Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXV.pdf/246

 GILLIAN.

233

I saw sister Hetty coming toward us: she looked like one carrying a heavy load that she couldn’t keep from staggering under. She saw us wind¬ ing round a turn of the road, and her limbs seemed to wilt under her, for she sunk down to the grass and covered her face with both hands, as if the sight of us had struck her blind. Sarah ran forward, sending back a cry that almost made us tremble.

“She came up to Hetty and sunk down by her side, winding both arms around her neck, and Bobbed dreadfully: we could hear her rods off, it really seemed as if her heart was breaking. Hetty did not look up, or move; but when she heard our tramp on the road she sort of stretched out her limbs with a quivering motion, and fell sideways on the grass, bringing Sarah, who clung around her, to the ground, and turning her sobs into screams.

“We stopped a minute, sat the bier down, and tried to comfort the gals; but they clung together, and I thought Sarah tried to bury Hetty’s face in her lap till we took up the bier again. I felt very sorry for poor Sarah, for after that sleigh- ride, the letter and all the rest, it was easy guessing why her sobs were so quick and deep. As for Hetty, she always was a timersome, soft¬ hearted creature, and the sight of a dead man was enough to make her faint away any time.

“We went home and the gals followed, creep¬ ing heavily along after us with the stillness of two ghosts. We laid young Bentley out in the spare room yonder; and, after helping the wounded young man up stairs, I got him to bed, while your grandfather went after a doctor.

“The poor young fellow was in dreadful pain, but he choked bock his groans and bore up like a hero. I was obliged to call Sarah to help to take care of him; but Hetty staid below with the corpse, half Beared to death I could see, for when I went down stairs, once or twice in the night, she was sitting by the bed, as white as the wind¬ ing-sheet, and as still as the form it covered. Her eyes fairly frightened me when she looked toward the door, they darkened like a thunder¬ cloud before it bursts. I tried to make her go up stairs, but she only shook her head, and so I left her all night alone with the dead man, and a terrible night it was to us all

“We buried young Bentley in the grave-yard down yonder. It was a sorrowful business to us all, for we were uncertain who the heir might be, and, for anything we knew, he might not prove exactly the person we should want to have power over the farm. So, with the sick man up stairs, and a funeral winding from the house, everything seemed gloomy enough, especially as the gals went about like ghosts, sc&roely speak- ing a word, and looking at each other woefully whenever they met.

“After awhile we found out that Mr. Bentley, your father, was heir to his cousin, and in some sort owner of the farm. He was a splendid young fellow, too: with that face and voice of his he might have made any girl fall in love with him except our Hetty. I really don’t think she ever cared for anybody in the world, she always was a quiet, old maidish thing.

“After the funeral she grew more shy and still than ever.

“But Sarah spent half her time in the sick man’s room, and though she seemed troubled, yet I could see with half an eye that she was getting over the shock of her lover’s death. I said lover, for after what I had seen nothing would have convinced me that our Sarah had not been heart and soul engaged to the young man who was gone; but if she could forget him and fancy the other, what business had any of us to interfere? For my part, I was glad to see her color coming back, and her eyes growing bright again.

“I don’t know what passed between the young people during the six weeks that he lay sick at our house. But though she seemed wildly cheerful at times, the trouble never entirely left her eyes; and more than once I caught her crying away by herself, which was natural enough under the circumstances, you know.

“As Mr. Bentley grew better, and was able to carry his arm in a sling, Sarah’s troublo seemed to increase, and she staid with Hetty in their own room a great deal more than I ever remembered to have seen her before. It seemed as if she wanted to keep out of our visitors way somehow.

“He did not seem to like this, and one morning, when I rode over to the homestead, and found him sitting lonesomely in the front stoop, he asked me m a quiet way if I could tell him what particular business hi9 cousin had come to the country about, and why he himself had been so urgently invited to share the journey.

“I told him truly enough that I did not know: when he said with a strange smile,

“‘I almost supposed it might be a wedding that brought him here, from some words that be used in pressing the invitation; but as no one of your family has said anything about it, the object of his coming puzzles me exceedingly.

Tell me, was our visit expected?

“I was troubled how to answer this question, and felt the blood grow warm in my face. I remembered how anxious and restless my sister