Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

quicker movement, gained the door, and, darting down the corridor, vanished from his sight.

Harley stood still one moment, thoroughly irresolute-nay, almost all subdued. Then, sternness, though less rigid than before, gradually came to his brow. The demon had still its hold in the stubborn and marvellous pertinacity with which the man clung to all that once struck root at his heart. With a sudden impulse, that still withheld decision, yet spoke of sore-shaken purpose, he strode to his desk, drew from it Nora's manuscript, and passed from his room.

Harley had meant never to have revealed to Audley the secret he had gained, until the moment when revenge was consummated. He had contemplated no vain reproach. His wrath would have spoken forth in deeds, and then a word would have sufficed as the key to all. Willing, perhaps, to hail some extenuation of perfidy, though the possibility of such extenuation he had never before admitted, he determined on the interview which he had hitherto so obstinately shunned, and went straight to the room in which Audley Egerton still sat solitary and fearful.

[ocr errors][merged small]

EGERTON heard the well-known step advancing near and nearer up the corridor-heard the door open and reclose-and he felt, by one of those strange and unaccountable instincts which we call forebodings, that the hour he had dreaded for so many secret years had come at last. He nerved his courage, withdrew his hands from his face, and rose in silence. No less silent, Harley stood before him. The two men gazed on each other; you might have heard their breathing.

"You have seen Mr. Dale?" said Egerton, at length. "You know".

All!" said Harley, completing the arrested

sentence.

Audley drew a long sigh. "Be it so; but no, Harley; you deceive yourself; you cannot know all, from any one living, save myself."

"My knowledge comes from the dead," answered Harley, and the fatal memoir dropped from his hand upon the table. The leaves fell with a dull, low sound, mournful and faint as might be the tread of a ghost, if the tread gave sound. They fell, those still confessions of an obscure, | uncomprehended life, amidst letters and documents eloquent of the strife that was then agitating millions, the fleeting, turbulent fears and hopes that torture parties, and perplex a nation; the stormy business of practical public life, so remote from individual love and individual sorrow.

Egerton's eye saw them fall. The room was but partially lighted. At the distance where he stood, he did not recognize the characters, but involuntarily he shivered, and involuntarily drew near.

Hold yet awhile," said Harley. "I produce my charge, and then I leave you to dispute the only witness that I bring. Audley Egerton, you took from me the gravest trust one man can confide to another. You knew how I loved Leonora Avenel. I was forbidden to see and urge my suit; you had the access to her presence which was denied to myself. I prayed you to remove scruples that I deemed too generous, and to woo her, not to dishonor, but to be my wife. Was it so? An

swer.

[ocr errors]

"It is true," said Audley, his hand clenched at his heart.

"You saw her whom I thus loved-her thus

confided to your honor. You wooed her for yourself. Is it so ?"

"Harley, I deny it not. Cease here. I accept the penalty-I resign your friendship;-I quit your roof;-I submit to your contempt;-I dare not implore your pardon. Cease, let me go hence, and soon!"-The strong man gasped for breath. Harley looked at him steadfastly, then turned away his eyes, and went on. Nay," said he, "is that ALL? You wooed her for yourself-you won her. Account to me for that life which you wrenched from mine. You are silent. I will take on myself your task;-you took that life. and destroyed it."

66

Spare me, spare me!"

66

"What was the fate of her who seemed so fresh from heaven when these eyes beheld her last? A broken heart-a dishonored name-an early doom-a forgotten grave-stone."

"No, no-forgotten-no!"

"Not forgotten! Scarce a year passed, and you were married to another. I aided you to form those nuptials which secured your fortunes. You have had rank, and power, and fame. Peers call you the type of English gentlemen. Priests hold you as a model of Christian honor. Strip the mask, Audley Egerton; let the world know you for what you are!"

Egerton raised his head, and folded his arms calmly; but he said with a melancholy humility— "I bear all from you; it is just. Say on."

"You took from me the heart of Nora Avenel. You abandoned her-you destroyed. And her memory cast no shadow over your daily sunshine; while over my thoughts-over my life-oh, Egerton-Audley, Audley-how could you have deceived me thus!" Here the inherent tenderness

under all this hate the fount embedded under the hardening stone-broke out. Harley was ashamed of his weakness, and hurried on.

"Deceived-not for an hour, a day, but through blighted youth, through listless manhood-you suffered me to nurse the remorse that should have been your own;-her life slain, mine wasted; and shall neither of us have revenge?"

