"And I assure you, it is not our intention to make a servant of her," answered Mr. Hastings, "We could not do otherwise than treat so near a relative of yours as an equal."
This last was well timed, and quite complacently Mrs. Deane listened, while he told her that if Dora were allowed to stay with them until his wife was better, she should be well cared for, and he himself would superintend her studies, so she should lose nothing by being out of school. "Come, Miss Eugenia," he continued, "please intercede for me, and, I assure you, both Ella and myself will be eternally grateful."
He had touched the right cord at last. Rumor said that Ella Hastings would never see another summer, and if before her death the husband was eternally grateful, what would he not be after her death? Then, too, but the day before they had received a remittance from Uncle Nat, and with that they could afford to hire a servant; so, when Eugenia spoke, it was in favor of letting "Mr. Hastings have Dora just when he wanted her, if it would be any satisfaction to poor dear Ella!"
A while longer Mr. Hastings remained, and when at last he arose to go, he was as sure that Dora Deane would again gladden his home as he was next morning, when from his library window he saw her come tripping up the walk, her cheeks flushed with exercise, and her eyes sparkling with joy, as, glancing upward, she saw him looking down upon her. In after years, when Howard Hastings's cup was full of blessings, he often referred to that morning, saying "he had seldom experienced a moment of deeper thankfulness than the one when he welcomed back again to his fireside and his home the orphan Dora Deane."
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CHAPTER X.
ELLA.
Very pleasantly to Dora did the remainder of the winter pass away. She was appreciated at last, and nothing could exceed the kindness of both Mr. and Mrs. Hastings, the latter of whom treated her more like a sister than a servant, while even Eugenia, who came often to Rose Hill, and whose fawning manner had partially restored her to the good opinion of the fickle Ella, tried to treat her with a show of affection, when she saw how much she was respected. Regularly each day Dora went to the handsome library where she recited her lessons to Mr. Hastings, who became deeply interested in watching the development of her fine intellectual mind.
One thing, however, troubled her. Ella did not improve, and never since Dora came to Rose Hill had she sat up more than an hour, but lay all day on her bed, while her face grew white almost as the wintry snow, save when a bright red spot burned upon her cheeks, making her, as Dora thought, even more beautiful than she had been in health. Once in the gathering twilight, when they sat together alone, she startled Dora with the question, "Is everybody afraid to die?"
"Mother was not," answered Dora, and Ella continued, "But she was good, and I am not. I have never done a worthy act in all my life. Never thought of death, or even looked upon it, for mother told us there was no need of harrowing up our feelings—it would come soon enough, she said; and to me, who hoped to live so long, it has come too soon—all too soon;" and the hot tears rained through the transparent fingers, clasped so convulsively over her face.