THE COUSINS.
“I did so once,” replied Isa, with a sigh; “but for the last two years, since the loss of my dear father, I cannot be said to have had a real home.”
“But you have one now, dear Isa,” said Edith; “and oh, how glad I am that your brother chose to build one at Wildwaste, so near us. Why, even I—who never perform great feats in the walking line—will be able to manage the distance on foot; it is barely a mile, I hear. I dare say that Mr. Gritton kindly chose the site of his house there on purpose that you might be near your uncle and cousin. To meet you often, very often, will be such a pleasure to me; I shall feel as if I had at last what I have so often longed for, a sister to share all my sorrows and joys. I will soon return your visit, and you shall show me your brother’s new house. Has he not built a charming retreat, with a pretty garden and shrubbery round it?”
Isa Gritton laughed: but there was a little bitterness in the laugh. “Tastes differ,” she replied; “and Gaspar having been his own architect, he doubtless admires his work. But my ideal of beauty is hardly realized by a house that looks as if a geni had transplanted it bodily from one of the smaller streets of London, in all the newness of yellowish brick as yet undarkened by soot, and had dropped it on the edge of a morass—not a tree within half a mile of it—where it stands staring out of its blindless windows as if wondering how it came there, with nothing to remind it of London but the great soap manufactory, which is the most conspicuous object in the view, the smoke of which might do duty for that of a whole street in the city.”
“How could Mr. Gritton build such a house, and in such a place!” exclaimed Edith in surprise; “I could not fancy you in a home that was not pretty and picturesque. I have no clear remembrance of Wildwaste save as a wide flat common sprinkled with gorse, for I seldom or never visited the hamlet when I was a little child.”
“You will scarcely care to visit it often now, except out of compassion for me,” said Isa, smiling. “Mr. Eardley tells me, however, that Wildwaste, bad as it is, is greatly improved from what it was some years ago, when it had nothing in the shape of a school.”
“Mr. Eardley—then you know him?” cried Edith, brightening at the mention of the pastor whom she reverenced and loved.