Kitabı oku: «The Clever Woman of the Family», sayfa 19
CHAPTER XV. GO AND BRAY
“Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this!”—
As You Like It
“Alick, I have something to say to you.”
Captain Keith did not choose to let his sister travel alone, when he could help it, and therefore was going to Bath with her, intending to return to Avoncester by the next down train. He made no secret that he thought it a great deal of trouble, and had been for some time asleep, when, at about two stations from Bath, Bessie having shut the little door in the middle of the carriage, thus addressed him, “Alick, I have something to say to you, and I suppose I may as well say it now.”
She pressed upon his knee, and with an affected laziness, he drew his eyes wide open.
“Ah, well, I’ve been a sore plague to you, but I shall be off your hands now.”
“Eh! whose head have you been turning?”
“Alick, what do you think of Lord Keith?”
Alick was awake enough now! “The old ass!” he exclaimed. “But at least you are out of his way now.”
“Not at all. He is coming to Bath to-morrow to see my aunt.”
“And you want me to go out to-morrow and stop him?”
“No, Alick, not exactly. I have been cast about the world too long not to be thankful.”
“Elizabeth!”
“Do not look so very much surprised,” she said, in her sweet pleading way. “May I not be supposed able to feel that noble kindness and gracious manner, and be glad to have some one to look up to?”
“And how about Charlie Carleton?” demanded Alick, turning round full on her.
“For shame, Alick!” she exclaimed hotly; “you who were the one to persecute me about him, and tell me all sorts of things about his being shallow and unprincipled, and not to be thought of, you to bring him up against me now.”
“I might think all you allege,” returned Alick, gravely, “and yet be much amazed at the new project.”
Bessie laughed. “In fact you made a little romance, in which you acted the part of sapient brother, and the poor little sister broke her heart ever after! You wanted such an entertainment when you were lying on the sofa, so you created a heroine and a villain, and thundered down to the rescue.”
“Very pretty, Bessie, but it will not do. It was long after I was well again, and had joined.”
“Then it was the well-considered effect of the musings of your convalescence! When you have a sister to take care of, it is as well to feel that you are doing it.”
“Now, Elizabeth,” said her brother, with seriousness not to be laughed aside, and laying his hand on hers, “before I hear another word on this matter, look me in the face and tell me deliberately that you never cared for Carleton.”
“I never thought for one moment of marrying him,” said Bessie, haughtily. “If I ever had any sort of mercy on him, it was all to tease you. There, are you satisfied?”
“I must be, I suppose,” he replied, and he sighed heavily. “When was this settled?”
“Yesterday, walking up and down the esplanade. He will tell his brother to-day, and I shall write to Lady Temple. Oh, Alick, he is so kind, he spoke so highly of you.”
“I must say,” returned Alick, in the same grave tone, “that if you wished for the care of an old man, I should have thought my uncle the more agreeable of the two.”
“He is little past fifty. You are very hard on him.”
“On the contrary, I am sorry for him. You will always find it good for him to do whatever suits yourself.”
“Alick?” said his sister mournfully, “you have never forgotten or forgiven my girlish bits of neglect after your wound.”
“No, Bessie,” he said, holding her hand kindly, “it is not the neglect or the girlishness, but the excuses to me, still more to my uncle, and most of all to yourself. They are what make me afraid for you in what you are going to take upon yourself.”
She did not answer immediately, and he pursued—“Are you driven to this by dislike to living at Bishopsworthy? If so, do not be afraid to tell me. I will make any arrangement, if you would prefer living with Jane. We agreed once that it would be too expensive, but now I could let you have another hundred a year.”
“As if I would allow that, Alick! No, indeed! Lord Keith means you to have all my share.”
“Does he? There are more words than one to that question. And pray is he going to provide properly for his poor daughter in the West Indies?”
“I hope to induce him to take her into favour.”
“Eh? and to make him give up to Colin Keith that Auchinvar estate that he ought to have had when Archie Keith died?”
“You may be sure I shall do my best for the Colonel. Indeed, I do think Lord Keith will consent to the marriage now.”
“You have sacrificed yourself on that account?” he said, with irony in his tone, that he could have repented the next moment, so good-humoured was her reply, “That is understood, so give me the merit.”
“The merit of, for his sake, becoming a grandmother. You have thought of the daughters? Mrs. Comyn Menteith must be older than yourself.”
