Mrs. Alexander

“ Towards morning, the Colonel sank into a quiet, profound sleep, and leaving nurse in charge of him, with directions to call her the moment he awoke, Kate threw herself into his vacant chair, and strove to still her throbbing pulses, and hush her troubled spirit to repose.
When she had left her grandfather's room, she thought sleep was too effectually frightened away by the terrors of the past night; but the strength and vigor of youth cannot be so soon unstrung, rest is too natural to that age ”

“ I fear from Moore's intelligence, brief [217] and scanty as it is, there is no chance of our gaining this fatal lawsuit, so that you will be totally unprovided for;" and he sighed deeply. "Our relations are so few, and—"
"Oh, hush, hush, dearest and best!" cried Kate; "you cannot dream what pain you inflict on me, by such words; do not fear for me; I never know dread on my own account, for the future; you do not know the strong courage of my heart—I did not know it myself till of late; we cannot provide against future ills; why then darken the present by anticipating them. ”

“ Kate sat opposite gazing at him, as if she could read the contents through his countenance; and although that morning she had risen with the full conviction that the anticipated letter would only prove their anxiety to be groundless, she now felt the terrible, creeping, gnawing, sickening sensation of doubt and dread which makes the hand so cold, and the eye so dim, when felt in its full force. ”

“ Am I speaking too freely, Miss Vernon, in thus placing the reality of your future before you?"
"No," said Kate, firmly, and holding out her hand to him. "No, I feel the need of such suggestions, and I like to talk of what must be; it is good for me, and there is no use in making grandpapa think of it at all more than necessary; I hope to manage so as often to cheat him into forgetfulness of my occupation; only I do trust Mr. Winter's friend may not engage apartments for us in a wretched, narrow street. ”

“ And now, come and see poor Gilpin with me. You may as well, when you have answered that confounded letter. Here's your desk." Aside to Kate, as the old man settled himself to write. "We must not leave him too much by himself."
Light and pleasant is the task to paint the the various phases of joy, for whatever light touches it beautifies; but rare is the skill that can truly depict the gloom of sorrow, and fascinate the eye, by a depth of shadow that admits of little variation! ”

“ Few in this trying world of ours, do not know that there are times when a tête-à-tête with the person we love most on earth is an ordeal we would fain escape; when we shun the slightest expression of tenderness, lest it should betray the deep and yearning affection which swells the heart with sadness, not for ourselves, but for those for whom no sacrifice would seem painful, could we but save them them from suffering.
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"Shall I brush yer hair asthore?" said Mrs. O'Toole, as she followed Kate into her room.
"No, dear nurse, only I want a little rest." ”

“ Why is he, who would turn aside, rather than tread upon a worm; whose strong, warm heart, was chiefly pleased in shewing mercy and pity—why is he thus tried, and left desolate, now when the years are come in which he has no pleasure?" would rise to her lips; and, hard, hard was it to suppress them, for Kate Vernon's heart beat with too strong, too passionate a pulse, not to feel that chastening was very grievous ”

“ The lessons at Brompton began the next day; and Kate was surprised to find how rapidly the time flew in the endeavour to convey her own knowledge to her pupils; then the walk back, accompanied by Cormac, who lay outside the hall door, like a chiselled effigy of watchfulness, all the time the lesson lasted, was charming. The welcome from nurse and grandpapa! how grateful the task to work for them. "All I ask of Thee, oh Mighty Parent! is abundance of work!" ”

“ I have a good knowledge of music—ah, delightful! how proud I should be, to earn it for grandpapa, who has always taken such care of me; and nurse would not mind it much. I like teaching. Ah! we may be happy yet—I must speak to Mr. Winter about it. Ah! nurse's dream may come true, but by contraries, after all; who can tell what strength love, and God's good help may lend even to these weak arms," and she stretched them out. "Enough to support dear grandpapa, perhaps—that would be a proud achievement!" ”

“ Kate and nurse first carefully arranging the Colonel's room; but long after she had laid her head on the hard and diminutive lodging-house pillow, Kate's busy fancy kept [126] sleep aloof—the fact that she was actually in London, was almost incredible, that the dreaded parting with the Winters, and the Priory—the terrible exchange of all the sweet sanctities of home, for the uncertainties and insecurity of lodgings—that all this so long anticipated, was absolutely accomplished; and that from this time forward, a new world of action—of reality—of sober, stern existence, lay before her. ”

“ There was a mournful pause. Kate, not daring to break the thread of her grandfather's thoughts, and silently pressing her smooth, soft cheek against his wrinkled hand.
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"My own consoling angel!" said he at last. "It is a sad lot for you, at your age, to sink at once into oblivion, and—"
"How do you know that I am to sink into oblivion? how can you tell to what brilliant destiny this dark passage may be but an entrance? Dear grandpapa, 'Time and the hours run through the darkest day,' let us bear the present expecting a brighter future, and now, shall I send for Mr. Winter?" ”

