He gave me a look of mingled anxiety and doubt. I wanted him to explain himself; but he would not go beyond saying that on me it all depended; an assertion which he repeated with a sigh. I believed him, and passed from grief to sudden gladness.
"Then consider it settled," I said laughing joyously. "I am not leaving you, Cornelius. I am going on a week's visit or so to my good grandpapa. Tell Johnstone to send me only the little black trunk, but to put my work in it. I want to have it ready for Kate."
We were standing in the path. Cornelius looked down, with a fond yet troubled smile, into my upraised face.
"Go on!" he observed, "it sounds too delightful to be true. It is but a dream which the first rude touch of reality will dispel; and yet I like to delude myself and listen; go on!"
I did go on, laughing at his credulity.
"You must write to Kate," I observed, "and tell her that you are waiting for me. I shall not keep you long; just a week for form's sake."
"God grant it," he replied fervently; and we resumed our walk.
We found Thornton House as gloomy and neglected as ever. The court was overgrown with grass and weeds; the fountain was still a ruin; the ivy grew thick and dark on the walls, and the yews and cypresses behind only looked more sombre and melancholy for rising, as they did now, in the gay sunlight.
When Cornelius knocked at the door, I seemed to expect that the little servant would again open and attempt to oppose our entrance; but, in her stead, a tall, straight housemaid appeared in the gloomy aperture; and, on hearing the name of Cornelius, showed us at once into the same room where, seven years before, we had been ushered by her predecessor. And there, too, surrounded by his books, his papers, maps, globes, stuffed animals, insects, geological specimens, shells, and scientific instruments, we found my grandfather, seated in his arm-chair and unchanged, save for a few more wrinkles.
Mr. Thornton received us with abrupt courtesy. When the preliminary greetings had been exchanged, he gave me a sharp look, and startled me with the remark addressed to Cornelius—