"They are very happy memories, it is true," she continued; "yet, my dear cousin, it strikes me that memory has the effect of moonlight, softening the harsher things of life, and saddening the brighter." The heart of Bessy Davenport was speaking now. I had got the key, and I never lost it again.
"It is very true," I answered gravely. "My own early years were very happy ones. I love the spots where they passed; I like to dwell upon their memories, but it is with a sort of mournful pleasure. Man, with his eager aspirations for new things, never loves to lose aught of that which he has once possessed; and often, when I sit by the fireside with my sister, in the old hall, she and I fall into reveries, longing both of us, I know, to give back tangible life and human energy to those who once sat there with us, and substance and reality to the spectres of remembrance. But, indeed, I knew not that this had been your early home; otherwise I do not think I should have let you come here with us."
"Oh, yes," she answered; "I am very fond of spending long hours here. My mother died when I was four years old; my father died before her. There was some dispute about my property; my cousin Robert tried hard to cheat me out of everything; and this was judged the best home for me during my early youth. A happier home it could not have been; for dear Aunt Bab would never send me to school, but taught me almost everything herself that she could teach, and said she was determined to make an English lady of me. You know that is impossible," she added, with one of her light smiles; "the rebel blood is too strong in me for that."
"And who is that gentleman?" I asked, pointing to the other picture which hung over the mantel, and which represented a fine-looking old man in a blue uniform.
"Oh, that is Colonel Thornton," she replied. "They are both fine pictures; the one by Copley, the other by Stuart. But there is a third you should look at, by some English artist, I do not know whom." And she turned towards the opposite wall. There, to my surprise, I beheld a perfect and masterly copy of the portrait of my own father which hangs up in our hall. As I gazed at it, I just caught Miss Davenport's eyes turning from the picture to my own face; and the next moment she said, "Should I have needed anything but that picture, Sir Richard, to tell me who you really are?" I felt something rising in my eyes, as I gazed here, in a foreign land, at the features which I had so often stood to contemplate in my own home, and remembered that picture was a pledge of early affection between brother and sister which had existed unbroken to the end of life. I quietly drew Miss Davenport's arm through my own and turned away out of the room. She said nothing for some minutes, but seemed unconsciously to take her way up the stairs where we could hear the voices of Miss Thornton and Mr. Byles, apparently in very gay conversation. At the first landing she stopped, however, saying, "And so you have a sister? I am very glad of it. Having a sister humanizes a man, and gives him something to think about besides himself."
"I have, indeed, a very dear and very beautiful sister," I replied. "But do you not think, Miss Davenport, that having a wife might humanize a man as well as having a sister?"
"Ah!" she cried, looking up with one of her gay smiles again, "are you a married man, then, Sir Richard?"
"No," I answered, "I am not so happy. But pray answer my question?"
"And is your sister married?" she asked.
"No, indeed," I replied; "but she is six years younger than I am. And now answer my question, as I have answered yours."