch him unobserved! It was hard work finding appropriate answers to Miss Cosie's somewhat rambling remarks.
"Of course he will take a fancy to one of them," she thought, taking advantage of a pause during which Miss Cosie counted her stitches, and quite ignoring the fact that there might possibly be a Mrs. Stewart somewhere. "I wonder which it will be. Queenie Marriott is far prettier to my taste, her eyes are lovely; but then Cathy is very taking. Men of forty generally fall in love with young girls; and then he is such a young-looking man, and does not look his age," and Faith sighed as she thought of her faded youth.
"Did you speak, my dear?" asked Miss Cosie, at this point. "Knit one, purl two, and knit two together. There, there, I am a stupid companion. Why don't you go and join that merry party opposite? Look at Kit; how delighted he seems with the doctor."
"Miss Cosie," stammered Faith, "did he—did Dr. Stewart say anything about his being married. He did not mention his wife, I mean. Cathy was wondering, and, and——"
"Married! why, to be sure, how stupid of us! I never thought of such a thing for a moment. Of course he must be; and not one of us has asked after her," and the little woman patted her big curls in a flurried manner. "Kit, Kit, my dear," in a loud whisper, "do tell Dr. Stewart that I want to speak to him."
"Oh, Miss Cosie, pray don't. How can you think of doing such a thing?" exclaimed Faith, in a perfect agony at this unexpected proceeding. "He is such a stranger. What will he think of us?" But her protestations were in vain, for Dr. Stewart had left his place with alacrity, and had come up to them with the brightest possible face.
"Did you send for me, Miss Logan?"
"Dear, dear, to think of that, when I have not been called Miss Logan for the last twenty years. Why even the Bishop says Miss Cosie; but then, as Faith says, you are a stranger among us, and don't know our manners."
"Did Miss Faith say that? Well, I shall hope not to be a stranger long. I will promise not to offend again, Miss Cosie."
"There, there, my dear, if he has not got it as pat as possible, as though he had known me all my life. Why even the school-children, bless their little hearts, call me Miss Cosie; I don't know myself under any other name. But talking of names, Dr. Stewart, and you have a nice funny, outlandish one of your own, here we have been together for two whole hours and not one of us has asked after Mrs. Stewart."
"My mother is dead, Miss Cosie," he replied, very gravely, while Faith flushed and grew white, and wished herself home again with Cara. It was too dreadful of Miss Cosie. What would he think of them?
"Poor thing! well, well, she is better off," returned his sympathizing questioner; "she is where the weary are at rest, you know, one must think of that. But I was not speaking of your poor dear mother, Dr. Stewart, but of your wife."
For a moment Dr. Stewart looked at her in some perplexity, and then he got red, and glanced at Faith; but Faith had taken possession of Miss Cosie's knitting, and was doing her best to reduce it to hopeless and intricate confusion, and then a decidedly amused expression crossed his face.
"What makes you saddle me with a wife, Miss Cosie?"
"There, there, you must not take it amiss of us," returned the little woman earnestly, laying her hand on his arm. "Of course we shall be glad to know her; and if there is anything that I can do to make her more comfortable when the poor thing comes amongst us a stranger, I will do it with all my heart."
"But, my dear Miss Cosie," with a smile, "I have no wife."
"No wife!" and Miss Cosie's eyes grew round, and she threw up her plump little hands in astonishment; "no wife! do you mean she is dead too, Dr. Stewart?"
"I mean that I never had one," laughing now outright. "Don't you know poor men have no right to such luxuries? When one has a mother and a sister to maintain, one must put away those sort of thoughts, however much one is tempted," and Dr. Stewart spoke now in a curiously constrained voice.
"Miss Cosie, I must go home now, Cara will be looking for me," exclaimed Faith, rising hurriedly. There was a misty look in the soft blue eyes, and the color had returned to her face.
"May I take the right of an old friend, and come and see you and your sisters to-morrow," asked Dr. Stewart, as he held her hand. "May I come and talk to this Cara, of whom I have heard so much?"
"Yes; we shall be very glad," she replied, almost inaudibly, and then he let her go.
He left Miss Cosie after that, and went back to the little group gathered round the window; but a change had come over them; they seemed talking seriously.
"Miss Catherine, are you in earnest?" Mr. Logan was saying, in an incredulous voice. He pushed his spectacles up to his forehead as he spoke, and the keen, near-sighted eyes seemed to probe the girl's soul as he spoke.
Cathy winced, but she maintained her ground unflinchingly.
"Ask Garth and Langley what they think on that subject."
"She is leading us a sad life about it," returned Garth, tilting his chair that he might have a better view of Queenie. Somehow the combination of the dark dress and roses took his fancy. Miss Marriott was certainly very pretty to-night; even Dr. Stewart seemed to find a certain witchery in the dark eyes, at least Garth thought so, which put him a trifle out of humor. He had been so long without a rival in Hepshaw, that the introduction of this sudden new element of manhood was likely to disturb his equanimity. "Langley says there are no valid objections, so I suppose we shall have to let her go."
"Let us ask Dr. Stewart what he thinks of it," put in Langley, and, to her sister's relief, she quietly turned to him, and gave a brief sketch of Cathy's plan, to which he listened with ready interest, asking a question here and there in a skilful professional manner. When he was in possession of all the facts, he turned to Cathy.
"I don't see why it should not answer; at least you might give it a trial. I like your idea of every woman being trained to a definite employment; I never could understand the enforced helplessness of the sex. I have known pitiable examples of women being left dependent on over-taxed brothers, or turned upon the world absolutely without resources."
