"Mamma, it is coming," said Aveline, almost inaudibly. "What, is coming, my love?" asked her mother.
Aveline made no answer—all her senses seemed to have failed her at once.
"God be praised!" said Mrs. Grant, rising with the dignity, that true emotion always gives: "God be praised! she is now an angel in Heaven!"
CHAPTER XIV.
And some will die, these are the gentle hearted,
Shook down like flowers by early frost: and some
Will grow in scorn and bitterness of heart,
As giving unto others, the full measure
Of that which hath been meted unto them.
Some look to Heaven, and garner up their hearts
Where disappointment cannot touch them more;
And these few are the wise; but there be many,
Whose life is stronger than their agony,
And one outlasts the other.—Pity them.
ANON.
As soon as it was possible the next morning, Hubert Gage, paid the visit that Margaret had almost demanded of him the evening before. The most favoured suitor might have felt gratified by the eagerness with which she evidently awaited his approach; for she was standing half way down the pathway of the garden, watching him as he neared the cottage. His embarrassment was far greater than her own, he hardly dared raise his eyes to her face, and when he did so, he was as much startled by its steady and fixed expression, as by the icy paleness that overspread her features.
"I desired to see you again," she said, when he reached her, "I was very foolish and unreasonable, yesterday; and I was anxious that no friend of mine should go away with such an impression of me. I wished to meet you when I was calm again. You see, Mr. Hubert, that I consider you as a friend."
"A friend!" he exclaimed; "if the devotion of my whole life could supply—"
"Stop!" cried Margaret, in a tone of suffering, so much at variance with the even calmness of her first address, that he felt appalled by it. "If all you have ever professed for me has not been a mockery and an insult, you will spare me this. You will feel as securely as if the future were the past, that I can never love again. You will not offend me, if you value the friendship and regard I have yet to give, by imagining that I can at any period listen to such language."
"Then, there is nothing but misery an store for both of us," said Hubert Gage.