"are you nearly ready, girls?" asked mrs. haldane carteret of her nieces, as she entered the large dressing-room which divided the bedrooms occupied by gertrude and eleanor baldwin, and was joint territory, common to them both.
this apartment was very handsomely proportioned, and furnished in a sumptuous style. it abounded in light and looking-glasses, and the two young girls then under the hands of their respective maids had the advantage of seeing themselves reflected many times in mirrors fixed and mirrors movable. their ball-room toilette was almost complete, and the smaller supplementary articles of their paraphernalia of adornment were strewn about the room in pretty profusion.
"we are very nearly ready, aunt lucy," replied eleanor; "are there any people come yet?"
"yes, the congreves, and rennies, and comrie of largs; they always make a point of being the first arrivals and the last departures everywhere," said mrs. carteret, as she profited by the long mirror which formed the reverse of the door by which she had entered to rearrange the folds of her remarkably becoming dress of blue satin and silver. "pray make haste, gerty. it does not so much matter about nelly, but you really must be in the reception-room before any more people come. just imagine your not being there when lord and lady gelston arrive, or even sir maitland and lady cardeness."
mrs. haldane carteret was a woman of perfectly well-proportioned mind. she knew how to define the distinctions of rank as accurately as a king-at-arms, and could balance the comparative turpitude of a slight to a baron with that of a slight to a baronet with quite a mathematical nicety of precision.
"almost ready, aunt lucy. only my gloves and bracelets to put on, and then i am ready. but i certainly shall not go down without nelly; she would get on much better without me than i should without her" (here the girl smiled as her mother had smiled in the brief days of her happy and contented love). "we should have been ready sooner, but that we took a final scamper off to the guests' rooms to see how rose had disposed of mr. meredith and mr. ritherdon."
"ah, by the bye, i suppose they have arrived," said mrs. carteret; "i must go and see them. i will come back again, and i hope you will both be ready."
in a few minutes the preparations were complete, and the two young girls were receiving the unequivocal compliments of their maids and their mirrors. happy, joyous, hopeful, handsome creatures they looked, as they stood, their arms entwined, surveying their lithe, graceful, white-robed figures with natural pride and very pardonable vanity. the glance of the elder girl dwelt only passingly upon herself; it turned then to dwell upon her sister with delight, with exultation.
"how beautiful you look, my darling nelly! i am sure no one in the room will be able to compare with you to-night."
"not you, gertrude? are you not the queen of the ball in every sense? depend upon it, no one will have eyes to-night for any one except the heiress of the deane."
"then every one will be blind and foolish," returned gertrude, as she gave the speaker a sisterly push; "and there are a few whom i don't think that of, nelly. don't you dread the idea of the speech-making at supper? i do, and uncle haldane does, because he will have to return thanks for me; and i'm sure everybody else does, because lord gelston is so frightfully long-winded and historical, and so tremendously well up in the history of all the meritons and all the baldwins, and who married, and whom, and when they did it, and there's no stopping him when he starts; however, we must think of the dancing and the fun, and not remember the dreadful speeches until they come to be made."
"i daresay you won't mind them so much when the time comes." said nelly, with the least touch of something unpleasant in her voice; "at all events, i need not--they will not make any speeches about _me_, that's a comfort!"
"my darling nelly! as if i thought about it for _myself_. if you must listen and look pleased at tiresomeness, what does it matter of what is _apropos_? and where is the difference between you and me?"
"very present, very perceptible, after this day," said nelly; "no one will fail to keep it in mind. did you not notice what aunt lucy said? my being ready or not did not matter, but the presence of 'the heiress of the deane' was indispensable."
"i did hear it," said gertrude, turning a flushed cheek and a deprecatory glance upon her sister; "and did you not hear what i said? but here come aunt lucy and rose."
the entry of rose doran was the signal for enthusiastic comments on the appearance of the two young girls, and the little cloud which had threatened for a moment to gather over the sisters was joyously dissipated. mr. dugdale wished to see them in his sitting-room, rose said, before they went downstairs, and she had come to bring them to him.
