Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

night could not conceal; but now, wearied and saddened, she sat by the window, resting her aching head on her hand, and half-wondering what it was that made her so unhappy.

She never knew till that evening, how very imperfect was her education; she was absolutely frightened at the amount of erudition displayed by Basil's sisters, and Basil himself. He had doubtless been accustomed all his life to such cleverness; when the novelty of his new possession had worn away, he would weary of the companion he had chosen for life. And Fanny Charteris!-Lilian had never heard her name before. No wonder, since she had once been more to Basil than any one. True, she herself was preferred to Miss Charteris, but it pained her excessively to know that another had once been taken to Basil's heart; and might he not, at some future time, curse the infatuation of the hour which had led him to descend from his sphere, and unite himself with a simple, uncultivated country belle?

She looked little like a belle now, the poor lily of Kirby-Brough, with her white cheeks, her heavy eyes, her loose uncurled hair, and her drooping figure. And where was Basil? Why did he not come home? Even as she irritably asked the useless question, she saw him cross the terrace, and enter one of the lower rooms by a French window. He was in the house, then! The next moment he would come to see if she were seriously indisposed, to kiss the quivering lips, to smooth the heavy straightened tresses, to soothe the discomfited spirits of his bride. But minutes sped on, and no step like his trod the corridor; she was left to loneliness and self-torture. Already he was beginning to tire of her. She sat long at the window, unconsciously watching the dusky landscape; then, fearing lest he should come and find her still up, and think

she had been waiting and wishing for him, she hurriedly undressed and flung herself, weary, angry, and dejected, on her bed.

Several hours passed, and then Basil came. Lilian expected apologies, which she intended to meet with a cold silence, but none were spoken. "What, Lily!" he cried, "awake yet! They told me you were tired, and had the headache, so I thought you should have a good long nap, before there was a chance of disturbing you. I am sorry you went to bed, we have had a delightful evening; Mary and Theresa have been giving me such music, it was a treat to hear their voices in Norma and Anna Bolena once more, and I have beaten Olivia at chess, clean beaten her-checkmated her before she knew she was in danger. There's some glory in beating Olivia, I can tell you. What! sleepy, do you say? Oh, very well. Good night.”

CHAPTER V.

A STORM.

"The hint malevolent, the look oblique, 1
The obvious satire, or implied dislike,
The sneer equivocal, the harsh reply,
And all the cruel language of the eye;

The artful injury, whose venomed dart

Scarce wounds the hearing, while it stabs the heart;
Small slights, neglect, unmixed perhaps with hate,
Make up in number what they want in weight.
These, and a thousand griefs minute as these,
Corrode our comfort, and destroy our ease."

HANNAH MORE.

THREE months had passed away, and Hopelands, in all its autumnal beauty, was resting in the calm September

sunshine. It was a glorious afternoon, rich lights were falling on wood and rock and glade; the bright flowers of the parterre were spreading their gorgeous petals beneath the cloudless sky, as if dark days of storm and tempest were far, far away. The woodlands were arrayed once more in their royal robes of crimson and gold; the dark fir reared his formal boughs against the pale early-fading leaves of the ash; the copper beech rustled his dark branches beneath the rich brown foliage of the stately elm; and the graceful birch rested lovingly in the shadow of the mountain ash, whose coral berries wore their softest, richest hue in the radiant light of the autumnal sun.

All things were at rest round Hopelands; the light wind scarcely fanned the tresses of the silver birch; the river flowed calmly through the green pastures, where the quiet herds fed in the shadow of the tall trees; only the hum of an insect or the twitter of a bird broke the dreamy stillness of the beautiful evening.

Among the flowers walked Lilian. Her step was hurried and unequal, her cheek was flushed, her brow was clouded, and her little hands nervously crushed as sweet a spray of heliotrope as was ever gathered. She was alone; the dahlias and the china-asters were the only witnesses of the fair young matron's discomfiture.

It had been a weary three months for Lilian; one perpetual struggle against the influences surrounding her. Mary would have initiated her into the mysteries of housekeeping, but she refused the instruction which, indeed, was not presented in a very alluring form. Then, again, Miss Hope was extremely partial to giving advice, and, worse still, she expected every one to follow it. She would say to Lilian, whom she found in the greenhouse devouring "Jane Eyre," "My dear Mrs. Basil, excuse me, but really this kind of reading enervates the mind and fevers the imagination; and-you

must forgive me—but if visitors should arrive and you had to make your appearance in so neglected a toilet, unpleasant remarks would certainly be the result, which could not fail to annoy your husband."

Theresa besought Lilian to take a class in her Sunday-school, and she consented. Basil was annoyed. He wanted his wife himself on Sunday, he exclaimed; but Theresa and Olivia united in declaring that Lilian's duty called her to the Sabbath-school.

How Lilian repented her compliance cannot be told. What she suffered on burning, sultry afternoons, in a small close room, crowded with weary children, can be better imagined than described. The heat, the hum, the monotony were overpowering.

Her class was as stupid as a class can be. The staple instruction was the Church Catechism, and the unlucky girls, and their equally unlucky teacher, had just reached the question-" What desirest thou of God in this prayer ?"

Lilian remembered what hard work it had been to commit to memory that portion of the catechism; it had cost her many a tear, and many a weary Sunday afternoon, before she could fluently reply to her catechizer, "but to impart it to these stupid, tired country-girls," seemed a far worse undertaking.

Lilian's class did not improve. Theresa begged her not to wear rings at the Sunday-school, and wished she would hide her gold chain and its glittering appendages beneath her mantle-such vanities took off the children's attention. At length, one sultry afternoon, when the August sun was blazing on the close, stifling school-room, Lilian created a sensation by falling from her chair to the floor, where she lay in a dead faint, that long resisted all the ordinary restoratives in cases of syncope. Basil was very angry when Lilian came home, looking as white as her dress, and evidently

unable to sit up during the evening. Theresa angrily insisted that the heated atmosphere of the school-room had nothing to do with Lilian's indisposition, inasmuch as she and her sisters endured the same inconvenience, year after year, without fainting; but she quite agreed with Basil, that she had better give up her class; she had proved herself a very inefficient teacher, and her heart was evidently not in the work.

Henceforth Theresa ceased to invite Lilian to accompany her on her charitable expeditions; and she contented herself with placing in her way what she considered suitable literature for so worldly a person. Lilian was constantly finding on her toilette, or between the pages of her novels, tracts of an awakening nature. One day she found "An Alarm to Sinners" lying on her dressing-case; the next, "A Word to the Unconverted" dropped from the pages of her beloved Longfellow;-very good little books in themselves, and calculated, under God's blessing, to touch the heart of the slumbering sinner; but altogether inefficacious when administered in the Pharisee-spirit of Theresa Hope. Lilian never read the tracts, but she complained to Basil that she was treated like a heathen. He only laughed, and said it was Tessie's hobby; she fancied her mission was to convert the world, and the obnoxious tracts were intended for himself as much as for her.

Olivia's good intentions were even more objectionable than Theresa's laudable endeavours. Basil was imprudent enough to confess that Lilian was very imperfectly educated, and to hint that as she was so young, she might, with pleasure to herself, devote a little time to study, under the superintendence of Olivia. A more unfortunate idea could not have been started. Olivia, though certainly a talented woman, was no better an instructress than Theresa was an

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »