'Thanks,' replied Cecil, and a parting glance was exchanged between him and Mary as he left the room and followed Mrs. Garth across a corridor, hung, like many other parts of the house, with Indian trophies of war and the chase.
Falconer thought he was only to hear about her past and pet memories of the corps; but he did not foresee that he must hear much more that he would rather not have heard at all. Nor could he suspect that her primary object was to get him alone for her own well-meant purpose, or, as she deemed it, his future peace of mind and the welfare of Mary Montgomerie.
'This is my peculiar sanctum, Mr. Falconer,' said she, when ushering him into a cosily and handsomely-furnished parlour, 'and here I keep all my relics of the dead and of other times, and have done so since I found a happy and contented home in Eaglescraig,' she added, glancing at an old iron-bound baggage-trunk that had been at Bengal, China, Bermuda, and all round the world with the Cameronians, and at two regimental swords crossed upon the wall: one the weapon of her husband, the other that of her son, a joyous boyish ensign, who had fallen in a vile skirmish with a hill-tribe; shot under the colours, on a day when match-lock balls were flying thick, and 'human lives were lavished everywhere.'
And there now hung the sword that had failed him in the hot hour of trial.
Over the old but handsome face of Mrs. Garth, there spread an expression of sweetness and sadness mingled, as she showed Falconer the miniatures of her husband and their dead soldier-son; the latter as an infant, with a lock of his golden hair, which she had worn at her heart for twenty years and more, treasured, like all his school-boy letters, in the sad but loving superstition of the heart, in memory of him and of that day when the troops fell in and he went with the Cameronians 'to the front,' to be brought back to her across six muskets, mortally wounded, to die, while calling on her name, thanking her for her love, and dying with his head upon her breast, as calmly as he had fallen asleep there when an infant. And so he died thus, as his father had died but a few weeks before him.
'The will of God be done!' said Mrs. Garth, in a sorely broken voice; 'for it was His will that I was to lose them, and that they were to precede me. But Heaven is just, and teaches us that there is a brighter and a better world than this!'
Borne away by her own private or personal sympathies, she almost forgot the purpose for which she had invited Falconer to visit her little sanctum, till he unwillingly recalled it to her memory; as, with all his commiseration for her loneliness, he began to tire of the great many stories she told him of the excellencies of her only daughter—a girl so amiable and so handsome—who had married a curate in the West Indies, a good young fellow, who was so and so, and so and so; of the noble qualities of her son, the poor ensign, and those of the defunct Captain John Garth, who, 'poor dear soul, had been dead and gone—dead and gone—deary me, however so many years ago.' Thus Cecil—though there was certainly a cheerful gossipy quality in Mrs. Garth, that rendered her a very attractive old lady—ventured to say:
'And now, Mrs. Garth, you must excuse me. Miss Montgomerie is expecting me to attempt that duet over once more with her, ere we duly perform it for some guests that come this evening. How sweetly she sings, and with exquisite taste! But, indeed, how perfect she is in all things!'
'A dear child! I think you admire her?' began the widow, now remembering her task, and suddenly making a leading remark.
'Admire! ah, who could fail to admire her?' exclaimed Falconer warmly, and with kindling eye.