"you'll have time enough to let the old gentleman have a peep at you, my darlings," said the good woman, whose eyes were moist with the rising tears produced by many associations which almost overpowered the admiration and delight with which she regarded the girls; "though there's a dale o' quality come, they're all in the study, makin' sure of their cloaks and things, or drinkin' coffee and chattin' to one another. so go to the old man, my girls; he won't keep ye a minute."
"he surely won't disappoint us," exclaimed gertrude; "he promised to come down, and he _must_!"
"so he will, alanna," said rose, using the same term of endearment, and in the same soothing tone, with which she had been wont to assuage gertrude's griefs in her childhood--"never you fear, so he will, when the room is full, and he can get round behind the people to his own chair in the corner; only he wants a look at you all to himself first."
"then i will go on," said mrs. haldane in rather a vexed tone. "you will find me in the morning room; and pray, gerty, make no delay."
then mrs. haldane walked majestically away, her blue and silver train rustling superbly over the crimson-velvet carpet of the long, wide corridor, which, like the grand staircase, was of polished oak.
mr. dugdale's rooms at the deane were in a quiet and secluded part of the spacious house, attainable by a small staircase which was approached by a curtained archway opening off the corridor into which the girls' rooms opened. the rooms were handsome, though not large, and were luxuriously furnished, but they were chiefly remarkable for the numerous evidences of feminine care, taste, and industry in their arrangement. the comfortable and the ornamental were dexterously united in these rooms, in which needlework abounded, and whose most prized decorations were the work of the pencils of the two girls.
the apartments consisted of three rooms--bedroom, dressing-room, and sitting-room, the latter lined with books, and bearing many indications that the studies, tastes, and habits which had occupied james dugdale's youth and manhood had lightened the burden of his infirmities, and taken the deadly sting out of his sorrows, were not abandoned now in his old age. and in truth this was the case; the feebleness which had invaded the delicate and sensitive frame more and more surely with each succeeding year, had not touched the mind. that was strong, active, bright, full of vitality still, promising extinction or even dimness only with the dissolution of the frame.
in his frequent fits of thinking about himself, and yet out of himself--as though he were contemplating the problems presented by the existence, and pondering the future, of another--james dugdale was wont to wonder at his own tenacity of life. ever since his youth he had been a sufferer in body, and had sustained great trials of mind; he had been always more or less feeble, and of the nervous febrile temperament which is said (erroneously) to wear itself out rapidly. but he had lived on and on, and the young, the strong, the prosperous, the happy, had passed before him, and been lost in the dimness of the separation of death.
he had been carefully dressed by his servant for the festivities of the evening, and had laid down upon the couch beside the windows of his sitting-room, from which a beautiful view was to be had in the daytime, through which the summer moonlight was streaming now, and had fallen into a reverie. his mind was singularly placid, his memory was singularly clear to-night, as he lay still, listening to the stir in the house, his face turned from the light of the candles which burned on the tables and the mantelpiece; and passing in mental review the persons and the events of long years ago.
how perfectly distinct and vivid they were to-night--his parents, his boyhood, the time when it was first discovered that he must never expect to be a healthy, vigorous man--his student days and their associations, the friends of that period of his life! hayes meredith was a young man--how curiously his memory reproduced him; and then his cousin sibylla, his sole kinswoman and his steady friend--the old man who had loved him so well, and the sad dark episode of margaret's marriage. how plainly he could see godfrey hungerford, and how distinctly he could recall the instinctive dislike, suspicion, repulsion he had caused him, and which he early learnt to know was bitter jealousy! baldwin and lady davyntry, that kind, sympathising friend of later days--she whom he still mourned with a poignancy which time had blunted in the case of the others;--it was hard to understand, very wonderful to realise, that they were dead and he alive--he went on with his ordinary life betimes, and did not think about it much, but to-night it seemed impossible.
the wonderful incompleteness, the unmeaningness of life, the phantasmagoria of fragmentary existences occupied him, while all around him were preparations for a festival. lastly came the image of margaret, back in all the freshness of her youth, beauty, and happiness, as she had been twenty years ago, and the old man wondered at the strange distinctness of his memory.
