CHAPTER XIII. LESLIE NORTH IN SHADOW. "Lovest thou ME?"-JOHN xxi. 16. "Give ME thine heart."-PROV. xxiii. 26. "If I could find No love in all the world for comforting, Nor any path but hollowly did ring, Where dust to dust' the love from life disjoined ; I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb "Silence and darkness, solitude and sorrow, My God, from Thee. "I will not waste one breath of life in sighing, Into a higher better life with Thee, O Lord, with Thee. "Strong in Thy strength, though in myself but weakness, Equal to all I know that I shall be, If I can seize the mantle of Thy meekness, And wrap it close around my soul, like Thee, IT was post time on the morning after Lord D'Arcy had returned to the Castle, partially recovered from his second attack of illness. Leslie's heart, like many another heart, had a bad habit of fluttering at that hour. Oftentimes she took herself to task, for the foolish, vague expectations which always sent her breathless to meet the scarlet coat and the leather bag; but the very same thing always happened the very next day. And, oh, how long it seemed since the post brought those letters to Aunt Hester with sometimes a few words of message to herself, which had been wont to give her renewed strength and hope. There had been public anxiety about an expedition of foreign enterprise in which all Europe was interested, and many an hour of secret anxiety had there been, though hope and trust had always predominated in Leslie's sanguine brain and steadfast heart. Leslie was arranging the flower-vases for Aunt Hester in silence; she scarcely saw the dark, glossy greens and delicate pinks, and rich purples and crimsons, of the late fuchsias and early china-roses she was so deftly handling; her thoughts might have taken a lesson from them, for they were neither bright nor peaceful; she had waked in the morning feeling it one of the "grey days of life." She was roused from her abstraction by the postman's quick step; in a moment she was by his side receiving one letter for herself, and Aunt Hester's newspaper. A foreign letter! and the colour left Leslie's lips, for it was-yes it was, from the palm-trees and the coral strand at last! Then there was a startled voice from the window. "Leslie, my dear Leslie! my child! what is it? why do you look so? don't leave me in this state, Leslie !" but her call was vainthe white, rigid face had already disappeared, and no sound was heard save a rushing step along the passage, and up the old winding stair. Hester rang the bell, groaning over her own helplessness. Susan was gossiping with Sally at the Doctor's door. Flora was "dressing herself," so there was only Barney to answer the summons, looking scared out of his senses, for he had seen "Miss North flee by, as white and queer as a banshee," but he would not convey this awful simile to his mistress in words, for fear it should be the death of her, so his rounded eyes, and open mouth, and look of horror, appeared silently at the door. "Go to her, Barney,-find Miss North-tell her to come down for one moment; I want her--I must have her." He was up stairs in an instant, and knowing instinctively that she was in the Roundel he knocked at the door. The bolt was drawn back quickly, and so white, calm, stately, and woe-stricken was she who appeared there, that the boy could scarcely falter out his message. 66 In an hour-not for an hour; I must be alone!" In all great sorrows, it is a strange and notable fact that every faculty of observation becomes sharpened and intensified; in after years Leslie recalled with wonder the keen sense of the ludicrous, with which-her heart full of woe and her muscles unrelaxed-she saw the quaint and sympathetic contortions of poor Barney's face. Hester could bear the suspense no longer, so, taking up her staff, Hester Morris walked strongly, steadily, and swiftly up the stairs which she had not trodden for ten years. The different stair-carpet, the crack in the ceiling, which was a subject of apprehension to the child Hester, the little cupola where the girl Hester had smiled and nodded up to the stars every night of clear evening sky, the deep embrasured passage-window whence Hester, the woman, had watched Walter Gower's erect figure pass away under the garden arch, to be seen there no more for ever. Her eye and her memory took it all in, and much more beside; but she wasted no time, she spoke no word, she knocked at no door, but, entering at once the little room which she had loved so well, and where she had sorrowed so much, she took into her arms the young girl who lay on the sofa crushed and mute with her great grief. A long silence. Leslie had forgotten to be surprised at Aunt Hester being up there. It was all like a dream, and nobody is ever |