"Is there anything he left out, pray?" I interrupted incisively.

"No," she answered reproachfully, "but you may not understand our motives properly?"

"Through no fault of his then," I muttered half savagely, "he was most explicit, I thought!"

"You are inclined to be unfair to us Amey, and we are trying to do everything for the best," said my step-mother persuasively.

"That depends on what you mean, by _the best_" I interrupted curtly.

"We mean, the welfare of all concerned," she broke in, "my brother insists upon my returning with him, and Freddie will, of course, accompany me. So might you," she added courteously, "but I think it would not be wise. You would not be happy among my relatives, of that I am sure. So we think, that leaving you the option of a choice from among your own numerous friends, is the most discreet policy of all."

"You are very kind," said I, with choking sarcasm, "to have thought of me at all. You might have given me up with the furniture for safe-keeping, or locked me securely away here in the house until your return."

"Don't be so unkind, Amey," my step-mother pleaded amicably, "you ought to know, that I am concerned in your welfare and will not leave here, until I see you comfortably lodged."

"Like the furniture?" said I.

She did not answer this with words, but I felt her scrutinizing look directed full upon me, I knew I was in a most uncharitable and provoking mood, but I was not responsible, heaven knows, for what I said or did under such maddening influences. I did not want to give full vent to my momentary hatred and indignation, and as my step mother's att.i.tude was tempting me strongly to indulge both, I turned, and said as calmly as I could:

"Have you anything in particular to say to me, that I have not heard before? If not, I think we had better separate!"

"I thought you would not object to discuss our projected plans, a little, with me," she answered with a subdued peevishness. "If you were not so cold and proud, I would like to offer you a few suggestions and in some way prove to you, that my guardianship, limited though it may be, is not merely a formal responsibility."

"What would you have me do?"

"I can't say definitely--but if you would only rouse yourself to a full realization of your position, there is a great deal in your power to do. You are an orphan now, and reject my authority in every way--it is evident that we can never be friends. Why don't you look about you, for love and devotion that will make a happy subst.i.tute for what you have lost? You are no longer a child; you are quite able to face the more serious responsibilities of life. If you gave your present attention to this, there would be no necessity for your going among strangers."

"If I gave my attention to what?" I interrupted sullenly.

"You understand me very well--if you wished, you could make yourself very comfortable. Some of the best chances which the city affords are within your reach; other girls would not need to have them pointed out so."

"I suppose you mean marriage!" I said indifferently. "Well, there is just this difference between me and other girls, on this point, _I_ shall never choose matrimony as the lesser of two evils. I shall never seek it as a refuge, nor grasp it as a ready alternative; _I_ have been brought up to look upon it as a sacrament, of course, I must allow for that," I added pointedly.

"That is a very high-sounding principle indeed," she replied, "but it can hardly be applied just now. You can't help the issues of fate, and if you were worthy of men's special admiration and love before this, I suppose a change in your condition, or in the outward circ.u.mstances that affect you but indirectly, can make no difference--" She stopped, and after an effective pause added, "It will make none to Arthur Campbell, anyway, of that I am sure."

"Arthur Campbell has never asked me to become his wife," I broke in emphatically.

"That is your own fault. You have not given him proper encouragement."

"No, because I am not at all certain that I would accept him."

"Then you are a fool," she cried out warmly and indignantly, "and you deserve your lot. He is everything that one could wish, as far as wealth and appearance, and family and rank, are concerned. He was, moreover, a favorite of your poor father's and his friend to the end,"

she added with a tremulous voice, "and your poor father often spoke of you being married to Arthur Campbell," she continued, persuasively, "I heard him say it time and again."

"My father said this, you are sure," I exclaimed, looking eagerly into her face.

"He did indeed, I remember well having heard him," she answered with deep emphasis.

"But, my father did not know," I began in a low murmur, looking wistfully out at the yellow leaves and fleeting clouds. I stopped suddenly, remembering that I was not alone. Before either of us could speak again Hannah appeared in the doorway with the afternoon mail between her hands.

This interrupted our _tete-a-tete_. My step-mother took the bundle of letters, from which she handed me three, and went away to share the contents of her own with her sympathetic relatives below. Two of mine were familiar to me; one bearing an English post-mark was from Alice Merivale, the other was Hortense's dear writing.

I tore them open and, resuming my seat, read them leisurely. How different they were in every respect! One the effusion of a worldly, artful, diplomatic beauty, the other an earnest interpretation of the loving, ardent sentiments of a whole-souled emotional child woman.

Alice had not yet heard of my father's death, and her closely-written pages told tales of fashionable pleasures and distractions of every sort. She had yachted and hunted, and bathed and danced, she had dined with the pompous Lord Mayor of London; she had hung on the braided coat sleeve of high military relics of modern antiquity, and had been kissed on both cheeks by all the wrinkled-lipped dowagers of the surrounding country.

She had been riding and driving, eating and drinking, walking and talking, with magnates of every age, s.e.x and condition. "At first it perfectly appalled me, Amey love," she wrote in her strange, facetious way, "none but the upper, upper cream of humanity wherever I went. Of course it is taken for granted that I am worthy of the great privileges extended to me. Everything is so intensely exclusive in this Christian country. People whose hands are soiled with the stain of labour, I don't care how refined or how honest it is, never by any chance find themselves at the mahogany board of aristocracy.

Coat-sleeves bearing the finger-marks of honourable industry could not safely rub against the sleek broadcloth of high-life unless by sacrificing some of their beautiful (?) hieroglyphics and forfeiting to some extent the reputations they have earned and not inherited."

