So the two young people resolved, not without a consciousness that what was to them a fresh and inspiring gale, to the elder generation was “winds have rent thy sheltering bowers.”
CHAPTER XXVII—A SENTENCE
“What should we give for our beloved?”
—E. B. Browning.
No sooner had the visitors departed than the others now out of quarantine appeared at Vale Leston. Angela was anxious to spend a little time there, and likewise to have Lena overhauled by Tom May. The child had never really recovered, and was always weakly; and whereas on the journey, Lily, now in high health, was delighted with all she saw, though she could not compare Penbeacon to Adam’s Peak, Lena lay back in Sister Angela’s arms, almost a dead weight, hardly enduring the bustle of the train, though she tried not to whine, as long as she saw her pink Ben looking happy in his cage.
Angela was an experienced nurse, and was alarmed at some of the symptoms that others made light of. Mrs. Grinstead had thought things might be made easier to her if the Miss Merrifields came to meet her and hear the doctor’s opinion; and Elizabeth accepted her invitation, arriving to see the lovely peaceful world in the sweet blossoming of an early May, the hedges spangled with primroses, and the hawthorns showing sheets of snow; while the pear trees lifted their snowy pyramids, and Lily in her white frock darted about the lawn in joyous play with her father under the tree, and the grey cloister was gay with wisteria.
Angela was sitting in the boat, safely moored, with a book in her hand, the pink cockatoo on the gunwale, nibbling at a stick, and the girl lying on a rug, partly on her lap. Phyllis and Anna, who had come out on the lawn, made Elizabeth pause.
“That’s the way they go on!” said Phyllis. “All day long Angela is reading to the child either the ‘Water Babies’ or the history of Joseph.”
“Or crooning to her the story of the Cross,” said Anna; “and as soon as one is ended she begins it again, and Lena will not let her miss or alter a single word.”
“They go on more than half the night,” added Phyllis. “Bear sat up long over his letters and accounts, and as he went up he heard the crooning, and looked in; and the very moment Angela paused, there came the little plaintive voice, ‘Go on, please.’ ‘Women are following’—”
“But is not that spoiling her?” asked Bessie.