"Your rule holds good with generalities, but in Miss Catherine's case," began Mr. Logan, but Cathy somewhat proudly interrupted him.
"If it be Miss Catherine's wish to be independent, and hold her own against the world, no one has a right to interfere. No," speaking with sparkling eyes, and a certain storminess of manner, "I am not one of those women who could bear to be cramped and swathed with the swaddling-clothes of conventionality; I claim my right to work for work's sake, and to be as free as any other of God's creatures."
"You are quite right, Miss Clayton; I admire your sentiments," observed Dr. Stewart.
"Hear, hear," from Garth, somewhat sarcastically. He did not wholly approve of his wilful little sister's plan. "Bless me, child, you are hardly more than eighteen; you seem in a vast hurry to make yourself independent of your brother; no one wants to get rid of you, you little monkey."
Cathy melted a little at that. She gave him an affectionate glance.
"All the same, you will be wanting to get rid of me one of these days," she returned, meaningly, and Garth reddened. "Besides, I don't mean to leave home for good and all; I want to go up to London and learn nursing in all its branches, and then I shall know if I am fit for it. A fair trial is all I ask; and if Garth consents, no one has a right to raise an objection," in an injured, appealing voice.
"You have chosen a noble profession," began Dr. Stewart warmly, but Mr. Logan quietly interrupted him.
"Granted, my dear sir, provided the motives are equally noble."
"Now, Cath, you are going to catch it from your Mentor," observed her brother in an amused tone. "Mr. Logan has discovered a flaw in your grand scheme."
"I suppose one can discover flaws in everything," returned the Vicar in a musing tone. "Youth is the time for great projects; sometimes they are another name for restlessness and discontent. Youth lights a candle,—a farthing dip-light sometimes,—and sets out through the world to look for duties, and leaves the hearth-stone cold, and old hearts growing chill round it. I have an old-fashioned notion, that woman's mission, in its perfectness, very rarely lies beyond the threshold of home."
"How about Florence Nightingale?" interrupted Cathy.
"Or Sarah Judson?" from Langley.
"Or Mrs. Fry? or Joan of Arc?" commented Dr. Stewart.
"Or we might add Grace Darling, and a score of others," put in Garth.
"All typical women, raised up in their generation to perform a certain work, and performing it right nobly. The world calls them heroines, and with reason. They are heroines in the true sense of the word, for they have discovered the needs of the world, and, recognizing their own power to remedy, have fearlessly dared to cross the threshold of home duty for the larger arena, where only the strong prevail and the weak go to the wall."
"Cathy does not pretend to be a Florence Nightingale," put in Langley, quietly.
"I thought you always told us to elevate our standard?" a little defiantly, from Cathy.
"The higher the better," with a benign glance at her; "but it must be a true standard, unselfishness and self-sacrifice for its base, and built up of pure motives. If it be one-sided it will topple over."
"Ah! I can't read parables," rather crossly.
"Are you sure that you are really trying to read mine? You remind me of some little child, Miss Catherine, gathering shells by the sea-shore, and throwing all the pearls away. If you look far enough into the meanings of things you will perceive their value. About your plan, now?"
"I will not hear a word against it," she returned wilfully, and going over to Miss Cosie. "It is bad enough to have to argue with all one's home people; but to be lectured in public, and before Dr. Stewart—no, indeed, Mr. Logan."
"Very well, I will reserve what I have to say in private," he returned, looking after her with a sort of indulgent tenderness, as though she were the little child to whom he had compared her; and Queenie, who was near him, saw a certain vivid brightness in his eyes as he watched her.
The circle broke up after this; but, though it was tolerably late for Hepshaw hours, they did not yet talk of separating. It was a lovely moonlight night, and, at Garth's invitation, Queenie strolled with him up and down the Vicar's steep, narrow garden. Dr. Stewart joined them, and talked for some time about his Indian experiences.
They were both novel and interesting, and engrossed them wholly. Queenie was so fascinated by his description of Indian scenery that she with difficulty remembered the lateness of the hour, and that Langley and Cathy would be wondering at her absence; but she at last made an excuse to leave them.
She lingered for a moment under the shadow of the house to watch the two dark figures still pacing up and down the steep path. This evening's excitement had quickened her pulses. The arrival of the stranger, Miss Faith's repressed agitation at the sight of him, Cathy's strange restlessness and plan for leaving home, had disturbed the even current of events. The moral air seemed charged with electricity and rife with disturbance; somewhere a storm seemed impending. This sense of movement, of vitality, was not unpleasant; youth dreads nothing more than monotony. It is only in age that one sits with folded hands expecting nothing. Garth's manner, too, had given her pleasure; it had been more than usually friendly. There had been appreciation in his glance, a certain cordiality in his tone, that had fallen pleasantly on her ear. "If he will only remain my friend I shall envy no girl her lover," thought Queenie, with a sudden fulness of heart; but at that moment she was startled from her reverie by the sound of voices in the dark entry behind her.
She could hear Mr. Logan's quiet tones, and yes, surely that voice answering him was Cathy's! Before she could free herself a sentence or two reached her ear.
"You will think over what I have said, my child? You will be good and give up this, to please me?"
"No, no," returned the girl passionately, and the low, vehement tones gave Queenie a shock, for they were broken as though with weeping; "you must let me go. I will not stay and make you wretched, as I know I should do."
"You would make me very happy, Catherine."
"No, indeed, Mr. Logan, you are too great, too high for me; I cannot reach to you. I should tire myself and you with my efforts to be good. Oh, you must let me go! I must be free! indeed, indeed, I must be free!"
"Then go, my wild bird, and take my blessing with you; only—" but here the tones were too low to be distinguished; only as Queenie moved away a figure brushed past her, and glided down the garden path.
