“No, I see nothing, and unluckily I have not got my spectacles at hand.” But observing Leila’s heightened colour, and the expression of her face, he added in quite a different tone, “Yes, I do see two tiny little green leaves just peeping above the brown earth; but they will require all your tender care to rear them. Why are they so precious to you, Leila? But do not tell me if you would rather not.”
She lifted her eyes to his face. “Yes, I should like to tell you—” she hesitated, then continued in an agitated voice, “it is seeds from the flower I planted on Clara’s grave, and perhaps more will spring.”
Charles’s colour mounted to his forehead; he took her hand. “Oh, Leila,” he said, “dear Leila, how I have longed for this moment, how I have wished you to talk to me of Clara. Clara, my own sweet sister, my lost Clara; I seem to see her still, how lovely she was!”
“You knew her then,” Leila said eagerly; “you remember her; but how—were you not in England?”
“No; from our being up the country and in a good climate, I was nearly ten years old before it was thought necessary to send me to England; never can I forget the first time I saw Clara. I was taken into the room where mamma was lying on her bed, so pale, so beautiful, only the slightest tinge of colour in her cheek. Clara and Mina lay on each side of her; she took my hand, a bright flush came into her face for a moment, ‘My little son,’ she said, ‘may God watch over you and preserve you to be a protector to your sisters; if these dear ones live to be sent home to England, you will be already there. Promise me that when you are together, you will watch over them, and always endeavour by your own example to teach them to love and serve their heavenly Father. May you never, dear Charles, forget this moment; may my earnest request be always remembered, when you yourself are tempted to do what is wrong.”
“And were you sent away from them immediately?” Leila inquired. “How melancholy this must have been for you!”
“Oh no, not immediately; Clara and Mina were three years old before I left India. They could talk and run about. In the cool season I used to make them run races in the garden with each other. They often laughed so at my constantly mistaking one for the other, for I never could distinguish them, till mamma put a small gold chain round Clara’s neck.”
“Was it this?” Leila said, as she took a chain from the folds of her dress, and gave it into his hand.
“Yes, the very same; but there was no locket suspended from it.”
Leila touched the spring, it opened.