The moment the door closed behind Sophia, as she left the sisters in their apartment, Hester crossed the room with a step very like a dance, and threw up the window.

"I had rather look out than sleep," said she. "I shall be ashamed to close my eyes on such a prospect. Morris, if you are waiting for us, you may go. I shall sit up a long while yet."

Morris thought she had not seen Hester in such spirits since her father's death. She was unwilling to check them, but said something about the fatigues of the journey, and being fresh for the next day.

"No fear for to-morrow, Morris. We are in the country, you know, and I cannot fancy being tired in the fields, and in such a park as that.

Good-night, Morris."

When she too was gone, Hester called Margaret to her, put her arm round her waist, and kissed her again and again.

"You seem happy to-night, Hester," said Margaret's gentle voice.

"Yes," sighed Hester; "more like being happy than for a long time past.

How little we know what we shall feel! Here have I been dreading and dreading this evening, and shrinking from the idea of meeting the Greys, and wanting to write at the last moment to say that we would not come;-- and it turns out--Oh, so differently! Think of day after day, week after week of pure country life! When they were planning for us to-night, and talking of the brook, and lanes, and meadows, it made my very heart dance."

"Thank G.o.d!" said Margaret. "When your heart dances, there is nothing left to wish."

"But did not yours? Had you ever such a prospect before,--such a prospect of delicious pleasure for weeks together,--except perhaps when we caught our first sight of the sea?"

"Nothing can ever equal that," replied Margaret. "Do not you hear now the shout we gave when we saw the sparkles on the horizon,--heaving sparkles,--when we were a mile off, and mamma held me up that I might see it better; and baby,--dear baby,--clapped his little hands? Does it not seem like yesterday?"

"Like yesterday: and yet, if baby had lived, he would now have been our companion, taking the place of all other friends to us. I thought of him when I saw Sydney Grey; but he would have been very unlike Sydney Grey. He would have been five years older, but still different from what Sydney will be at eighteen--graver, more manly."

"How strange is the idea of having a brother!" said Margaret. "I never see girls with their brothers but I watch them, and long to feel what it is, just for one hour. I wonder what difference it would have made between you and me, if we had had a brother."

"You and he would have been close friends--always together, and I should have been left alone," said Hester, with a sigh. "Oh, yes," she continued, interrupting Margaret's protest, "it would have been so.

There can never be the same friendship between three as between two."

"And why should you have been the one left out?" asked Margaret. "But this is all nonsense--all a dream," she added. "The reality is that baby died--still a baby--and we know no more of what he would have been, than of what he is. The real truth is, that you and I are alone, to be each other's only friend."

"It makes me tremble to think of it, Margaret. It is not so long since our home seemed full. How we used all to sit round the fire, and laugh and play with papa, as if we were not to separate till we had all grown old: and now, young as we are, here we are alone! How do we know that we shall be left to each other?"

"There is only one thing we can do, Hester," said Margaret, resting her head on her sister's shoulder. "We must make the most of being together while we can. There must not be the shadow of a cloud between us for a moment. Our confidence must be as full and free, our whole minds as absolutely open, as--as I have read and heard that two minds can never be."

"Those who say so do not know what may be," exclaimed Hester. "I am sure there is not a thought, a feeling in me, that I could not tell you, though I know I never could to any one else."

"If I were to lose you, Hester, there are many, many things that would be shut up in me for ever. There will never be any one on earth to whom I could say the things that I can tell to you. Do you believe this, Hester?"

"I do. I know it."

"Then you will never again doubt me, as you certainly have done sometimes. You cannot imagine how my heart sinks when I see you are fancying that I care for somebody else more than for you; when you think that I am feeling differently from you. Oh, Hester, I know every change of your thoughts by your face; and indeed your thoughts have been mistaken sometimes."

"They have been wicked, often," said Hester, in a low voice. "I have sometimes thought that I must be hopelessly bad, when I have found that the strongest affection I have in the world has made me unjust and cruel to the pet son I love best. I have a jealous temper, Margaret; and a jealous temper is a wicked temper."