"I wonder what some of these starched patricians would do in our country, Amey? for there respectable commercial industry is wined and dined without question by Her Majesty's worthy representatives, the least evil, I suppose, would be the complete loss of appet.i.te, that would be sure to a.s.sail them."

"I can't tell how much longer we may remain here," her interesting letter continued, "Papa is still hopeful of wonderful results, there are some placid suitors going about, loaded with a burden of pedigree and the honours of their dead, and I know that my sanguine parent fondly expects, that he shall awake some morning and find our generation made famous by such a burden being condescendingly laid before my satin slippers. _Vanitas Vanitatum!_ But, how grand it would be? Picture it, think of it, common place men! Sir Maximus and Lady Adlepait? How would the obscure Miss Hampden, fancy that? To be sure, this indefinite suitor has nought but the borrowed chivalry of his departed ancestors, and if he seek to crown me at all (which is only a heart-rending possibility) it must be with the laurels, hard won by the heroes of a former generation. His silky hands will be full of nothing more tempting than slender veins of genuine blue-blood--but, as papa says--what do we want any more money for, we have enough for any ordinary human life-time?"

"If the project of my anxious parent should a.s.sume any definite or reliable outlines, I shall let you know immediately, for I have implicit faith in you, and I know you would never betray me, I must tell my novel experiences and opinions to some one, and the best someone is you. Take every care of yourself, while I am absent, some day you will be coming to my manor-house on a visit. I will try to get a husband who has some unmarried masculine relatives, so as to keep up the fun of my own courtship among my particular girl-friends. I intend to make the most of my life while it lasts, I believe in the world I am most sure of, so don't trouble me with any of your pious lectures, they only upset me, and make me feel very gloomy. Give my love to every one who thinks of asking about me, and write a long, chatty, gossiping letter, very soon to your sincere ALICE."

Her bright, spicy pages had wooed me away from all my gloomy thoughts and surroundings. My tired spirit had flown across the broad Atlantic at sight of her missive, and reveled for a few happy moments, amid phantom pleasures. Now, with her finished letter lying in my listless fingers, upon my lap, I was creeping back to my sorrows from this outward sunshine, that had fallen in a golden flood, upon the dark shadows of my present miseries. The slow awakening to my actual condition reminded me of my third, unnoticed letter. I took it up aimlessly, it was unfamiliar to me, and turned it over in my hand.

"Who is it from?" I muttered in quiet astonishment, tearing the thick envelope across with a half amused curiosity. The reader will not wonder that my curiosity became still more deeply aroused as I took out the neatly folded paper which was enclosed, and read the following--

"MY DEAR AMEY,--I have learned with profound regret of your dear father's recent demise, and hasten to offer you my most earnest condolence. It is a great grief, I know, but not without its consolations, for it is our beautiful privilege, to live in hope, awaiting the day of a happy re-union with those who are not lost but only gone before.

"In the early hours of our sorrow, no matter what its nature may be, we cannot incline ourselves to look upon the brighter side, which our friends will endeavour to hold up to us; therefore I will not intrude my feeble words of comfort upon you now; my object in writing to you at present is to ask you whether you intend to live on with your father's second wife or not?

"If you should find yourself in any dilemma pertaining to this critical question, I wish you to understand, that my house and home (such as they are) will always be open to you. You have a right to them, and nothing would give me greater pleasure, than to have you with me. In a sense we are strangers, for circ.u.mstances have kept us apart, but, I think I love you more dearly than any of those with whose names and lives you are more familiar.

"I am the only surviving relative of your dear, dead mother in this country; our fathers, being brothers, but as I lost mine in my early youth, I was brought up in my uncle's house, with your mother for a little sister.

"It now happens, that you may need the shelter of a real home. I wish I had better to offer you, but such as it is, I beg you will not hesitate to accept it, if it can relieve you from greater discomforts.

"I am, my dear Amey,

"Your loving and sincere cousin,

"BESSIE NYLE."

My hands fell into my lap a second time; I was almost dazed with astonishment. To think that at the very moment when I was puzzling over the melancholy enigma, of where to find a home whose shelter could be both generously given and comfortably received, this strange but earnest offer should suggest itself.

Without a moment's hesitation or forethought, I sat down and wrote a hurried reply, accepting with eager enthusiasm the shelter of her home and love, adding, that circ.u.mstances would force me to avail myself of her cordial hospitality even sooner, perhaps, than she expected, as my step-mother was leaving the house in a week from that date and would like to see me safely disposed of before her departure.

It was only when this letter was sealed and dispatched that I began to a.n.a.lyse my extraordinary situation and its possible issues. It is true that at the time of my decision I saw only a haven of rest rising out of the gloom and mists that hung heavily about me, some definite shelter from the storm of confusion and sorrow that had broken upon my life so suddenly.

But when time wore on a little I began to question myself uneasily about the step I had so precipitately taken. To act upon my cousin's kind suggestion, was to go away from all my dearest and fondest a.s.sociations; it would oblige me to give up my past life, sorrows and joys alike; to abandon the few friends, in whose companionship I had found one of my rarest delights, and to go among strangers who could not care for me except in a relative or, at most, an indirect way.

What would they say? those who pretended to be interested in my welfare and happiness, when they found I had gone to a new home among new faces and strange hearts, would they miss me? Would they wish me back? or would they soon forget me amid the other gay distractions of their daily lives?

Should I let them know that I was to leave so soon for an indefinite length of time? If they were anxious about me they could come and find it out; but they had come after the funeral and I would not see them; how could they tell I wanted them now? It was the penalty of my former indifference that I must need sympathy and consolation when they had both pa.s.sed out of my reach.

What a dreary, endless thing life seemed at this period!