Ah! Mrs. Woodward, my friend, my friend, thou who wouldst have fed thy young ones, like the pelican, with blood from thine own breast, had such feeding been of avail; thou who art the kindest of mothers; has it been well for thee to subject to such perils this poor weak young dove of thine?
Uncle Bat had become tired with his walk, and crawled home so slowly that Alaric and Linda caught the party just as they reached the small wicket which leads out of the park on the side nearest to Hampton. Nothing was said or thought of their absence, and they all entered the house together. Four of them, however, were conscious that that Sunday's walk beneath the chestnuts of Bushey Park would long be remembered.
Nothing else occurred to make the day memorable. In the evening, after dinner, Mrs. Woodward and her daughters went to church, leaving her younger guests to entertain the elder one. The elder one soon took the matter in his own hand by going to sleep; and Harry and Alaric being thus at liberty, sauntered out down the river side. They both made a forced attempt at good-humour, each speaking cheerily to the other; but there was no confidence between them as there had been on that morning when Harry rowed his friend up to London. Ah me! what had occurred between them to break the bonds of their mutual trust—to quench the ardour of their firm friendship? But so it was between them now. It was fated that they never again should place full confidence in each other.
There was no such breach between the sisters, at least not as yet; but even between them there was no free and full interchange of their hopes and fears. Gertrude and Linda shared the same room, and were accustomed—as what girls are not?—to talk half through the night of all their wishes, thoughts, and feelings. And Gertrude was generally prone enough to talk of Harry Norman. Sometimes she would say she loved him a little, just a little; at others she would declare that she loved him not at all—that is, not as heroines love in novels, not as she thought she could love, and would do, should it ever be her lot to be wooed by such a lover as her young fancy pictured to her. Then she would describe her beau idéal, and the description certainly gave no counterpart of Harry Norman. To tell the truth, however, Gertrude was as yet heart whole; and when she talked of love and Harry Norman, she did not know what love was.
On this special Sunday evening she was disinclined to speak of him at all. Not that she loved him more than usual, but that she was beginning to think that she could not ever really love him at all. She had taught herself to think that he might probably be her husband, and had hitherto felt no such repugnance to her destiny as caused her to shun the subject. But now she was beginning to think of the matter seriously; and as she did so, she felt that life might have for her a lot more blessed than that of sharing the world with her cousin Harry.
When, therefore, Linda began to question her about her lover, and to make little hints of her desire to tell what Alaric had said of her and Norman, Gertrude gave her no encouragement. She would speak of Captain Cuttwater, of Katie's lessons, of the new dress they were to make for their mother, of Mr. Everscreech's long sermon, of anything in fact but of Harry Norman.
Now this was very hard on poor Linda. Her heart was bursting within her to tell her sister that she also was beloved; but she could not do so without some little encouragement.
In all their conferences she took the cue of the conversation from her sister; and though she could have talked about Alaric by the hour, if Gertrude would have consented to talk about Harry, she did not know how to start the subject of her own lover, while Gertrude was so cold and uncommunicative as to hers. She struggled very hard to obtain the privilege for which she so anxiously longed; but in doing so she only met with a sad and sore rebuff.
'Gertrude,' at last said Linda, when Gertrude thought that the subject had been put to rest at any rate for that night, 'don't you think mamma would be pleased if she knew that you had engaged yourself to Harry Norman?'
'No,' said Gertrude, evincing her strong mind by the tone in which she spoke; 'I do not. If mamma wished it, she would have told me; for she never has any secrets. I should be as wrong to engage myself with Harry as you would be with Alaric. For though Harry has property of his own, while poor Alaric has none, he has a very insufficient income for a married man, and I have no fortune with which to help him. If nothing else prevented it, I should consider it wicked in me to make myself a burden to a man while he is yet so young and comparatively so poor.'