It was Cathy.
"Even her little mirrorBore witness to the change;For to love the face within itWas something; new and strange.She had looked before and seen itSo thin and hard and grey;Looked, that her hair and collarWere smooth and in trim array."Isa Craig-Knox.
"Cara, Dr. Stewart has come to see you."
It was Faith who spoke. It was the afternoon after Miss Cosie's tea party, and she had met her old acquaintance down the village and had brought him in at his solicitation to see her sisters. Matters were not quite satisfactory to-day. Faith had had a sleepless night after her excitement, and a racking headache had been the consequence. And Miss Charity had been in one of her trying moods. A fresh access of pain made her exacting and irritable. Faith's nervousness and pale looks met with scant sympathy. "If you were not quite so fond of gadding about and leaving other people to do your work you would not be so tired," was the severe comment; the truth being, that poor Miss Charity was having a bad time of it, and had missed Faith's soft voice and gentle manipulations.
It did not improve matters when Miss Hope came to the rescue, and took the book out of her sister's unwilling hands. "There, Faith, run along and put on your bonnet and get some air; I will read to Charity," she said, in her brusque, kindly way, and settled herself vigorously to her task; and Faith, who knew how Cara hated Hope's reading, hesitated and lingered, and then finally yielded to the temptation of the fresh air and sunshine.
It was a little trying that at this moment she should meet Dr. Stewart.
At thirty-five a sleepless night is no beautifier, one lacks youth's cosmetiques then. Faith knew her heavy half-extinguished eyes had black rings round them. The face under the close little Quaker bonnet looked older and more worn than it had last night.
"How do you do, Miss Faith? we can see each other more clearly than we could last evening. Well, we have neither of us grown younger," and Dr. Stewart scrutinized his pale companion with the utmost composure.
Faith glanced at him rather timidly; his manner troubled her, it was more brusque, a little rougher than it used to be. The shy young doctor had seen the world since then. Dr. Stewart certainly looked a little different this afternoon. He was much older and stouter than she had thought him yesterday; his whiskers were iron-grey, and his face had a brown, weather-beaten aspect, and the lines round the mouth were a trifle hard and sarcastic. She could see him more clearly than in Miss Cosie's dim room.
"You find me changed too, I dare say," he continued abruptly, reading her thoughts more shrewdly than of old. "You see I have knocked about the world for the last seven or eight years, and that makes a man old before his time."
"I don't think you look particularly old, Dr. Stewart."
"Well, forty is not exactly patriarchal," somewhat sarcastically. "On the whole I think I am rather proud of my grey hairs, they make me more important. You ought to have kept younger, Miss Faith, leading this quiet pastoral life of yours; you have not had all the hard hits and thumps that fate has dealt me."
"I think inaction is sometimes more trying," she answered faintly, for this absence of sympathy fretted her; and just then they met Cathy walking down the road with free easy gait, and carrying a basket of poppies and wild flowers. She nodded to them hurriedly and passed on. Dr. Stewart looked after her.
"That is a fine girl with a fine character, I will be bound," he said, "but I think I admire Miss Marriott more; I like her soft brunette coloring, and then she has such splendid eyes. Is that fine fellow, young Clayton, rather smitten with her?"
"I think, I am almost sure, that he cares for some one else; at least, one never knows," putting up her hand to her head.
"No, one never knows; there is a fate in these things, I believe. That elder Miss Clayton looks very worn, a story there I expect; most unmarried women have had their story,—one can read it in their faces,—and men too, for that matter. There is a skeleton in every one's cupboard they say. At forty we begin to wonder if life's worth having after all. Well, well, you have a headache, I see; this sunshine is making it worse. If you will allow me I will see you home and call on your sisters."
"They are all at home; they will be very glad to see you," she stammered, but her heart sank within her.
It was one of Cara's bad days, she might not receive him graciously; and then what would Dr. Stewart think of their humble little household? She was absent and nervous all the rest of the way. No wonder he found her changed.
"Cara, Dr. Stewart has come to see you," she said, in a deprecating voice, as though she were committing some solecism.
Miss Hope put down her book with a start, and Miss Charity looked up sharply from her knitting. "Whom did you say, Faith?" in an inflexible voice.
"An old hospital friend of hers, one of ten years' standing," observed Dr. Stewart, throwing himself into the breach with military promptness. In a moment he recognized the position; his shrewd, observant glance took in the little parlor and the occupants in a trice.
It was not a very attractive scene to a man of the world; the details were homely and uninteresting. The bay window with its geraniums and fuchsias; the sharp little bright-eyed woman with her high cheek-bones and thin curls; Miss Hope, vigorous and loud-voiced; and Miss Prudence's ungainly figure hovering in the background. Faith, with her pale face and grey dress, looked like a soft speck of shadow in the sunlight. Dr. Stewart's masculine breadth and freedom of movement seemed to fill up the little room.
"Dr. Stewart! have we ever heard of him, sister?" asked Miss Charity, a little sarcastically, and appealing to Miss Hope.
"If you have I dare say you have forgotten it; ten years is a long time for ladies' memories. I was house-surgeon in the hospital at Carlisle, where your sister worked."
"Humph!" responded Miss Charity, dryly.
