Think, however, that the troubles that now lie upon us might not have been ours had not our father died when he did, which was the cause of our being taken into the house of our mother's sister, Mrs. Margaret Golding;—a happy thing we then thought it, that she would receive us, for we were in great straits;—so I will begin my history at that sad period.
Our father, William Dacre, was indeed a gentleman, born to a competent estate, and married into an honest stock and to some fortune, but his fair prospects were all blighted and our mother's money well-nigh wasted before he died. To his great loss, he stood steadily for the king against the Parliament all through the late Rebellion, as he would ever call it; and, our mother's people being very stiff on the other side, and she dying while we were little children, we were sundered from them while our father lived. He took such care of us as he could, striving to breed us up like gentlewomen; sometimes we lived with him in London lodgings, sometimes were left at his manor-house of Milthorpe; but the last two years of his life were very uneasy to him and to us.
For when the young king, Charles the Second, was brought in again, five years agone, our father was drawn up to Court by some I will not name, who tempted him with hopes of preferments and rewards to recompense his loyalty. He wasted his means much through the ill counsel of these false friends, but obtained no fruit of their promises, and at last he died suddenly; whether broken-hearted or not I leave to the judgment of God, and to the consciences of the men who for their own ends had betrayed him into those vain expectations. At that time Althea was barely nineteen, and I a little past sixteen; we had no brother nor other sister.
We were then at Milthorpe; and thither our father was brought to be buried. That was a black time for us. Though lately we had been kept apart from our father, we loved him dearly, and we knew of no other friend and protector. And when the funeral was over we could not tell which way to turn; for we found our father's land must needs pass to the next male heir, Mr. John Dacre, our distant cousin. He, I know not how, had contrived to thrive where our father had decayed, and had gotten a good share of favour at the new Court.
My memory offers things past to me as if in separate pictures, this and that accident that befell us showing much more clear and bright than things quite as important which lie between. I remember but dimly all the sad time of our father's death and burial, the grief I myself felt, and all the bustle and stir about us, making those days cloudy to me; but all the more plainly I remember a certain day that followed the funeral, when Althea and I were sitting together in a little parlour where we had been wont to sew,—I weeping on her neck, and she trying to turn my thoughts from my grief with planning how we two should live,—when, the door opening, some one came briskly in who called us by our names.
'What, Althea! what, Lucy! All in the dumps, and not a word to say to your mother's own sister?' and, in great surprise, we looked up on our aunt, whom we had seen but once since our mother died, when we were quite little. She was looking kindly on us; her eyes were quick, black, and sparkling, but had something very tender in them at that moment. I noticed directly how plain she was as to her clothes, wearing a common country-made riding-suit, all of black, and how her shape was a little too plump for her low stature, while her comely face was tanned quite brown with the sun; but methought the kind look she bent on us was even sweeter because of her homely aspect. So I got up and ran to her, holding out both my hands; but she took me into her arms, and kissed me lovingly, saying,—
'Poor lamb! poor fatherless, motherless lamb! thou shalt feel no lack of a mother while I live.'
Then, holding me in one arm, she stretched out the other hand to Althea, who had come up more slowly, and she said,—
'And you too, my fair lady-niece; I have room in my heart for the two of you, if you will come in;' on which the water stood in Althea's eyes, and she took our aunt's hand and kissed it, saying,—
'God reward you, madam, for your goodness to us desolate orphans! I receive it most thankfully.'