“I do not know any thing so grand,” continued Mary, “as to see any body—man, woman, or child, patiently and cheerfully bearing one affliction after another, without wanting any one to see or admire; giving up every thing, most precious, as soon as required to do so, and growing more and more careful to make other people happy as they are less so themselves. How very selfish, how very cowardly, is the boldest man that ever cut his throat, in comparison with such a one!”
Selina felt this; but enquired: “Do you think Signor Elvi could be such a one if he is not a Christian?”
Mary pondered awhile before she answered:—“I do not know: I will ask papa what he thinks. But I am very sure that a person so kind-hearted to every body, so fond of his wife and children, and so very serious, as papa says he is about religion, could never, in his right senses, plunge himself into destruction, and every body that he cared for into misery.”
This last sentence furnished Selina with a new scheme. If Signor Elvi would not, in his right senses, hang himself, he might do so if driven mad by his misfortunes; and who could wonder if such should prove to be the case? It mattered not that he had been not only sane but cheerful the night before, and that Nurse Rickham was pleased with all that he had said, and with his manner of saying it, that morning; Selina was determined to be apprehensive: who or what, therefore, could prevent her being so?
Mary, on her part, was resolved to ascertain what Signor Elvi’s principles were with respect to the duty of bearing the troubles of life with patience and cheerfulness. If she might judge from what she had seen, those principles were good; but she did not know how much allowance to make for differences of national character, and for constitutional temperament. She hoped to obtain satisfaction for herself, and instruction for Selina, by telling her father her wishes, and requesting him to engage his foreign friend in conversation on such topics as might lead to an explanation of those of his opinions which she wished to ascertain.
In the meanwhile, she was glad to see how Anna had recovered her spirits. At the farm it was her wont to be gay, and the well-known objects there brought back the cheerfulness with which she was accustomed to view them. When in a merry mood, Anna was almost wild: she was so now. A spirited game at prison-bars was going on in the paddock, and Anna and Mr. Fletcher were the most daring and active of the players. Nobody excelled Mr. Fletcher at this kind of sport; and he was glad when an opportunity offered of engaging his girls in amusements which they relished far less than was natural at their age. Rose had now thrown aside her bonnet, and was as eager to break the bounds of her prison as little Tommy Rickham himself; but Selina, who was disappointed to find that Anna’s sympathies were not as true to her own as the needle to the pole, turned away with a sigh, and sought a shaded alley in the garden, where she nourished her tender fears in solitude, and grew more melancholy with every shout of laughter which reached her from the paddock. She could not forget Anna as she had just seen her, panting with heat and fatigue, her face flushed, her hair blown back, her eyes almost starting with eagerness as she turned, and wound about the palings, fled round and round, crossed and crossed again in the agony of escape, which left her no breath to cry out as her pursuer came nearer and nearer, and at last exactly missed her in his last attempt to catch her as she leaped over the boundary. How different from the Anna who wept under the trees in Audley Park! Selina was afraid that, after all, she had not found the friend after her own heart, whom she had congratulated herself on securing.
“My love,” said her mother, when she saw that her bowl of new milk stood untasted before her, while the rest of the party were enjoying the meal they had earned by exercise, “I am afraid you are not well, Selina.”
There was visible agitation about the lower part of the face while she replied, in a low voice, that she was not ill. Her father, whose back was towards her, turned suddenly round and looked her full in the face, while he felt her pulse with mock gravity, observing that there was no distemper but on the nerves, which certainly wanted bracing. In an instant, before she was aware, he held her hands behind her with one hand, and with the other dragged her to the very brink of the pond, as if he would throw her in. Selina screamed and struggled; every body else laughed, Anna rather more loudly than was accordant with her friend’s sympathies. Mr. Fletcher let his prisoner escape, ran after her, and when he had given her such a chase as exhausted her breath, caught her, and whispering a few words, led her back to her seat at the table under the tree; he helped her plentifully with cake, thus giving her an opportunity of attesting his skill in restoring an appetite.
There was so much amusement afterwards for the gentlemen in accompanying the farmer through some of his fields—for Mrs. Fletcher in quietly talking over old times with Nurse Rickham—and for the young people, in seeing the dairy-woman finish her milking, that it was dusk before they left behind them the bows and curtseys of the household at the farm, and quite dark when they reached home.
In the parlour was Signor Elvi, perfectly safe, reading very intently, and looking so placid, that it was evident no such direful thoughts as Selina had imagined, had disturbed any mind but her own. Anna retained, for the present, her conjecture about the poem; but, though all were full of curiosity respecting his day’s adventures, no one made any allusion to them, except Mr. Fletcher, who observed on the universal predilection of patriots for the wilds of nature, for hills, heaths, and caves.