"My dear little boy, I am not forsaking you; I shall only be separated from you for a month or two; and it is my duty to go to my sick friend. Do not look so wretched! for just so surely as I live, I shall come back to you."
"You think so now; but your old friends will persuade you to stay, and you will forget me, and—and—"
He turned around and hid his face on the back of his chair.
It was in vain that she endeavored, by promises and caresses, to reconcile him to her temporary absence. He would not be comforted; and his tear-stained, woe-begone, sallow face, as she saw it on the evening of her departure, pursued her on her journey South.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The mocking-bird sang as of old in the myrtle-boughs that shaded the study-window, and within the parsonage reigned the peaceful repose which seemed ever to rest like a benediction upon it. A ray of sunshine stealing through the myrtle-leaves made golden ripples on the wall; a bright wood-fire blazed in the wide, deep, old-fashioned chimney; the white cat slept on the rug, with her pink paws turned toward the crackling flames; and blue and white hyacinths hung their fragrant bells over the gilded edge of the vases on the mantelpiece. Huldah sat on one side of the hearth peeling a red apple; and, snugly wrapped in his palm-leaf cashmere dressing-gown, Mr. Hammond rested in his cushioned easy-chair, with his head thrown far back, and his fingers clasping a large bunch of his favorite violets, His snowy hair drifted away from a face thin and pale, but serene and happy, and in his bright blue eyes there was a humorous twinkle, and on his lips a half-smothered smile, as he listened to the witticisms of his Scotch countrymen in "Noctes Ambrosianae."
Close to his chair sat Edna, reading aloud from the quaint and inimitable book he loved so well, and pausing now and then to explain some word which Huldah did not understand, or to watch for symptoms of weariness in the countenance of the invalid.
The three faces contrasted vividly in the ruddy glow of the fire. That of the little girl, round, rosy, red-lipped, dimpled, merry-eyed; the aged pastor's wrinkled cheeks and furrowed brow and streaming silver beard; and the carved-ivory features of the governess, borrowing no color from the soft folds of her rich merino dress. As daylight ebbed, the ripple danced up to the ceiling and vanished, like the pricked bubble of a human hope; the mocking-bird hushed his vesper-hymn; and Edna closed the book and replaced it on the shelf.
Huldah tied on her scarlet-lined hood, kissed her friends good-bye, and went back to Le Bocage; and the old man and the orphan sat looking at the grotesque flicker of the flames on the burnished andirons.
"Edna, are you tired, or can you sing some for me?"