Harry Joscelyn; vol. 3 of 3

HARRY JOSCELYN. —— VOL. III.
BY MRS. OLIPHANT AUTHOR OF “The Chronicles of Carlingford,” &c., &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1881. All rights reserved. HARRY JOSCELYN.
TEN years is a large slice out of a life; but it slips by, not leaving much trace in a rural country where everything goes quietly, and where Christmas follows after Christmas with scarcely any sign by which one can be identified from another on looking back. We will not say that nothing had happened in the White House to mark the ten years from the time when young Harry Joscelyn disappeared from the Fell country, and it became evident that no one there was likely to hear anything of him more. Various things had happened: one, for instance, was that Joan had married Philip Selby, and was now the mistress of Heatonshaw, and could not easily remember, so strange is the effect of such a change, how she had contented herself in her previous life, or what had been the habits and customs of Joan Joscelyn. More had happened to her in this than in any other ten years of her life; but yet they had glided over very calmly, day following day with such a gentle monotony that it was hard for her to decide how many of them there were, or which was which. She had no child to measure the years by, which was a misfortune, but one which she bore with submission: reflecting to herself that if children are a comfort they are often also a great handful, and that when they are troublesome there is nothing else so troublesome in all the world. Philip Selby himself was less philosophical, and would have ventured gladly upon the risk for the sake of the blessing; but it was not so to be. And thus they had little evidence before them of how the years stole away. But all that he had augured, and Joan had agreed to, about the house, had come true. There were the best of beasts in the byres, and heavy crops on the arable land, and a phaeton in the coach-house, and horses in the stables such as no man needed to be ashamed of. And with all this, there was a very comfortable couple inside. Joan, on her marriage, had been half ashamed of the fine room, which was called—not according to her old-fashioned formula, the parlour, but—the drawing-room, to which her husband had brought her home, and which had been furnished by one of the best shops in Carlisle, with furniture such as was approved by the taste of the time. There was a white paper on the walls, and a great deal of gilding, and sofas and tables with legs that were crooked and curly. But by the end of ten years much that was somewhat showy once had toned down. The furniture had got more shapely and a little human; the place had worn into the fashion of the people that inhabited it. In summer it was a perfect bower of lilies and roses, the great white shafts of the one rising above the broad branches, heavy with flowers, of the other (for in those days there were no standards), and the whole air sweet with the mingled perfume. Liddy Joscelyn, Mrs. Selby’s little sister, thought there was no flower-garden in the world like it; but then she had not been away from home since she was twelve, and had not seen much, and there was nothing like it about the White House.