Dr. Stewart's eyes twinkled at the sight of Faith's despondent face; he was quite master of the position. Miss Charity's cool reception did not daunt him in the least. He placed himself leisurely by the side of the little square couch, and eyed its occupant curiously; he turned over the books that were piled on the narrow table beside her, and read their titles one after another, and then he began to talk. How he talked! Faith's downcast face brightened; after a time she became less nervous. Dr. Stewart did not address himself to her, he seemed to ignore her existence completely. He talked to Charity, who let her knitting fall out of her hot, dry fingers as she listened; to Miss Hope, sitting there erect and open-eyed; even to poor, grim Miss Prudence, to whom few people talked. Faith raised her soft eyes every now and then in surprise; she had no idea Dr. Stewart was such a clever, well-read man; his brusqueness did not jar on her now. To judge by his conversation he might have read half the books that were written. He swallowed up Miss Charity's little modicum of information in a moment, and left her high and dry, with all her long sentences unsaid. Miss Hope gasped and said, "There, now, would you have believed it!" to the stock of choice anecdotes with which he regaled them. Never were four maiden ladies so well entertained on a summer's afternoon.
Even Miss Prudence, the most rigid of housekeepers, counted over her scanty store of preserves mentally, and decided to ask him to tea. Faith almost held her breath for the next moment; but Dr. Stewart accepted the invitation with alacrity. While the tea was brewing and Miss Prudence hunted out a remnant of rich cake, he drew his chair a little closer to Miss Charity, and questioned her somewhat minutely on the subject of her accident.
"You suffer, of course, a great deal? It is a complicated case, I fear."
"Yes; I have had my share of pain," she answered cheerfully. The sharp angles had relaxed now.
"And your prospect of ease is small?"
"Ah, well! it might be worse," she returned resignedly; and somehow the restless bright eyes and thin ringlets were less repellant to him. "I have bad times and good times, and have to lie here and make the best of it. We need to have broken wills, Dr. Stewart."
"Cara is so very patient," interposed Faith, leaning over her sister's couch.
Miss Charity gave her an odd little push.
"No; I am dreadfully cross, and give heaps of trouble. One's pain gets into one's temper. Faith's been a good girl to me all these years; I don't know what I should have done without her."
"Oh, Cara! please don't speak so," whispered poor Faith with tears in her eyes.
It was Dr. Stewart who said "Humph!" now. He glanced curiously at the two women before him. Faith was considered quite a girl still by her sisters.
"I have a temper myself; I believe every one has, though he or she will not always own to it," he remarked coolly, as he placed himself by Miss Prudence, and helped himself liberally to seed cake.
It was getting quite dark when he rose at last to take leave. Faith accompanied him to the door.
"Well, is your headache better? you are not quite so pale," he asked, not unkindly, as they stood together.
"Yes; the walk and the tea has done it good," she answered evasively. What if he should guess at her sleepless night?
"I hoped I should have come in for a compliment, and that my conversation might have helped to charm it away. You used not to be so matter-of-fact, Miss Faith."
Such a rush of color answered him. "I wonder you recollect so long ago," she returned somewhat unsteadily.
"I wonder at it myself. Perhaps you have helped to jog my memory. Well, well, we were young and foolish once. So this has been your life for the last ten years?"
"Yes; just this, and nothing else," with a sigh.
"No wonder you are thin, and have forgotten how to smile. Ten years of this sort of thing! Well, you women beat us after all;" and then he turned on his heel and went down the little garden path bordered by Faith's roses.
In a very little while Dr. Stewart took up his position in Hepshaw, and buckled to his work in a stout, uncompromising manner that seemed natural to him. From his patients he reaped golden opinions, in spite of a deeply-rooted dislike of humbug, and a tendency to shrug his shoulders impatiently over feminine fads and fancies. He was soon a general favorite. He was prompt and kind-hearted; in cases of real suffering nothing could exceed his patience and watchfulness. People soon got over his little brusqueness, and said openly that Dr. Stewart was a real acquisition to the neighborhood.
He had taken temporary lodgings in the village; but report was already busy with the fact that Juniper Lodge, Dr. Morgan's old house, next door to the Misses Palmer, had been visited more than once by the new surgeon. By-and-bye suspicion became certainty, when painters and workmen arrived on the premises. Soon the forlorn exterior of Juniper Lodge began to wear a brighter look—the old green verandah was repainted, fresh papers and plenty of whitewash made the dark old rooms habitable, the evergreen shrubs were cut down or transplanted, the walks weeded and gravelled, a van-load of furniture made its appearance, and a tidy-looking woman with a pleasant Scotch face, answering to the name of Jean, took up her residence. The next day there was a brass plate up; and Dr. Stewart quietly walked into the Evergreens, and announced formally to the sisters that he was their next-door neighbor.
"And a very pleasant neighbor too," observed Miss Hope to her gossips; "so different to Dr. Morgan, with that slatternly housekeeper of his always down at heels and talking to the postman at the gate. That Jean must be a treasure; it is a treat to look at her caps and aprons. I have been all over the house, and you could eat your dinner off the floor, as the saying is. Dr. Stewart drops in to see us very often; it brightens Charity to have a good chat with him. They have fine long arguments sometimes, only he always gets the best of it. He makes a rare commotion when he comes, for he always pulls up the blinds and throws up the windows, though I tell him not to expose our shabby old carpet. He had Charity and her couch out on the lawn the other evening; just fancy! and the poor thing has never been out for years. She was so pleased and excited that we all had a cry over it, and then he scolded us all round."
