Major Howard was very willing to take his daughter on a tour of travel, but knew not how to leave his invalid lady, whose strength he thought to be gradually failing. She was far too low for him to indulge the idea of making her one of the party, and he was about relinquishing the project in despair, when, on mentioning the subject to the sick woman, great was his surprise to find her even more anxious and earnest for his departure than he was to go. She said "she should do very well without him,—she always mended as summer approached, and Florence was drooping from long and close confinement. She needed exercise and change of scene, and it was his duty to do all in his power to restore her to health and cheerfulness." Major Howard felt the only obstacle removed by the invalid's assent and hearty coöperation; so Florence was informed of the project, and preparations immediately commenced for her tour.
It was a pleasant April evening as she sat in her luxurious apartment with her journal open before her. "The last of these bright spring evenings that I am to pass at home is closing in around me," she wrote. "My trunks are packed and closed down, and to-morrow I am to start on a tour of travel. How my long torpid bosom bounds at the thought! I shall sail up that picturesque Hudson! I shall look on glorious Niagara! But I fear my anticipations are too brilliant. Something will occur to dreg my expected draught of happiness with sorrow. Thus it has ever been! Too well I know I shall return to become the bride of one I detest; but I will not let that thought embitter my enjoyment of the wonders and beauties I shall behold. Besides, in so long a time as I shall be absent, what may occur? Ah, I have written words that make me shudder! I fear I may return to find the snows covering my mother's grave. Why do I leave her? Is it not selfishness to allow her to urge me away when it is her own generous care and affection for me which prompt her to do so? There is something strange in the way she speaks of my matrimonial engagement. I am sure it does not meet her approval, though she gave her consent, as she always does to everything upon which father sets his mind. She evidently dreads its consummation, perhaps because she has discovered my aversion for the man I am to marry. As to Hannah Doliver, she is wonderfully mollified toward me of late; but her fawning fondness is more intolerable than her asperity and impertinence. Nothing seems to delight her so much as to behold Rufus Malcome in company with me. I caught her watching at the parlor-door this evening when he called in company with his father to leave his adieus. She accompanied them to the door and remained several minutes in conversation in the hall. I found her in the kitchen a short time after, and she was muttering to herself and slamming things about in a great rage. When she discovered me she ceased, and grew suddenly as sunny as summer. She is a strange, dark, intriguing woman, I fear, and wish we were well quit of her. I asked mother if she had not better discharge her, and get a new person to attend her during our absence; but she said, with a sudden expression of alarm, 'O, no; she would not part with Hannah on any account!' So I said no more, but fancied her preference was dictated more by fear than love. But I spin out a long record for this last evening at home. O, budding vines and flowers! who will train your rich luxuriance into fairy, fantastic clusterings, or watch your opening petals in the summer which is to come? Who listen to the babbling fountains, or roam the cedar-walks that border the dancing river? And O, the far, far-stretching forest, from whose mysterious depths, in a bright year passed away, I saw him emerge, and hurried down the gravelled path to meet him at the garden-gate, with happy, bounding heart! Will new scenes, however glad and gay, e'er dim the memory of those dear times? Never!"
CHAPTER XXVII.
"It is a pleasant thing to roam abroad,
And gaze on scenes and objects strange and grand;
To sail in mighty ships o'er distant seas,
And roam the mountains of a foreign land."
In Mrs. Stanhope's pretty cottage, close by the vine-shaded window, sat Jenny Andrews, and she said Florence Howard had started on a tour of travel.
"Who is her companion?" asked Mrs. Stanhope.
"Why, Rufus Malcome, of course," said Miss Pinkerton, quickly.