Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/374

364[March 20, 1869] history-book, though I work hard at it every day, is as yet only in its commencement, and I am told that when the family goes to town next week I am to accompany them, and to devote my time in London to purely secretarial work, correcting my lord in his speeches, writing his letters, &c., while the history of the Wests is to remain in abeyance until the autumn. Everybody is particularly kind to me, and had I never 'lifted my eyes to my master's daughter,' like the 'prentice of old, I might have been very happy here. But I have other hopes in view, and a married private secretary would be impossible. It's lucky, then, that there is another opening—yes, Marian, a new chance, which I think promises, splendidly promises, to realise all we have hoped—all I have hoped for, all you can have justly anticipated—speedy union for us both, under decent competence when united. Listen.

"My old friend Byrne, of whom you heard so much when I was in London, wrote to me some time since telling me that my name had been suggested, as the correspondent then required for a London newspaper in Berlin. I thought but little of it at the moment, for though, thanks to old Dr. Heitmann, in the dear old days at Hehningham, I knew myself to be a tolerable German scholar, I doubted whether I had sufficient 'nous' and experience of the world for the post. I wrote this to Byrne, and I think he was rather of my opinion, but the man with whom the recommendation rested, and who knew me from having met me constantly during those weeks I was living with Byrne, and knew also some of my qualifications, as it was through him I obtained those odd jobs on the press, declared that I would be the very man for their purpose, and has so pressed the matter that I have agreed to let them have my decision in a week's time. For that decision I come to you. They offer me a year's engagement to start with, with the certainty of renewal if I fulfil their expectations, and four hundred a year, with the prospect of a rise. Four hundred a year, Marian, and in a country where money goes much further than in England! Four hundred a year, and we united for ever, and dear Mrs. Ashurst—for, of course, she will be with us—with a son as well as a daughter to tend and care for her. Now, you see why I made the commencement of my letter rather sombre and gloomy, in order to heighten the brilliancy of the finish! Now you see why I talked about the lodgings and the privations—because there is no need to submit to any of them!

"Marian darling, you must answer this instantly! I have no doubt as to the tone of your reply, but I can do nothing until I get it, and time presses. Don't be afraid of any ill-feeling on the part of Lord Hetherington or any one here. I have been able to render them something of a service. I will tell you about it when we meet—and they will all be delighted at anything which brings good fortune to me. And now good-bye! Think how little time now before I shall hold you in my arms! Write at once! God bless you, now and ever. "Your ."

Sunday morning at Woolgreaves. Bright, splendid sunshine, the frost all gone, and nature renovated by her six months' sleep asserting herself in green bud and lovely almond blossom, and fresh sprouting herbage on every side. Far away on the horizon lay Brocksopp, the week-day smoke cloud, which no wind dispelled, yet hovering like a heavy pall over its sabbath stillness; but the intervening landscape was fresh, and fine, and calculated to inspire peaceful thoughts and hopeful aspirations in all who looked on it. Such thoughts and such aspirations the contemplation of the scene inspired in old Mrs. Ashurst, who sat propped up by pillows in a large easy-chair in her sitting-room, gazing out of the window, looking at nothing, but enjoying everything with the tranquil serenity of old age. For several years past there had not been much life in the old lady, and there was very little now; her vital powers, never very strong, had been decaying slowly but surely, and Dr. Osborne knew that the time was not far distant, when the widow of his old friend would be called away to rejoin the husband she had so dearly loved, in the Silent Land.

"A case of gradual decay, my dear sir," said the little doctor, who had been up all night, bringing the heir of a neighbouring squire into the world, and who had stopped at Woolgreaves on his way home, and asked for breakfast—a meal which he was then taking in company with his host. "What we call the vis vitæ quietly giving way."

"And by what I gather from you, doctor, I fear our old friend will not be much longer with us?"

"It is impossible to say, but I should think not! Sad thing for the daughter;