"It is not that," she replied, "the city was the scene of my happiest, as well as my saddest days, and we are soon to return to it; but this village is the home of my nearest relatives, who were restored to me a few years since through a singular Providence, and my grandfather's infirmities rendered it expedient that we should remain here until now."
Mrs. Dunmore seeing the tears that dropped upon her child's work at mention of her grandfather, took Mr. Colbert aside, and gave him a brief history of all that had occurred during the years of their severance, and when she had finished her relation of the old man's derangement, and of Jennie's devotion and love toward him, the minister arose, and walked backward and forward in the room with an absorbed and meditative air, and then stopping so suddenly before the young girl as to startle her, he said abruptly: "Will you give me one moment in the garden? I have a single word to say to you alone." Jennie laid aside her work, and as they stepped from the colonnade into the garden of their lodgings, she opened an adjoining wicket that led to her uncle's grounds, and, motioning Mr. Colbert to follow, she passed through and entered the little summer-house.
"Are we quite free from intrusion?" asked her companion, as she seated herself upon a bench near the window.
"I believe I reign sole monarch of this sequestered nook at this season," replied Jennie. "My cousins care little for such solitude now that the breeze is chilly and the flowers have vanished."
"Jennie," said her friend, leaning against a pillow as if for support, "if you knew that all my suffering for the last few years had been for you, that this change, and pallor, and thinness, were all occasioned by the fear that the time might never come when I could tell you that I love you, you would pardon such a hasty declaration of my feelings toward you. You were but a child when first we met," he continued, placing his hand upon her head as he had then been wont to do, "but how closely your young being had woven itself with mine my subsequent weary life will prove. Were you ever sundered from the object you had learned to prize most on earth, Jennie?" said he, as the drooping lashes were lifted, and the pensive, earnest eyes met his inquiring gaze, "and was there utter desolation? Then do you appreciate fully all that I would say to you of my own sorrow when bereft of the only mortal whom my heart had ever cared to cherish. I ask you not to bind yourself to me in an irrevocable vow, but to think of me as your truest friend until you have seen more of the world and of men. If then you can turn away from all to the heart that will never beat for another, and call me husband, God be praised—my only earthly prayer will be answered."
Not another word was spoken, but silently as they came so they went back, through the little wicket into the presence of Mrs. Dunmore, and Mr. Colbert made his adieus and departed—but alas for Henry Moore!
CHAPTER XXIX.
The afternoon was charming—one of those mellow, hazy atmospheres that make the autumnal season so pensive and dreamy, and Jennie felt its influence as she and Henry Moore sought the bright path to Blinkdale. Not richer nor more sparkling could the emerald, and the topaz, and the amethyst, and the sardius be, in their gay and beauteous variety, than were the changing leaflets in the sun's burnishing rays. The birds were singing merrily amid the brilliant foliage, and the fresh winds played among the branches, tossing them to and fro, and blending the bright and the somber in one glorious commingling. A streamlet crossed their pathway, moving placidly and gently along, but as they followed its windings, gurgling and foaming over the rocky obstructions, and almost drowning their voices in its noisy course. "How beautiful" exclaimed Jennie, seating herself upon a mossy stone on the river's bank, and looking to her companion for sympathy in her enthusiastic delight.
"I would rather look on a sweet face," replied Henry, as his eloquent eyes met hers. Blushing deeply, Jennie turned away and remained thoughtful and still, listening to the din of the waters and the wail of the autumn winds as they swept through the tree-tops, and her quiet revery brought the old expression of early maturity and care, for her thoughts had been roving all along her past life, and had left her amid her childhood's sorrows in the narrow dreary room, with the weary and forsaken ones, and none else to love and cheer her.