"Revenge! Ah, Harley, you have had it!" "No, but I await it! Not in vain from the charnel have come to me the records I produce. And whom did fate select to discover the wrongs of the mother?-whom appoint as her avenger? Your son-your own son; your abandoned, nameless, son!"

"Son!-son!"

"Whom I delivered from famine, or from worse; and who, in return, has given into my hands the evidence which proclaims in you the perjured friend of Harley L'Estrange, and the fraudulent seducer, under mock marriage forms-worse than

all franker sin-of Leonora Avenel."
"It is false !-false !" exclaimed Egerton, all his
stateliness and all his energy restored to him.
"I
forbid you to speak thus to me.
I forbid you by
one word to sully the memory of my lawful wife."
"Ah!" said Harley, startled. "Ah! false !-
prove that and revenge is over! Thank Heaven!"

"Prove it! What so easy? And wherefore have I delayed the proof-wherefore concealed, but from tenderness to you-dread, too—a selfish but human dread-to lose in you the sole esteem that I covet ;-the only mourner who would have shed one tear over the stone inscribed with some lying epitaph, in which it will suit a party purpose to proclaim the gratitude of a nation. Vain hope

"it

I resign it! But you spoke of a son. Alas, alas! | the surer felicity of domestic ties. "Selfish in you are again deceived. I heard that I had a son these attempts I might be," said Egerton; -years, long years ago. I sought him, and found was only if I saw you restored to happiness that I a grave. But bless you, Harley, if you succored could believe you could calmly hear my explanaone whom you even erringly suspect to be Leono- tion of the past, and on the floor of some happy ra's child!" He stretched forth his hands as he home grant me your forgiveness. I longed to conspoke. fess, and I dared not; often have the words rushed to my lips-as often some chance sentence from you repelled me. In a word, with you were so entwined all the thoughts and affections of my youth-even those that haunted the grave of Nora-that I could not bear to resign your friendship, and, surrounded by the esteem and honor of a world I cared not for, to meet the contempt of your reproachful eye.'

"Of your son we will speak later," said Harley, strangely softened. "But before I say more of him let me ask you to explain—let me hope that you can extenuate what-"

"You are right," interrupted Egerton, with eager quickness. "You would know from my own lips at last the plain tale of my own offence against you. It is due to both. Patiently hear

me out."

[ocr errors]

Amidst all that Audley said-amidst all that Then Egerton told all; his own love for Leono- admitted of no excuse two predominant sentira-his struggles against what he felt as treason ments stood clear, in unmistakable and touching to his friend-his sudden discovery of Nora's love pathos. Remorseful regret for the lost Nora-and for him; on that discovery, the overthrow of all self-accusing, earnest, almost feminine tenderness his resolutions; their secret marriage-their sep- for the friend he had deceived. Thus, as he conaration; Nora's flight, to which Audley still as- tinued to speak, Harley more and more forgot even signed but her groundless vague suspicion that the remembrance of his own guilty and terrible intheir nuptials had not been legal; and her impa- terval of hate; the gulf that had so darkly yawned tience of his own delay in acknowledging the rite. between the two closed up, leaving them still His listener interrupted him here with a few standing, as it were, side by side, as in their questions; the clear and prompt replies to which schoolboy days. But he remained silent, listening enabled Harley to detect Levy's plausible perver--shading his face from Audley, and as if under sion of the facts; and he vaguely guessed the some soft, but enthralling spell, till Egerton thus cause of the usurer's falsehood, in the criminal closedpassion which the ill-fated bride had inspired.

[ocr errors]

Egerton," said Harley, stifling with an effort his own wrath against the vile deceiver, "if, on reading those papers, you find that Leonora had more excuse for her suspicions and flight than you now deem, and discover perfidy in one to whom you trusted your secret, leave his punishment to Heaven. All that you say convinces me more and more that we cannot even see through the cloud, much less guide the thunderbolt. But proceed."

"And now, Harley, all is told. You spoke of revenge?"

66 were

"Revenge!" muttered Harley, starting. "And believe me,' ,"continued Egerton, revenge in your power, I should rejoice at it as an atonement. To receive an injury in return for that which, first from youthful passion, and afterwards from the infirmity of purpose that concealed the wrong, I have inflicted upon you-why, that would soothe my conscience, and raise my lost self-esteem. The sole revenge you can bestow takes the form which most humiliates me ;-to revenge, is to pardon."

Harley groaned; and, still hiding his face with one hand, stretched forth the other, but rather with the air of one who entreats than who accords forgiveness. Audley took and pressed the hand thus extended.

