Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/40

25, 1864.] And so they took me in among them; and day by day they strove, with tender words and loving deeds, to win my wayward, sullen heart, that still remained shut up within itself, closely as ever door was locked and barred.

Day by day they strove with me, constantly, patiently, but in vain; because I would not strive with myself. The old life was gone—the old life around and within me; and instead of trying to read calmly the new leaf that lay open before me, I only stained it with my tears, and kept ever in my memory, turning again and again the pages I had for ever finished. I lived and moved in a kind of dream, seeing and hearing, yet taking no heed of what I saw or heard. I spent hours in my own room, reading over and over again the books Lucy had given to me the night before I left them. Most of them we had read together, she and I; and now I must read alone; and often, as the short winter afternoon was growing dark and cold, a sick, dreary feeling would creep over my heart—of miserable loneliness, that seemed consuming me in its very intensity. Ah! had I not brought all my trouble upon myself? No; I was not pretty, like Agnes. I knew that, and my father knew it also; and he was proud of her, I could see; but not proud of his poor, pale little Heffie. It was always Agnes who went out to ride with him, who was ready to walk wherever he liked, who read to him in the evening when he was tired. Why was it that I was seldom with him, that I never read or sang to him for hours as she did? Because I had a false feeling in my foolish heart that he could not love me, could not care for me. How should he, when I was so little to him, and she so much? So days grew into weeks, weeks into months, and summer came once more, once more to gladden men and women and children’s hearts, with long days of golden sunshine, and soft cool dewy nights. Yes, summer came once more, and with it came a change in my life, my self-inflicted, lonely life. One morning I received a letter from my Cousin Arthur, saying that his mother and Lucy were going to spend the next three months with some friends in Scotland; and that if his uncle and Mrs. Leigh would kindly receive him for a little while, he would so very much like to come and spend his summer holiday at Riverbank. He longed to see me again; it would be like a coming back of the old days.

“Yes, Heffie, certainly,” said my father, when I gave him Arthur’s message, “let him come by all means. We shall be delighted to see him; it will make a pleasant change, a very pleasant change for us all.”

As I rose to leave the room I saw his wife’s gentle eyes turned on me with a kind, half-pitying look I had often seen there of late, and heard her say (when she thought I was out of hearing), “Poor child, I am glad she will have this pleasure. I long to see a little colour in that pale face; it is too young to look so sad.” And my father answered, “Yes, it is too young; life should not be difficult at seventeen. Oh, Margaret! I have a great fear haunting me sometimes.” And here he lowered his voice to almost a whisper, so that I heard no more; and I hastened up-stairs to write my letter. What was this great fear that haunted my father? I could not tell. I had often remarked lately (as I said before) my stepmother’s eyes watching me with an anxious, half-pitying expression; and once or twice I had seen them fill with tears when she thought I was not noticing her. Did this great fear haunt her, too ? Three days passed by, and Arthur came—pleasant, cheerful, kind, Cousin Arthur. How my heart bounded at the sight of him, at the sound of his fine manly voice, that seemed to me like an echo from the old life,—the old life that was gone. All was changed during the few weeks he stayed at Riverbank. It was as if some kind fairy had come with her magic wand and touched the hours, and turned them into gold. I felt almost quite happy. Something of my old self seemed to have come back. It was a season of strange, wonderful gladness—a short, happy dreaming, that went too quickly by—and I awoke crying, to find it over, gone.

I knew he and Agnes liked each other from the beginning; nothing was more natural. Many of their tastes and pursuits were the same. And so it happened that day by day there grew up between them a sure, yet silent sympathy, so sure and silent that for a long time neither was conscious how much the other was helping to make the sunny June of life more bright and sunny still. Week after week went by, till we counted six, and then Arthur’s leave had expired, and he must return to London. The last evening came (how far away it seems, now as I look back). I was sitting alone in my own room, not reading or writing, or hardly thinking; but listening listlessly to the dull patter of the rain against the window, for it had been pouring all day.

Presently I heard a knock at my door, and Arthur entered, saying he wanted to talk with me. He had hardly seen me since the morning. “Dear Heffie,” he said, “I want to tell you something, something that I want you to feel glad for. Can you guess?”

“No. How should I?”

“Well, then, Agnes has promised to-day to be my wife. Say you are glad, Heffie, won’t you? You used to be glad years ago when I