“O nurse, I give my sweet jewel to your care; you know what a great house in London is better than I do. You will warn her of any danger.”
“I will do my endeavour, ma’am. We servants see and hear much, and if any harm should come nigh the sweet young miss, I’ll do my best for her.”
“Thank you, nurse, I shall never, never see her more in her free artless childishness,” said Betty, sobbing as if her heart would break; “but oh, nurse, I can bear the thought better since I have known that you would be near her.”
And at night, when her darling nestled for the last time in her arms, the elder sister whispered her warnings. Her knowledge of the great world was limited, but she believed it to be a very wicked place, and she profoundly distrusted her brilliant kinswoman; yet her warnings took no shape more definite than—“My dearest sister will never forget her prayers nor her Bible.” There was a soft response and fresh embrace at each pause. “Nor play cards of a Sunday, nor ever play high. And my Aura must be deaf to rakish young beaux and their compliments. They never mean well by poor pretty maids. If you believe them, they will only mock, flout, and jeer you in the end. And if the young baronet should seek converse with you, promise me, oh, promise me, Aurelia, to grant him no favour, no, not so much as to hand him a flower, or stand chatting with him unknown to his mother. Promise me again, child, for naught save evil can come of any trifling between you. And, Aurelia, go to Nurse Dove in all your difficulties. She can advise you where your poor sister cannot. It will ease my heart if I know that my child will attend to her. You will not let yourself be puffed up with flattery, nor be offended if she be open and round with you. Think that your poor sister Betty speaks in her. Pray our old prayers, go to church, and read your Psalms and Lessons daily, and oh! never, never cheat your conscience. O may God, in His mercy, keep my darling!”
So Aurelia cried herself to sleep, while Betty lay awake till the early hour in the morning when all had to be prepared for the start. There was to be a ride of an hour and a half before breakfast so as to give the horses a rest. It was a terrible separation, in many respects more complete than if Aurelia had been going, in these days, to America; for communication by letter was almost as slow, and infinitely more expensive.
No doubt the full import of what he had done had dawned even on Major Delavie during the watches of that last sorrowful night, for he came out a pale, haggard man, looking as if his age had doubled since he went to bed, wrapped in his dressing gown, his head covered with his night-cap, and leaning heavily on his staff. He came charged with one of the long solemn discourses which parents were wont to bestow on their children as valedictions, but when Aurelia, in her camlet riding cloak and hood, brought her tear-stained face to crave his blessing, he could only utter broken fragments. “Bless thee my child! Take heed to yourself and your ways. It is a bad world, beset with temptations. Oh! heaven forgive me for sending my innocent lamb out into it. Oh! what would your blessed mother say?”
“Dear sir,” said Betty, who had wept out her tears, and was steadily composed now, “this is no time to think of that. We must only cheer up our darling, and give her good counsel. If she keep to what her Bible, her catechism and her conscience tell her, she will be a good girl, and God will protect her.”
“True, true, your sister is right; Aura, my little sweetheart, I had much to say to you, but it is all driven out of my poor old head.”
“Aura! Aura! the horses are coming! Ten of them!” shouted Eugene. “Come along! Oh! if I were but going! How silly of you to cry; I don’t.”
“There! there! Go my child, and God in His mercy protect you!”