"And now, Harley, farewell. With the dawn I leave this house. I cannot now accept your aid in this election. Levy shall announce my resignation. Randal Leslie, if you so please it, may be returned in my stead. He has abilities which, under safe guidance, may serve his country; and I have no right to reject, from vain pride, whatever will promote the career of one whom I understood, and have failed to serve."

[ocr errors]

Audley looked surprised and startled, and his eye turned wistfully towards the papers; but after a short pause he continued his recital. He came to Nora's unexpected return to her father's house -her death-his conquest of his own grief, that he might spare Harley the abrupt shock of learning her decease. He had torn himself from the dead, in remorseful sympathy with the living. He spoke of Harley's illness, so nearly fatal-repeated Harley's jealous words, "that he would rather mourn Nora's death, than take comfort from the thought that she had loved another." He spoke of his journey to the village where Mr. Dale had told him Nora's child was placed-and, hearing that child and mother were alike gone, "whom now could I right by acknowledging a bond that I feared would so wring your heart?" Audley again paused a moment, and resumed in short, nervous, impressive sentences. This cold, austere man of the world for the first time bared his heart -unconscious, perhaps, that he did so-unconscious that he revealed how deeply, amidst state cares and public distinctions, he had felt the absence of affections-how mechanical was that outer circle in the folds of life which is called "a Lord L'Estrange rose with a sudden start―gazed career"-how valueless wealth had grown-none on Audley for a moment-irresolute, not from to inherit it. Of his gnawing and progressive resentment, but from shame. At that moment he disease alone he did not speak; he was too proud was the man humbled; he was the man who and too masculine to appeal to pity for physical feared reproach, and who needed pardon. Audley, ills. He reminded Harley how often, how eagerly, not divining what was thus passing in Harley's year after year, month after month, he had urged his friend to rouse himself from mournful dreams, devote his native powers to his country, or seek

66

Ay, ay," muttered Harley; "think not of Randal Leslie; think but of your son."

"My son! But are you sure that he still lives? You smile; you-you-oh, Harley—I took from you the mother-give to me the son; break my heart with gratitude. Your revenge is found!"

breast turned away. "You think that I ask too much; and yet all that I can give to the child of my love and the heir of my name, is the worthless

[blocks in formation]

66

"Oh, Harley, this is revenge! It strikes home," murmured Egerton, and tears gushed fast from eyes that could have gazed unwinking on the rack. The clock struck; Harley sprang forward.

Me-me-pardon me, Audley! Your offence "I have time yet," he cried. "Much to do has been slight to mine. You have told me your and to undo. You are saved from the grasp of offence; never can I name to you my own. Re- Levy-your election will be won-your fortunes joice that we have both to exchange forgiveness, in much may be restored-you have before you and in that exchange we are equals still, Audley honors not yet achieved-your career as yet is -brothers still. Look up-look up; think that scarce begun-your son you will embrace to-morwe are boys now as we were once;-boys who row. Let me go your hand again! Ah, Audhave had their wild quarrel-and the moment it is ley, we shall be so happy yet!" over, feel dearer to each other than before."

From Household Words.

A, CHILD'S FIRST LETTER.

To write to papa, 'tis an enterprise bold
For the fairy-like maiden scarce seven years old;
And see what excitement the purpose hath wrought
In eyes that when gravest seem playing at thought!

The light little figure surprised into rest-
The smiles that will come so demurely repressed-
The long-pausing hand on the paper that lies-
The sweet puzzled look in the pretty blue eyes.

'Tis a beautiful picture of childhood in calm,
One cheek swelling soft o'er the white dimpled palm
Sunk deep in its crimson, and just the clear tip
Of an ivory tooth on the full under lip.

How the smooth forehead knits! With her arm round his neck,

It were easier far than on paper to speak; We must loop up those ringlets: their rich falling gold

Would blot out the story as fast as 't was told.

And she meant to have made it in bed, but it seems
Sleep melted too soon all her thoughts into dreams;
But hush by that sudden expansion of brow,
Some fairy familiar has whispered it now.

How she labors exactly each letter to sign,
Goes over the whole at the end of each line,

And lays down the pen to clap hands with delight
When she finds an idea especially bright.

At last the small fingers have crept to an end:
No statesman his letter 'twixt nations hath penned
With more sense of its serious importance, and few
In a spirit so loving, so earnest, and true.

She smiles at a feat so unwonted and grand,
Draws a very long breath, rubs the cramped little
hand;

May we read it? Oh, yes; my sweet maiden, may be One day you will write what one only must see.

