MARTHA FINLEY Ultimate Collection – Timeless Children Classics & Other Novels. Finley Martha

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      Chapter XIX

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      Oh, what a feeble fort's a woman's heart,

       Betrayed by nature, and besieged by art.

      —FANE'S "LOVE IN THE DARK."

      "Dear child, what shall I do without you?" sighed Miss Stanhope, clasping Elsie in her arms, and holding her in a long, tender embrace; for the time of parting had come. "Horace, will you bring her to see me again?"

      "Yes, aunt, if she wants to come. But don't ask me to leave her again."

      "Well, if you can't stay with me, or trust her yourself, let Mr. Vanilla come and stand guard over us both. I'd be happy, sir, at any time when you can make it convenient for me to see you here, with Horace and the child, or without them."

      "Thank you, Miss Stanhope; and mother and I would be delighted to see you at Ion."

      "Come, Elsie, we must go; the carriage is waiting and the train nearly due," said Mr. Dinsmore. "Good-bye, Aunt Wealthy. Daughter, put down your veil."

      Egerton was at the depot, but could get neither a word with Elsie, nor so much as a sight of her face. Her veil was not once lifted, and her father never left her side for a moment. Mr. Travilla bought the tickets, and Simon attended to the checking of the baggage. Then the train came thundering up, and the fair girl was hurried into it, Mr. Travilla, on one side, and her father on the other, effectually preventing any near approach to her person on the part of the baffled and disappointed fortune-hunter.

      He walked back to his boarding-house, cursing his ill luck and Messrs. Dinsmore and Travilla, and gave notice to his landlady that his room would become vacant the next morning.

      As the train sped onward, again Elsie laid her head down upon her father's shoulder and wept silently behind her veil. Her feelings had been wrought up to a high pitch of excitement in the struggle to be perfectly submissive and obedient, and now the overstrained nerves claimed this relief. And love's young dream, the first, and sweetest, was over and gone. She could never hope to see again the man she still fondly imagined to be good and noble, and with a heart full of deep, passionate love for her.

      Her father understood and sympathized with it all. He passed his arm about her waist, drew her closer to him, and taking her hand in his, held it in a warm, loving clasp.

      How it soothed and comforted her. She could never be very wretched while thus tenderly loved, and cherished.

      And, arrived at her journey's end, there were mamma and little brother to rejoice over her return, as at the recovery of a long-lost, precious treasure.

      "You shall never go away again," said the little fellow, hugging her tight. "When a boy has only one sister, he can't spare her to other folks, can he, papa?"

      "No, son," answered Mr. Dinsmore, patting his rosy cheek, and softly stroking Elsie's hair, "and it is just the same with a man who has but one daughter."

      "You don't look bright and merry, as you did when you went away," said the child, bending a gaze of keen, loving scrutiny upon the sweet face, paler, sadder, and more heavy-eyed than he had ever seen it before.

      "Sister is tired with her journey," said mamma tenderly; "we won't tease her to-night."

      "Yes," said her father, "she must go early to bed, and have a long night's rest."

      "Yes, papa, and then she'll be all right to-morrow, won't she? But, mamma, I wasn't teasing her, not a bit; was I, Elsie? And if anybody's been making her sorry, I'll kill him. 'Cause she's my sister, and I've got to take care of her."

      "But suppose papa was the one who had made her sorry; what then?" asked Mr. Dinsmore.

      "But you wouldn't, papa," said the boy, shaking his head with an incredulous smile. "You love her too much a great deal; you'd never make her sorry unless she'd be naughty; and she's never one bit naughty,—always minds you and mamma the minute you speak."

      "That's true, my son; I do love her far too well ever to grieve her if it can be helped. She shall never know a pang a father's love and care can save her from." And again his hand rested caressingly on Elsie's head.

      She caught it in both of hers and laying her cheek lovingly against it, looked up at him with tears trembling in her eyes. "I know it, papa," she murmured. "I know you love your foolish little daughter very dearly; almost as dearly as she loves you."

      "Almost, darling? If there were any gauge by which to measure love, I know not whose would be found the greatest."

      Mr. Dinsmore and his father-in-law had taken adjoining cottages for the summer, and though "the season" was so nearly over that the hotels and boarding-houses were but thinly populated and would soon close, the two families intended remaining another month. So this was in some sort a home-coming СКАЧАТЬ