Graves relapsed into silence again, and then Griselda put the important seal on her letter, and addressed it, and gave it to Graves, with instructions to send it safely by the hand of David early the next morning.
"It is a comfort to have told him all!" she said, as Graves finally left the room. "And how happy I am to be no longer a chattel, but a part of the very life of another, and that other a man like my Leslie!"
Sweet were Griselda's dreams that night, all fears seemed to have vanished, and the image of Sir Maxwell Danby bore no part in them.
Women of Griselda's type, tasting the cup of happiness for the first time, are inclined to drink deep of its contents. Perhaps only those who have not felt the loneliness of heart like hers can tell how great was the reaction. Hitherto she had been plainly told she was an encumbrance, and that her business in coming to Bath was to get a settlement in life as soon as possible. It was this that had made her maintain the cold, reserved demeanour which was, as I have said, unlikely to make her popular in the mixed assemblies of Wiltshire's Rooms and the Pump Room. She had surrendered the citadel of her heart with a whole and perfect surrender; and while the gay crowd was bent on enjoyment, and beaux and belles were trying who could be first in the exchange of pleasantries and jokes not of the most refined character, Griselda dreamed her dreams, and slept in peace; while Graves, carrying the letter downstairs, stopped from time to time, and murmured:
"I have not the heart to tell her! I dare not tell her! Or, if I do, not to-night!—not to-night! How could I spoil her happiness to-night! May the Lord call her, and may she hear His voice, for I fear trouble lies before her, poor lamb!"
It is wonderful what perseverance and energy can effect! Even in the very prosaic and commonplace circumstances of a removal from Rivers Street to King Street, these qualities were conspicuous in the Herschels. Miss Herschel had worked with a will from daybreak to nightfall, and the stolid Welsh servant, Betty, had been infected with the general stir and bustle of the household.
By nine o'clock that evening Mr. Herschel was established in his observatory at the top of the house, without a single mischance happening to any of his mirrors or reflectors, and without the loss of a single instrument. It was a night when the temptation to sweep the heavens was too great to resist, and although he felt some compunction when he heard the running to and fro below-stairs, and his sister's voice raised certainly above concert-pitch in exhortations to Betty and entreaties to Alick to be sharp and quick, he had fixed one of his telescopes, and was lost in calculations and admiration at some previously unnoticed feature of the nebulæ, when his brother Alex came into the room.
"We have got supper ready," he said, "and Travers is below offering help—rather late in the day—and the only help he can give now is to help to eat the double Gloucester cheese and drink the Bristol ale. But come, Will; you have had no proper meal to-day!"
"Humph! what," Mr. Herschel said, "did I say? Nineteen millions of miles, or eighteen and three-quarter millions? Yes, Alex—yes. Can I be of any assistance? How about the violins and the harpsichord? There are several lessons down for to-morrow, and Ronzini will be here about the oratorio. I ought to have gone to Bristol, but it was impossible. There's the score of that quartette in G minor, Alex—is it safe?"