Chapter XXVI

"The old days we remember;
How softly did they glide!
While, all untouched by worldly care,
We wandered side by side.
In those pleasant days, when the sun's last rays
Just lingered on the hill;
Or the moon's pale light, with the coming night,
Shone o'er our pathway still.

"The old days we remember,
O, there's nothing like them now!
The glow has faded from our hearts,
The blossom from the bough.
A bitter sigh for the hours gone by,
The dreams that might not last;
The friends deemed true when our hopes were new,
And the glorious visions past."

Rufus Malcome, as the accepted suitor of Florence, paid regular visits to her father's mansion. Great was the glee of Hannah Doliver to behold the young couple together; and great the nervous disquiet evinced by the invalided Mrs. Howard when she was aware of the young man's presence in the house. She had never met him, as her health, which had in the last six months rapidly declined, confined her now entirely to her room, and indisposed her more strongly than ever to behold strange faces.

The only person she had ever been known to express a wish to see, since her residence in Wimbledon, was Edith Malcome,--a wish excited, perhaps, by Florence's warm praises of the grace and beauty of her young friend, who was as different from Rufus, she said, "as a sweet pink from an odious poppy."

But Edith, strange as it may appear, had never visited at the Howards', though often warmly invited by the whole family.

The colonel invariably excused her in his easy, graceful manner, saying she was "a timid little thing, and dreaded to go for a moment from her father's side." Latterly, her illness had been sufficient reason for her seclusion.

Florence was restricted from frequent visits to her sick friend by the state of her own health, which had grown so feeble and delicate as to alarm her father exceedingly. Dr. Potipher was consulted, and strongly advised travel and change of scene as the most effectual remedy for the feverish disease that seemed preying upon her constitution.

Major Howard was very willing to take his daughter on a tour of travel, but knew not how to leave his invalid lady, whose strength he thought to be gradually failing. She was far too low for him to indulge the idea of making her one of the party, and he was about relinquishing the project in despair, when, on mentioning the subject to the sick woman, great was his surprise to find her even more anxious and earnest for his departure than he was to go. She said "she should do very well without him,--she always mended as summer approached, and Florence was drooping from long and close confinement. She needed exercise and change of scene, and it was his duty to do all in his power to restore her to health and cheerfulness." Major Howard felt the only obstacle removed by the invalid's assent and hearty coöperation; so Florence was informed of the project, and preparations immediately commenced for her tour.

It was a pleasant April evening as she sat in her luxurious apartment with her journal open before her. "The last of these bright spring evenings that I am to pass at home is closing in around me," she wrote. "My trunks are packed and closed down, and to-morrow I am to start on a tour of travel. How my long torpid bosom bounds at the thought! I shall sail up that picturesque Hudson! I shall look on glorious Niagara! But I fear my anticipations are too brilliant. Something will occur to dreg my expected draught of happiness with sorrow. Thus it has ever been! Too well I know I shall return to become the bride of one I detest; but I will not let that thought embitter my enjoyment of the wonders and beauties I shall behold. Besides, in so long a time as I shall be absent, what may occur? Ah, I have written words that make me shudder! I fear I may return to find the snows covering my mother's grave. Why do I leave her? Is it not selfishness to allow her to urge me away when it is her own generous care and affection for me which prompt her to do so? There is something strange in the way she speaks of my matrimonial engagement. I am sure it does not meet her approval, though she gave her consent, as she always does to everything upon which father sets his mind. She evidently dreads its consummation, perhaps because she has discovered my aversion for the man I am to marry. As to Hannah Doliver, she is wonderfully mollified toward me of late; but her fawning fondness is more intolerable than her asperity and impertinence. Nothing seems to delight her so much as to behold Rufus Malcome in company with me. I caught her watching at the parlor-door this evening when he called in company with his father to leave his adieus. She accompanied them to the door and remained several minutes in conversation in the hall. I found her in the kitchen a short time after, and she was muttering to herself and slamming things about in a great rage. When she discovered me she ceased, and grew suddenly as sunny as summer. She is a strange, dark, intriguing woman, I fear, and wish we were well quit of her. I asked mother if she had not better discharge her, and get a new person to attend her during our absence; but she said, with a sudden expression of alarm, 'O, no; she would not part with Hannah on any account!' So I said no more, but fancied her preference was dictated more by fear than love. But I spin out a long record for this last evening at home. O, budding vines and flowers! who will train your rich luxuriance into fairy, fantastic clusterings, or watch your opening petals in the summer which is to come? Who listen to the babbling fountains, or roam the cedar-walks that border the dancing river? And O, the far, far-stretching forest, from whose mysterious depths, in a bright year passed away, I saw _him_ emerge, and hurried down the gravelled path to meet him at the garden-gate, with happy, bounding heart! Will new scenes, however glad and gay, e'er dim the memory of those dear times? Never!"