There is a charming little villa some distance from Heritage Hall—a pretty place, on which many a weary wanderer, tired with life’s pilgrimage, has looked with an envious eye, and thought what a peaceful haven it must be to anchor in at last.
It is the bright summer time when we pause to admire this rustic retreat. The June roses are hanging about the porch; the scent of the sweet, old-fashioned flowers fills the air, and the lattice windows are opened wide to let in the odorous breeze.
In an invalid chair, wheeled to the door, sits an old lady, peacefully dozing. The evening of her life is far spent, and the night is at hand, but loving hands are ever ready to guide her tottering footsteps to the journey’s end.
Old Mrs. Adrian—dead to the past, dead to the future—dozes her declining days away here in this peaceful cottage, still finding a tongue that can chide for fancied slights, still in her feeble frame finding the strength to oppose and to contradict, but never failing, when she hears a gentle footstep approaching, to brighten into a smile, and to mumble out a loving word to the pale, gentle lady who bends over her and kisses the wrinkled brow.
And often with the quiet lady there comes to her a tall, graceful, blue-eyed girl—a girl just budding into womanhood.
These three—the old woman, the quiet, pale-faced lady, whose face bears traces of a sorrow too deep for words, endured nobly, and the young girl standing on the threshold of womanhood and waiting till some footfall shall make her heart beat with a new strange feeling—are together near the open door this warm June morning. Lying with his head upon his paws stretched out in front of his young mistress, is an old dog, who has his meat cut very small for him, and who now and then wags his tail with a stateliness suitable to grey hairs, but whose old eyes brighten still with a fond look of love when a gentle hand pats him and the voice which is the sweetest music he ever heard calls ‘Lion.’ Together they form a picturesque group that arrests the attention of a very dusty, very hot, and very fat gentleman, who takes his pocket-handkerchief from his hat and mops a shiny bald head with it.
‘I beg pardon, ladies,’ says the man, ‘but maybe you can tell me where Squire Heritage lives?’
The young lady rises and comes to the garden gate. She is about to direct the man, when a cloud of dust comes round the corner. There is a clatter of horse’s hoofs, and a pony-chaise rattles up to the door.
‘Here is the squire,’ says the young lady.
The fat gentleman stands aside and the squire does not see him. He is a handsome, happy-looking fellow, this squire, and there is a lady with him whose cheeks glow with health and whose bright eyes are full of life.