twenty years! a long, long time even at an earlier period of life, a wonderfully long time at his, to keep the memory green. he had had and lost many friends, but only one love; yes, that was the explanation; that was why she, who had died young long ago, never to grow old, never to have any withering touch of time laid upon her beauty, she who was to be remembered as a radiant creature always, had never had a predecessor, a successor, or a rival in his heart; so there was no other image to trouble or confuse hers. the circumstances which had killed her, as he felt, as surely as disease had ever killed,--they, too, returned freshly to his memory; he seemed to live through those old, old days again, and in some degree to realise once more their keen anxiety and distress.
how it had all passed away--how little it had really mattered--how little anything really mattered, after all, except the other world, and the reunion there, without which life, the most renowned as much as the meanest, would indeed be "a tale told by an idiot," and, in the multitude of the ages, and the spanlike brevity of its own duration, "signifying nothing"! it seemed like a dream, and yet it was all real: she had lived and suffered, feared, foreseen, and died under this very roof, beneath which he dwelt, and from which its master went forth a patient, but none the less a broken-hearted man, to die afar off, to lie in the solemn dust of the grand old world.
were they, the two whom he remembered so well in their youth and love and happiness, any nearer to him than the most ancient of the ancient dead? was there any difference or degree in all that inconceivable separation? who could tell him that? who could still the pang, which time can never lessen, which comes with the immeasurable change? we are in time and space, and they, the dead, are, as we say, beyond their bounds, set free from them. what, then, is their share with us?
he was thinking of these things, which indeed were wont to occupy his mind when he was very peaceful and alone, and thinking also how very brief all our uncertainty is--how short a time the creator keeps his creatures in ignorance and suspense, and that he was very near to the lifting of the curtain--when gertrude and eleanor baldwin came into the room, and gaily challenged his admiration of their ball-dresses, their wreaths, their bouquets, and their general appearance.
with the keenly strong remembrance of margaret which he had been dwelling upon freshly before him, james dugdale was struck by the likeness which gertrude presented to her mother. her face was more strictly handsome, her figure promised to be fuller and grander, but the resemblance in feature, in gesture, in voice, in all the subtler affinities which constitute the truth of such resemblances, was, complete. had she stood thus, in her white dress, flower crowned, by his couch, alone, james dugdale might have thought the spirit world had unbarred its portals for a little to give him a glimpse of margaret in her eternal youth; but her arm was linked in that of her sister, and the old man's gaze included them both.
"do i like you, you witches?" said mr. dugdale; "what a question! i think you are both incomparably perfect, and among all the compliments you will hear to-night, i don't think you will have a more satisfactory one than that. i see you are wearing your pearls, nelly.--where are your diamonds, miss baldwin?"
gertrude blushed, and looked a little uncomfortable.
"i would rather not wear them," she said; "pearls don't matter much, but diamonds would make too much difference between nelly and me. i asked uncle haldane, and he said i certainly need not wear them unless i liked; indeed, he said it is better taste for an unmarried woman, while she is very young, not to wear diamonds; so they are undisturbed in all their grandeur."
"isn't she ridiculous?" said eleanor. "i am sure if i were in her place i should wear my diamonds, especially to-night."
"i am quite sure you would do no such thing, nelly," said miss baldwin; "and we must go now, or aunt lucy will be put out.--mind you come down soon; i shall be looking out for you."
then the two girls kissed the old man affectionately and left him. there was some trouble in james dugdale's mind when the light forms disappeared, and he listened to the murmur of their voices for a few moments, before it died away when they reached the grand staircase.
