The windows were ablaze with light, and there were sounds of music and singing as brother and sister, entering the house, wended their way to the oak parlour and warmed their hands at the cheerful blaze. The gas was lit, the curtains drawn, the room tidy and inviting-looking; but no kind motherly face was there to welcome them and ask if the evening had been a pleasant one. At other times Winnie would not, most probably, have felt the blank, having been accustomed to such neglect; but coming straight from Aunt Judith's gentle presence, and with the remembrance of her loving words and kind voice stirring the lonely little heart, it struck home to her with a chill. Leaving Dick to his own meditations she slipped away to the large nursery, where old nurse sat quietly watching the slumbers of her young charge, Winnie's little step-brother.
Here at least there was no lack of sympathy or welcome, for dearly did the faithful servant love her first mistress's children, and bitterly did she bewail the neglect with which the two youngest were treated. Kneeling down by her side, Winnie rehearsed the whole history of the afternoon and evening at Dingle Cottage; and old nurse, listening intently, did not fail to raise her hands and express due astonishment at the knowledge of Aunt Judith's authorship. So the young girl was comforted, and after kissing her little brother lovingly, she rejoined Dick in the oak parlour, and passed the rest of the evening contentedly in his society.
CHAPTER VIII.
FORGING THE FIRST LINK.
Autumn, with its sobbing winds and falling leaves, was over now, and cold, sterile winter reigned supreme all around. Day after day the chill northern blasts swept over the busy town, bringing with them now a tempest of blinding sleet, and again showers of softly-falling snow: rich people wrapped themselves warmly in their furs and velvet; and the poor, gathering their tattered garments more closely round them, shivered under the touch of the icy king. But if winter days brought cold, bleak winds and murky skies, they also brought many pleasures in their train; and young hearts beat joyfully as the Christmas-tide drew near, and bright visions of the festive season filled each youthful mind.
Winnie especially was in a state of great excitement, for Mrs. Blake had promised her a party with a real Christmas tree, to which she was at liberty to invite as many of her school-mates as she chose. One little trifle alone damped her happiness—namely, the command to include Ada Irvine in the list of her invitations; and although Winnie pouted and pleaded her dislike of that young lady, Mrs. Blake remained firm, and insisted that her injunction should be carried out. "Your father was formerly on very intimate terms with Mr. Irvine, Winnie, and I will have no slight or disrespect shown to his daughter; so, either post her an invitation or abandon the idea of a party altogether." And when her step-mother spoke in that decided manner, Winnie knew she had no alternative save to yield.
"I sincerely trust Ada Irvine will have the good sense to refuse," she confided to Nellie the day on which the invitations were about to be issued. "She'll spoil the whole affair it she comes, horrid old thing; and I did mean it all to be so nice. Ugh! she will surely never accept," and Winnie's face wore anything but an amiable expression.
School had not been such a very pleasant place those last few weeks, and many of the scenes which occurred there were certainly neither seemly nor instructive. Open warfare reigned between Ada and Winnie, and the skirmishes were becoming serious as well as disagreeable; for Winnie, scouting all Nellie's proposals of being patient and winning by love, made a fiery little adversary, and Ada Irvine's dislike of both was rapidly deepening into the bitterest hatred—the more so when she saw Nellie rising gradually in the esteem of both teachers and scholars: the former being won by her steady attention and modest behaviour; the latter by the simple, kindly spirit which characterized all her actions. There was much still to call for patient forbearance and quiet endurance; but Nellie could see the golden sunlight streaming through the clouds, and hopefully trusted that by-and-by every dark shadow would vanish and leave never a trace behind.
This state of matters was as gall and wormwood to Ada. Nellie's gradual triumph, and Winnie's malicious delight thereat, roused every evil passion in her nature; and out of her deadly hatred she meditated a sure revenge when the opportunity came in her way. What form it would take she hardly knew; events would shape themselves somehow; and then—the cold blue eyes glittered ominously at the thought of what she termed her reckoning-day.