After which Edith retired, weary and worn out, and troubled in many ways.
CHAPTER VI. — WALLED IN.
Very early on the following day Edith arose, and found Mrs. Dunbar already moving about. She remarked that she had heard Edith dressing herself, and had prepared a breakfast for her. This little mark of attention was very grateful to Edith, who thanked Mrs. Dunbar quite earnestly, and found the repast a refreshing one. After this, as it was yet too early to think of calling on Miss Plympton, she wandered about the house. The old nooks and corners dear to memory were visited once more. Familiar scenes came back before her. Here was the nursery, there her mother's room, in another place the library. There, too, was the great hall up stairs, with pictures on each side of ancestors who went back to the days of the Plantagenets. There were effigies in armor of knights who had fought in the Crusades and in the Wars of the Roses; of cavaliers who had fought for King Charles; of gallant gentlemen who had followed their country's flag under the burning sun of India, over the sierras of Spain, and in the wilderness of America. And of all these she was the last, and all that ancestral glory was bound up in her, a weak and fragile girl. Deeply she regretted at that moment that she was not a man, so that she might confer new lustre upon so exalted a lineage.
{Illustration: “SHE SAW THE BLACK SERVANT, HUGO."}
As she wandered through the rooms and galleries all her childhood came back before her. She recalled her mother, her fond love, and her early death. That mother's picture hung in the great hall, and she gazed at it long and pensively, recalling that noble face, which in her remembrance was always softened by the sweet expression of tenderest love. But it was here that something met her eyes which in a moment chased away every regretful thought and softer feeling, and brought back in fresh vehemence the strong glow of her grief and indignation. Turning away from her mother's portrait by a natural impulse to look for that of her father, she was at first unable to find it. At length, at the end of the line of Dalton portraits, she noticed what at first she had supposed to be part of the wall out of repair. Another glance, however, showed that it was the back of a picture. In a moment she understood it. It was her father's portrait, and the face had been turned to the wall.
Stung by a sense of intolerable insult, her face flushed crimson, and she remained for a few moments rooted to the spot glaring at the picture. Who had dared to do this—to heap insult upon that innocent and suffering head, to wrong so foully the memory of the dead? Her first impulse was to tear it down with her own hands, and replace it in its proper position; her next to seek out Wiggins at once and denounce him to his face for all his perfidy, of which this was the fitting climax. But a more sober thought followed—the thought of her own weakness. What could her words avail against a man like that? Better far would it be for her to wait until she could expel the usurper, and take her own place as acknowledged mistress in Dalton Hall. This thought made her calmer, and she reflected that she need not wait very long. This day would decide it all, and this very night her father's portrait should be placed in its right position.
This incident destroyed all relish for further wandering about the house, and though it was yet early, she determined to set out at once for the village and find Miss Plympton. With this design she descended to the lower hall, and saw there the same black servant whom she had seen the day before.
“What is your name?” she asked.