Chapter IV: Part 4

"Ah! the whity-brown legion of little horrors, who like a swarm of hornets literally drove you out of Laurel Bank, and compelled you to take refuge in Grosvenor Square! I suppose that they have been undergoing the process of taming, at which my aunt is so famous, and that Johnny now does not scratch out any one's eyes, and that Lyddie may be trusted in a store-room full of treacle and sugar. I should think your mother a first-rate hand at bringing up children, judging from the charming specimen before me!"

Flora neither smiled nor blushed at the flattery now.

"But tell me how they all appeared when you were last at Laurel Bank."

Then, indeed, the colour rose to Flora's pale cheek, and it was with an appearance of some embarrassment that she replied, "I have not been there since you were there, on the day of my marriage."

Ada suppressed the exclamation of astonishment that was upon her tongue, for she saw that its utterance would give pain.

"My dear husband has been so much engaged--of course I could not leave him--it is so difficult sometimes to make arrangements--but I hope soon--" Flora stopped short, for her lips were not accustomed to utter an absolute untruth.

"How your mother must be longing to see you! I should not have thought that she could have lived so long without you!"

"Words cannot express how I long to see her!" exclaimed Flora, with tears in her eyes.

"I think that it might be managed in some way. If you could not visit Wingsdale, she might come to London--"

Flora looked so uneasy at the proposition that Ada changed the conversation in pure good nature, wondering much in her mind what could have occurred to separate a parent so much beloved from so dutiful a daughter.

"I hope that you have not given up your pen, Flora; that you don't think that your talented husband the author does enough in that line for you both?"

"Oh, I write a little sometimes," said Flora, in a tone of indifference.

"I never read anything so pretty as your hymns. Do you know, Flora," Ada added more gravely, "that I have often thought over the verses which you wrote during my first visit to Wingsdale, after we heard that solemn sermon from Mr. Ward on the subject of the sower and his seed!"

"I had almost forgotten them," said Flora.

"And the sermon too?"

"Well--I have heard so many since."

"Ah! that is the thing, you have lived in such an atmosphere of piety."

"Oh, don't speak so!" cried Flora hurriedly.

"It does seem to me," observed Ada, folding her hands, "that it is a great deal more difficult for some people than for others to lead a religious life. Look how differently you were brought up from what I was; is there any wonder that we are so different now? I had been taught to think of nothing but gaiety, and shining in the world, and making a sensation, and all that sort of thing; I lived in a perpetual round of amusements: so pleasure was my danger then, and I fancied that when the time for pleasure was past, my difficulties would vanish, and that I should grow serious as I grew old. Well, I follow your example, and marry, and am taken completely from the world; but I am plunged into a little bustling world of my own, and I have so much to think of, so much to do, that I have really no time for religion. Instead of the pleasures, come the cares of this life."

"Cast your cares upon Him, for He careth for you," faintly murmured Lady Legrange.

"Ah, Flora, you were never like any one else; I always feel better when I am near you." Flora's brow contracted a little, as if she were in pain, and she turned her head away from the speaker.

"I wish that I could always have you beside me," continued Ada; "it would be such a comfort to have your wise, calm advice!"

"It is so much easier to give advice than to take it home to ourselves," said Flora, with something like a sigh.

The ladies then conversed for some time together on topics of general interest. Flora really enjoyed seeing her old companion, and would gladly have invited both Ada and her husband to her house, to remain there during their stay in London; but she did not venture even to ask them to dinner. Sir Amery, she knew, would have had no objection to the society of the lively Ada; but the Major, a simple, blunt man, with more kindness in his heart than polish in his manners, did not suit the refined taste of the baronet, and must "be kept at a proper distance." All that Flora could do was by the cordiality of her own manner to endeavour to smooth away from the mind of her cousin any sense of unkindness, or even of ingratitude, which might arise from no invitation being given; and Ada left the house satisfied that Flora was not changed, though with a rising doubt as to whether she were happy.

*CHAPTER XV.*

*THE WIFE.*

And was Flora happy in her new life? She had much to render her so, according to the opinion of the world. She had made what would be called a brilliant marriage; she was united to one who loved her, and whom she passionately loved; she was surrounded by all that could please the eye or charm the taste; she had leisure for every graceful occupation; she was not weighed down by a multiplicity of home-cares; she had a life of ease, it might be deemed of enjoyment: and yet, with all this, Flora was not happy. The sunshine of her existence seemed to have passed away.

Let us examine more closely into the causes of the melancholy which often rested like a cloud on her soul.

In the first place, Flora was childless; and this, to a loving spirit like hers, was no light trial. She would have given all the grandeur of her home, all the jewels which glittered in her hair, all the beautiful things which met her eye wherever she turned it, to feel little arms clasping her neck, to hear infant lips lisp the sweet name of mother! Flora had never yet, amidst all the outward forms of religion, acquired that which is the very essence of it, submission to the will of the Almighty. Her own will had never been brought into the quiet subjection which is the result of confidence in God's wisdom and love, and which is the source of true peace and joy. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, she "murmured," not with her lips, but in the depths of her heart.