"if eleanor were in gertrude's place!" the girl's words had struck a chord of painful remembrance in the old man's mind. the time had come now when the wrong done to the younger by the elder, the wrong done to the children by the parents in all unconsciousness, was to bear its first fruits. as the years had gone by, and especially since lady davyntry's death had left james dugdale sole possessor of the knowledge of the truth, he had remembered it but seldom.
when the news of mr. baldwin's death had reached england, he and lady davyntry had spoken together much and solemnly of the mysterious dealings of providence with the family. they had silently accepted his resolution--never to give margaret a successor in his heart and house--and, in view of that determination, they had regarded the arrangement which he had made of his property as in every respect wise and commendable. but they had secretly hoped that time, whose unfailing influence, however disliked or even struggled against, they both had too much experience of life to doubt or dispute, would modify and finally upset mr. baldwin's resolution on that point, and that the girls might eventually be removed from what they wisely regarded as a perilous and undesirable position. wealth and station would always be theirs, even if a second marriage should give a male heir to the deane.
but these hopes were not destined to be realised. mr. baldwin never returned from his journey to the east, and the heavy weight of heiress-ship fell upon his daughters in their childhood. of late years the secret of which he alone was in possession had begun to appear dreamlike and mythical to james dugdale. it had been a terrible thing in its time, but that time was past and its terror with it, and it was only an old memory now--an old memory which nelly's words had awakened, just when he did not care to have it evoked, just when it was as painful as it ever could be any more. the old man rose from his couch and went to a bookcase with glass doors, which faced the mantelpiece in his sitting-room. on one of the lower shelves, within easy reach of his hand, lay a large blue-velvet casket. he took it out, set it on the table, and opened it. it contained a picture--the portrait of margaret with her infant in her arms, which she had had painted for him at naples twenty years before. the portrait was surrounded by a frame of peculiar design. it consisted of a wreath of passion-flowers, the stems and leaves in gold, the flowers in white enamel, with every detail of form and colouring accurately carried out. this was the only jeweller's work which had ever been done by james dugdale's order; this was the most valuable article in every sense in his possession. he placed the picture on the table, and sat down before it and looked at it intently, studying in every line the likeness which had impressed him so deeply to-night; and then he replaced it in the casket, which he reconsigned to the bookcase. this done, he rang for his servant and went down to the ball-room, whence delightful strains of brilliant music were issuing, blended with the sound of voices and the tread of dancing feet.
the scene was a beautiful one. all that money, taste, and goodwill could accomplish to render the fête given in celebration of gertrude's birthday successfully charming, had been done, and the result was eminently satisfactory. many of the guests had come from distances which in england would have been regarded as invincible obstacles--would indeed have rendered the sending of invitations a meaningless, or according to our amiable insular phrase a "french," compliment--but which in scotland were regarded as mere matters of course. an unusual number of pretty girls adorned the ball-room, and they danced with pleasure and animation also peculiarly scotch.
gertrude had gone through the ordeal of congratulation very well; and now, very much relieved that that part of the business had come to a conclusion, was dancing a surprisingly animated quadrille with lord gelston, while lady gelston was talking superlatives to haldane carteret, who had wisely decided, some years before, on coming to live in scotland, that there was more to be gained than lost by being understood at once to be excluded from the category of dancing men.
the room, much longer than its width, and beautifully decorated and lighted, was amply occupied without being overfilled; and the splendid many-coloured dresses, the moving figures, the soft sound of speech and laughter, the indescribable joyous rustle which pervades an assemblage where youth and beauty are in the majority, made up a scene to whose attraction james dugdale's nerves vibrated strangely. he had been present on few similar occasions in his life, and he looked about him with the pleased curiosity of a child. the military contingent had duly arrived from edinburgh, leith, and hamilton, and were enjoying their accustomed popularity.
of the many faces in the room there were few known to james dugdale, with the exception of those of the near neighbours to the deane. before he had time to become familiar with the movement and the glitter of the unaccustomed scene, a pause occurred in the dancing, and the group nearest to him broke up and moved away. then he saw eleanor baldwin talking to a gentleman whose figure seemed very familiar to him, though he could not see his face. eleanor was looking up at the gentleman, her face full of light and animation, a rich colour in her cheeks, her dark eyes sparkling with pleasure. almost as soon as he saw her, she saw him, and said:
"o, there's uncle james, let us go and speak to him."
she walked quickly across the room, followed by her companion, who was, as james dugdale then perceived, robert meredith. the old man and the man no longer young indeed, but still and ever a boy to him, greeted each other warmly.
