Chapter Twelve.
Reunited.
“With mercy and with judgment
My web of time He wove,
And ay the dews of sorrow
Were lustred with His love:
I’ll bless the hand that guided,
I’ll bless the heart that planned,
When throned where glory dwelleth,
In Immanuel’s land.”
Mrs Cousins.
It was a very tiny house in Tower Street, at the corner of Mark Lane. There were but two rooms—above and below, as in Isel’s house, but these were smaller than hers, and the lower chamber was made smaller still by a panel screen dividing it in two unequal parts.
The front division, which was a very little one, was a jeweller’s shop; the back was larger, and was the family living-room. In it to-night the family were sitting, for business hours were over, and the shop was closed.
The family had a singular appearance. It consisted of four persons, and these were derived from three orders of the animate creation. Two were human. The third was an aged starling, for whose convenience a wicker cage hung in one corner; but the owner was hopping in perfect freedom about the hearth, and occasionally varying that exercise by pausing to give a mischievous peck to the tail of the fourth, a very large white and tan dog. The dog appeared so familiarised with this treatment as scarcely to notice it, unless the starling gave a harder peck than usual, when he merely moved his tail out of its way, accompanying the action in specially severe cases by the most subdued of growls, an action which seemed to afford great amusement to that impertinent and irrepressible fowl.
The relationship of the human inhabitants of the little chamber would not have been easy to guess. The elder, seated on a cushioned bench by the fire, was one whose apparent age was forty or perhaps rather more. She was a woman of extremely dark complexion, her hair jet-black, her eyes scarcely lighter—a woman who had once been very handsome, and whose lost youth and beauty now and then seemed to flash back into her face, when eagerness, anger, or any other strong feeling lent animation to her features. The other was a young man about half her years, and as unlike her as he well could be. His long flaxen hair waved over a brow as white as hers was dark, and his eyes were a light clear blue. He sat on a stool in front of the fire, gazing into the charred wooden embers with intent fixed eyes. The woman had glanced at him several times, but neither had spoken for above half an hour. Now she broke the silence.
“Well, Ralph?”