And Flora pined for her mother; she longed again to rest her weary head on a parent's bosom, and to be blessed with a parent's counsels. She could not conceal from herself that her marriage had separated her from the home of her childhood. It was not so much, perhaps, that Sir Amery could never quite forgive Mrs. Vernon's opposition to his marriage, as that he feared her influence over his wife. Flora had, he thought, too many narrow prejudices, acquired in her puritanical home: he had no wish to see them strengthened. He had no wish to have a praying, sermonizing wife who would see sin in what he thought harmless, and who would always be attempting to convert him to her own peculiar views of religion. He had put down, sometimes with a jest, sometimes even with a frown, the few feeble attempts made by Flora soon after their marriage to win him to pay more attention to the outward observances of religion. The Lord did not bless these attempts--they resulted in failure and disappointment; and Flora bitterly recalled her mother's words, that it is as impossible for one human being to change the heart of another, as it would be to bring water from the stony rock, or to call up fire from the ocean.

Flora's deep love for her husband, even though returned, was no source of unmingled happiness. She could not rest in calm confidence upon the hope that all was well with him whom she deemed the most gifted and the most attractive of men. Blinded as she was by her admiring affection, Flora had yet many a secret misgiving and pang, when she heard words pass the lips of her husband which confirmed the opinion of her mother. She was ever struggling to persuade herself that the path which he pursued could not be far wrong; that it was her education which had narrowed her own mind; that he whose intellect soared to such a height must see more clearly and widely than others. But it is difficult to overthrow at once the fabric of opinion which has gradually been forming from infancy; most difficult when that fabric is founded on truth, and has the strong though secret support of conscience!

And there was one source of pain which Flora never owned to others, never even acknowledged to her own heart. She prized the affection of her husband beyond all earthly--alas! above all heavenly things; it was her pride, her delight, her treasure: but how could she trust to links which God had not rivetted? was not her treasure one which might take wings to itself and flee away? Who could insure that the love which beauty had awakened would not be perishable as that beauty? It had not that firmness which arises from steady principle, that element of immortality which religion alone can give. Flora was painfully aware that many, and amongst them members of Sir Amery's own family, had deemed his marriage far below the expectations which such a man might have formed. Was it quite impossible that the same thought might sometimes cross the mind of her husband! There was no sweet babe, no dear pledge of mutual affection, to bind the baronet's heart to the mother of his child.

Flora's strength was not sufficient to enable her to share all the amusements of her husband, nor had she enough of mental vigour to enter into all his pursuits. He shone as a star in many places where his gentle wife was never seen. Many a lonely evening she passed, while at some festive board a brilliant circle was listening delighted to his ever-flowing fountain of wit. Might Sir Amery not sometimes find her society dull, her conversation insipid, after that to which he had been accustomed? would her love suffice to make him happy? could he be contented alone with her? Flora knew that the baronet had not married her "_in the Lord_," that his affection for her was not from the Lord; her whole felicity rested upon an earthly support--it might be shaken--it might bend--it might give way!

Even when accompanying her husband to scenes of festivity, neither his loved presence nor the pleasures around her always chased from the mind of Lady Legrange this phantom of undefined fear. But that which above all things oppressed the young wife with a sorrow for which the world has no remedy, was her consciousness of alienation from her God. What matter how fair be the surrounding landscape, if the heaven above be of dull leaden hue, if the sun be blotted from the sky? As regarded the most important of all subjects, the heart of Flora was cold and hard; and she knew it. No one can for long worship an earthly idol without feeling the withering effect. Sir Amery stood between his wife and her God. Flora was careful as ever to observe the forms of religion, when she could do so without displeasing her husband; her seat was not vacant in the pew, nor her name absent from the charity list: but her piety was like a petrified leaf--it could deceive even her own heart no longer. All that remained of her religion seemed a vague sense of fear, the fear of a slave for an offended master, who has the power, perhaps the will, to chastise. Sometimes Flora doubted whether she had ever been a Christian at all--whether from childhood she had not played a hypocrite's part, and whether she were not playing it still. She no longer thought of heaven as a blissful home, and even when bitterness of soul made her weary of life, she felt a shrinking from the thought of death.

And can we wonder that Flora was not happy--that pleasures failed to amuse her, even conjugal affection to bless? Had she rested with cheerful content, in that state of coldness, alienation, and wandering from God, it had been a sign, indeed, that religion had utterly perished in her soul--that her mother's prayers, and teaching, and example, had all been in vain.

*CHAPTER XVI.*

*RISING CLOUDS.*

"Flora, my love, has anything occurred to distress you?" said the baronet, as he entered the breakfast room one morning in his embroidered dressing-gown and slippers, with the newspaper in his hand.

Flora looked anxious and unhappy, her eye rested upon an open letter which she had received by the early post.

"I have heard from Mr. Ward, dearest," she replied; "he gives me tidings which have made me very uneasy. Scarlet fever, of a malignant kind, has been raging lately in Wingsdale, and I grieve to say that two of my brother's children are ill with it now, and it is feared that the baby is sickening."

The baronet coughed slightly, stirred the fire, and sat down to sip his chocolate.

