But she only said, "Leave me, dear father, I entreat you, for a while! I have a sudden illness. By and by I will speak to you."
Awed by her tone and manner, the fond father obeyed. An hour passed by, during which the grief-stricken girl never moved, when the door opened, and Hannah Doliver entered. She glowered on Florence with an expression of hate and gratified revenge, which changed to one of fawning fondness when the pale, tear-stained face was turned toward her. "Pray, don't sit here in the cold all day!" said she. "Your mother desires you to come to her."
Florence wrapped her rich dressing-gown around her, stole down the stairs and entered the apartment of the invalid, who reached her wasted arm from the bed as she approached, and clasped it round the slender, graceful waist. The young girl bowed her head on the pillow, and burst into tears.
CHAPTER XXIV.
"He held a letter in his withered hand
Which brought good tidings of the absent one.
O, what soul-cheering things are letters, when
They come fresh from the hand of one we love,
All brimming o'er with kindly-uttered words!"
The wailing winds swept onward with low and piteous sound, while the "Hermit of the Cedars" sat beneath his humble roof, beside a rough table, and, by the light of a tallow candle, pored over a closely-written page. In the recess of the small window, a bright-haired boy was sitting, very like the dreamy Edgar who sat there in summers and seasons passed by, and watched the stars gleaming, like showers of diamonds, through the interlacing forest-boughs. But it was not Edgar, for he was far away, storing his mind from the mines of ancient lore.