It was quite true that the arrival of Dr. Stewart as their next-door neighbor made a great change in the little household at the Evergreens; the introduction of the masculine element diffused new life and activity. During his brief visits, for he seldom stayed long, it was wonderful how much Dr. Stewart contrived to effect. The close little parlor where Faith had toiled over weary books or sewn long seams by Cara's couch for ten monotonous years was a different place now. The obnoxious geraniums no longer blocked up the window, there was plenty of air and light; Faith no longer gasped with pale cheeks in the close oppressive atmosphere. On fine afternoons Miss Charity's couch was wheeled out under the apple-trees; the poor lady could watch the butterflies glancing round her, or the great brown bees humming round her neighbor's hive. Instead of Trench's 'Parables,' or D'Aubigné's 'Reformation,' suspicious green volumes in certain standard editions lay beside her. Faith had no need to stifle hardly-to-be-repressed yawns over Kingsley's 'Hypatia,' or 'Two Years Ago.' 'Laura Doone' and Black's 'Adventures of a Phaeton' held them enchained for hours.
"I am afraid our tastes are demoralized, we are getting very lax and dissipated over our reading. It is very nice, but there is no method in it," sighed Miss Charity.
"You have had solids for ten years, now your digestion needs a lighter form of nourishment; all work and no play dulls the brain as well as poor Jack," returned Dr. Stewart decidedly. He had come in for one of his brief, business-like visits; he was always dropping in somewhere, at the Vicarage, at Church-Stile House, at Elderberry Lodge, even at the Sycamores, where comely Mrs. Morris with her seven olive branches lived. He did not favor Brierwood Cottage often with his visits, but he constantly met Queenie going to and from her school, and walked beside her in animated conversation.
Faith met them sometimes as she went about her charitable errands among the cottages; she would turn a little pale and pass on somewhat hurriedly. Dr. Stewart never stopped her on these occasions; he would go on with his talk, casting shrewd kindly glances under the girl's shady straw hat. Poor Faith would look at them wistfully, with a shy, deprecating smile; she would have a certain sinking of heart for hours afterwards. "He admires her, I knew he would," she would say to herself a little sadly.
Poor Miss Faith! it may be doubted if this revival of an old intimacy were a source of unalloyed pleasure. True, the changeless monotony of her days was broken up; but the new interest and excitement had their draw-backs.
Time, after its usual kindly fashion, had to a certain extent healed her wound; the passionate yearning of ten years ago had merged into sad serenity. Faith treasured the remembrance of those few fleeting months, as women will treasure their one romance; those unfinished hopes and fears were buried tenderly in her breast. She had ceased to suffer, but she had not ceased to remember; the sacred impression had stamped her whole life.
And now, when the freshness of youth had passed, she had met her ideal again; but was the girl's ideal likely to be the woman's reality? did she fully recognize in Dr. Stewart the dark young surgeon in that Carlisle hospital, whose soft looks and words had won her heart?
Faith winced secretly at these questions, as she did at Dr. Stewart's brusque remarks. His experience, his knowledge of the world, his laxity and breadth of church views, daunted the simple woman; once or twice his roughness of argument hurt her.
"Ah, I am a poor creature!" she said to him once. "I am not one of the clever ones, like you and Cara."
"No; you are only so so, Miss Faith; your knowledge of the world is not in any way remarkable; you are not one of the strong-minded women," with a little dry chuckle, with which he would conclude his remarks.
But, though he hurt and disappointed her, there were times when a sudden softening of voice or look brought back the past with strange vividness. Now and then he let fall a word that showed that he too had not forgotten, some chance allusion to old scenes, some memory of her tastes. "Ah, you used to like this, Miss Faith," or some such speech, that brought a flush of pleasure to her face.
Dr. Stewart looked very benign as he glanced at the homely group before him on the afternoon in question.
"This is better than twenty feet by eighteen of stuffiness," he said in his concise way.
The sisterhood were all gathered on the lawn. Miss Charity's favorite—an enormous tabby—was purring underneath the old scarlet wrapper; Miss Hope's knitting-needles clicked busily; Miss Patience was occupied over some silk patch-work, the little squares and diamonds shone in the sunlight; Faith was reading aloud 'Westward Ho.' She put down the book with a bright, welcoming smile. The interest of the story had moved her, her eyes shone with soft, serious excitement; there was a scent of tall white lilies. Dr. Stewart's bees were humming noisily; a light wind stirred the long grass shadows; Miss Charity's curls were in disorder. Some fine white-heart cherries hung over Dr. Stewart's head; he commenced gathering some, "by way of dessert," he said coolly as he transferred them to his own pocket. "Why did they not call you Cherry, Miss Charity, instead of that affected Cara?"
"It is only one of Faith's whims," returned Miss Hope; "neither Prue nor I ever use it; she begun it as a child and never left off."
"Why should I not use it, it is far softer and prettier than Charity?" interposed Faith appealingly. Dr. Stewart gave one of his dry laughs.
"Every one has a right to their own fancies. I am prosaic enough to dislike pet names. Cara, when one is christened Charity!" with a contemptuous shrug; "why, it is a direct snub to one's sponsors."
Faith looked uncomfortable; she always did when Dr. Stewart was in one of his quizzical moods. At such times he was given to find fault with everything. But in another moment he became serious.
"What an odd fancy that was of Chester's calling his little girl Nan. She is a pretty little creature, and her father seems to dote on her. I was over there yesterday; Mrs. Chester had one of her attacks."
"Poor thing!" sighed Miss Charity, "she is very delicate. People are fond of calling her fanciful, and no doubt she is full of whimsies like the rest of us; but it is hard work having an ailing body and an ailing temper too."
"Yes," he assented; "she has her share of trouble, but she has got the blessing of a good husband." But here Miss Prudence shook her head grimly. She rarely joined in the conversation if a stranger were present; and, as her remarks were generally of a lugubrious nature, they were not greatly missed.
"An ill-assorted couple, doctor," smoothing her black mittens with sad satisfaction. Miss Prudence was much given to expatiate in the domestic circle on the evils of matrimony, and to thank Heaven that she and her three sisters had not fallen into the hands of the Philistines; a peculiarly happy state of resignation for an unattractive woman, with a rigid and cast-iron exterior, and endowed besides with a masculine appendage of the upper lip.