"My poor mother!" faltered Flora; "Mr. Ward writes that she is far from strong; the nursing will be so heavy upon her."

"Have not the children a mother?" said Sir Amery, abruptly.

"Emma has taken such alarm at the idea of infection, that she has actually hurried away, and engaged a room at a hotel in a town about ten miles distant from Wingsdale!"

The baronet elevated his handsome brows with an expression of contempt.

"I fear," continued Flora, with emotion, "that the anxiety and fatigue will quite break down the health of my mother. She will watch the children day and night, as she watched me in my fever." The voice of the daughter trembled as she added, "Oh, Amery! she needs me to help her; dearest, will you not spare me to her now?

"You!" exclaimed her husband in a loud tone of surprise, pushing back his chair from the table; "what could have put such an insane thought into your mind? Do you think that I would suffer you to go into the midst of infection--to take the place of an unfeeling woman--to act as nurse to a set of mulattoes--to risk your precious life for those whom their own mother has deserted?"

"My mother will never desert them," said Flora; "it is to assist her--"

"We will send a nurse down from London to assist her; let that set your mind at rest," replied Sir Amery. Then he added, as his stern features relaxed into a smile, "It is easier to find an efficient substitute for you, Flora, in the sick-room at Laurel Bank, than at Lady Montague's soiree to-night."

"The ball!--oh!" exclaimed Flora, leaning back on her chair, "I have not the heart to go to it!"

"No heart is required," said the baronet, laughing; "we do not look for such commodities at balls."

Flora was ever submissive and obedient to her husband. She saw that it was his will that she should accompany him to the party, and she went, though with a joyless spirit. Decked out in jewels and costly array, and leaning on the arm of him who attracted every eye, the fair young wife might have appeared an object of envy to the proudest dame in the glittering throng. But there was a fount of sadness in her bosom, which mingled with and imbittered every pleasure. The music had to her a mournful tone; the gay dancers flitted before her like images in a dream; she felt it hard to wear a smile on the lips when the heart was depressed with care. Flora was glad to choose a quiet corner for herself, where it would be unnecessary to enter into conversation, where she might remain unnoticed and unknown.

She was seated beside some ladies who were strangers to her, and Sir Amery conversing with friends of his own in another apartment, Flora felt herself alone in a crowd, solitary in the midst of society. Her thoughts wandered back to her mother's home--she was treading, in fancy, well-known paths, seeing long absent faces, listening to the sound of the church bells which had once made sweet music to her ear; and, absorbed in her own recollections, had been at first inattentive to the conversation of the ladies beside her, till her ear was caught by the sound of the name which was to her dear beyond all others.

"And that is Sir Amery!" exclaimed one, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of him through the open folding-doors; "what a princely form! what a noble countenance! He looks like the statue of an old Greek demigod warmed into life!"

The wife felt a glow of pleasure at the words, and turned with interest towards the speaker.

"Did you not say that he was married?" said the companion of the lady who had spoken.

"Oh, yes; he married some time ago; made quite a mistake, if report be true--the usual fate of geniuses; he threw himself away on some insipid little rustic, who had nothing but a pretty face to recommend her!"

Flora had heard enough; she rose and left her seat, and made her way with difficulty through the crowd to another part of the ball-room.

But even here she was destined again to find her gifted husband the topic of conversation. An elderly gentleman was talking with a young man, who appeared to be eagerly arguing some point with him.

"But you must allow that he has very great power--"

"Just as I allow that the boa-constrictor has very great power," replied the senior, laughing. "This man envelops truth in the mighty folds of his genius, and squeezes the very life and shape out of it. I believe that writers like Sir Amery do a world of mischief, especially amongst young men. I, for one, will not join this worship of an author whose great merit seems to be, that he can mix up poison so skilfully that the victims take it for a wholesome medicine."

Flora, trembling, made her way into the adjoining room, and again was at the side of her husband, bearing in her bosom a sting which lay and rankled there for many a day.

The next morning brought another letter from Mr. Ward--Mrs. Vernon not writing herself, lest her epistles should convey contagion. Flora learned that the youngest child had taken the fever, and that Johnny was not expected to live. Mrs. Vernon had sat up with him the whole of the preceding night, and had never quitted the sick-room. Flora's only comfort was in the thought that the experienced nurse, whom without delay she had procured from an hospital, would relieve her mother to a certain degree; and she wrote a long tender letter to Mrs. Vernon, secretly wishing that she herself could take the place of her epistle.

Then followed two days of silence, weary, anxious days to Flora, whose absence of mind and restless longing for news called forth an impatient remark from Sir Amery. Submissive and fearful of displeasing, Flora sat quietly listening to his comments on a new work, even when she at last heard the double rap at the door; and she held the unopened letter in her hand, though it bore the postmark of Wingsdale, till her husband had concluded the brilliant review, of which his auditor had not comprehended one sentence.

"Thank Heaven!" exclaimed Flora, as she glanced at the first lines, "all the children are likely to recover!"

"Did you feel any apprehensions on their account?" said the baronet drily; "empty casks always float, the full ones are those that are in danger of sinking."

