Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/203

 188 What with the talking, the tapping, and the soldiers, the boy was fully aroused. He sat up, and fixed his magnificent dark eyes upon the ladies.

"Oh, I see it now," murmured Lady Jane to her sister. "It is an extraordinary likeness; the very self-same eyes."

"Nay," returned Laura, in the same low tone, "the eyes are the only feature not like. His eyes were shut when the resemblance struck me."

"Look, look! the very expression she used to wear!" whispered Jane, so intent upon the boy as to have paid no attention to her sister's dissenting words.

"She!" uttered Laura, in an accent of wonder. "Why, what are your ideas running upon, Jane?"

"Upon Clarice. The boy's likeness to her is wonderful. Whose little boy is this?" quickly added Lady Jane, turning to the woman. "He is so very like a—a—a—friend of mine, a lady."

"He's mine," was the short retort.

Lady Jane gave a sigh of regret, as she always did when she spoke or thought of Clarice; but in the present sigh relief was mingled. She did not ask herself why, though innately conscious of it. "There is no accounting for resemblances," she remarked to the mother, as she bade her good afternoon, and bent her steps onward. Laura followed her: and she cast a haughty, condemning glance upon the woman at parting.

"Jane," began Laura, "I think you are demented. What do you mean by saying the child is like Clarice?"

"Why, you spoke first of the likeness yourself!"

"Not to Clarice. He is not in the least like her."

"Of whom, then, did you speak?" was the wondering question.

"I shan't say," unceremoniously answered Lady Laura. "Certainly not of Clarice; he is no more like her than he's like me."

"Laura, save that boy's and Clarice's, and perhaps Lucy's, but Lucy's are softer, I do not believe there are such eyes in the world, so large and brilliant and sweetly tender. Yours are the same in shape and colour, but not in expression. His likeness to what poor Clarice was, is wonderful."

Laura paused, rather staggered at Jane's words.

"I'll go back and look again," said she. She wheeled round, retraced her steps, and stood at the gate a minute talking to the boy, but not deigning to notice the woman. Jane stood by her side in silence, looking at him.

"Well?" said Jane, when they finally turned away.

"I repeat that I cannot trace any resemblance to Clarice. I do trace a great resemblance to some one else, but not in the eyes; and it is not so striking now he is awake, as it was when he was asleep."

"IsIt [sic] is very strange!" cried Lady Jane.

"What is strange?"

"It is all strange. The likeness to Clarice is strange; your not seeing the likeness is strange; and your detecting one to somebody else is strange, as you say you do; and your declining to mention to whom, is strange. Is it to any of our family, Laura?"

"The Chesneys? Oh, no. Jane, you spoke just now of Clarice in the past tense. 'His likeness to what poor Clarice was’; it is as though you think she is no longer living."

"What else am I to think?" returned Jane. "All these years, and no trace of her. My father on his death-bed left the seeking of her out to me, but I have no clue to go upon, and can do nothing, and hear nothing."

"If you feel so sure of her death, you had better take the three thousand pounds to your self," spoke Laura, with a touch of acerbity. Her having been disinherited was a sore point still.

"No," quietly returned Jane, "I shall never appropriate that money to myself. Until we shall be assured beyond doubt of Clarice's death—if she be dead—the money will remain out at interest, and then—"

"What then?" asked Laura, for her sister had stopped.

"We shall see when that time comes," was the somewhat evasive remark of Jane. "But for myself I shall touch none of it; I have plenty, as it is."

Now you need not be astonished, my good reader, at this discrepancy in the vision of the sisters. It is well known that where one person will detect a likeness, another cannot see it. "How greatly that child resembles her father!" will be heard from one; "Nay," speaks up another, "how much she resembles her mother!" Some people detect the likeness that exists in form, others that which pertains to expression. Some will be struck with the wonderful resemblance to each other between the members of a family, even before knowing that they are related; others cannot see or trace it. You must surely have remarked this in your own experience.

And thus it was with the ladies Chesney; the one could not see with the eyes of the other. But it was rather remarkable that both should have detected a resemblance in this strange child, and not to the same person.