"Humph!" grunted the doctor laconically; for he had an ill-concealed antagonism to Miss Prudence, and disliked gossiping about his patients' affairs.
"If we were to add up all the ill-assorted marriages in the world, the sum would last us a long time," observed Miss Hope philosophically.
"Right, my dear madam," was the brisk answer; "but 'if folk, won't suit themselves properly it is not other people's fault,' as the old clerk said when—when the wrong couple got married."
"They say marriages are made in heaven," began Miss Charity, a little sentimentally; but Dr. Stewart interrupted her.
"They say so; but don't you think there is a good deal of human bungling and obstinacy at the bottom? One can't fancy the angels, for example, taking a very great interest in amarriage de convenance, or a ceremony where title-deeds and money-bags play too prominent a part! I have seen something of human nature, Miss Charity, and have often found occasion for astonishment at the sad mess men, and women too, make over their lives."
"I don't think women are often to blame," observed Faith in a low voice.
"Humph! so that is your experience," with an odd, inexplicable look as he rose from the grass. "Well, ladies, this is vastly entertaining, and one could learn a good deal, no doubt; but there is work waiting for me in the shape of Jemmy Bates' broken leg, which, by-the-bye, Miss Faith, is progressing most favorably," and, with a benevolent nod that included them all, Dr. Stewart walked off, still munching his cherries.
"Those whom God loves die young;They see no evil days;No falsehood taints their tongue,No wickedness their ways.
"Baptized—and so made sureTo win their safe abode,What can we pray for more?They die, and are with God."Robert S. Hawker.
A few days after Dr. Stewart's garden visit Emmie came running up the gravel walk at Brier wood Cottage with a frightened face. Queenie, who was sitting in the porch as usual, put down her work rather hurriedly.
"Oh, Queen, I do think something is the matter. Mr. Chester is coming up this way, and he has got Nan in his arms, and she looks so odd; I am sure she is ill or something."
"Is he bringing her here, or to Church-Stile House?" asked her sister anxiously; but as she spoke Mr. Chester's tall figure came into sight. In another moment there was a click of the little gate, and he came rapidly up to them carrying his child.
"May I come in, Miss Marriott? the sun is so hot I dare not go up the lane;" and, as Queenie nodded and made room for him to pass into their cool little sitting-room, he continued in an agitated voice, "I do not know what ails Nan, she has been sleepy and quiet for a long time, and just now she turned very sick and poorly."
He had placed himself in the low chair by the window as he spoke, and Queenie knelt down by him and examined the child. As she untied the large white sun-bonnet Nan shrank from her rather restlessly.
"Nan did want to go home, father; Nan very sick," she answered, hiding her face on his shoulder.
"That is what she keeps saying over and over again," he continued, still more anxiously. "She was quite well when we left home this morning; she and her little maid were chasing each other along the lanes, pelting each other with poppies. I thought she was only tired and wanted to be carried; I can't understand this sickness and drowsiness all at once. Do you think, Miss Marriott, that it could possibly be a sunstroke?"
"I don't know; her eyes certainly look very odd," returned Queenie in great perplexity.
"Oh, father! Nan is so very tired," moaned the little creature again, creeping closer to his broad breast. "Ellen did say it was naughty to eat the pretty currants; but Nan is good now, only so sick."
"Have you any pain, my darling?" he asked, bending over her.
"No; no pain, only Nan so tired," she repeated, in the most pathetic voice. Mr. Chester looked appealingly at Queenie.
"I am afraid she is very ill," she returned reluctantly, for there was a strange look about the child that alarmed her. "Emmie dear, tell Patience to go and fetch Dr. Stewart at once, and you run across for Langley."
"Aye, we must have Langley," he repeated helplessly, looking down at his pet. Nan had left off her moaning and seemed sinking into drowsiness.
"Will she let me undress her and lay her in Emmie's bed? she will be more comfortable than in your arms;" but, as Nan stirred uneasily and murmured "Father; Nan cannot leave father," Mr. Chester was obliged to carry her up himself. But even when he placed her on the cool pillow she still held his hand tightly.
"Father will not leave his pet; don't be afraid, my darling."
When Langley arrived she found him still hanging over the child. Nan seemed sleeping; her dark eyelashes swept her cheek; one small hand was folded in her father's.
"This sleep will do her good. It must have been the sun that made her feel sick," he said, looking up at Langley with a relieved expression. Langley put back the long silky hair from the child's forehead, but did not answer. Some chill presentiment for which she could not account had seized her at the moment of Emmie's summons; and then, why did not Nan move when she kissed her?
"I do not think this looks quite like sleep, like natural sleep, I mean. I think we ought to try to rouse her, at least till Dr. Stewart comes. Speak to her, Harry; she has never slept so soundly before."
"Nan, Nan, my little one, father wants you," but, for the first time in her infant life, Nan was deaf to her father's voice.
"What can we do? what are we to do? Dr. Stewart will not be home for another hour," exclaimed Queenie, now really terrified. No suspicion of the truth had entered into any of their minds. Only when it was too late did the child's speech about the pretty currants recur to her.
The next two hours that passed were never effaced from Queenie's memory. No efforts of theirs could rouse the child from the death-like stupor that oppressed her. Langley had tried two or three remedies, but they were unavailing, and the father's agony was pitiable to witness. The little town was fairly roused, and messengers on horseback were scouring the neighbourhood after Dr. Stewart. But he had gone to a farmhouse some five miles distant, and delay was inevitable. Garth and Ted had each gone in different directions, and Faith Palmer had driven over to Karldale to tell Mrs. Chester the reason of her husband's long absence.
