“Oh, yes, papa,” she cried, unwinding her arms from mine, and leaping from the rock. “Good-bye, come to-morrow,” she cried, clambering up the bank, and pausing at the top to shower back kisses with both hands; “do you hear? Come to-morrow, my star”——
The gentleman took her hand and led her away. I watched them till they disappeared, and then sunk upon the rock crying disconsolately. It seemed as if my life had again just begun, and was swept away into darkness.
CHAPTER XXVII.
FUNERALS AND ORPHANS.
All that night I lay awake, thinking of the morrow, longing for daylight, and so impatient of the darkness around me, that I left my bed again and again to fling aside the curtains and search for a glow in the east. I had told my adventure, and described the beautiful child to Maria, my kind bonne. She heard it all with pleasant curiosity, but strove to subdue the wild impatience with which I panted for another interview with this heavenly creature of my own sex and age.
The next day I started for the spring, and reached it in a glow of expectation, panting with the eager affection that burned like a fire in my bosom. Nothing was there. The grey rock, with its trampled lichen, the pool sleeping softly beneath it, and the sweet current rippling through clusters of fragrant mint, alone met my ear and gaze. A few dead blossoms lay upon the rock, tormenting me with a withered memento of the joy I had known the day before. I sat down among these blossoms and cried with bitter disappointment. After waiting hours in the hot sun, I returned home weary and disheartened. Why had she broken her promise? How could I ever trust her again if she did come to the spring? Who was she, a real being, or a fairy, who, for one moment had taken pity on my loneliness, to leave me more desolate than before?
My hopes of seeing her again began to falter greatly after the third day, but still I persisted on going to the rock every morning for a week. The dead flowers among the lichen went to my heart every time I saw them, but I had no courage to brush them into the water; they were, at least, a proof that I had seen her.
One morning, after brooding over my disappointment, wondering and watching as a child, with a heart in its wish, only can wait and watch, I shook away the tears from my eyes and sprang up, nerved with a sort of inspiration. I would search for the child—wander right and left till she was found. I would mourn no more, but go to work, nor yield again to tears while an effort could be made to find her for whose presence I pined.
I clambered up the bank, crossed into the highroad, and wandered on toward the village that lay in lovely quietude before me, half veiled in a silvery mist. This village was the world to me, and an eager wish to see what it was like, mingled with a conviction that there I should find the child.
I drew near the village, looking eagerly on each side for the object of my wanderings. The church which, afar off, seemed in the very heart of the place, stood some distance from the large cluster of houses, and I reached this first. It was one of those low stone buildings so common in England, with deep gothic windows, and a single tower draped and overrun with ivy. Behind it was a grave-yard, crowded thick with yew and cypress trees, under whose shadows the curious old grave-stones gleamed dimly, as if through the mournful mistiness of a funeral veil.
Near this church, and like it, built of grey stone, to which the ivy clung like a garment, stood a dwelling. White jessamines and creeping roses brightened up the ivy, garlanding the very eaves with blossoms; and a porch which was one mass of honeysuckles, was approached by a narrow gravel path bordered with flowers, and sheltered the front door.