“My Milisent,” said Lady Louvaine, “I shall not carry God from thee. And thou wilt surely see me again, sweet heart, where we shall part no more for ever.”
For a few minutes Milisent wept as if her heart would break; then she wiped her eyes, and kissed them all round, only breaking down a little again when she came to her sister Edith.
“O Edith, darling sister, I never loved thee half well enough!”
Edith was calm now. “Send me the other half in thy letters, Milly,” she replied, “and I will return it to thee.”
“Ay, we can write betimes,” said Milisent, looking a little comforted. Then to her niece,—“Now, Lettice, I look to thee for all the news. The first day of every month shall we begin to look out for a letter at Mere Lea; and if my sister cannot write, then must thou. Have a care!”
“So I will, Aunt,” said Lettice.
Milisent alighted with a rather brighter look—she was not wont to look any thing but bright—Robert took his leave and then came all the cousins pouring in to say good-bye. So the farewells were spoken, and they went on their journey; but as far as they could see until hidden by the hill round which they drove, Milisent’s handkerchief was waving after them.
Lady Louvaine bore the journey better than her daughters had feared; and our friends deemed themselves very happy that during the whole of it, they were not once overturned, and only four times stuck in the mud. At the end of the fourth day, which was Friday, they came up to the door of the Hill House at Minster Lovel. And as they lumbered round the sweep with their six horses, Edith cried joyously,—“Oh, there’s old Rebecca!”
To Edith Louvaine, a visit to the Hill House was in a sense coming home, for its owner, her father’s cousin, Joyce Morrell, had been to her almost a second mother. When people paid distant visits in the sixteenth century, it was not for a week’s stay, but for half a year, or at least a quarter. During many years it had been the custom that visits of this length should be exchanged between Selwick Hall and the Hill House at Minster Lovel alternately, at the close of every two years. But Edith, who was Aunt Joyce’s special favourite, had paid now and then a visit between-times; and when, as years and infirmities increased, the meetings were obliged to cease for the elders, Edith’s yearly stay of three or four months with the old and lonely cousin had become an institution instead of them. Her feeling, therefore, was much like that of a daughter of the house introducing her relatives to her own home; for Lady Louvaine was the only other of the party to whom the Hill House had been familiar in old times.
Its owner, the once active and energetic old lady, now confined to her couch by partial paralysis, had been called Aunt Joyce by the Louvaines of the second generation ever since their remembrance lasted. To the younger ones, however, she was a stranger; and they watched with curious eyes their Aunt Edith’s affectionate greeting of the old servant Rebecca, who had guarded and amused her as a baby, and loved her as a girl. Rebecca, on her part, was equally glad to see her.