It was just before Dr. Stewart's arrival that Langley, examining the child's clothes, found some dark crimson stains on the front of the little white frock, and showed them to the doctor, as he stood with a grave face looking down at the child. A very brief survey had satisfied him.
"Humph! it is just as I feared when young Clayton told me the symptoms. She has been eating deadly night-shade. Children sometimes mistake them for currants. Why was she allowed to run about without her nurse?"
"She had the girl with her," returned the poor father, and here he uttered a strong expletive; but Langley laid her hand on his arm and said Hush! "What can you do to wake her, Dr. Stewart?"
"Nothing," returned the doctor sadly. "An hour or two sooner and I could have saved her. But, my good sir, these things are not in our hands. It is neither your fault nor mine that I was not here."
"You can do nothing!" turning upon him almost fiercely in his despair, as though he would wrest the child's life from him by force.
"Nothing," he repeated emphatically, for it was best that the miserable father should realize the truth at once, and not cling to the shadow of a hope. "The child is sleeping herself to death; in a few hours it must all be over."
"Try to bear it, Harry," said Langley, in her low, soothing voice, for the strong man absolutely staggered under the blow. Her face was almost as white as his as she guided him to a chair, but he turned from her with a groan and hid his face in the child's pillow.
"I will come again; there is nothing for me to do here," said Dr. Stewart. His voice was rough, probably with emotion, as he turned away abruptly.
"An hour or two earlier and I could have saved her," he said to Queenie as she followed him down-stairs. "It goes hard with a man to know that, and that he can do absolutely nothing; just because my mare wanted shoeing, and I went out of the beaten track. There is another life gone, that is what I call a mystery," and Dr. Stewart muttered his favorite "humph!" and went away with a sorrowful face, for he was soft-hearted, and loved all children for their own sweet sakes.
There was literally nothing to be done after this. Garth came in by-and-bye and paid a short visit to the room up-stairs, but he did not stay long.
"Langley is with him, and we have sent for his wife. There is nothing that a fellow can do, and—in short, I can't stand it," he blurted out confidentially to Queenie, with a man's instinctive horror of scenes. "If there were something that one could do; but in these sort of cases women are the best. It cuts one to the heart to see him going on like that;" and Garth turned on his heel abruptly, and walked to the window.
But he made himself of use too in that troubled little household; for he succeeded in coaxing Emmie, who was sobbing with nervous excitement, to go with him to Church-Stile House, and promised Queenie to place her under Cathy's care for the night. This was a great relief to Queenie, who had reason to dread any of these sort of depressing scenes for her, and left her free for any duty that might devolve on her.
A sad sight awaited her up-stairs. The setting sun was flooding the little chamber, and the last dazzling rays shone full on the face of the child. Mr. Chester was kneeling by the bed, with one little hand hidden in his; Langley, with a white, rigid face, was standing beside him. As the hoarse uncontrollable sobs, those tearless sobs of a strong man, smote on her ear she shivered and shrank back as though some blow were dealt her.
"Oh, Queenie, this is dreadful! Who can comfort him? Where is his wife and the mother of his child?" she whispered, as the girl went up to them. "It is she who ought to be here, not I."
"We have sent for her. Hush, Langley, he will hear you."
"Ah, he bears nothing; he will have it that she will wake and speak to him." But her words reached his ear.
"She will, Langley; how can you be so cruel? They always do just before——" "the last," he was going to say, but the words choked him. "You will say good-bye to father, and give him one sweet kiss, will you not, my little Nan, my darling, my treasure?"
"Oh, Harry, try to bear it! Harry, Harry, won't you listen to me a moment?" and Langley laid her cold hand on his arm; but her touch only seemed to make him more frantic.
"No, I will not bear it; I cannot bear it. Have I not suffered enough? Will God take from me my only comfort? Oh, my little child, my little child!" with another burst of anguish.
"See how calm and peaceful she looks," she went on, in her quiet, controlling voice, but her face was like marble; "just sleeping peacefully into her rest; no pain, no suffering. It is so 'He giveth His beloved sleep;' try and think of that, Harry."
"She was my ewe lamb," he muttered, gloomily; "she drank of my cup, and lay in my bosom. She was my own little daughter, my only one, She used to kneel up upon my knees and say her pretty prayers to me every night, the darling. 'God bless Nan and Nan's father,' she always said that."
"Yes; and He will bless you, my poor Harry."
"Is it blessing me to rob me like this of my all? Oh, Langley, pray to Him; you are a good woman; pray both of you that she may be spared to me."
"Ab, if it were only His will!" sighed Langley. Did the memory of those strange pathetic words of another heart-broken father cross her memory? "'While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?' Ah, if it were only His will!"
"Hush! did you see her stir? I saw her, I felt her; she is waking now. Nan, my pet, my darling, open your sweet eyes and look at father." But, alas, the little inanimate form still lay in its deathly torpor.
And so the hours passed. Dr. Stewart came and went again; and Garth stole up the uncarpeted stairs, and stood outside with bated breath, to listen if a further change had taken place. But still Mr. Chester knelt beside the little white bed, and Langley and Queenie kept faithful watch beside him.
It was long past midnight when Queenie, laying her hand on the child's brow, felt it cold beneath her touch, and knew that the last feeble breath had been drawn, and signed to Langley that all was over.
But even then the unhappy father would not realize the truth; and when at last it dawned upon him, he bade them with passionate impatience to leave him there with his dead. "Leave me alone with my child; she belongs to me; she is mine;" and as they went out sadly they could hear him groan, "Oh, my little Nan, my little, little child."
