CHAPTER LXXIV.
THE LONELY HOUSE.
That noble mansion had changed greatly. The beauty of its grounds was all run to waste. The snowy walls of the house were tinged with the damp of many winters, which no careful hand had swept away. Rose thickets had grown into jungles. The honeysuckles and clematis vines had leaped from the windows and clambered rudely up the forest trees. Long grass waved along the carriage walks and tufted the gravel. That delicate moss, which seems like the first green breath of decay, was creeping over the broad marble steps, and clothing the stone vases with gloomy richness.
It was very lonely and quiet, that dreary mansion, a mournful contrast to its appearance on the night we saw it last, in pristine freshness, blazing with lights, resonant with music, and all aglow with flowers.
Four persons, who stood in the wilderness which had grown around it, felt this desolation with infinite melancholy.
"Was this my mother's house?" whispered Rose Mason, sadly. "Oh! Paul, where is she now? Not one word from her in all these years."
"Hush, my child," said the minister; "it may have been that trouble has fallen upon her so heavily that, like a poor worried deer, she has crept away to hide her wounds."
"My poor, poor mother," whispered Rose; "but for that man, how happy we might all be now."
"Be patient, my child, be patient."
"How can I be patient, knowing that she lives—at least, feeling the mournful hope—and yet with no certainty? How can I be patient, when my father is away where I cannot see him, wandering from country to country, trying to forget his wrongs—trying, in vain, to forget her?"
The minister looked troubled. This rebellion in his spoiled pet, wounded him like a reproach. He felt how deep were her causes for regret, and left the anguish to exhaust itself.