MILLY AND LUCY. CHAPTER I. Affection true and strong, and simpleness "WELL, nurse, a wedding is not a merry thing, after all. I could not help crying bitterly to-day when my sisters were married, and yet it is what we have all been wishing for so much! I am sure papa and mamma were in the greatest of frights when they thought Captain Langley would sail without proposing to Lizzy; and when Sir Charles spoke out to papa, after we were all gone to bed, I never shall forget what a banging of doors there was,-mamma popping into all our rooms to tell us the good news!" "Ah, poor young ladies!" said Nurse Roberts, as she was undressing the blooming Lucy, the evening of the day on which two of her sisters had been safely disposed of to two gentlemen, the connexion with whom gave great satisfaction to Colonel and Mrs. Heckfield. "Poor young ladies!" repeated Lucy, in a tone of surprise, "why do you pity my sisters, nurse?" "La, miss, I don't justly know; but somehow 'tisn't the sort of wedding as I likes." 66 Why, what sort of wedding do you like ?" "Ah, Miss Lucy, I am an old woman, and I have oldfashioned notions; but I likes to see young people marry as has a respect for one another." "Why, nurse, I am sure Captain Langley and Sir Charles were quite respectful. What can you mean?” "There wasn't no time, miss, no time for them to get to have a respect for one another. I have heard talk of love at first. sight, to be sure, but, to my mind, there wasn't no love at all, and that's the truth of it. "Tis my belief, the captain he wanted to take a wife to India, because, as I've heard say, ladies are scarce there, and here there's more of a choice: and Sir Charles, he wanted a lady to sit at t'other end of the table, and be civil and genteel to the gentlefolks when they comes a visiting to him: and as for poor Miss Sophy and Miss Lizzy, I don't see that they liked these two gentlemen a bit better than twenty other gentlemen as have been here at one time or another." "Well! I never should have guessed you were SO romantic, nurse. Do you know this is really the true spirit of romance?" as I'm "No! no! 'Tan't romance nor book nonsense talking about. But when a woman's once married she may have many trials and troubles. There's Miss Lizzy going into foreign parts, and there's no knowing what a wife may have to go through for her husband, first or last, whether at home or abroad; and if she has not a spirit in her that she does not care where she goes, nor what she does, as long as it's for his sake, why, sometimes it's hard to bear." "But when people marry, they marry to be happy, not to go through trials and troubles." "And do you think, miss, unless Miss Lizzy loves Captain Langley dearly, she will be happy when she is a thousand and a thousand miles away from her friends, and in a strange country? No! no! I knows what 'tis to be alone among strangers, and I knows 'twould have been hard to bear, if it had not been for poor John's sake!" Were you very much in love then, nurse?" and Lucy's eye twinkled with an arch glance of amusement as she asked the question; for at the moment she saw reflected in the glass her own blooming cheeks, rounded chin, rosy lips, and flowing locks, and the withered face, thin lips, gray hair, and closecrimped cap of the old woman. "Were you very much in love?" she repeated, in rather a drawling, sentimental tone. "I don't know about that, miss; but he was true to me from the time I was quite a slip of a girl, and it would have been hard if I had been the one to change. I told him I never would; and I kept my word." "And did he keep his ?" "That he did, poor soul! There was not a better, nor a And truer-hearted man anywhere, than my poor John was. though I had known some trouble before, I never knew what 'twas really to grieve till I lost him!" The poor old woman gave a deep sigh, and Lucy said in a-kind and feeling tone of voice, "Was it in America you lost your poor husband? I know you once were there." "Ah! sure enough was it, my dear young lady; and not a friend nor a relation (besides my two fatherless babes) had I that side of the water, when I saw my poor John put into the ground. 'Tis that makes me think so much about Miss Lizzy. I am old, miss, and I have known troubles and crosses; and I can't help looking forward to what may happen." "But Captain Langley, you know, has friends and relations in India; and everybody says Lizzy will have so many people to wait on her, and beautiful jewels, and all kind of things! How could you, dear nurse, go into a foreign land, if you had no friends and relations there?" "Oh, Miss Lucy! 'tis a long story; and you had better go to bed and go to sleep." "Now do tell me to-night, nurse. I can't go to sleep, I am sure; and I do feel so interested about you and your poor John." The old woman's heart warmed at hearing her husband's name spoken so kindly; and she was nothing loth to begin her story. 66 Why, you see, miss, John and I, we were neighbours' children, and we used to come home from school by the same path; and we often went nutting, and gathering blackberries together, and he was 'always a civil, good-tempered boy, and the folks used to call us the little sweethearts; and so, when we grew bigger, we wished to get married: but father he said, 'No, by no means! he would not hear of it!" " "But why did your father object to such a respectable young man ?" "Why, you see, miss, he was a ropemaker, and was in a good way of business, and had got above the world; and John, he was only under-gardener at the squire's. He was a handy, sharp young man; but he had not any thing but just what he earned from week to week; and father said he would not hear of no such nonsense, and we must leave off courting. We both saw that father was right not to agree to our marrying then, but we thought it hard that we were not to speak to each other any more. My own mother was dead, and my father's second wife she aggravated him against us, and said, if we saw each other as usual, we should be sure to marry; and then he would have to keep us off the parish; and that I was a likely, fresh-coloured girl, and might do better for myself, and might get somebody who would be a help instead of a hindrance to the family. So I told John I would not marry without father's leave, for I knew that would be wrong; but that I would never have anybody but him, if it was ever so. "My stepmother, she never let me out of her sight, and always kept me to my work at home; and I never saw John to speak to him. Of a Sunday, when we came out of church, he always stood near the hand-gate, and sometimes, if there was only father, he opened it for us; and as long as he did that, I was sure he was true to me. "One morning, about a year after my father had said he would not hear no more of John Roberts, and that his girl should marry somebody as had a house to take her to, and enough to keep her when he had got her there; 'twas a Monday morning, and I had washed up the tea-things, and swept up the hearth, and was just holding a bit of wood-embers in the tongs for father to light his pipe by, before he went to his work, when what should I see but John's face as he went by the window to the door. I was like to let the tongs fall, it came upon me so sudden ! John knocked at the door, and I shook all over as if I had got the ague; for I thought, to be sure, father would be in a towering passion. Father, he never turned round, but he kept drawing in his breath to make the pipe light, and he said, Why don't you go and open the door, girl? So I went to the door, and opened it, and in stepped John; and he said never a word to me, he only just gave me a look, and he went straight up to father, and said,— “Mr. Ansell, don't take it amiss if I am come to say a few plain words to you. You won't let me have your daughteryou think we shall come into trouble, and be a burthen upon you; and you think Milly can do better for herself?" "Yes!' said my father, 'you speak right enough.' "But Milly has told me she'll never have nobody but me, and you know, Mr. Ansell, she's a girl of her word; and you know you could not get her to marry Mr. Simpkins, the tailor; no, nor you won't be able to get her to marry no other lover, if she should have a dozen-I know you won't, and I won't have no other girl! But that's neither here nor there-what I've got to say is this-I have just had sent me a letter from my brother as is in Canada; and he tells me, if I want to make |