As they left the room, Queenie could hear Garth calling to her in a suppressed voice, and at once went down to him. He took hold of her hand, and led her into the cheery little parlor. There was a bright fire in the grate; an old wooden rocking-chair stood near it; the tea-tray was on the round black table where the sisters ate their simple meals.
"Sit down there and warm yourself," he said, kindly, "and I will give you a cup of tea. Where is Langley?"
"She went into my room; I think she wants to be alone; I will go up to her presently. Oh, Mr. Clayton," bursting into tears, for this touch of thoughtfulness moved her from her enforced calmness, "it has been so sad, so dreadful, all these hours."
"Yes; I know it has been very hard upon you. Poor Chester, and poor dear little Nan; who would have dreamed of such a catastrophe? Even Dr. Stewart, who is inured to all sorts of painful scenes, seems quite upset by it. It must be hard for a man to lose his only child," continued Garth, gravely, as he brought the tea, and stirred the fire into a more cheerful blaze.
"I did not know you were here," she said, after an interval of silence. The warmth had revived her, and the flow of nervous tears had done her good. How she wished that Langley could be induced to come down too!
"I could not make up my mind to leave you all in such a strait. Langley was here, and I thought after all that I might be of use. I am glad I thought of keeping up the fire. I had a grand hunt for Patience's tea-caddy; it took me no end of time to find."
Garth was talking in a fast, nervous way to keep up his own and Queenie's spirits. He had never seen her cry before, and it gave him an odd sort of pain. The thought of the room upstairs, and of the heart-broken father kneeling there by his dead child, weighed upon them both like lead; only Queenie stretched out her cold hands to the blaze, and drank her tea obediently, and felt cheered by Garth's kindness.
"These sorts of things upset one's views of life," he continued, after a pause. "I suppose we all know trouble in some shape or other; but when it comes to a man losing his only bit of comfort, and Heaven only knows what that child was to the poor fellow—well, I can only say it does seem hard."
"That is what I felt when I thought I was going to lose Emmie. Mr. Chester has his wife."
"She has never been much good to him. I am no scandal-monger, but one can't help seeing that. I wonder what has become of her and Miss Faith?" he went on, restlessly, walking to the window and looking out on the dark summer night.
Queenie left him soon after that. "She must see after Langley," she said; "and there were other things that ought to be done," she added, with a shudder.
Garth let her go with some reluctance; the little parlor looked desolate without her. He sat down in the old rocking-chair after she had left, and fell into an odd, musing dream. "How strangely they seemed to be drawn together," he thought. He was as much at home with her as he was with Langley and Cathy; it had come quite naturally to him now to take her under his protection, and care for her as he did for them. It had been pleasant ministering to her comfort just now. How pretty she had looked sitting there in her black dress, with her head resting against the hard wood of the chair. Most women looked ugly when they cried, but her tears had flowed so quietly. And then he wondered how Dora looked when she cried, and if she would ever gaze up in his face as gently and gratefully as Queenie did just now. And then he fell to musing in a grave, old-fashioned way on the inequalities of matrimony, and the probable risk of disappointment. Things did not always turn out well, as poor Chester had found to his cost. In times of trouble a man must turn for comfort to his wife. Was Dora the one likely to yield him this comfort? She was very strong and reliable; all manner of good qualities were hers, besides her creamy skin and golden hair; but would she be gentle and soft with him at times when a man needed gentleness?
Garth was disquieting himself a little over these thoughts while Queenie stole up the little staircase. All was quiet in Emmie's room as she passed; her own was chill and dark as she entered it. Langley had not lighted the candle; she was sitting by the open window looking out at the black, starless night. The rain was falling now, the drops were pattering on the creeper. Queenie gave a little shiver of discomfort at the dreary scene, and thought regretfully of the rocking-chair downstairs.
"Have you been in again, Langley?"
"Yes; but he will not let me stay or do anything for him; he wants her all to himself for a little, he says. He just let me put things a little comfortable, and as they should be, watching me jealously all the time, and then I came away. Garth must go in by-and-bye, and coax him down."
Langley spoke in a tone of forced composure, but her breath was labored, and the hand that touched Queenie's was so damp and cold that the girl absolutely started.
"Dear Langley, all this is making you quite ill. Do come down with me; your brother has lighted a fire, and it is so warm and cosy, and we can talk ever so much better there." But Langley refused.
"No, no; I must stop here as long as he is shut up in that room. What do I want with warmth and comfort while he is suffering—suffering? and I can do nothing for him—nothing, nothing!" in a voice of such despair that Queenie started. A new light seemed breaking on her.
"He asked for you directly, before his wife was sent for, I know. I think he likes you to be with him, Langley; you are old friends, you know."
"Yes; I know. He called me to him just now, and we stood together for a long time looking down at the child. His eyes asked me for comfort; but what consolation had I to give him? His wife ought to be there, not I; we both knew that; and then he sent me away."
"But you need not have gone."
"Could I have stood there taking her place when I know too well what we have been to each other? He was right to send me away, and I was right to go; but oh, Queenie, this night is killing me!" and Langley leant against her so heavily, and her voice sounded so strangely in the darkness, that Queenie was frightened. If she guessed rightly, what utter misery there was locked up in this woman's breast!
"You must lie down on my bed; I will not talk to you like this," she said, firmly. And when Langley, faint and exhausted with emotion, offered no resistance, she fetched a thick shawl and folded it round her, and then lighted a candle and administered some sal-volatile. The dim light showed a very ghastly face, and great bright eyes brimful of wretchedness; the somewhat thin lips were trembling with weakness.