"But, oh! how shocking!" exclaimed Flora as she read on further: "'_Your sister-in-law had scarcely reached the place of her retreat when she was seized with the terrible malady, all alone as she was, without a friend near her. Your dear mother could not quit the sick children; but she sent the London nurse on to Manton directly. From her account of the state in which she found her patient, serious apprehensions are entertained for the poor lady's life._'"

"Oh, she'll recover too," said the baronet philosophically.

But the unhappy Emma did not recover. She had had her last warning--had thrown away her last opportunity of returning to that God whom she from childhood had neglected and forgotten. Her harvest was over, her summer was ended, and she was not saved. She was not one who could be charged with any gross violation of the commandments of the Lord; but they had never had a place in her heart. The seed of the Word had not perished on the cold ice of unbelief, or the burning lava of passion, but on the track beaten and trodden down by selfishness--the highway of folly, on which the soft breath of counsel, or the keen blast of trial, had stirred nothing but the light dust of vanity.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

*DARKENING CLOUDS.*

It was not to be expected that Flora, though shocked by the sudden event, should deeply lament the death of her sister-in-law. As Sir Amery observed, Emma had passed the life of a zoophyte, with this difference, that the ocean anemone clings to something beyond self, be it only a rock or a seaweed. Lady Legrange wore black velvet instead of violet, clasped a bracelet of jet round her wrist, and, except for these reminders, might almost have forgotten that such a being as Emma Vernon had ever existed.

It was about a month after the death of her sister-in-law, on a dull morning in the beginning of March, that Flora sat alone in her boudoir, arranging some early primroses and violets. Sir Amery had been absent for two or three days on a visit to a nobleman in the country, but was expected home in the evening. As it was the birth-day of his wife, Flora felt sure that he would not fail to return.

"None of these are worth preserving," she said to herself as she put aside the fading flowers; "how soon they have lost their fragrance, and all their beauty is gone! Poor flowers--this heated room, the smoky atmosphere of London, has made them quickly wither; they would have bloomed longer on their own green bank!" Flora sighed as her mind pursued the train of association called up. "How I once delighted at this season to find the first violets in the copse, and carry them home to my mother! How bright and cheerful all things looked to me then; there was a freshness of enjoyment which, I suppose, only belongs to youth--yet I am but twenty-two years old to-day! There are no garlands now hanging on my myrtle; I wonder if the plant is living still! My mother will not forget the anniversary; she will have thought of her Flora in her prayers! I made so sure of a letter to-day;" and Flora stood pensively looking at the fading blossoms, when the door unclosed, and a servant entering, announced a well-known name.

"Mr. Ward--can it be! Oh, how good in you," commenced Flora, hastening with unaffected delight to greet her old friend; but the aspect of the venerable clergyman, as he kindly but gravely returned her greeting, awoke a feeling of alarm in the bosom of Lady Legrange.

"You bring bad tidings--my mother!" she exclaimed, still grasping the hand of the old man, and looking up anxiously into his face.

"Mrs. Vernon is not so well as we all wish her to be," replied Mr. Ward, quietly but sadly meeting the daughter's earnest gaze.

"She wished you to come to me--?"

"She does not know of my coming, but I thought it best to let you hear all, and an interview is so much more satisfactory than a letter--"

"Oh, tell me all!" cried Flora in agony. "My mother--is she very--is she dangerously ill?"

Mr. Ward broke to the daughter, as gently as he could, that, in the preceding night, Mrs. Vernon had been suddenly and alarmingly attacked by a malady which threatened her life. He did not say--it was unnecessary that he should say what Flora too surely divined--that the overtaxed powers of her mother's frame were at length giving way; that her exertions during the illness of the children had, it was feared, irreparably injured herself; and that it was very doubtful whether, on his return to Wingsdale, he would find the sufferer yet alive.

Flora could not hesitate now; even the fear of displeasing her husband was swallowed up in a more terrible fear. She wrote a few hurried lines for Sir Amery to receive on his arrival, hastily made her slight preparations for the journey, and under the escort of her kind old friend, and accompanied by her maid, with a very heavy heart she set out for the home of her much-loved parent.

The journey by railroad occupied about three hours; long, painful hours were they to Flora. She could not but contrast this return to Laurel Bank with her last. Then, indeed, she had not been without anxiety, and even a shadow of self-reproach, but the prevailing feeling of her heart had been all-absorbing happiness. She loved and was beloved again, and might have expressed herself in the language of the great poet--

"Come what sorrow may,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
Which one short moment gives me in his sight."

But her fair bud of hope had not blossomed into happiness. God had given her her heart's desire, but _withal sent leanness into her soul_. Flora had learned by experience the hollowness of mere human felicity. "He builds too low who builds beneath the skies." And the change in the appearance of nature harmonized with the alteration in Flora's feelings. On that last journey to Laurel Bank she had beheld earth laughing in the sunlight, and decked in all the beauty of summer. The breeze had waved the broad fields of golden corn, and rustled in the luxuriant foliage of the groves; the gardens had been gay with a thousand flowers, and the wild rose had bloomed in the green hedge. Now, the trees reared their bare dark branches aloft, for the season was a late one; and Winter, driven from his throne for a few sunshiny days, was returning with increasing force to chase back the approaching Spring. From the gray lowering sky above the snow-flakes were beginning to fall, and, before Flora reached the place of her destination, a brooding storm was wrapping the world in premature night.

