“And now,” said Myra, after all had been told, “let us deliberate on the best step. At daylight I must start for New Castle, and thence to Baltimore in time to prevent Mr. Whitney taking the boat. He must not approach Wilmington. Who will go with me? Where can I rest for a few hours in secresy?”
“Who will go with you? why, father, of course,” exclaimed one of the young girls, entering heart and soul into the interests of her friend. “Where can you rest? Have we not a brother married and settled at New Castle, who knows and loves you, even as we do? His wife will receive you, and joyfully enough.”
Myra arose, her sweet face animated and sparkling with gratitude; she threw her arms around the young girl and kissed her.
“Oh, what friends you are; how I love you,” she said, in her own frank, joyous way, turning to the other sister and pressing her forehead with lips that glowed with generous feeling. “It is worth while having a little trouble, if it were only to prove such hearts as yours. I shall never forget this night; never to my dying day.”
“Oh, it is quite like a romance, Myra,” exclaimed the younger of the girls, shaking back her ringlets, with a light laugh. “Here we had been for hours and hours watching at the window, with the rain beating and pelting on the glass close to our faces, and exactly like two characters in a novel. Then, between the flashes of lightning and the rain that absolutely came down in sheets—I never saw any thing like it in my life—you come toiling up to the door, like some poor little fairy shut out in the storm—your face so wet and pale, and your eyes floating like diamonds, and your black curls all dripping with rain. Upon my word, Myra, there was something unearthly about it all.”
“Perhaps it was best,” said Myra, smiling at the vivid fancy of her young friend. “Had the night been calm and every thing quiet, I should have felt it more. The storm gave me courage. It seemed as if the very rushing and outbreak of the elements excited a sort of heroism in my heart. Had it been a soft moonlight evening, when I could have seen the old trees, the flowers, and all those sweet objects that poor mamma and I have loved to look upon so often when the moonlight was on them, I could hardly have found strength to leave them all. Poor, poor mamma, how she will grieve; it will be a sad morning for her.”
Myra bowed her head as she spoke, and her dark eyes filled with tears. The young girls gazed upon her with saddened countenances. This sorrow, so natural, so true, it was something to chill all their light ideas of romance.
Myra still sat with her face bowed down, lost in painful thought. Her heart was once more in its old home. She thought of the mother, the kind, gentle woman, who had taken her, like a young bird from the parent nest, and up to that very day had warmed her as it were with the pulses of her own heart into life and happiness. She thought of the proud old man, proud but full of strong affections; self-willed but generous; who was dignified and grand even in his errors—of the old man who had loved her so long and so well. She thought of him, too, and the tears rolled fast and heavily down her cheeks. It was a terrible romance to her, poor thing. Nothing but a firm sense of right could have induced her to proceed a step further in it. She was no young heroine, but a noble, strong-minded woman, suffering keenly, but firm because she believed herself to be in the right. There was silence for a time, for the young girls respected the grief of their friend, then the eldest arose and leaning over Myra’s chair, began with gentle delicacy to smooth and arrange the light tresses that had been so completely disordered by the storm.
“And when you have found Mr. Whitney, Myra, when you have prevented the meeting, how will it all end? In a wedding, and a reconciliation at the great house, no doubt,” said the sweet girl, anxious to draw her friend from the painful reverie into which she had fallen.
“No,” answered Myra, brushing the tears from her eyes, “I expect nothing like a reconciliation. When I abandoned D. Place last night, it was with no thoughts of return. I gave up every thing then.”