"But no one must change it!" No, truly, it ought To keep the fresh bloom on each natural thought. Who would shake off the dew to the rose-leaf that clings?

Or the delicate dust from the butterfly's wings?

Is it surely a letter? So bashfully lies
Uncertainty yet in those beautiful eyes,
And the parted lips' coral is deepening in glow,
And the eager flush mounts to the forehead of snow.
'Tis informal and slightly discursive, we fear;
Not a line without love, but the love is sincere.
Unchanged, papa said he would have it depart,
Like a bright leaf dropped out of her innocent heart.
Great news of her garden, her lamb, and her bird,
Of mamma, and of baby's last wonderful word;

With an ardent assurance-they neither can play, Nor learn, nor be happy, while he is away.

Will he like it? Ay, will he! what letter could seem,
Though an angel indited, so charming to him?
How the fortunate poem to honor would rise
That should never be read by more critical eyes!
Ah, would for poor rhymesters such favor could be
As waits, my fair child, on thy letter and thee!

THE WORTH OF HOURS.

MILNES.

BELIEVE not that your inner eye
Can ever in just measure try
The worth of hours as they go by.

For every man's weak self, alas!
Makes him to see them while they pase,
As through a dim or tinted glass.
But if, with earnest care, you would
Mete out to each its part of good,
Trust rather to your after mood.
Those surely are not fairly spent,
That leave your spirit bowed and bent
In sad unrest and ill content.

And more, though free from seeming harm,
You rest from toil of mind or arm,
Or slow retire from pleasure's charm-

If then a painful sense comes on
Of something wholly lost and gone,
Vainly enjoyed, or vainly done-
Of something from your being's chain
Broke off, not to be linked again
By all mere memory can retain-
Upon your heart this truth may rise-
Nothing that altogether dies
Suffices man's just destinies.

So should we live, that every hour
May die as dies the natural flower,
A self-reviving thing of power;
That every thought and every deed
May hold within itself the seed
Of future good and future need;
Esteeming sorrow, whose employ
Is to develop, not destroy,
Far better than a barren joy.

I SLEPT and dreamed that Life was Beauty;

I woke and found that Life was Duty;
Was then thy dream a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A noonday light and truth to thee.

[blocks in formation]

9

From Sharpe's Magazine.
IN THE NIGHT-TIME.

I THINK of thee alway :-it is
The only happiness I crave,
The only solace, now, I have.

Thou thou wouldst smile at such small bliss,
For what is joy enough for me,

Would be but a poor fate for thee.

I pray it may be ever so :

That such content as is my all,

Thy blithe heart may reject as small :

And that thy soul may never know

A soul's blank dreariness, when-hope gone-
It lives in memory alone,

As mine doth now. O pityingly

Look on me, Heaven! subdue this pain,
And make my weak heart strong again!
Ah! I was happy once-e'en I ;
Sometimes I think 't was in my dreams,
That blessed time so shadowy seems.
We were companions-darling friends-
I have a pride in that, at least;
Then thou didst love me all the best.
The love of a true heart ne'er ends,
And thine is true, most true; and so
That thou still lovest me, I know.
With this, why am I not content?
O, jealous heart, why wilt thou crave,
And yearn for that thou canst not have?
Alas! my all of love was spent
And lavished on thee-only thee :-
Thou giv'st a wave-and tak'st a sea!

Thou travellest thy separate way,
And 't is a smooth one-if my prayers
Have power to spare thee pains and cares.

I can do naught for thee but pray.-
O bitterness! if woe should come,
How impotent is love 'gainst doom!

I, who for thee all things would strive,
May then behold thee in despair,
Without the right thy grief to share ;
I, who for thee would pray to live,
As once I humbly prayed to die,
Must stand in helpless silence by ;
And, while a tempest rends my heart,
I must be calm, and guard my eyes,
Lest that wild heart to them uprise.
'Tis hard to have in thee no part,
Who once used all my own to be,
Who now art all-on earth-to me.

On Earth! ah! Father-Helper-Friend'
To Thee my bruised heart I turn,
Thou wilt give peace for which I yearn.

I know my sorrow shall not end;
The anguish of crushed love is strong;
Ah me! and life is long-so long!
But thy deep peace doth on me fall,
The frenzy of my love is gone-

The holy love remains alone.

There comes a solemn calm o'er all,
The storm is hushed within my breast--
Beneath the quiet stars I rest!

KATIE STEWART.