“Three years,” said Bessie, in his own tone of acceptance of startling facts, “and I shall have seven grandchildren in all, so you see you must respect me.”
“Do you know her sentiments?”
“I know what they will be when we have met. Never fear, Alick. If she were not married it might be serious, being so, I have no fears.”
Then came a silence, till a halt at the last station before Bath roused Alick again.
“Bessie,” he said, in the low voice the stoppage permitted, “don’t think me unkind. I believe you have waited on purpose to leave me no time for expostulation, and what I have said has sounded the more harsh in consequence.”
“No, Alick,” she said, “you are a kind brother in all but the constructions you put upon my doings. I think it would be better if there were more difference between our ages. You are a young guardian, over anxious, and often morbidly fanciful about me during your illness. I think we shall be happier together when you no longer feel yourself responsible.”
“The tables turned,” muttered Alick.
“I am prepared for misconstruction,” added Bessie. “I know it will be supposed to be the title; the estate it cannot be, for you know how poor a property it is; but I do not mean to care for the world. Your opinion is a different thing, and I thought you would have seen that I could not be insensible to such dignified kindness, and the warmth of a nature that many people think cold.”
“I don’t like set speeches, Bessie.”
“Then believe me, Alick. May I not love the fine old man that has been so kind to me?”
“I hope you do,” said Alick, slowly.
“And you can’t believe it? Not with Lady Temple before you and hers was really an old man.”
“Do not talk of her or Sir Stephen either. No, Bessie,” he added more calmly after a time, “I may be doing great injustice to you both, but I must speak what it is my duty to say. Lord Keith is a hard, self-seeking man, who has been harsh and grasping towards his family, and I verily believe came here bent on marriage, only because his brother was no longer under his tyranny. He may not be harsh to you, because he is past his vigour, and if he really loves you, you have a power of governing; but from what I know of you, I cannot believe in your loving him enough to make such management much better than selfish manoeuvring. Therefore I cannot think this marriage for your real welfare, or be other than bitterly grieved at it. Do not answer, Bessie, but think this over, and if at any time this evening you feel the least doubt of your happiness in this matter, telegraph to me, and I will stop him.”
“Indeed, Alick,” she answered, without anger, “I believe you are very anxious for my good.”
It will readily be believed that Captain Keith received no telegram.
Nevertheless, as soon as his time was his own the next morning, he rode to Avonmouth and sought out the Colonel, not perhaps with very defined hopes of making any change in his sister’s intentions, but feeling that some attempt on his own part must be made, if only to free himself from acquiescence, and thinking that Colin, as late guardian to the one party, and brother to the other, was the most proper medium.
Colonel Keith was taken by surprise at the manner in which his cordial greeting was met. He himself had been far from displeased at his brother’s communication; it was a great relief to him personally, as well as on Lady Temple’s account, and he had been much charmed at Bessie’s good sense and engaging graces. As to disparity of years, Lord Keith had really made himself much younger of late, and there was much to excite a girl’s romance in the courtesy of an elderly man, the chief of her clan; moreover, the perfect affection and happiness Colin had been used to witness in his general’s family disposed him to make light of that objection; and he perceived that his brother was sufficiently bewitched to be likely to be kind and indulgent to his bride.
He had not expected Alexander Keith to be as well pleased as he was himself, but he was not prepared for his strong disapprobation, and earnest desire to find some means of prevention, and he began to reassure him upon the placability of Mrs. Comyn Menteith, the daughter, as well as upon his brother’s kindness to the objects of his real affection.
“Oh, I am not afraid of that. She will manage him fast enough.”
“Very likely, and for his good. Nor need you question his being a safe guide for her in higher matters. Perhaps you are prejudiced against him because his relations with me have not been happy, but candidly, in them you know the worst of him; and no doubt he thought himself purely acting for my welfare. I know much more of him now that I have been at home with him, and I was greatly struck with his real consideration for the good of all concerned with him.”
“No, I am not thinking of Lord Keith. To speak it out, I cannot believe that my sister has heart enough in this to justify her.”
“Young girls often are more attracted by elderly men than by lads.”
“You do not know Bessie as, I am sorry to say, I do,” said Alick, speaking slowly and sadly, and with a flush of shame on his cheek. “I do not say that she says anything untrue, but the truth is not in her. She is one of those selfish people who are infinitely better liked than those five hundred times their worth, because they take care to be always pleased.”
“They give as much pleasure as they take.”