The snow was driving fast into her face, as Flora hurried up the gravel walk which her footsteps had trodden so often. She opened the door without ringing, for in that quiet retreat bolts and bars were deemed unnecessary. The entrance to the dining-room was open; she heard voices within, and paused an instant to glean from their tone the information which she longed but dreaded to receive.

"No, Emmie, you must not make a noise,"--it was the voice of Johnny that spoke; "don't you know dear grandmamma is ill? Come, sit here quietly, and I'll tell you a little story."

"Then she lives--thank God!" exclaimed Flora to herself, hastening with noiseless footstep up the stairs. In that house she required no guide.

She proceeded straight towards the chamber of her mother, her heart palpitating fast. As she reached it the door unclosed softly, very softly, and Mrs. Vernon's maid appeared with the doctor.

"Miss Flora!" exclaimed the old servant in a subdued tone of surprise.

The doctor glanced sternly at her, and raised his finger, then advanced silently to Lady Legrange.

"Is she--is she--?" Flora could not finish the sentence.

"My dear lady, she is in God's hands; He may raise her yet. Everything that can be done shall be done; but I cannot conceal from you that I entertain serious apprehensions." He spoke in tones too low to be heard in the chamber of the invalid.

"But I may go to her--nurse her--"

"Pardon me," replied the medical man, courteously but firmly interposing, "our patient is in a very critical state; the pleasure of seeing you after so long an absence would cause a degree of excitement which might be attended with fatal consequences."

Flora said nothing, but pressed her hand against her heart; she felt as though it would break.

"Ann is most watchful and attentive," pursued the doctor, feeling for Flora's evident distress, "and Miss Lyddie will not quit the room for a moment."

"Lyddie!" thought the miserable daughter, with a sharper pang of envy than her gentle bosom had ever before known; "and she may sit and watch where I dare not enter; she may look on that loved face which I have come so far to see; she is the comfort, and I--and I--!" Flora leaned down her head upon her clasped hands and tried to stifle her sobs.

A miserable night was that for Lady Legrange--the most miserable which she had ever known. The cold became more and more piercing, yet no entreaties could induce her either to go to rest or to seek the comfort of a fire in one of the rooms below. She had a chair brought for her to the door of her mother's room, and there she sat, trembling and shivering, counting every stroke of the clock which at intervals--oh! how long and weary--told the lapse of time. She heard the wind shaking the casements, as though fiercely demanding entrance, and shrieking aloft in the chimneys with a wild and wailing noise; and sometimes her painfully strained ear could catch sounds from the sick-room--a light step, a soft rustle, a low voice, or, terrible to hear, the faint moans which told of irrepressible suffering. Flora also, as morning drew nigh, heard words, words from the lips of her parent, words which reason guided no longer--but not one word which it could have pained piety to hear. The unconscious sufferer uttered prayers for mercy, for pardon--prayers for those who were dear to her heart. Flora wept as she heard her own name repeated again and again in unconscious supplications. It seemed as though that which had been the habit of a life remained now as an instinct; the mind might be darkened, reason might have fled, but love and piety lingered yet in their accustomed home, the last to leave the sanctuary which had enshrined them so long. To apply to a nobler subject the beautiful simile of Moore--

"Like a vase in which roses have once been distilled,
You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."

And Flora also prayed; she besought the Lord with a fervour and depth of feeling beyond any which she ever before had known. Her whole soul was poured out in prayer. Her self-righteousness crushed in the dust, she felt herself now to be a sinner indeed, and she came to the Friend of sinners with a broken and contrite heart. She implored the life of her mother; she besought the Almighty to grant her an opportunity of being once more a comfort and blessing to that cherished parent--of repaying some portion, some little portion, of the deep debt of love which she owed to her. She prayed for herself, for grace and for strength--alas! she had proved her own sinfulness and weakness. She had been weighed in the balance and found wanting; and it was almost with a sensation of despair that Flora now contemplated the difficulties of her position--difficulties which had been of her own seeking, and which, however lightly she had once regarded them, now appeared almost insuperable. If heavenly love drew her onward and upward, she knew too well that earthly love would act as a clog on her soul. The partner whom she had chosen would never aid her weakness in the struggle against worldliness--rather would he side with the enemy. He would never warm the coldness of her devotion by the fervour of his own; his prayers and hers would never rise together to the throne of their Father in heaven. Flora's soul was full of anguish for her idolized Amery. If it was grief to think that her mother's gentle spirit might be now on the wing from this world of sorrow, what was it to think that the spirit of her husband might never rise, to the bliss of the world which is to come! If affection shrinks from the death of the body, it shudders over the death of the soul. Separation in time is to the loving heart a trial almost too painful to contemplate; what then must be separation throughout eternity--the sole parting which is indeed _for ever_!