PART II.-CHAPTER VIII.

"LEDDY KILBRACHMONT! Weel, John, my man, she might have done waur-muckle waur; but I seena very weel how she could have bettered hersel. A young, wiselike, gallant-looking lad, and very decent lairdship-anither thing frae a doited auld man."

a

"Weel, wife," said John Stewart, ruefully scratching his head-" weel, I say naething against it in itsel; but will ye tell me what I'm to say to the Beelye?"

[ocr errors][merged small]

"Leddy Kilbrachmont! and Janet, the glarkit taking up with a common man!" said Mrs. Stewart, unconsciously pushing aside the pretty wheel, the offering of the "wright" in Arnereoch. "Weel, but what maun I do? If Isabell gangs hame to "Ay, John, that will I," returned the house- her ain house, and Janet-Janet 's a guid worker mother. "Tell him to take his daughter's bairn-far mair use about a house like ours than such out of its cradle, puir wee totum, and ask himsel a gente thing as Bell-Janet married, too-what's what he has to do wi' a young wife-a young wife! to come o' me? I'll hae to bring hame Katie frae and a bonnie lass like our Isabell! Man, John, to the Castle." think, wi' that muckle body o' yours, that you should have sae little heart! Nae wonder ye need muckle coats and plaids about ye, you men! for ne'er a spark o' light is in the hearts of ye, to keep ye warm within."

66

[ocr errors]

"Muckle guid ye 'll get of Katie, mother," said Janet, who, just then coming in from the garden, with an armful of cold, curly, brilliant greens, had heard her mother's soliloquy. "If ye yokit her to the wheel like a powny, she wadna spin the yarn for Isabell's providing in half-a-dozen years; and no a mortal turn besides could Katie do in a house, if ye gied her a' the land between this and Kellie Law."

Weel, weel, Isabell; the mair cause ye should gie me a guid dram to keep the chill out," said the miller;" and ye 'll just mind ye were airt and pairt, and thought mair of the Beelye's bien dwellin' and braw family than ever I did; but it's "And wha asked your counsel?" said the absoaye your way-ye put a' the blame, when there is lute sovereign of Kellie Mill. "If I'm no sair blame, on me." trysted wi' my family, there never was a woman: "Haud your peace, guidman," said Mrs. Stew-first, your faither-and muckle he kens about the art. "Whiles I am drawn away wi' your reasonings against my ain judgment, as happens to folk owre easy in their temper, whether they will or no--I'll no deny that; but nae man can say I ever set my face to onything that would have broken the heart of a bairn of mine. Take your dram, and gang away with your worldly thoughts to your wordly business, John Stewart; if it wasna for you, I'm sure ne'er a thought of pelf would enter my head."

rule o' a household; and syne you, ye taupie-as
if Isabell's providing was yet to spin! To spin,
said she? and it lying safe in the oak press up
the stair, since ever Bell was a wee smout of a
bairn. And yours too, though ye dinna deserve
it; ay, and little Katie's as weel, as the bonnie
grass on the burnside could have tellt ye twal
ago, when it was white wi' yarn a' the simmer
through, spun on a purpose-like wheel-a thing
fit for a woman's wark-no a toy for a bit bairn.

year

Gae way wi' you and your vanities. I would just like to see, wi' a' your upsetting, ony ane oye bring up a family as creditable as your mother." Janet stole in to the table at the further window, and, without a word, began to prepare her greens, which were immediately to be added to the other contents of the great pot, which, suspended by the crook, bubbled and boiled over the fire; for the moods of the house-mother were pretty well known in her dominions, and no one dared to lift up the voice of rebellion.

After an interval of silence, Mrs. Stewart proceeded to her own room, and in a short time reäppeared, hooded and plaided, testifying with those echoing steps of hers, to all concerned, that she had again put on her high-heeled gala shoes. Isabell was now in the kitchen, quietly going about her share of the household labor, and doing it with a subdued graceful gladness which touched the mother's heart.

"I'm gaun up to Kellie, Bell, my woman," said Mrs. Stewart. “I wouldna say but we may need Katie at hame; onyway, I'll gang up to the Castle, and see what they say about it. It's time she had a while at hame to learn something purpose-like, or it's my fear she 'll be fit for naething but to hang on about Lady Anne; and nae bairn o' mine shall do that wi' my will. Ye'll set Merran to the muckle wheel, Isabell, as soon as she 's in frae the field; and get that cuttie Janet to do some creditable work. If I catch her out o' the house when I come hame, it'll be the waur for hersel."

