Anne Hereford. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ dreaded the meeting, believing it would be one of sobs and lamentation for my mother: not taking into account how careless and light-headed Selina was. I had called her "Selina," since, a little girl of four, I had gone on a visit to Keppe-Carew.

      Taking off my bonnet, she kissed me several times, and then held me before her by my hands as she sat on the sofa. Miss Delves went out and closed the door.

      "They are not home from shooting yet, Anne, so we can have a little talk to ourselves. When they go to the far covers, there's no knowing when they'll be in: two nights ago they kept me waiting dinner until eight o'clock."

      "Who did, Aunt Selina?"

      "Mr. Barley, and the rest," she answered, carelessly. "Anne, how very strange it was that your mamma should have died so quickly at the last! It was only two weeks before her death that she wrote to tell me she was ill."

      "She had been ill longer than that, Aunt Selina----"

      "Call me Selina, child."

      "But she did not tell any one until she knew there was danger. She did not tell me."

      "It was a renewal of that old complaint she had in India--that inward complaint."

      I turned my head and my wet eyes from her. "They told me it was her heart, Selina."

      "Yes; in a measure; that had something to do with it. It must have been a sad parting, Anne. Why, child, you are sobbing!"

      "Please don't talk of it!"

      "But I must talk of it: I like to have my curiosity gratified," she said, in her quick way. "Did the doctors say from the first that there was no hope?"

      "Mamma knew there was no hope when she wrote to you. She had told me so the day before."

      "I wonder she told you at all."

      "Oh, Selina! that fortnight was too short for the leave-taking; for all she had to say to me. It will be years, perhaps, before we meet again."

      "Meet again! Meet where?"

      "In Heaven!"

      "You are a strange child!" exclaimed Selina, looking at me very steadfastly. "Ursula has infected you, I see, with her serious notions. I used to tell her there was time enough for it years hence."

      "And mamma used to tell you that perhaps, if you put off and put off, the years hence might never come for you, Selina."

      "What! you remember that, do you?" she said, with a smile. "Yes, she used to lecture me; she was fifteen years older than I, and assumed the right to do so."

      "Mamma never lectured; what she said was always kind and gentle," was my sobbing answer.

      "Yes, yes. You think me insensible now, Anne; but my grief is over--that is the violence of the grief. When the letter came to say Ursula was dead, I cried the whole day, never ceasing."

      "Mamma had a warning of her death," I continued; for it was one of the things she had charged me to tell to her sister Selina.

      "Had a what, child?"

      "A warning. The night before she was taken ill--I mean dangerously ill--she dreamt she saw papa in a most beautiful place, all light and flowers; no place on earth could ever have been so beautiful except the Garden of Eden. He beckoned her to come to him, and pointed to a vacant place by his side, saying, 'It is ready for you now, Ursula.' Mamma awoke then, and the words were sounding in her ears; she could have felt sure that they were positively spoken."

      "And you can tell me this with a grave face, calling it a warning!" exclaimed Selina.

      "Mamma charged me to tell it you. She related the dream to us the next morning----"

      "Us! Whom do you mean, child?"

      "Me and our old maid Betty. She was my nurse, you know. Mamma said what a pleasant dream it was, that she was sorry to awake from it; but after she grew ill, she said she knew it was sent as a warning."

      Selina laughed. "You have lived boxed up with that stupid old Betty and your mamma, child, until you are like a grave little woman. Ursula was always superstitious. You will say you believe in ghosts next."

      "No, I do not believe in ghosts. I do in warnings. Mamma said that never a Keppe-Carew died yet without being warned of it: though few of them had noticed it at the time."

      "There, that will do, Anne. I am a Carew, and I don't want to be frightened into watching for a 'warning.' You are a Carew also, by the mother's side. Do you know, my poor child, that you are not left well off?"

      "Yes; mamma has told me all. I don't mind."

      "Don't mind!" echoed Selina, with another light laugh. "That's because you don't understand, Anne. What little your mamma had left has been sunk in an annuity for your education--eighty or a hundred pounds a year, until you are eighteen. There's something more, I believe, for clothes and incidental expenses."

      "I said I did not mind, Selina, because I am not afraid of getting my own living. Mamma said that a young lady, well-educated and of good birth, can always command a desirable position as governess. She told me not to fear, for God would take care of me."

      "Some money might be desirable for all that," returned my aunt, in a tone that sounded full of irreverence to my unaccustomed ears. "The maddest step Colonel Hereford ever took was that of selling out. He thought to better himself, and he spent and lost the money, leaving your mamma with very little when he died."

      "I don't think mamma cared much for money, Selina."

      "I don't think she did, or she would not have taken matters so quietly. Do you remember, Anne, how she used to go on at me when I said I should marry Edwin Barley?"

      "Yes; mamma said how very wrong it would be of you to marry for money."

      "Quite true. She used to put her hands to her ears when I said I hated him. Now, what are those earnest eyes of your searching me for?"

      "Do you hate him, Selina?"

      "I am not dying of love for him, you strange child."

      "One day a poor boy had a monkey before the window, and you said Mr. Edwin Barley was as ugly as that. Is he ugly?"

      Selina burst into a peal of ringing laughter. "Oh, he is very handsome, Anne; as handsome as the day: when you see him you shall tell me if you don't think so. I---- What is the matter? What are you looking at?"

      As I stood before my aunt, the door behind her seemed to be pushed gently open. I had thought some one was coming in; and said so.

      "The fire-light must have deceived you, Anne. That door is kept bolted; it leads to a passage communicating with my bedroom, but we do not use it."

      "I am certain that I saw it open," was my answer; and an unpleasant, fanciful thought came over me that it might be the man I saw in the avenue. "It is shut now; it shut again when I spoke."

      She rose, walked to the door, and tried to open it but it was fast.

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