“Be sure to frighten Lady Redware; make her think Ulfar’s life is in danger,—anything to get him out of the dales.”
“She will feel as if the heavens were going to fall, when I get done with her. My word! who would have thought of him coming back? Life is full of surprises.”
“But only think, if there was never anything accidental happened! Surprises are just what make life worth having,—eh, Brune?”
“Maybe so, and maybe not. When Will comes home, tell him everything at once. I can manage Lady Redware, I’ll be bound.”
With the promise he went away to perform it, and Aspatria carried her trembling heart into solitude. But the lonely place was full of Ulfar. A thousand hopes were budding in her heart, growing slowly, strongly, sweetly, in that earth which she had made for them out of her love, her desires, her hopes, and her faithful aspirations.
CHAPTER V.
BUT THEY WERE YOUNG.
Brune arrived at Redware Hall while it was still afternoon, and he found no difficulty in obtaining an interview with its mistress. She was sitting at a table in a large bay-window, painting the view from it. For in those days ladies were not familiar with high art and all its nomenclature and accessories; Lady Redware had never thought of an easel, or a blouse, or indeed of any of the trappings now considered necessary to the making of pictures. She was prettily dressed in silk; and a square of bristol-board, a box of Newman’s water-colours, and a few camel’s-hair pencils were neatly arranged before her.