“Yes, they take every one in. I wish to my heart I could be taken in too, but I have seen too much of her avoidance of every service to my uncle that she did not like. I verily believe, at this moment, that one great inducement with her is to elude the care of him.”
“Stern judgments, Alick. I know you would not speak thus without warrant; but take it into account that marriage makes many a girl’s selfishness dual, and at last drowns the self.”
“Yes, when it is a marriage of affection. But the truth must be told, Colonel. There was a trumpery idle fellow always loitering at Littleworthy, and playing croquet. I set my face against it with all my might, and she always laughed to scorn the notion that there was anything in it, nor do I believe that she has heart enough to wish to marry him. I could almost say I wish she had, but I never saw her show the same pleasure in any one’s attentions, and I believe he is gone out to Rio in hopes of earning means to justify his addresses.”
Colonel Keith sat gravely considering what he knew would not be spoken lightly. “Do you mean that there was attachment enough to make it desirable that you should tell my brother?”
“No, I could say nothing that she could not instantly contradict with perfect truth, though not with perfect sincerity.”
“Let me ask you one question, Alick—not a flattering one. May not some of these private impressions of yours have been coloured by your long illness!”
“That is what Bessie gives every one to understand,” said Alick, calmly. “She is right, to a certain degree, that suffering sharpened my perceptions, and helplessness gave me time to draw conclusions. If I had been well, I might have been as much enchanted as other people; and if my uncle had not needed her care, and been neglected, I could have thought that I was rendered exacting by illness. But I imagine all I have said is not of the slightest use, only, if you think it right to tell your brother to talk to me, I would rather stand all the vituperation that would fall on me than allow this to take place.”
Colonel Keith walked up and down the room considering, whilst Alick sat in a dejected attitude, shading his face, and not uttering how very bitter it had been to him to make the accusation, nor how dear the sister really was.
“I see no purpose that would be answered,” said Colonel Keith, coming to a pause at last; “you have nothing tangible to mention, even as to the former affair that you suspect. I see a great deal in your view of her to make you uneasy, but nothing that would not be capable of explanation, above all to such a man as my brother. It would appear like mere malevolence.”
“Never mind what it would appear,” said Alick, who was evidently in such a ferment as his usually passive demeanour would have seemed incapable of.
“If the appearance would entirely baffle the purpose, it must be considered,” said the Colonel; “and in this case it could only lead to estrangement, which would be a lasting evil. I conclude that you have remonstrated with your sister.”
“As much as she gave me time for; but of course that is breath spent in vain.”
“Your uncle had the same means of judging as yourself.”
“No, Colonel, he could do nothing! In the first place, there can be no correspondence with him; and next, he is so devotedly fond of Bessie, that he would no more believe anything against her than Lady Temple would. I have tried that more than once.”
“Then, Alick, there is nothing for it but to let it take its course; and even upon your own view, your sister will be much safer married than single.”
“I had very little expectation of your saying anything else, but in common honesty I felt bound to let you know.”
“And now the best thing to be done is to forget all you have said.”
“Which you will do the more easily as you think it an amiable delusion of mine. Well, so much the better. I dare say you will never think otherwise, and I would willingly believe that my senses went after my fingers’ ends.”
The Colonel almost believed so himself. He was aware of the miserably sensitive condition of shattered nerve in which Alick had been sent home, and of the depression of spirits that had ensued on the news of his father’s death; and he thought it extremely probable that his weary hours and solicitude for his gay young sister might have made molehills into mountains, and that these now weighed on his memory and conscience. At least, this seemed the only way of accounting for an impression so contrary to that which Bessie Keith made on every one else, and, by his own avowal, on the uncle whom he so much revered. Every other voice proclaimed her winning, amiable, obliging, considerate, and devoted to the service of her friends, with much drollery and shrewdness of perception, tempered by kindness of heart and unwillingness to give pain; and on that sore point of residence with the blind uncle, it was quite possibly a bit of Alick’s exaggerated feeling to imagine the arrangement so desirable—the young lady might be the better judge.
On the whole, the expostulation left Colonel Keith more uncomfortable on Alick’s account than on that of his brother.
CHAPTER XVI. AN APPARITION
“And there will be auld Geordie Tanner,
Who coft a young wife wi’ his gowd.”
JOANNA BAILLIE.
“Mamma,” quoth Leoline, “I thought a woman must not marry her grandfather. And she called him the patriarch of her clan.”
“He is a cross old man,” added Hubert. “He said children ought not to be allowed on the esplanade, because he got into the way as I was pushing the perambulator.”
“This was the reason,” said Francis, gravely, “that she stopped me from braying at him. I shall know what people are at, when they talk of disrespect another time.”
“Don’t talk of her,” cried Conrade, flinging himself round; “women have no truth in them.”
“Except the dear, darling, delightful mammy!” And the larger proportion of boys precipitated themselves headlong upon her, so that any one but a mother would have been buffeted out of breath in their struggles for embracing ground; and even Lady Temple found it a relief when Hubert, having been squeezed out, bethought himself of extending the honourable exception to Miss Williams, and thus effected a diversion. What would have been the young gentlemen’s reception of his lordship’s previous proposal!
Yet in the fulness of her gladness the inconsistent widow, who had thought Lord Keith so much too old for herself, gave her younger friend heartfelt congratulations upon the blessing of being under fatherly direction and guidance. She was entrusted with the announcement to Rachel, who received it with a simple “Indeed!” and left her cousin unmolested in her satisfaction, having long relegated Fanny to the class of women who think having a friend about to be married the next best thing to being married themselves, no matter to whom.
“Aspirations in women are mere delusions,” was her compensating sigh to Grace. “There is no truer saying, than that a woman will receive every man.”
“I have always been glad that is aprocryphal,” said Grace, “and Eastern women have no choice.”
“Nor are Western women better than Eastern,” said Rachel. “It is all circumstances. No mental power or acuteness has in any instance that I have yet seen, been able to balance the propensity to bondage. The utmost flight is, that the attachment should not be unworthy.”
“I own that I am very much surprised,” said Grace.
“I am not at all,” said Rachel. “I have given up hoping better things. I was beginning to have a high opinion of Bessie Keith’s capabilities, but womanhood was at the root all the time; and, as her brother says, she has had great disadvantages, and I can make excuses for her. She had not her heart filled with one definite scheme of work and usefulness, such as deters the trifling and designing.”
“Like the F. U. E. E.?”
“Yes, the more I see of the fate of other women, the more thankful I am that my vocation has taken a formed and developed shape.”
And thus Rachel could afford to speak without severity of the match, though she abstained from congratulation. She did not see Captain Keith for the next few days, but at last the two sisters met him at the Cathedral door as they were getting into the carriage after a day’s shopping at Avoncester; and Grace offered her congratulations, in accordance with her mother’s old fashioned code.
“Thank you,” he said; then turning to Rachel, “Did she write to you?”
“No.”
“I thought not.”
There was something marked in his tone, but his sister’s silence was not of long duration, for a letter arrived containing orders for lace, entreating that a high pressure might be put on Mrs. Kelland, and containing beauteous devices for the veil, which was to be completed in a fearfully short time, since the wedding was to be immediate, in order that Lord Keith might spend Christmas and the ensuing cold months abroad. It was to take place at Bath, and was to be as quiet as possible; “or else,” wrote Miss Keith, “I should have been enchanted to have overcome your reluctance to witness the base surrender of female rights. I am afraid you are only too glad to be let off, only don’t thank me, but circumstances.”
Rachel’s principles revolted at the quantity of work demanded of the victims to lace, and Grace could hardly obtain leave to consult Mrs. Kelland. But she snapped at the order, for the honour and glory of the thing, and undertook through the ramifications of her connexion to obtain the whole bridal array complete. “For such a pleasant-spoken lady as Miss Keith, she would sit up all night rather than disappoint her.”
The most implacable person of all was the old housekeeper, Tibbie. She had been warmly attached to Lady Keith, and resented her having a successor, and one younger than her daughters; and above all, ever since the son and heir had died, she had reckoned on her own Master Colin coming to the honours of the family, and regarded this new marriage as a crossing of Providence. She vainly endeavoured to stir up Master Colin to remonstrate on his brother’s “makin’ siccan a fule’s bargain wi’ yon glaikit lass. My certie, but he’ll hae the warst o’t, honest man; rinnin’ after her, wi’ a’ her whigmaleries an’ cantrips. He’ll rue the day that e’er he bowed his noble head to the likes o’ her, I’m jalousin.”
It was to no purpose to remind her that the bride was a Keith in blood; her great grandfather a son of the house of Gowanbrae; all the subsequent descendants brave soldiers.
“A Keith ca’ ye her! It’s a queer kin’ o’ Keiths she’s comed o’, nae better nor Englishers that haena sae muckle’s set fit in our bonny Scotland; an’ sic scriechin’, skirlin’ tongues as they hae, a body wad need to be gleg i’ the uptak to understan’ a word they say. Tak’ my word for’t, Maister Colin, it’s no a’thegither luve for his lordship’s grey hairs that gars yon gilpy lassock seek to become my Leddy Keith.”
“Nay, Tibbie, if you find fault with such a sweet, winning young creature, I shall think it is all because you will not endure a mistress at Gowanbrae over you.”
“His lordship’ll please himsel’ wi’ a leddy to be mistress o’ Gowanbrae, but auld Tibbie’ll never cross the doorstane mair.”
“Indeed you will, Tibbie; here are my brother’s orders that you should go down, as soon as you can conveniently make ready, and see about the new plenishing.”
“They may see to the plenishing that’s to guide it after han, an’ that’ll no be me. My lord’ll behove to tak’ his orders aff his young leddy ance he’s married on her, may be a whilie afore, but that’s no to bind ither folk, an’ it’s no to be thought that at my years I’m to be puttin’ up wi’ a’ ther new fangled English fykes an’ nonsense maggots. Na, na, Maister Colin, his lordship’ll fend weel aneugh wantin’ Tibbie; an’ what for suld I leave yerself, an’ you settin’ up wi’ a house o’ yer ain? Deed an’ my mind’s made up, I’ll e’en bide wi’ ye, an’ nae mair about it.”
“Stay, stay,” cried Colin, a glow coming into his cheeks, “don’t reckon without your host, Tibbie. Do you think Gowanbrae the second is never to have any mistress but yourself?”
“Haud awa’ wi’ ye, laddie, I ken fine what ye’ra ettlin’ at, but yon’s a braw leddy, no like thae English folk, but a woman o’ understandin’, an’ mair by token I’m thinkin’ she’ll be gleg aneugh to ken a body that’ll serve her weel, an’ see to the guidin’ o’ thae feckless queens o’ servant lasses, for bad’s the best o’ them ye’ll fin’ hereawa’. Nae fear but her an’ me’ll put it up weel thegither, an’ a’ gude be wi’ ye baith.”
After this Colin resigned himself and his household to Tibbie’s somewhat despotic government, at least for the present. To Ermine’s suggestion that her appellation hardly suited the dignity of her station, he replied that Isabel was too romantic for southern ears, and that her surname being the same as his own, he was hardly prepared to have the title of Mrs. Keith pre-occupied. So after Mrs. Curtis’s example, the world for the most part knew the colonel’s housekeeper as Mrs. Tibbs.
She might be a tyrant, but liberties were taken with her territory; for almost the first use that the colonel made of his house was to ask a rheumatic sergeant, who had lately been invalided, to come and benefit by the Avonmouth climate. Scottish hospitality softened Tibbie’s heart, and when she learnt that Sergeant O’Brien had helped to carry Master Colin into camp after his wound, she thought nothing too good for him. The Colonel then ventured to add to the party an exemplary consumptive tailor from Mr. Mitchell’s parish, who might yet be saved by good living and good air. Some growls were elicited, but he proved to be so deplorably the ninetieth rather than the ninth part of a man, that Tibbie made it her point of honour to fatten him; and the sergeant found him such an intelligent auditor of the Indian exploits of the —th Highlanders that mutual respect was fully established, and high politeness reigned supreme, even though the tailor could never be induced to delight in the porridge, on which the sergeant daily complimented the housekeeper in original and magnificent metaphors.
Nor had the Colonel any anxieties in leaving the representatives of the three nations together while he went to attend his brother’s wedding. He proposed that Tibbie should conduct Rose for the daily walk of which he had made a great point, thinking that the child did not get exercise enough, since she was so averse to going alone upon the esplanade that her aunt forbore to press it. She manifested the same reluctance to going out with Tibbie, and this the Colonel ascribed to her fancying herself too old to be under the charge of a nurse. It was trying to laugh her out of her dignity, but without eliciting an answer, when, one afternoon just as they were entering together upon the esplanade, he felt her hand tighten upon his own with a nervous frightened clutch, as she pressed tremulously to his side.
“What is it, my dear? That dog is not barking at you. He only wants to have a stick thrown into the sea for him.”
“Oh not the dog! It was—”
“Was, what?”
“HIM!” gasped Rose.
“Who?” inquired the Colonel, far from prepared for the reply, in a terrified whisper,—
“Mr. Maddox.”
“My dear child! Which, where?”
“He is gone! he is past. Oh, don’t turn back! Don’t let me see him again.”
“You don’t suppose he could hurt you, my dear.”
“No,” hesitated Rose, “not with you.”
“Nor with any one.”
“I suppose not,” said Rose, common sense reviving, though her grasp was not relaxed.
“Would it distress you very much to try to point him out to me?” said the Colonel, in his irresistibly sweet tone.
“I will. Only keep hold of my hand, pray,” and the little hand trembled so much that he felt himself committing a cruel action in leading her along the esplanade, but there was no fresh start of recognition, and when they had gone the whole length, she breathed more freely, and said, “No, he was not there.”
Recollecting how young she had been at the time of Maddox’s treason, the Colonel began to doubt if her imagination had not raised a bugbear, and he questioned her, “My dear, why are you so much afraid, of this person? What do you know about him?”
“He told wicked stories of my papa,” said Rose, very low.
“True, but he could not hurt you. You don’t think he goes about like Red Ridinghood’s wolf?”
“No, I am not so silly now.”
“Are you sure you know him? Did you often see him in your papa’s house?”
“No, he was always in the laboratory, and I might not go there.”
“Then you see, Rose, it must be mere fancy that you saw him, for you could not even know him by sight.”
“It was not fancy,” said Rose, gentle and timid as ever, but still obviously injured at the tone of reproof.
“My dear child,” said Colonel Keith, with some exertion of patience, “you must try to be reasonable. How can you possibly recognise a man that you tell me you never saw?”
“I said I never saw him in the house,” said Rose with a shudder; “but they said if ever I told they would give me to the lions in the Zoological Gardens.”
“Who said so?”
“He, Mr. Maddox and Maria,” she answered, in such trepidation that he could scarcely hear her.
“But you are old and wise enough now to know what a foolish and wicked threat that was, my dear.”
“Yes, I was a little girl then, and knew no better, and once I did tell a lie when mamma asked me, and now she is dead, and I can never tell her the truth.”
Colin dreaded a public outbreak of the sobs that heaved in the poor child’s throat, but she had self-control enough to restrain them till he had led her into his own library, where he let her weep out her repentance for the untruth, which, wrested from her by terror, had weighed so long on her conscience. He felt that he was sparing Ermine something by receiving the first tempest of tears, in the absolute terror and anguish of revealing the secret that had preyed on her with mysterious horror.
“Now tell me all about it, my dear little girl. Who was this Maria?”
“Maria was my nurse when I lived at home. She used to take me out walking,” said Rose, pressing closer to his protecting breast, and pausing as though still afraid of her own words.
“Well,” he said, beginning to perceive, “and was it than that you saw this Maddox?”
“Yes, he used to come and walk with us, and sit under the trees in Kensington Gardens with her. And sometimes he gave me lemon-drops, but they said if ever I told, the lions should have me. I used to think I might be saved like Daniel; but after I told the lie, I knew I should not. Mamma asked me why my fingers were sticky, and I did say it was from a lemon-drop, but there were Maria’s eyes looking at me; oh, so dreadful, and when mamma asked who gave it to me, and Maria said, ‘I did, did not I, Miss Rose?’ Oh, I did not seem able to help saying ‘yes.’”
“Poor child! And you never dared to speak of it again?”
“Oh, no! I did long to tell; but, oh, one night it was written up in letters of fire, ‘Beware of the Lions.’”
“Terror must have set you dreaming, my dear.”
“No,” said Rose, earnestly. “I was quite awake. Papa and mamma were gone out to dine and sleep, and Maria would put me to bed half an hour too soon. She read me to sleep, but by-and-by I woke up, as I always did at mamma’s bed time, and the candle was gone, and there were those dreadful letters in light over the door.”
She spoke with such conviction that he became persuaded that all was not delusion, and asked what she did.
“I jumped up, and screamed, and opened the door; but there they were growling in papa’s dressing-room.”
“They, the lions? Oh, Rose, you must know that was impossible.”
“No, I did not see any lions, but I heard the growl, and Mr. Maddox coughed, and said, ‘Here they come,’ and growled again.”
“And you—?”
“I tumbled into bed again, and rolled up my head in the clothes, and prayed that it might be day, and it was at last!”
