Lina was chilled by these winds, and drew her shawl closely, with a shivering consciousness of the change. The young man's ardent hope had no power to reassure her. The subtle intuition of her nature could not be reasoned with. Sad and disheartened, she followed Ralph slowly homeward.
A few hours after the scene we have described, the governess was half-way up the hill, on which the house of her nurse stood. She had walked all the way from General Harrington's dwelling, and her person bore marks of a rough passage across the hills. Her gaiter boots were saturated with wet, and soiled with reddish clay. Burdock burs and brambles clung to the skirt of her merino dress, which exhibited one or two serious rents. Her shawl had been torn off by a thicket of wild roses, and she carried it thrown across her arm, too much heated by walking to require it, though the day was cold.
On her way up the hill, she paused, and flinging her shawl on the ground, sat down. Opening the vellum-bound book, she read a few sentences in it, with a greedy desire to know the most important portion of its contents, before resigning it into hands that might hereafter deprive her of all knowledge regarding them. But the winds shook and rustled the pages about, till she was obliged to desist, and at last made her way up the hill in a flushed and excited state, leaving her shawl behind.
The moment she rose to a level with the house, the door opened, and the woman whom she claimed as a slave nurse, came forth, advancing towards Agnes with almost ferocious eagerness. She called out:
"Back again so soon! Then there is news."
"Look here," answered Agnes, holding up the volume, from which the jewelled heart still dangled, cleft in twain as it was. "In less than an hour after entering the house I had it safe. Isn't that quick work?"
"Give it to me—give it to me. You are a good girl, Agnes, a noble girl, worth a hundred of your lily-faced white folks. Give me the book, honey—do you hear?"
But Agnes, who had again opened the volume, held it back.
"Not yet, mammy—I have only read a little—don't be too eager—I have a right to know all that is in it!"
"Give me that book. Her secrets belong to me—only to me. Hand over the book, I say!"