Her first emotion of relief—if it could be called so—came when she shared her grief with the startled Ellinor; and far into the August night sat the two crushed creatures talking over the storm-cloud that had so suddenly enveloped them—a cloud that must have descended at some time, though as yet they had not quite foreseen it.
'I cannot believe it—I cannot realise it!' said they both, conjunctly and severally, again and again, as they mingled their tears and caresses together, each clinging to the other as if for consolation and help.
'What on earth will become of us!' exclaimed Ellinor, pushing back the masses of dark brown hair from her forehead.
'We shall go away, and at once, in search of a new home—a little nest somewhere far away from all who know us, Ellinor; for the condolence, the wonder, surmises, and pity of neighbours would prove intolerable to me!' exclaimed Mary. 'We shall have to put our shoulders to the wheel, as poor papa used to say when in money straits. I must turn my French and music to account.'
'And I my drawing,' said Ellinor.
'Yes, dearest,' added Mary, kissing her, 'my few accomplishments will require some brushing up, but your pencil is always a ready one; and people never know what they can do till they try. But then, Birkwoodbrae—dear, bonnie Birkwoodbrae—to think we shall never see it more!' exclaimed Mary, relapsing into a storm of grief again; after which she became more composed, and began resolutely to think of the future that must be faced—the future which would necessarily begin for them on the morrow; and as Mary was by nature independent and self-reliant, as she thought on the pittance left them by their father, she said that, by God's help, they might battle with the world yet; and battle with it too in London.
The human mind, it has been said, is naturally pliable, and, provided it has the most slender hope to lean upon, adapts itself to the exigencies of fortune, especially if the imagination be a gay and luxuriant one.
The dreary night of their new and great sorrow wore on till the small hours of the morning came, and at last the sisters slept; and 'sleep is a generous robber that gives in strength what it takes in time.'
So the worthy old minister had gone to Edinburgh.
Mary conceived not unnaturally that this visit to the Scottish metropolis meant one to Mr. Luke Sharpe with reference to her cousin Wellwood, and the monetary affairs of herself and Ellinor; but she was determined on having no temporising, no patronage, or half-measure from that quarter; and resolved to leave Birkwoodbrae and to go forth to find another home in another land, and to this end she began restlessly, but resolutely, to take the means at once.