"when did you come, robert? why have i not seen you before?"
"we came down by the mail, sir, and found the ladies gone to dress; and mrs. doran said you were resting, in preparation for the fatigue of the evening, so we would not disturb you. i am glad to see you looking so well, sir."
"thank you, robert--where's ritherdon?"
"he has gone in chase of gerty, uncle james," said eleanor; "he wants to know what dances she can spare him, i believe; but i fancy he has not much chance--_even i_ could only promise positively for one."
robert meredith looked at her narrowly as he said:
"ritherdon has pluck, i must say. i never dreamed of such a privilege as dancing to-night with the lady of the deane. but i did calculate upon a _raccroc de noces_ for to-morrow--i suppose that's safe?"
"i suppose so," said eleanor.
"_you_ kept a few dances for me, didn't you?" he asked.
"yes, i did, but i am nobody, you know."
"this is one of them," said meredith, and then, as he led her away into the throng, again set in motion by the music, he said meaningly, "and i do not know,--at least, _i do_."
his arm was round her now, and he had whirled her into the circle of waltzers, and the girl felt that the bright scene was brighter, the music sweeter and more inspiriting, the dance more delightful, because of the words and the tone in which he had spoken them.
george ritherdon had been quite as unsuccessful in his quest as eleanor had foreseen, and as soon as gertrude had convinced him of his ill-fortune, by permitting him to read the record of the pretty little ivory and silver _carnet_ which hung at her waist, he, in his turn, made his way to mr. dugdale's chair. there he remained until nelly's one dance should be "due," talking with the old man, who was wonderfully bright and unwearied of things in general, and of the young ladies in particular.
it was an unfashionable peculiarity of george ritherdon's that he was always deferential towards age, even when age was much less venerable and less intelligent, much more _arrière_ than in the case of mr. dugdale. therefore, let the subjects on which the old gentleman had chosen to talk with him have been as dull and uninteresting to him as possible, he would have exerted himself to converse about them pleasantly, and with the air of attention and interest which is the truest conversational politeness.
but in the present instance no effort was required. ritherdon felt a sincere and growing interest in the "children," as mr. dugdale soon began to call them in talking to him, and found something which appealed to his heart--strangely soft, pure, and upright in its impulses, considering the length of time it had pulsated amid the world,--in the long-enduring, constant family friendship which bound the old man's life up with that of these young people, who were no kin of his. the ball was the gayest, the most successful, in george ritherdon's opinion, at which he had ever "assisted," the night a happy and memorable one in his life; but no part of it was more thoroughly enjoyable to him than the time he passed seated by the old man's side, their conversation interrupted only by the people who came up to speak to mr. dugdale, and by the girls, who paid him flying visits.
robert meredith and his friend saw little of each other during the night, until after james dugdale had retired, which he did when supper was announced. that sumptuous entertainment was as terrible an ordeal as gertrude had expected. lord gelston was as inexorably long-winded, as overwhelmingly genealogical as usual; and if anything could have made her more uncomfortable than the ponderous congratulations of the noble lord, and the marked attentions of lady gelston and the honourable mr. dort, the eldest son of the distinguished but by no means wealthy pair, it would have been the kindly but inartistic efforts of her uncle haldane, who was neither a ready thinker nor an adept at speaking, to express how far short of her personal qualities fell the gifts of wealth and station allotted to her.
a very decent amount of general attention was bestowed upon lord gelston and haldane carteret, and the speeches of both were received with all proper enthusiasm; but there was one listener who heard them with more than the attention of politeness, and with a smile on his lips which, if "the children's" dead mother saw it, must have reminded her of one she had known and disliked in earthly days long ago. but even the speeches were over at last, and the younger guests left the banquet and returned to the ball-room, and dancing recommenced. nothing equals in vigour and perseverance scotch dancing, no entertainment is capable of such preternatural prolongation as a scotch ball. the institution might be the modern successor of the feasts of the norsemen in the bersekyr days.