The only time that Flora quitted the door of her mother's apartment was when she sought that which had once been her favourite sitting-room, to procure writing materials with which to pen a letter to her husband. The fast flowing tears which dimmed her eyes and blotted her page hardly suffered her to complete it. The letter gave a vivid and touching picture of all the emotions which were agitating her mind. Sorrow, contrition, tenderness, were expressed in the unstudied language of the heart. Flora told him whom she dared not deem a Christian how a Christian could die. She dwelt on her mother's piety; she left her husband to draw the inferences which she longed to place before him in such a light as might strike conviction even on his prejudiced soul. She wept and she prayed over the letter, but the darkness before her was scarcely illumined by one ray of hope.

*CHAPTER XVIII.*

*THE DARK JOURNEY.*

"Indeed, aunt Flora, you must go to rest; you look so pale and ill, you almost frighten me," said Lyddie.

The appearance of the girl was much changed. She still looked sickly, from the effects of her own recent illness, and from her hair having been close cut during her fever; but the once wild neglected weed had not been cultivated in vain. Thought and sense were expressed in the large dark eyes beyond what might have been expected in a girl scarcely twelve years of age. All the latent tenderness of Lyddie's nature had been called out by Mrs. Vernon; grateful affection to an earthly benefactor had become a ruling motive in the orphan's heart, already strengthened rather than replaced by a motive yet more high and holy. The task which Flora had deemed hopeless another had performed; the once wild, wilful, untamed girl, had been brought to the feet of the Saviour.

"I cannot rest," replied Flora, sadly; "and you, Lyddie, you have been sitting up all the night!"

"No, I have been sleeping on the couch at the foot of the bed, while Ann watched by dear grandmamma. I could not bear to be far away. Now Ann is resting for a little on the couch; she has had no sleep these two nights, you know, and I am ready to call her up in a moment, if grandmamma should stir ever so little."

"Is my precious mother then sleeping?"

"Yes, she is sleeping now; isn't it a comfort?--she has been so restless, as if she were in pain; but she is quite peaceful now--so very peaceful!"

"Oh that I could but look at her!" faltered Flora.

"I think that you might, if you crept in very softly."

"If I were to awaken her!"

"Oh! she does not look as if she would awake!"

The simple words of the child sent a sudden, strange thrill of terror through Flora's heart! What if that deep sleep were a sleep which could never be broken! Lady Legrange entered the silent apartment chilled with the cold, faint and dizzy with watching, her trembling limbs scarcely able to support her. The early gleam of morning, dimly seen through the half-closed shutter, mingled its light with that of the flickering, expiring night-lamp. The curtains of the invalid's bed were drawn back to give her air--Lady Legrange again beheld her mother. She looked on the dear face, which she had not seen for years--ah! what a change time, sorrow, and sickness, had wrought there! Yet still beautiful it lay in its perfect stillness, white as the pillow on which it reclined. Every feature appeared sculptured in marble, in its calm, unearthly serenity. The lips did not move, the bosom did not heave, there was no quiver in the closed eyelids! Flora bent to listen: she could not distinguish the slightest sound--oh! the relief that even a moan would have brought to her then!

A little feather lay on the crimson coverlet; Flora raised it with a trembling hand, placed it almost close to the lips of her mother, and then watched it as a perishing castaway might watch a distant sail, the one dim speck of hope on the dark waste of waters. It moved!--yes, yes--it moved! It was not the morning breeze that stirred the down; the breath of life had not passed away from those pallid lips; they might yet speak a blessing--they were not closed for ever!

Flora retired from the room with noiseless step, shedding silent tears of thankfulness and joy.

The doctor came, but would not disturb the sleeper. Every hour of quiet repose, he said, would do more to restore the sufferer than all the remedies which art could devise. He believed, he trusted, that the crisis was past. Should this slumber continue every hope might be indulged; but the house must be kept perfectly quiet.

And perfectly quiet it was kept. Even the sound of children's voices was hushed, and little feet crept noiselessly down stairs. Johnny took off his shoes ere he passed his grandmother's room. Flora still continued at her melancholy post--watching at the door which she feared to enter, weeping, praying, and reviewing her past life with deep humility and contrition.

The sun had reached his noonday height, though remaining invisible behind the clouds, which had been ceaselessly pouring down their white, flaky showers upon the earth, when, with a rapid step and flushed countenance, Johnny hurried towards Lady Legrange. He needed not the gesture of her finger on her lip; he uttered not a word, spoke not a question, but he thrust into her hand an open paper which had just been brought from the telegraph office. Flora felt dizzy and confused; she passed her hand across her eyes before she could read the paper, and when she had read it every object appeared swimming around her. It was brief, as such messages always are, but how terrible in its stern brevity,--

"_Sir Amery has been thrown from his horse. Return home without delay, if you would find him alive._"

That was all that was written, but it was enough--enough to wring the heart, to fill the cup of anguish to overflowing! Flora started from her seat--she was pale as death; but she uttered no cry--but one object was before her now. Oh! for the lightning's wing to fly back to her husband!

