Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/723

 fingers. Keen sight it was, peering from beneath its bushy brows.

She quite laughed in answer; a scornful laugh it was, telling of inward pain.

"You may as well ask, my lord, why one woman is Queen of England, and another the unhappy wretch who sits stitching her fifteen hours daily in a garret, wearing out her heart and her life. Our destinies are unequally marked out in this world, and we must take them as they are sent. Sometimes a feeling comes over me—I don't know whether it be a wrong one—that the harder the lot in this world, the brighter it will be in that which has to come."

"Favours and fortune are dealt out unequally, that's true enough," said the earl, thinking of his past life of poverty and struggle.

They are, they are," she answered bitterly. And the worst is, you are so chained down to your lot that you cannot escape from it. As a poor bird entrapped into a cage beats its wings against the wires unceasingly, seeking to free itself from its prison, and seeks in vain, so do we wear out our minds with our never-ending struggle to free ourselves from the thraldom that is forced by destiny upon us. I was not made to live out my life in dependence, in servitude: every hour of the day I feel that I was not. I feel that my mind, my heart, my intellect, were formed for a higher destiny: nevertheless it is the lot that is appointed me, and I must abide by it."

"Will you share my lot?" suddenly asked the earl.

The governess raised her eyes to his, a keen, searching glance darting from them, as if she suspected the words were but a jesting mockery. The peer moved nearer, and laid his hand upon her shoulder.

"I'm a blue jacket of nine-and-fifty years, Miss Lethwait, but I have got some wear in me yet. I never had an earthly ailment the matter with me, except the gout; and if you'll be Countess of Oakburn and make my fireside yours, I'll take care of you."

It was rather an odd fashion of making an offer, certainly; gout and marriage jumbled incongruously together. The earl, however, was not a courtier: he could only speak the genuine thoughts of his heart.

"What do you say?" he continued, having given her scarcely time to speak.

She gently removed his hand from her shoulder, and lifted her wet eyes to his. The tears were genuine as the earl's words: emotion—perhaps gratitude—had called them up.

"Thank you greatly, Lord Oakburn, but it could not be."

"Why not?" asked the earl.

"It—I—It would not be agreeable to your daughters, my lord. They would never tolerate me as your wife."

"What are you talking about now?" cried the offended earl, who never brooked opposition, no matter from whom. "My daughters! What have they got to do with it? I am not their husband: they'll be getting husbands of their own."

"I am young; younger than Lady Jane," she said, her lips growing pale with the conflict that was before her. Lord Oakburn, if you made me your wife it might sow dissension between you and all your daughters, especially between you and Lady Jane. I feel, I feel that it would do so."

"By Jupiter! but my girls shall not thwart me!" cried the peer in a heat. "I'd like to see them try at it. Laura has chosen for herself, Clarice has gone roaming nobody knows where, Lucy is a child; and as for Jane, do you think she possesses no common sense?"

The governess made no reply. She seemed to be endeavouring to steady her trembling lips.

"Look you, Miss Lethwait. The very day I came into the title, I made up my mind to marry: it is incumbent on me to do so. The next heir is a remote fellow, hardly a cousin at all, and he has lived in Nova Scotia or some such outlandish place since he was a boy. A pretty thing it would be to have that figurehead to succeed me! Anybody with a grain of gumption in his topsails would have known that I should marry; and, my dear, you've got a splendid figure, and I needn't look further; and I like you, and that's enough. Will you be Lady Oakburn?"

Miss Lethwait shook excessively; all of emotion that she possessed within her was called up. She had really good and amiable qualities, and she did not like to be the means of sowing ill feeling between the earl and his children. In that same moment the past grew clear to her, and she was conscious that the possibility of becoming Countess of Oakburn had been suspended before her dazzled vision as the one tempting bait of life. How few, how few have the strength to resist such baits! Do you remember the lines of Praed—where the Abbot of Glastonbury, walking out in the summer's noon, overtakes the "Red Fisherman" plying his trade, and halts to watch him?