The Shadow of a Sin. Charlotte M. Brame

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      An hour afterward they went to take the little one from her—the tender arms had relaxed their hold, and she lay dead, with a smile on her face.

      They buried her in Ashton churchyard. People called her illness by all kinds of different names, but Lady Vaughan knew she had died of a broken heart. The care of little Hyacinth devolved upon her grandmother. It was a dreary home for a child: the rooms were always shaded by trees, and the sombre carvings, the satyr heads, the laughing fauns, all in stone, frightened her. She never saw any young persons; Sir Arthur's servants were all old—they had entered the service in their youth, and remained in it ever since.

      Sir Arthur and Lady Vaughan felt their son's death very keenly; all their hopes died with him; all their interest in life was gone. They became more dull, more formal, more cold every day. They loved the child, yet the sight of her was always painful to them, reminding them so forcibly of what they had lost. They reared her in the same precise, formal manner in which their only son had been reared. She rose at a stated time; she retired at a certain hour, never varying by one minute; she studied, she read, she practiced her music—all by rule.

      The neighborhood round Queen's Chase was not a very populous one. Among the friends whom the Vaughans visited, and who visited them in return, there was not one young person, not one child. It never seemed to enter their minds that Hyacinth, being a child, longed for the society of children. At certain times she was gravely told to play. She had a doll and a Noah's ark; and with these she amused herself alone for long hours. As for the graces, the fancies, the wants, the requirements of childhood, its thousand wordless dreams and wordless wants, no one seemed to understand them at all. They treated the child as if she were a little old woman, crushing back with remorseless hand all the quick fancies and bright dreams natural to youth.

      Some children would have grown up wicked, hardened, unlovely and unloving under such tuition; but Hyacinth Vaughan was saved from this by her peculiar disposition. The child was all poetry. Lady Vaughan never wearied of trying to correct her. She carefully pruned, as she imagined, all the excess of imagination and romance. She might as well have tried to prevent the roses from blooming, the dew from falling, or the leaves from springing. All that she succeeded in was in making the child keep her thoughts and fancies to herself. She talked to the trees as though they were grave, living friends, full of wise counsel; she talked to the flowers as though they were familiar and dear playfellows. The imagination so sternly repressed ran riot in a hundred different ways.

      It was most unfortunate for the child. If she had been as other children—if her imagination, instead of being cruelly repressed, had been trained and put to some useful purpose—if her love of romance had been wisely guarded—if her great love of poetry and beauty, her great love of ideality, had been watched and allowed for—the one great error that darkened her life would never have been committed. But none of this was done. She was literally afraid to speak of that which filled her thoughts and was really part of her life. If she asked any uncommon question Lady Vaughan scolded her, and Sir Arthur, his hands shaking nervously, would say, "The child is going wrong—going wrong."

      It was without exception the dullest and saddest life any child could lead. At thirteen there came two breaks in the monotony—she had a music-master come from Oakton, and she found a key that fitted the library door. How often had she stood against the library windows, looking through them, and longing to open one of those precious volumes; but when she asked Sir Arthur for a book, he told her she could not understand them—she must be content to play with her doll.

      There were hundreds of suitable books that might have been provided for the child; she was refused any—consequently she read whatever came in her way. She found this key that fitted the library door, and used it. She would quietly unlock it, and take one of the books nearest to her without fear of its being missed, for Sir Arthur seldom entered the room. In this fashion she read many books that were valuable, instructive, and amusing. She also read many that would have been much better left alone. Her innocence, however, saved her from harm. She knew so little of life that what would have perhaps injured another was not even noticed by her.

      In this manner she educated herself, and the result was exactly what was to be expected. She had in her mind the most curious collection of poetry and romance, the most curious notions of right and wrong, the most unreal ideas it was possible to imagine. Then, as she grew older, life began to unroll itself before her eyes.

      She saw that outside this dull world of Oakton there was another world so fair and bright that it dazzled her. There was a world full of music and song, where people danced and made merry, where they rode and drove and enjoyed themselves, where there was no dulness and no gloom—a world of which the very thought was so beautiful, so bewildering, that her pulse thrilled and her heart beat as she dreamed of it. Would she ever find her way into that dazzling world, or would she be obliged to live here always, shut up with these old, formal people, amid the quaint carvings and giant trees? And then when she was seventeen, she began to dream of the other world women find so fair—the fairyland of hope and love. Her ideas of love were nearly all taken from poetry: it was something very magnificent, very beautiful, taking one quite out of commonplace affairs. Would it ever come to her?

      She thought life had begun and ended too, for her, when one day Lady Vaughan told her to come into her room—she wished to talk to her. The girl followed her with a weary, hopeless expression on her face. "I am going to have a lecture," she thought; "I have said a word too little or a word too much."

      But, wonderful to say, Lady Vaughan was not prepared with a lecture. She sat down in her great easy-chair and pointed to a footstool. Hyacinth took it, wondering very much what was coming.

      "My dear Hyacinth," she began; "you are growing up now; you will be quite a woman soon; and it is time you knew what Sir Arthur and I have planned for you."

      She did not feel much interest in learning what it was—something intolerably dull it was sure to be.

      "You know," continued Lady Vaughan, "there has never been the least deception used toward you. You are the only child of our only son; but it has never been understood that you were to be heiress of the Chase."

      "I should not like to have the Chase," said Hyacinth timidly. "I should not know what to do with it."

      Lady Vaughan waved her hand in very significant fashion.

      "That is not the question. We have not brought you up as our heiress because both Sir Arthur and I think that the head of our house must be a gentleman. Of course you will have a dowry. I have money of my own, which I intend to leave you. Mr. Adrian Darcy, of whom you have heard me speak, will succeed to Queen's Chase—that is, if no other arrangement takes him from us; should he have other views in life, the property will perhaps be left differently. I cannot say. Sir Arthur and I wish very much that you should marry Mr. Darcy."

      The girl looked up at the cold, formal face, with wonder in her own. Was this to be her romance? Was this to be the end of all her dreams? Instead of passing into a fairer, brighter world, was she to live always in this?

      "How can I marry him?" she asked quickly. "I have never seen him."

      "Do not be so impetuous, Hyacinth. You should always repress all exhibition of feeling. I know that you have never seen him. Mr. Darcy is travelling now upon the Continent, and Sir Arthur thinks a short residence abroad would be very pleasant for us. Adrian Darcy always shows us the greatest respect. You will be sure to like him—he is so like us; we are to meet him at Bergheim, and spend a month together, and then we shall see if he likes you."

      "Does he know what you intend?" she asked half shyly.

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