When the spirit is burning with an impatience which would make the swiftness of the eagle appear slow, how intolerable are the petty difficulties, the unavoidable delays which constantly interpose. Where was a conveyance to be found in Wingsdale to take Flora to the station, which was barely two miles distant? Johnny, a willing messenger, started off in the snow-storm; but though the boy exerted his utmost speed, it appeared a weary age to Flora before he returned. He came back heated and tired, with disappointment in his glowing face. The conveyance which Flora had employed on the previous day had returned to the town, ten miles distant; the doctor, who alone boasted a little carriage in Wingsdale, was out, and might not return before evening; the farmer's horse had fallen lame;--there was no vehicle of any kind to be procured.

"Then I will go on foot. Oh! that I had not delayed!" cried Flora, wringing her hands; "I might have been at the station by this time."

In vain the wondering maid of Lady Legrange ventured to expostulate with her mistress, pointed to the cloudy sky and the fast descending snow. No earthly persuasion could stay the wife, not even the anxieties of the daughter. These anxieties, indeed, had been in a certain measure relieved; Mrs. Vernon had awoke calm and refreshed, and had dictated to Lyddie a message of affection to be sent to her Flora, little dreaming that at that moment the same roof covered them both.

Flora, accompanied only by her maid, set out on her gloomy journey. The violence of the wind was so great, that umbrellas were left behind as useless, while the falling snow so obscured the view, that the travellers could see but a few yards before them. To Flora, however, the path was so well known that she could have found her way blindfold. The fields were one white level, save where, beside the glistening hedges, the wind had drifted the snow into heaps. Flora's feet sank into the white mass at each step, she toiled with difficulty along the path; yet urged on by love and fear, she paused not for a moment even to take breath, or to shake the snowflakes from her mantle. She thought not of weariness, she thought not of suffering;--her whole soul was wrapped up in her husband. Surely the road had lengthened since she last trod it--would she never arrive at the place of her destination!

At length--at length the station is in sight, the little red-brick building, standing alone where the telegraph posts, with their straight black wires, stand in sharp defined outline against the white back-ground. Ha! there is a sound! Flora starts with an exclamation of distress--it is the shrill scream of the railway whistle--a long black object is rolling away into the distance, swift and swifter! Flora gazes after it with straining eyes, then sinks exhausted on a snow-heap beside the road; no need to hasten on now--she has missed the train--she too late!

Slowly and sadly, conscious now of utter weariness and exhaustion, Flora made her way to the station. "When may the next train be expected?" was her eager question when she arrived there.

"The next? about three hours hence."

How sank Flora's heart at the reply! Those hours might have been spent beside her mother might be so still; but no, fainting nature refused the effort; not the smallest hazard must be run of missing the next--the latest train. Flora warmed her shivering frame at the fire in the one bare little waiting-room at the station, then seated herself by the small table, and leaning her arms upon it, bowed down upon them her drooping head. She remained so long in this position that her maid believed that she slept. Then Flora arose, and paced up and down like a caged leopard, looked at her watch again and again, and gazed impatiently out on the snow. The railway man was whistling an air; it struck painfully on the lady's ear; in her utter misery it seemed strange to Flora that any human being could be happy.

An express train rushed past with a roar like thunder, awakening for a moment a hope which vanished like itself into darkness. Flora sat long with her eyes fixed on the telegraph-paper, as though she could draw from the lines, which she knew by heart, the information which their brevity denied. Alas! her fears supplied its place too well.

The three hours passed--Time does move on, even when his wings are of lead--but still no sight of the longed-for train.

"It is late," said the railway official; "doubtless its progress has been delayed by the snow."

Flora could sit still no longer; she was in a fever of restless expectation, and sorely her patience was tried. The train was long behind time; night closed in before at length the welcome bell of preparation was heard. Lady Legrange felt something almost resembling joy when she found herself seated at last in the train with her maid. A gentleman, whose features she could scarcely distinguish in the gloom, was their only fellow-traveller in the carriage. He made some common-place observation on the weather, which Flora neither comprehended nor answered. Her thoughts were becoming a wild chaos: she could not collect them sufficiently even for prayer.

On, on through the darkness and gloom--surely never train moved on so slowly before!--surely never were so many vexatious delays! Flora wept no longer; her fount of tears appeared to be dried up. Her brow was throbbing with a burning pain; a band of iron seemed pressed across her temples She was scarcely conscious of what was passing around her, when the weary journey ended at last.

Bewildered and confused, the hapless Lady Legrange found herself in the midst of the bustle of an arrival in London at night. Friends and servants were there waiting for travellers; but, either from neglect on the part of her own household, or from her having been expected by the earlier train, no one was in waiting for Flora. In vain she strained her eyes to find some familiar face, to see some one who could relieve her agony of suspense, by giving her tidings of her husband. After some delay--and delay was torture--a conveyance was procured, in which the miserable wife was slowly jolted through narrow, gloomy streets, towards the home at which she yearned to arrive. The cab stopped at her own door; Flora sprang from it--herself rang the bell, gently, fearfully, for was not suffering within the dwelling? No answer! She rang the bell again, and, before the sound died away, the door was opened by a servant. He started at seeing his mistress; his face answered the question which she could not speak; he uttered but the sentence, "Too late!" and Flora sank senseless on the threshold.

