No look of pleasure on her part responded to the greeting; but she gave the usual answer—“I wish the same to you.”
“Thank you. A happy Christmas! I have it. The new year!—ah! how strange it is to think all that a new year may bring!”
“The new year can bring to you nothing so good as the old one has done,” said Clementina.
“This year has brought much to me indeed,” replied Ernest, thoughtfully. “The Bible—my first knowledge of Mr. Ewart—my brother.”
“Oh, your estate, your title!” exclaimed Clementina. “The new year can raise you no higher.”
“Only in one way, perhaps.”
“And what is that way?”
Ernest did not hear the question of the young lady; his thoughts had wandered to the white marble monument in the church near Fontonore. When we stand on the verge of a new year, and look on the curtain which hides from us the mysterious future, what reflecting mind but considers the possibility that the opening year may to him be the last? To the Christian Pilgrim alone that thought brings no feeling of gloom.
“Are you going to church with us, cousin?” said Ernest, rousing himself from his meditations.
“You had only to look at me to answer your own question,” replied the young lady, pettishly. “What could take me to church, with my forehead plastered up and such a yellow mark under my eye?”