“ The music was of the Mendelssohn school, of which the organist was a great admirer, and Kate played it well; she knew every note by heart, from the first solemn sustained chords, to the noble march and tender aria with which it concludes.
The talkers frequently begun, but were as frequently hushed by the indignant "chut, chut" of the connoisseurs; and when she quietly rose from the piano, the emphatic "good, very good!" "she can play!" "a remarkable composition!" testified the satisfaction of Langley's professional friends ”

“ As usual, when any positive question was to be answered, his reply was prompt.
"Cannot you leave the dog where he is?" wrote the testy little artist, "I tell you he will be a troublesome customer; even here he is quite savage, and we have to throw him his meat from a civil distance."
"Poor Cormac!" sighed Kate, who was reading the letter aloud to her grandfather, "how unhappy he must be, when he is so cross; he will become irretrievably savage if we do not remove him; may I write about him, dear grandpapa, at once?" ”

“ Mrs. O'Toole, pausing in her occupation of transferring the broth to an earthen vessel, crossed herself, and the next moment they left the place silently.
"He's a mighty quare man," said Mrs. O'Toole, meditatively, after they had almost reached the river side, without breaking a pause of unusual duration. "Faith, he blessed ye like a clargy."
"And well he might, he little knows how soon his kindly wishes may be required."
"Why, avourneen?"
"Nurse," said Kate, after a minute of troubled thought, "we must leave this place." ”

“ Perhaps she did not know how dauntless was her own nature, and that there is irresistible attraction even to the most intellectual, in the courage, physical though it be, than can face death and danger, as if at home and at ease in the midst of both—this contempt of what it is natural to dread must partake more of the soul than philosophers allow, and is one certain element of greatness. ”

“ I see it is from Georgina."
"Dearest Kate," began Miss Vernon, in obedience to his commands, "your last letter is now so ancient, I am ashamed to mention it—your first I did not answer because I was [6] too much vexed at your absurd opposition to all my plans for your benefit. Time has cooled my resentment, and accident has revived my affection for my pretty, loveable god-child, while it has, I hope, awakened in your mind proper regret for the folly of preferring a life of seclusion in a dull country town to the brilliant lot you might have secured. ”

“ Miss Vernon, threw aside her bonnet and shawl, and seated herself at the piano; but her memory seemed suddenly clouded, by the very [163] necessity for clearness, nay, her physical vision, by the intense anxiety to acquit herself well, and while the room swam before her, the only distinct image she could perceive, was Hermann, standing opposite, with a look of severe criticism on his countenance; but this moment of suffering did not last—Kate was making rapid strides in the acquirement of that self-command, without which, the empire of the world is but a wider range for the sceptred slave. ”

“ How do you do, Colonel Vernon?"
The Colonel informed him of Gilpin's death; and he seemed rather interested, as the compositions of the organist, which Kate had played the night before, had pleased him greatly. Then they talked of great musicians, and Mozart's Requiem, and the strange circumstances under which it is said to have been composed.
"How much I love those wild, mysterious German stories, they have an indescribable charm for me," said Kate.
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"Why?" asked Langley, in his blunt manner.
"That is exactly what I cannot answer."
"I never like what I do not understand." ”

“ A quick glance at Kate. The whole party moved slowly towards Abbey Gardens, the Colonel and Winter, who read the letter aloud, and Gilpin close behind with Kate.
"Ad ogni uccello suo nido é bello," said Winter, as he concluded the epistle, "here am I shivering and pining for a warm sun, which many years' custom has made natural to me, and there is that young scape-grace, revelling in baths; and slaves, and sunshine, dying to be back among east winds and consumption!"
[22]
"Captain Egerton does not forget his friends—as soldiers are said to do," said Gilpin.
"Pooh, pshaw!" ”

“ O'Toole laid two letters before the Colonel; one directed to him in a clear, bold hand, bearing the Marseilles' post-mark, the other to Kate.
"I really think this is from Fred Egerton," said the Colonel, feeling in every pocket for glasses. "Kate, my dear! they were hanging round my neck before breakfast?"
"Oh! here they are, dear grandpapa," exclaimed she, eagerly; "do not mind looking at the outside—open it." ”

“ Winter, I abjure strictness, it is a thing of mathematical precision, gone, vanished with the old dispensation; which, providing rules for all and every thing, left no room for those exquisite shades and tints without which, life, as well as pictures, would have neither truth nor beauty. I never like to think how much or how little I ought to do ”

“ Nurse says it is so hard to manage; I must ask her to meet me to-morrow on my way home, and look for some other house—I mean rooms. I am afraid to mention it to dear grandpapa, he is so ill, and worn out with that dreadful cough—it is much worse to-day. How I wish Georgina would write! it is nearly a year since she invited us to join her at Florence, and talked of returning. Oh! how alone we are! I wonder shall I ever, ever live near my old friends, or among my own people again! ”

“ Dungar, and her early days, with their bright anticipations rose painfully clear before her eyes—the dreadful possibility of seeing her grandfather in poverty—and the insurmountable difficulty of making nurse understand the necessity for retrenchment—the distressing consciousness of the [53] necessity to think deeply, struggling with the impossibility of fixing her thoughts; and a dim feeling that an impassable barrier was about to be raised between her and the class of which Fred Egerton was a representative. ”

“ Heart within, and God o'er head!'"
"A word in season, how good it is!" returned Miss Vernon, smiling pensively.
"Well, here we are, I wonder what Mrs. [271] Winter will say to your powers of persuasion?"
"She will be delighted—she dreads the journey."
"Pooh, not she; as long as I am with her, she thinks all must go well."
"A pattern wife!" sighed Kate.
"Yes; no wife can be happy if she does not feel this. Ah, Kate, Kate, I wish you had a good husband!"
"Like yourself! eh, Mr. Winter! but alas!" ”

“ And she retired, murmuring—"Och, blessed Jasus! resave yer soul, mee poor Gilpin! It's a saint on airth ye wur!"
So Kate's letter was written, in a very different strain from what she had intended; and then she strolled with her grandfather in Kensington Gardens. The old man seemed feeble and depressed; he took Kate's arm, as he often did of late, and spoke much of his own advancing years, and his anxiety, in the event of his death, for her in a tone that thrilled her heart with fear and anguish. She strove to turn the conversation—but it would not do. ”

“ The morning's study—the afternoon walk with her grandfather—often to visit the sick and needy—the interchange of contrasting thought with Winter and the organist, kept Miss Vernon too wholesomely active both in mind and body to permit the pleasant monotony of her life to degenerate into stagnation. ”

“ Well, there is a God, to know all, and direct all, and that consciousness, must rob the future of all apprehension. Shall I write to Lady Desmond, on our return, and tell her of our indecision and its causes? ”

“ It would be absurd to enter into a contest with such a brute, unarmed, for nothing," muttered Kate's admirer, who did not look like a man deficient in courage. "Here, good dog, I say," and he again attempted to pass, but Cormac sprang to his feet with a savage growl, and again the haughty looking 'elegant' was baffled. ”

“ O'Toole?"
"Oh, she goes with us, of course," replied Kate.
"Well, you know best how much you pay her, and whether you can afford it?" returned Winter.
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"But nurse is not like a servant, she is a friend, she could never live with any people but us? Oh, do not tell me, we must leave nurse!" said Miss Vernon.
"We cannot accept her services for nothing," observed the Colonel.
"I will gladly engage her as cook and house-keeper, at whatever wages you give her."
"Her wages are small," said Kate, "she would not accept higher, since we left Dungar!" ”

“ While the Celt works one day for himself, the next for a friend, the next to spite an enemy, the next to do him a service, and so he is, finally, nowhere. Your Saxon will have no objection to do all this in a lump, if it does not interfere with his own interests," and Galliard leaned back and took snuff.
"So," said Colonel Vernon, "our greatest errors spring from our noblest qualities!"
"The noblest qualities of mankind! It is man's fate!" returned Galliard.
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"You argue ingeniously; but—" said Langley. ”

“ Kate, indeed, calling to mind the maxims of Winter, and the organist, sometimes felt that she ought not to feel so much delight in a courage that, after all, is generally shared by every healthy man; [280] still, in spite of her reasoning, Egerton's image, invested with a prestige it never before possessed, constantly occupied her mind. ”

“ So Kate Vernon, in spite of her clear and [16] cultivated intellect, her sound judgment, and her sense of the ridiculous, could not keep nurse's evil omen from dwelling on her mind; more, ay, a thousand times more, than her grandfather's apparent anxiety about the intelligence communicated by Lady Desmond, and they accomplished the circuit of the walls, silently, or, exchanging occasional remarks very foreign from the subject occupying both their minds. ”

“ Kate at once, and with much animation, commenced an account of her meeting with Herman, but the indifference with which her grandfather received the intelligence, so important in her estimation, checked her ardour, and seemed to throw her [152] back on herself; it is indeed wonderful the effect which sympathy or no sympathy produces. ”

“ I dreaded the effect of the shock on your sensitive and imaginative nature, and intended to have broken it to you gradually."
"But," continued Kate, not noticing the latter part of his speech, "shall we have nothing left? no money at all! good God! And grandpapa, what am I to do for him—and nurse? Do not think me very weak, but I cannot help the terror I feel."
"Miss Vernon, I vow to Heaven, I only [49] intended just to prepare you a little for the worst; perhaps matters may not be so bad as your alarmed imagination paints. ”