"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.