"Now you are unkind to yourself, Hester. I do believe you will never doubt me again."

"I never will. And if I find a thought of the kind rising in me, I will tell you the moment I am aware of it."

"Do, and I will tell you the moment I see a trace of such a thought in your face. So we shall be safe. We can never misunderstand each other for more than a moment."

By the gentle leave of Heaven, all human beings have visions. Not the lowest and dullest but has the coa.r.s.eness of his life relieved at moments by some scenery of hope rising through the brooding fogs of his intellect and his heart. Such visitations of mercy are the privilege of the innocent, and the support of the infirm. Here were the lonely sisters sustained in bereavement and self-rebuke, by the vision of a friendship which should be unearthly in its depth and freedom; they were so happy for the hour, that nothing could disturb them.

"I do not see," observed Hester, "that it will be possible to enjoy any intimate intercourse with this family. Unless they are of a different order from what they seem, we cannot have much in common; but I am sure they mean to be kind, and they will let us be happy in our own way. Oh, what mornings you and I will have together in those woods! Did you ever see anything so soft as they look--in this light?"

"And the bend of the river glittering there! Here, a little more this way, and you will see it as I do. The moon is not at the full yet; the river will be like this for some nights to come."

"And these rides and drives,--I hope nothing will prevent our going through the whole list of them. What is the matter, Margaret? Why are you so cool about them?"

"I think all the pleasure depends upon the companionship, and I have some doubts about that. I had rather sit at work in a drawing-room all day, than go among mountains with people--"

"Like the Mansons; Oh, that spreading of shawls, and bustle about the sandwiches, before they could give a look at the waterfall! I am afraid we may find something of the same drawback here."

"I am afraid so."

"Well, only let us get out into the woods and lanes, and we will manage to enjoy ourselves there. We can contrive to digress here and there together without being missed. But I think we are judging rather hastily from what we saw this evening even about this family; and we have no right to suppose that all their acquaintance are like them."

"No, indeed; and I am sure Mr Hope, for one, is of a different order.

He dropped one thing, one little saying, which proved this to my mind."

"I know what you mean--about the old man that is to be our guide over that heath they were talking of--about why that heath is a different and more beautiful place to him than to us, or to his former self. Is it not true, what he said?"

"I am sure it is true. I have little to say of my own experience, or wisdom, or goodness, whichever it was that he particularly meant as giving a new power of sight to the old man; but I know that no tree waves to my eye as it did ten years ago, and the music of running water is richer to my ear as every summer comes round."

"Yes; I almost wonder sometimes whether all things are not made at the moment by the mind that sees them, so wonderfully do they change with one's mood, and according to the store of thoughts they lay open in one's mind. If I lived in a desert island (supposing one's intellect could go on to grow there), I should feel sure of this."

"But not here, where it is quite clear that the village sot (if there be one), and Mr Hope, and the children, and we ourselves all see the same objects in sunlight and moonlight, and acknowledge them to be the same, though we cannot measure feelings upon them. I wish Mr Hope may say something more which may lead to the old man on the heath again. He is coming to-morrow morning."

"Yes; we shall see him again to-morrow."

CHAPTER THREE.

MAKING ACQUAINTANCE.

The sisters were not so fatigued with their journey but that they were early in the open air the next morning. In the shrubbery they met the twins, walking hand in hand, each with a doll on the disengaged arm.

"You are giving your dolls an airing before breakfast," said Hester, stopping them as they would have pa.s.sed on.

"Yes; we carry out our dolls now because we must not run before breakfast. We have made arbours in our own gardens for our dolls, where they may sit when we are swinging."

"I should like to see your arbours and your gardens," said Margaret, looking round her. "Will you take me to them?"

"Not now," answered they; "we should have to cross the gra.s.s, and we must not go upon the gra.s.s before breakfast."

"Where is your swing? I am very fond of swinging."

"Oh! it is in the orchard there, under that large tree. But you cannot--"