Next morning was Sunday. After the bells had done ringing we saw a black-veiled figure pass our window. Poor girl!—going to church alone. We followed—taking care that she should not see us, either during service or afterwards. We did not see anything more of her that day.
On Monday a message came, saying that Miss March would be glad to speak with us both. Of course we went.
She was sitting quite alone, in our old parlour, very grave and pale, but perfectly composed. A little more womanly-looking in the dignity of her great grief, which, girl as she was, and young men as we were, seemed to be to her a shield transcending all worldly "proprieties."
As she rose, and we shook hands, in a silence only broken by the rustle of her black dress, not one of us thought—surely the most evil-minded gossip could not have dared to think—that there was anything strange in her receiving us here. We began to talk of common things—not THE thing. She seemed to have fought through the worst of her trouble, and to have put it back into those deep quiet chambers where all griefs go; never forgotten, never removed, but sealed up in silence, as it should be. Perhaps, too—for let us not exact more from Nature than Nature grants—the wide, wide difference in character, temperament, and sympathies between Miss March and her father unconsciously made his loss less a heart-loss, total and irremediable, than one of mere habit and instinctive feeling, which, the first shock over, would insensibly heal. Besides, she was young—young in life, in hope, in body, and soul; and youth, though it grieves passionately, cannot for ever grieve.
I saw, and rejoiced to see, that Miss March was in some degree herself again; at least, so much of her old self as was right, natural, and good for her to be.
She and John conversed a good deal. Her manner to him was easy and natural, as to a friend who deserved and possessed her warm gratitude: his was more constrained. Gradually, however, this wore away; there was something in her which, piercing all disguises, went at once to the heart of things. She seemed to hold in her hand the touchstone of truth.
He asked—no, I believe I asked her, how long she intended staying at Enderley?
"I can hardly tell. Once I understood that my cousin Richard Brithwood was left my guardian. This my fa—this was to have been altered, I believe. I wish it had been. You know Norton Bury, Mr. Halifax?"
"I live there."
"Indeed!"—with some surprise. "Then you are probably acquainted with my cousin and his wife?"