*CHAPTER XIX.*

*CONCLUSION.*

The newspapers on the following day all dilated on one theme--the genius, the brilliant career, and the sudden death, of Sir Amery Legrange. Each had its paragraph of praise, not in every case unmingled with censure, but censure tenderly, sparingly dealt forth; for the melancholy fate of the gifted young author had wrung compassion from literary critics and theological opponents. In the gay saloons and haunts of fashion, of which he had but a few days since been the ornament and pride, his name was upon every tongue. In a brief space the news spread far and wide, like circles on a river when some large object has been suddenly plunged into its waters. But the current of society flowed on as ever; soon not the faintest ripple on its surface told that one of its proudest names had become a word of the past--that one of its loftiest spirits had gone to the "bourn from which no traveller returns."

But there was one being, weeping in her darkened chamber alone, in whose almost broken heart a void was made which nothing earthly could ever fill--one crushed beneath the weight of a grief for which even religion has no comfort. What mattered it to her that the voice of nations swelled the tribute to departed genius--that he whom she so passionately loved would occupy a niche in the temple of Fame! Blessed mourners are they who weep for the dead translated to a more blissful existence; thrice blessed they who, when all the pride of this world shall have passed away like a fevered dream, shall hear the voice of the Saviour pronounce the sentence, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" But Flora sorrowed as one without hope. Oh! that those who, in defiance of the command--the merciful warning of their God--choose to twine the dearest affections of their hearts around an earthly pillar, on which "holiness to the Lord" has never been inscribed, would anticipate the anguish of that day when, beneath the stroke of the angel of death, that pillar shall lie shattered in the dust; and Despair, gazing on the broken relics of all that was dear, fair, talented, and brave, shall utter the mournful wail, "_Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!_"

Little was it to the bereaved young widow that, with the loss of her dearest treasure, wealth also took wings to itself and fled away. Sir Amery's income had principally consisted of life-rent; careless in money concerns, little anticipating so sudden and speedy a close to his career, he had left a very scanty provision for his survivor. There was, indeed, a new work of his, almost completed, for which contending publishers were ready to offer sums which would have materially enlarged the scanty resources of Lady Legrange. The posthumous work of an author so renowned was certain to command the eager attention of the public; and Flora received various communications on the subject. She read the manuscript, wept over the lines which had been last traced by the loved hand now cold in death; she then folded up the papers, enclosed and sealed them, and, resolved that no eye but her own should ever peruse the unhallowed creation of a mind which had made fatal progress in error, she endorsed the packet with a command that at her death other hands should burn, unread, that which she had not herself the heart to destroy. "These would be his orders, could he speak from the grave," said Flora to herself, as she locked up the papers in her cabinet's deepest recess. "Oh! would he not desire to obliterate in all his writings every page which could injure others when he is himself no more--every page which could witness against him! O God! my God!" exclaimed the widow, suddenly raising her clasped hands with a cry of anguish wrung from the depths of her soul, "they cannot be obliterated--they cannot be recalled--it is too late!--oh! misery! it is too late!"

The first thing which served in any degree to restore composure to the unhappy Flora was her return to her early home. Mrs. Vernon, who had been too ill to hasten to her daughter when the tidings of her bereavement arrived, or even for some time to be permitted to know of her loss, was now convalescent, and welcomed her beloved child with a depth and intensity of loving sympathy that poured balm into Flora's bleeding heart. She had thought, in the first transport of her anguish, that all had been rent from her at once; but she found that one of earth's most priceless blessings was left to her yet--the deep, unchanged, holy love of her mother.

Mrs. Vernon received back her Flora as a precious treasure restored; and it was a treasure purified, beautified, refined. The furnace of affliction, seven times heated, had not been heated in vain.

Gradually Flora resumed her daily round of occupations, and passed a life closely resembling that which had been hers at the period when our story opened. She visited the sick and the poor, comforted the sorrowful, taught the ignorant--neglected none of the duties of home. But in how different a spirit were those duties performed! With what altered feelings did the chastened mourner now repeat the confession of the sins of whose existence she had then scarcely known! Shrinking from the idea of resting on her own righteousness, her own imperfect and polluted works, Flora's only hope was in the merits of her Saviour--her greatest solace the remembrance of His death--her aim and object in life to show her humble gratitude to Him who had loved and given Himself for her. She was no more as a sunbeam in the dwelling--her sparkling brightness was gone for ever; but rather like the gentle moonbeam that illumines the night, shining with a soft lustre, borrowed from the only true Source of happiness and of light.

We have seen how the seed of the Word had sprung up in a shallow soil, made a fair show, and then withered away; how the plant of earthly love had succeeded, striking deep its roots, spreading wide its branches, obscuring the light of heaven, darkening the earth with its fatal shade. God in mercy had torn up that plant; and though the uprooting of it had appeared to wrench asunder the very heart-strings that had twined so closely around it, to lay bare the deepest recesses of the soil, it prepared that soil, through the divine blessing, for the precious seed of truth. The word of God, now received in humility and meekness, rested in the ground which the Lord had rendered good, and brought forth abundantly the fruit of holy living, to the praise and glory of the Giver of all grace.

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