“My own mamma,” he said, “and how beautiful! and those laughing eyes—yes, I remember how she used to look in that way, when she was playing with us all. And this was Clara’s locket—my own dear sister, and now, alas! only one remains to me.”
Leila coloured. “Then you will not have me for a sister,” she said, in a low-toned voice.
Charles’s countenance brightened, as in his usual lively manner he said, “I thought I was too tall to be your brother.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t say that,” Leila exclaimed; “you don’t know how sorry I was afterwards, and how often I have wished to ask you to forgive me. Will you?” and she put her hand into his. “Yes, I see you will, I see it in your eyes. I always know when people are loving me again by their eyes.” Selina’s voice was heard calling her; she ran off, but returned for a moment to say, “Do not tell mamma about the seeds; it is to be a surprise to her. I have planted four, and if more spring, I should like so much to give you one also.”
CHAPTER IX.
TO pay frequent visits to the village had of late been a great interest to the young people; they had become acquainted with many of the cottagers, and Leila had already begun to have a lively interest in their children. As the party were now to leave Woodlands in a few days, she proposed one morning that, as the weather was uncommonly fine, they should cross the fields, under Charles’s escort, and pay a sort of farewell visit to some of the cottagers. The cold had been so severe in the night, that the grass still felt crisp under their feet, though the sunbeams glanced brightly on the scarlet berries of the holly, and on the slender branches of the forest trees, feathered white by the hoar-frost. At the village they were welcomed by old and young, for the kind, frank manners of the young people had made them general favourites; many of the children ran forward to meet them, but they missed one little girl whom they had in former visits particularly distinguished. Her mother’s cottage stood at the end of the village, and they found Dame Burton standing at her door, looking anxiously in the direction of the road. She invited them as usual to enter, but added, “I am rather out of sorts, young ladies, at this moment, for I am fearing my little Lizzy is getting into idle ways. Not a sight can I see of her, all the other children in the village home from the school, and she still loitering on the road. If I had not had the dinner to get ready, I would have been off to seek her myself, and would have sent her home in a hurry; but her father will be in to his dinner, and she will get it from him I am thinking.”
Leila instantly proposed that they should return by the road; “As Charles is with us, I don’t think papa will be displeased,” she said, “and we can tell him why.” Then turning to Dame Burton, she added, “We shall be sure of meeting your little Lizzy if we go by the road, and we shall send her home to you very quick; but I hope you won’t be angry with her this time, for you know when it is an interesting play sometimes one forgets. I forget very often myself, though I am so much older than Lizzy.”
The young people proceeded on their way, talking and laughing merrily; Charles protesting “that if they met the little truant, the unworthy little Lizzy, he would send her home in a hurry; he would give it her, her father’s anger would be a joke to his.”
Leila looked up in his face in astonishment.
“Never mind him,” Mina exclaimed, observing Leila’s face of perplexity; “never mind him—don’t believe a word of it, he’s only saying it in fun; Charles is not the least bit ill-natured. If we meet Lizzy I know the sort of thing he will do, he will tap her kindly on the back, and say, ‘Now there’s a good girl, run home as quick as you can.’ That’s the sort of way he will scold.”