Raymond Leicester had not a prepossessing face; it was heavy, and to a casual observer, stupid. He had dark hazel eyes, shaded by an overhanging brow and rather sweeping eyelashes; a straight nose, and compressed lips, hiding a row of defective teeth; a high massive forehead and light hair, which was seldom smooth, but very straight. This he had a habit of tossing back with a jerk when he was excited; and sometimes the dull eyes flashed with a very bright sparkle in them when he caught an idea which pleased him,—for Raymond was an artist, not by profession, but because it was in his heart to paint, and he could not help himself. He was sixteen now, and Madge was twelve. Madge was the only thing in the world that he really cared for, except his pictures. Their mother was dead, Madge could hardly remember her; but Raymond always had an image before him of a tender, sorrowful woman, who used to hold him in her arms, and whisper to him, while the hot tears fell upon his baby cheeks,—"You will comfort me, my little son. You will take care of your mother and of baby Madge." And he remembered the cottage in the country where they had lived, the porch where the rose-tree grew, the orchard and the moss-grown well, the tall white lilies in the garden that stood like fairies guarding the house, and the pear-tree that was laden with fruit.
He remembered how his mother had sat in that porch with him, reading stories to him out of the Bible, but often lifting her sad pale face and looking down the road as if watching for some one.
And then there came a dark, dreary night, when the wind was howling mournfully round the cottage and their mother lay dying. She had called Raymond to her, and had pressed her cold lips on his forehead, telling him to take care of Madge; and if his father ever came, to say that she had loved him to the end, and she had prayed God to bless him and to take care of her children. Then she had died, and the neighbours told Raymond that he was motherless.
THE DYING MOTHER.
He recollected how the sun shone brightly on the day that she was buried, and that he and Madge stood by the grave crying, when she was put down in the cold earth; and that a man rode up to the paling of the quiet green churchyard, and threw the reins over his horse's neck, and came with hurried footsteps to the grave just as the last sod was thrown upon the coffin; and how this man had sobbed and cried, and had caught them in his arms, and said, "My poor little motherless ones," and had kissed them and cried again so piteously and wildly, that the clergyman had stopped in the service and had tried to comfort him. And when the funeral was over, and the neighbours were taking the little ones home, how the man had held them tightly and said, "No; mine now, never to leave me again. I am their father. Margaret, I will try to make up to them what I withheld from you; is it too late?"
This was the father whom their mother had spoken of with her dying breath; but who had come too late to implore her forgiveness for having left her in want, while he squandered his money upon his own pleasure. But now, in the impulse of grief and remorse, he had determined to act differently, and returned to London with his children.
Here they had lived ever since. Their father had returned to his old gay life, and left the children very much to take care of themselves. Sometimes carelessly kind to them, more often harsh and impatient, Mr. Leicester supposed that he fulfilled the vow which he had made about her children, beside his wife's grave.
Raymond and Madge had no very definite idea as to what their father did with his time. From time to time they changed their lodgings, always coming to some quieter ones, and now they had got to the highest flight of a tall house in a very shady street. Their father was not at home very often, but they did not mind this much, and were very happy together.