"Will you walk in?" I asked, now convinced it was right.
"Thank you; I am so weary of the confinement of the carriage, I like the freedom of the open air. I like this rich, velvet grass. How beautiful, how magnificent!" he exclaimed, his eye taking in the wide sweep of landscape, here and there darkened with shade, and at intervals literally blazing with the crimson sunlight,—then sweeping on over the swelling mountains, so grand in their purple drapery and golden crowns. "How exquisitely beautiful! My mother could not have selected a lovelier spot,—and these old granite walls! how antique, how classic they are!"
He turned and examined them, with a pleased yet criticizing eye. He walked up and down the velvet lawn with a firm, yet restless step, stopping occasionally to measure with his glance the towering oaks and the gigantic elm. I began to be uneasy at the protracted absence of Mrs. Linwood, and kept my eyes fixed upon the road, whose dark, rich, slatish-colored surface, seen winding through green margins, resembled a stream of deep water, it was so smooth and uniform. I knew how full must be the heart of the traveller. I did not wish to interrupt his meditations even by a look.
We saw it coming,—the family carriage. I saw his pale cheek flush at my joyous exclamation. He moved rapidly towards the gate, while I ran into the house, up stairs and into my own room, that I might not intrude on moments too sacred for curiosity.
In a little while, I could hear the sound of their mingling voices coming up the long flight of marble steps, across the wide piazza, and then they came soft and muffled from the drawing-room below. At first, forgetful of self, I sympathized in their joy. I rejoiced for my benefactress, I rejoiced for the tender and affectionate Edith. But after sitting there a long time alone, and of course forgotten in the rapture of this family reunion, thoughts of self began to steal over and chill the ardor of my sympathetic emotions. I could not help feeling myself a mote in the dazzling sunshine of their happiness. I could not help experiencing, in all its bitterness, the isolation of my own destiny. I remembered the lamentation of the aged and solitary Indian, "that not a drop of his blood flowed in the veins of a living being." So it was with me. To my knowledge, I had not a living relative. Friends were kind,—some were more than kind; but oh! there are capacities for love friends can never fill. There are niches in the temple of the heart made for household gods, and if they are left vacant, no other images, though of the splendor of the Grecian statuary, can remove its desolation. Deep calleth unto deep, and when no answer cometh, the waves beat against the lonely strand and murmur themselves away.
I tried to check all selfish, repining feelings. I tried to keep from envying Edith, but I could not.
"O that I, too, had a brother!"
Was the cry of my craving heart, and it would not be stilled. I wiped away tear after tear, resolving each should be the last, but the fountain was full, and every heaving sigh made it overflow.
At length I heard the sound of Edith's crutches on the stairs, faint and muffled, but I knew it from all other sounds. She could mount and descend the stairs as lightly as a bird, in spite of her infirmity.
"Ah! truant!" she cried, as she opened the door, "you need not think to hide yourself here all night; we want you to come and help us to be happy, for I am so happy I know not what to do."