Still, Master Henry was not a remarkable specimen of infanthood, and had never occupied more than his proper nepotal corner in Hilary's heart. She left him chiefly to Elizabeth, and to his aunt Johanna, in whom the grandmotherly character had blossomed out in full perfection. And when these two became engrossed in his infant majesty. Hilary sat a little apart, unconsciously folding her hands and fixing her eyes on vacancy; becoming fearfully alive to the sharp truth, that of all griefs, a strong love unreturned or unfulfilled is the grief which most blights a woman's life. Say, rather, any human life; but it is worst to a woman, because she must necessarily endure passively. So enduring, it is very difficult to recognize the good hand of God therein. Why should He ordain longings, neither selfish nor unholy, which yet are never granted; tenderness which expends itself in vain; sacrifices which are wholly unheeded; and sufferings which seem quite thrown away? That is, if we dared allege of any thing in the moral or in the material world, where so much loveliness, so much love, appear continually wasted, that it is really "thrown away." We never know through what divine mysteries of compensation the Great Father of the universe may be carrying out his sublime plan; and those three words, "God is love," ought to contain, to every doubting soul, the solution of all things.
As Hilary rose from under the tree there was a shadow on her sweet face, a listless weariness in her movements, which caught Johanna's attention. Johanna had been very good to her child. When, do what she would, Hilary could not keep down fits of occasional dullness or impatience, it was touching to see how this woman of over sixty years slipped from her due pedestal of honor and dignity, to be patient with her younger sister's unspoken bitterness and incommunicable care.
She now, seeing how restless Hilary was, rose when she rose, put her arm in hers, and accompanied her, speaking or silent, with quick steps or slow, as she chose, across the beautiful park, than which, perhaps, all England can not furnish a scene more thoroughly sylvan, thoroughly English. They rested on that high ground near the gate of Pembroke Lodge, where the valley of the Thames lies spread out like a map, stretching miles and miles away in luxuriant greenery.
"How beautiful! I wonder what a foreigner would think of this view? Or any one who had been long abroad? How inexpressibly sweet and home-like it would seem to him!"
Hilary turned sharply away, and Johanna saw at once what her words had implied. She felt so sorry, so vexed with herself; but it was best to leave it alone. So they made their way homeward, speaking of something else; and then that happened which Johanna had been almost daily expecting would happen, though she dared not communicate her hopes to Hilary, lest they might prove fallacious.
The two figures, both in deep mourning, might have attracted any one's attention: they caught that of a gentleman, who was walking quickly and looking about him, as if in search of something. He passed them at a little distance, then repassed, then turned, holding out both his hands.
"Miss Leaf; I was sure it was you."
Only the voice; every thing else about him was so changed that Hilary herself would certainly have passed him in the street, that brown, foreign looking, middle aged man, nor recognized him as Robert Lyon. But for all that it was himself; it was Robert Lyon.
Nobody screamed, nobody fainted. People seldom do that in real life, even when a friend turns up suddenly from the other end of the world. They only hold out a warm hand, and look silently in one another's faces, and try to believe that all is real, as these did.
Robert Lyon shook hands with both ladies, one after the other, Hilary last, then placed himself between them.