The voice below continued its summons, but in the distance; the caller evidently was seeking through the garden.
"I wonder when my cousin Dora will come," said the Minnie of Sylvia's seeking again. "And I wonder if she is very handsome; they say so:—though only three years older than myself, I was always afraid of her, even as a child. She was so tall and commanding, though but a girl of fifteen then—now she's twenty; and she looked so stern, with her proud curling lip which never smiled; even at play, her play was queenly and condescending. I see her now, when she was at her gymnastic exercises; how graceful she looked flinging upwards the hoop, which always returned unerringly to the stick, as if it durst not disobey her will. Mine often rebelled, and fell yards off; and, whilst I put myself in a fever to catch it, she was calm and pale, and if she involuntarily sprang upwards to meet it, with what a calm grace she lighted on the toe of one of her tiny feet with the obedient toy in her keeping! There was pride even in that action, for her foot seemed to disdain the earth. It was the only thing I disliked in Dora, her pride as a child; it awed me. I hope it will not do so now. I want to love her. We cannot love where we fear, and I hope she will love me whenever she comes; and yet I feel so nervous at the thought of seeing her, though"——Here another voice arose on the ear; this, too, came from the garden. "Minnie, Minnie; where are you, Minnie?" it said.
"That's my uncle Juvenal," whispered the girl, peeping through the window, with its antique panes and narrow casement, "and he's not alone. I guessed as much. How he can like Marmaduke Burton, the squire, I cannot imagine."
"Minnie," cried a soft voice, evidently in the direction of the great hall clock, "are you up-stairs, dear?"
"Dear aunt Dorcas," whispered the girl softly; "shall I go to her?" She moved towards the door of her chamber. At that moment, from beneath her window, arose a hum of voices, and Sylvia's shrilly tones called, "Minnie;" then a man's, but a very weak one, and rougher accents, syllabled her name; these latter ones not calling, but in conversation, and they said, "Miss Dalzell." The one so anxiously sought sat down, and laughed gently to herself. "My aunt and uncle, and their pets! Which shall be mine? Whom shall I marry? Fate, direct me!" and, with a playful air, she took up a bracelet of large coral from her table, and commenced counting. "The last must be my choice, I suppose: let's see, coral! Whom will you favour?" And thus she ran on, a bead for each name: "The squire, the lawyer, the parson; the squire, the lawyer, the"—here the string broke, and her lovers rolled in confusion on the floor! "Alas! and alas!" she cried, with much gravity, surveying the scattered beads, "none of them? Well, when I have a lover, I'll string him on the chords of my heart; and when they fail and let him down to earth, why, I shall be there too, in my grave, my heart's strings broken: that's how I understand love!"
"My dear child, why did you not answer me?" asked a quiet-looking, elderly woman, entering her room. "I have been seeking you every where."
"Dear aunt Dorcas," said Minnie, throwing her arms tenderly round her neck; "I was afraid to reply, for my uncle and aunt Sylvia are in the garden—not alone either—and they would have heard me."
"Who is there with them at this early hour, dear?" As she spoke she released the girl's arms, and seated her beside herself on a couch, affectionately holding both her little white hands.
"Oh!" rejoined Minnie, "that horrid Marmaduke Burton, and Mr. Dalby, the lawyer; and I dislike them both so much, as they appear now."
"How do you mean, child?"