"So ye 're aye biding on at the Castle, Bauby," said Mrs. Stewart, as, her long walk over, she rested in the housekeeper's room, and greeted with a mixture of familiarity and condescension, the powerful Bauby, who had so long been the faithful friend and attendant of little Katie Stewart. "Ye 're biding on? I thought you were sure to gang with Lady Betty; and vexed I was to think of ye gaun away, that my bairn liket sae weel.”

I never lee, Mrs. Stewart," said Bauby, confidentially. "If it hadna just been Katie Stewart's sel, and a thought of Lady Anne, puir thing, left her lee lane in the house, I would as soon have gaen out to the May to live, as bidden still in Kellie Castle. But someway they have grippit my heart atween them--I couldna leave the bairns."

"Aweel, Bauby, it was kind in ye," said the miller's wife; but I'm in no manner sure that I winna take Katie away."

"Take Katie away-eh, Mrs. Stewart!" And Bauby lifted up her great hands in appeal.

"Ye see her sister Isabell is to be married soon," said the important mother, rising and smoothing down her skirts. "And now I'm rested, Bauby, I'll thank ye to take me to Lady Anne's room.

[ocr errors]

The fire burned brightly in the west room, glowing in the dark polished walls, and brightening with its warm flush the clouded daylight which shone through the high window. Again on her high chair, with her shoulders fixed, so that she cannot stoop, Lady Anne sits at her embroidery frame, at some distance from the window, where the slanting light falls full upon her work, patiently and painfully working those dim roses into the canvass which already bears the blossoms of many a laborious hour. Poor Lady Anne! People, all her life, have been doing their duty to her -training her into propriety-into noiseless deco

She has read the

rum and high-bred manners. Spectator to improve her mind has worked embroidery because it was her duty; and sits resignedly in this steel fixture now, because she feels it a duty too-a duty to the world at large that Lady Anne Erskine should have no curve in her shoulders-no stoop in her tall aristocratic figure. But, in spite of all this, though they make her stiff, and pale, and silent, none of these cares have at all tarnished the gentle lustre of Lady Anne's good heart; for, to tell truth, embroidery, and prejudices, and steel collars, though they cramp both body and mind a little, by no means have a bad effect-or, at least, by no means so bad an effect as people ascribe to them in these daysupon the heart; and there lived many a true lady then-lives many a true lady now-to whom devout thoughts have come in those dim hours, and fair fancies budded and blossomed in the silence. It was very true that Lady Anne sat there immovable, holding her head with conscientious firmness, as she had been trained to hold it, and moving her long fingers noiselessly as her needle went out and in through the canvass before hervery true that she thought she was doing her duty, and accomplishing her natural lot; but not any less true, notwithstanding, that the heart which beat softly against her breast was pure and gentle as the summer air, and, like it, touched into quiet brightness by the light from heaven.

Near her, carelessly bending forward from a lower chair, and leaning her whole weight on another embroidery frame, sits Katie Stewart, laboring with a hundred wiles to draw Lady Anne's attention from her work. One of little Katie's round white shoulders is gleaming out of her dress, and she is not in the least erect, but bends her head down between her hands, and pushes back the rich golden hair which falls in shining, halfcurled tresses over her fingers, and laughs, and pouts, and calls to Lady Anne; but Lady Anne only answers quietly, and goes on with her work

for it is right and needful to work so many hours, and Lady Anne is doing her duty.

But not so Katie Stewart; her needle lies idle on the canvass; her silk hangs over her arm, getting soiled and dim; and Lady Anne blushes to remember how long it is since her wayward favorite began that group of flowers.

For Katie feels no duty-no responsibility in the matter; and having worked a whole dreary hour, and accomplished a whole leaf, inclines to be idle now, and would fain make her companion idle too. But the conscientious Lady Anne shakes her head, and labors on; so Katie, leaning still further over the frame, and still more entirely disregarding her shoulders and deportment, tosses back the overshadowing curls again, and with her cheeks supported in the curved palms of her hands, and her fingers keeping back the hair from her brow, lifts up her voice and sings—

Corn rigs and barley rigs, Corn rigs are bonnie.

Sweet, clear, and full is little Katie's voice, and she leans forward, with her bright eyes dwelling kindly on Lady Anne's face, while, with affectionate pleasure, the good Lady Anne sits still, and works, and listens the sweet child's voice, in which there is still scarcely a graver modulation to tell of the coming woman, echoing into the generous gentle heart which scarcely all its life

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »