COMING OF AGE COLLECTION - Martha Finley Edition (Timeless Children Classics For Young Girls). Finley Martha

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СКАЧАТЬ XVIII

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      What thou bidst,

       Unargued I obey; so God ordained.

      —MILTON.

      "I hope you don't intend to hurry this child away from me, Horace?" remarked Miss Stanhope inquiringly, glancing from him to Elsie, as she poured out the tea.

      "I'm afraid I must, Aunt Wealthy," he answered, taking his cup from her hand, "I can't do without her any longer, and mamma and little brother want her almost as badly."

      "And what am I to do?" cried Miss Stanhope, setting down the teapot, and dropping her hands into her lap. "It just makes a baby of me to think how lonely the old house will seem when she's gone. You'd get her back soon, for 'tisn't likely I've got long to live, if you'd only give her to me, Horace."

      "No, indeed, Aunt Wealthy; she's a treasure I can't spare to any one. She belongs to me, and I intend to keep her," turning upon his daughter a proud, fond look and smile, which was answered by one of sweet, confiding affection.

      "Good-evening!" cried a gay, girlish voice. "Mr. Dinsmore, I'd be delighted to see you, if I didn't know you'd come to rob us of Elsie."

      "What, you too ready to abuse me on that score, Miss Lottie?" he said laughingly, as he rose to shake hands with her. "I think I rather deserve thanks for leaving her with you so long."

      "Well, I suppose you do. Aunt Wealthy, papa found some remarkably fine peaches in the orchard of one of his patients, and begs you will accept this little basketful."

      "Why, they're beautiful, Lottie!" said the old lady, rising and taking the basket from her hand. "You must return my best thanks to your father. I'll set them on the table just so. Take off your hat, child, and sit down with us. There's your chair all ready to your plate, and Phillis's farmer's fresh fruit-cake, to tempt you, and the cream-biscuits that you are so fond of, both."

      "Thank you," said Lottie, partly in acknowledgment of the invitation, partly of Mr. Travilla's attention, as he rose and gallantly handed her to her seat, "I can't find it in my heart to resist so many temptations."

      "Shall I bring a dish for de peaches, mistis?" asked Chloe, who was waiting on the table.

      "Yes."

      "Oh, let us have them in that old-fashioned china fruit-basket I've always admired so much, Aunt Wealthy!" cried Lottie eagerly. "I don't believe Elsie has seen it at all."

      "No, so she hasn't; but she shall now," said the old lady, hastening toward her china-closet. "There, Aunt Chloe, just stand on the dish, and hand down that chair from this top shelf. Or, if you would, Horace, you're taller, and can reach better. I'm always like the sycamore tree that was little of stature, and couldn't see Zaccheus till he climbed into it."

      "Rather a new and improved version of the Bible narrative, aunt, isn't it?" asked Mr. Dinsmore, with an amused look, as he came toward her. "And I fear I'm rather heavy to stand on a dish; but will use the chair instead, if you like."

      "Ah! I've put the horse before the cart as usual, I see;" she said, joining good-humoredly in the laugh the others found it impossible to suppress. "It's an old trick of my age, that increases with my advancing youth, till I sometimes wonder what I'm coming to; the words will tangle themselves up in the most troublesome fashion; but if you know what I mean, I suppose it's all the same."

      "Why, Aunt Wealthy, this is really beautiful," said Mr. Dinsmore, stepping from the chair with the basket, in his hand.

      "Yes, it belonged to your great-grandmother, Horace, and I prize it highly on that account. No, Aunt Chloe, I shall wipe it out and put the peaches into it myself; it will take but a moment, and it's too precious a relic to trust to any other hands than my own."

      Lottie was apparently in the gayest spirits, enlivening the little party with many a merry jest and light, silvery laugh, enjoying the good things before her, and gratifying her hostess with praises of their excellence. Yet through it all she was furtively watching her friends, and grieved to notice the unwonted paleness of her cheek, the traces of tears about her eyes, that her cheerfulness was assumed, and that if she ate anything it was only from a desire to please her father, who seemed never to forget her for a moment, and to be a good deal troubled at her want of appetite. In all these signs Lottie read disappointment of Egerton's hopes, and of Elsie's, so far as he was concerned.

      "So I suppose her father has commanded her to give him up," she said to herself. "Poor thing! I wonder if she means to be as submissive as she thought she would."

      The two presently slipped away together into the garden, leaving the gentlemen conversing in the sitting-room, and Miss Stanhope busied with some household care.

      "You poor dear, I am so sorry for you!" whispered Lottie, putting her arm about her friend. "Must you really quite give him up?"

      "Papa says so," murmured Elsie, vainly struggling to restrain her tears.

      "Is it that he believes Mr. Travilla was not mistaken?"

      "Yes, and—and he has heard some other things against him, and thinks his explanation of Mr. Travilla's mistake quite absurd. Oh, Lottie, he will not even allow us one parting interview and says I am never to see Mr. Egerton again, or hold any communication with him in any way. If I should meet him in the street I am not to recognize him; must pass him by as a perfect stranger, not looking at him or permitting him to see my face, if I can avoid doing so."

      "And will you really submit to all that? I don't believe I could be so good."

      "I must; papa will always be obeyed."

      "But don't you feel that it's very hard? doesn't it make you feel angry with your father and love him a little less?"

      "I was angry for a little while this afternoon," Elsie acknowledged with a blush, "but I am sure I have no right to be; I know papa is acting for my good,—doing just what he believes will be most likely to secure my happiness. He says it is to save me from a life of misery, and certainly it would be that to be united to such a man as he believes Mr. Egerton is."

      "But you don't believe it, Elsie?"

      "No, no, indeed! I have not lost my faith in him yet, and I hope he may some day be able to prove to papa's entire satisfaction that he is really all that is good, noble, and honorable."

      "That is right; hope on, hope ever."

      "Ah, I don't know how we could live without hope," Elsie said, smiling faintly through her tears. "But I ought not to be wretched—oh, very far from it, with so many blessings, so many to love me! Papa's love alone would brighten life very much to me. And then," she added in a lower tone, "'that dearer Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,' and who has promised, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.'"

      "And He will keep His promise, child," said Aunt Wealthy, joining them in the arbor where they had seated themselves. "I have proved His faithfulness many times, and I know that it never fails. Elsie, dear, your old auntie would save you from every trial, but He is a far wiser and truer friend, and will cause all things to work together for your good, and never allow you to suffer one unneeded pang." She softly stroked her niece's sunny hair, as she spoke, and the kind old face was full of pitying tenderness.

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