"do these people ever intend to leave off, do you think?" george ritherdon asked of robert meredith, when the external light had become difficult of exclusion, and all the dowagers had given over talking and taking refreshment, except that of slumber.
"i don't know indeed; doesn't look like it; but there's no reason why we shouldn't," returned meredith; "let us say good-morning to mrs. carteret, and decamp."
a masterly manoeuvre, which they put into instant execution, unobserved by any one but eleanor baldwin. she had danced several times with meredith during the night, and had contrived to give ritherdon "one more" in addition to the promised valse; she had been very gay, happy, and animated; much admired and fully conscious of it; but now she grew tired, and began to wish the ball were over. people were unreasonable to keep it up so late; this was making a toil of a pleasure; no, she really could not join in this interminable cotillon. she wondered whether aunt lucy would mind her leaving the room; she would find her and ask her. so she did find mrs. haldane carteret, who was looking, rather yellow and elderly in the mixed intrusive light, and mrs. haldane answered her rather snappishly,
"yes, yes, of course you may go. it is really absurdly late; no wonder you're tired; i am sure i am. gerty must remain of course, but you may go."
eleanor had got the permission she desired, and she left the room, but not gladly. the manner of that permission did not please her; many little things of the same kind had hurt her lately; and as she slowly mounted the stairs her face was dark, and she muttered to herself,
"gerty must of course remain, but you may go."
an hour later, when the morning had fairly asserted its sway, when the latest lingering of the guests not staying in the house had departed, fortified by hot strong coffee against the fatigue of their homeward route, when to those staying in the house welcome announcement had been made that breakfast was to be served at twelve, and continued for an indefinite time,--gertrude baldwin entered her dressing-room. she had desired that her maid should not remain up, and having glanced into eleanor's bedroom and seen that she was asleep, she took off her ball-dress, set the windows wide open, and sat down in her dressing-gown, letting the sweet morning air play upon her face to calm the hurry of her spirits and to think.
this had been an eventful day for that young girl; indeed, the whole preceding week, during which her guardians, haldane carteret and james dugdale, had explained to her in resigning their trust all the particulars of her position, had been of great moment in her life. previously she had known, vaguely, that she was very rich, and she had had a tolerably clear notion of the origin and ordering of her wealth, but she fully understood it now. her uncle had wished her to give her attention to the accounts of the estate, as he explained them to her, and she had complied with his wish. in the course of these transactions, she had been shown her father's will, and had been made acquainted as minutely with her sister eleanor's position as with her own.
the time up to that day had been so full of business, and all the hours of the day and night just gone had been so full of pleasure, that she felt strongly the need of a little leisure and solitude now. she was glad nelly was asleep, glad she had not been obliged to talk over the ball with her--glad to put the ball itself out of her thoughts for a little, although she had enjoyed it with all the unaffected zest of her age.
gertrude was not tired; she had danced incessantly, and the emotions of the day had been many and various; but she was strong and very happy, in all the unruffled peace of her girlhood, which had only progressed hitherto in prosperity, and she rarely felt fatigue. the fresh morning air, the calm, the solitude, were better for her than sleep. presently a delicious stillness fell on everything; no more doors were shut or opened, no desultory footsteps loitered about; the birds' music only filled the air with the most beautiful of the sounds of morning.
there came with the day to gertrude a sense of change. she realised her womanhood now--she realised her position, and it appeared to her a very solemn and responsible one. her uncle had told her, in answer to her request, that he would continue to exercise the functions from which the attainment of her majority formally discharged him--that he would do so provided she would take an active part in the conduct of the estate, urging the necessity which existed for her duly qualifying herself for the independent administration of her affairs in the future. he reminded her that she could only hold the property in trust for her children, if she were destined to become a wife and mother, and must therefore learn how to save from her large income.
"you see, my dear," haldane had said to her, "everything not included in the entail is left absolutely to nelly, and in this respect she is better off than you are. she is not indeed so rich, but she can dispose of her property, by settlement and by will, just as she pleases, whereas you cannot dispose of a shilling. your eldest son, or your eldest daughter, if you have no son, must inherit all. the estate is chargeable for the benefit of younger children to a very small extent. i will show you how and how much presently. the fortune your grandfather gave to to your aunt, lady davyntry, and which eleanor inherits from her, was almost entirely derived from accumulations and other extraneous property. so, you see, nelly's money is more absolutely hers than yours is yours; but though you have not so much freedom, there is one advantage in your position. if you fall into bad hands, which god forbid, and we will take all possible care to prevent--yes, gerty, don't look so horrified, my child, all the men in the world are not good, as your poor mother could have told you--your money will be safe; no man can beggar _you_; whereas eleanor would be quite helpless in such a case. there is nothing to protect her; her husband, if he could only persuade her to marry without a strict settlement, could make ducks and drakes of her money, if he chose."
"but surely she never would be persuaded to do anything so foolish and so unprincipled," said gertrude, with a pretty air of dignity, woman-of-the-worldishness, and landed proprietor combined, and feeling already as if she had the deepest appreciation of the rights, privileges, and duties of property.
"i don't know that, my dear," said haldane; "women are easily persuaded to folly, and there are men who have a knack of persuading you that imprudence is generosity, and self-sacrifice proved by endangering other people's peace and prosperity--as your poor mother could also have told you. however, we need not make ourselves prematurely uncomfortable about nelly. let us hope her choice may be wise and happy, and that she may use the freedom her father and her aunt left her with discretion."
the discussion then turned upon other matters of business, and this part of the subject was abandoned.
it returned to gertrude baldwin's thoughts as she looked pensively abroad on her wide domains in the early morning, and it troubled her.
"we were both so little when he left us," she thought, "that i don't think my father could have preferred nelly very much to me, and my mother only saw her for a minute before she died. rose told me she had scarcely strength to hold the baby to her breast, and not strength enough to speak a word to it, so she cannot have loved her more than me; i was with her for a little time--it is very strange. what care has been taken to give her all he could give; and nothing left to me for my own self, on account of my own self! and how strange uncle james looked when i said so! i am sure he understands that i feel it and wonder at it.
"how little i know of my mother, and i so like her, he says! perhaps i am old enough now for them to tell me more about her and that first marriage of hers, which i am sure must have been something dreadful. i will ask uncle james some day when he is very well. aunt lucy has never told us anything but that she and mamma were great friends, and mamma was 'a dear thing.' somehow i don t like to hear our dear dead mother spoken of as 'a dear thing'--absurd, i daresay, but i do not; and dear aunt eleanor never talked of her as anything but papa's wife--his idolised wife.
"how well i remember when i first began to understand that he died of her loss in reality, though it took time to kill him, because he was good and patient and tried to be resigned! but he could not live longer without her, and god knew it and did not ask him. i remember so well when aunt eleanor told me that, and seemed to know it so well, that she could better bear to know that he was dead than to know that he was still wandering about, because there was no home for him here. i wonder was he very fond of us--or perhaps he was not able to be. i am sure he tried. ah, well! this we can never, never know until we are orphan children no longer; and any doubt dishonours him.
"to think that i am so important a personage, the owner of a great estate, the employer of so many of my fellow-creatures,--with so much power in my weak woman's hands for good or for evil,--and that i am all this solely because of great misfortune--solely because i am an orphan! if they were living, there might indeed have been rejoicing here to-day, for our pleasure and our parents' pride: but no more. it is wonderful to think of that,--wonderful to think of what might have been. shall i be a good woman, i wonder? shall i be a faithful steward? i don't know--i am so ignorant: but for uncle james, i am so lonely. at least i will try--for my father's sake, and mamma's, and his, and for my own sake and for god's; but o, i wish, i wish i could have found in my father's will anything, however trifling, which he desired to come to me from him, for my own sake."
tears were standing in the dark, clear gray eyes of the young lady of the deane, and she had forgotten all about the birthday ball.
