There was a long, deep silence then, and when at last Howard Hastings lifted up his head from the pillow where it had been resting, and Dora Deane came timidly to his side, they gazed together on the face of the sweetly sleeping dead.
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CHAPTER XI.
THE HOUSE OF MOURNING.
Ella Hastings was dead. The deep-toned bell proclaimed it to the people of Dunwood, who, counting the nineteen strokes, sighed that one so young should die. The telegraphic wires carried it to her childhood's home, in the far-off city; and while her tears were dropping fast for the first dead of her children, the fashionable mother did not forget to have her mourning in the most expensive and becoming style. The servants in the kitchen whispered it one to the other, treading softly and speaking low, as if aught could disturb the slumber of her who lay so motionless and still, unmindful of the balmy summer air which kissed her marble cheek. The grief-stricken husband repeated it again and again as he sat by her side in the darkened room; and only they who have felt it, can know with what a crushing weight they fell upon his heart, the three words—"She is dead!"
Yes, Ella was dead, and Eugenia Deane, with hypocritical tears, upon her cheek, gathered fresh, white rosebuds, and twining them in the golden curls which shaded the face of the beautiful dead, dared even there to think that Howard Hastings was free; and as she saw the silent grief of the stricken man, who, with his head upon the table, sat hour after hour, unmindful of the many who came to look on what had been his wife, her lip curled with scorn, and she marveled that one so frivolous as Ella should be so deeply mourned. Once she ventured to speak, asking him some trivial thing concerning the arrangement of affairs, and without looking up, he answered, "Do as you like, until her mother comes. She will be here to-morrow."
So, for the remainder of the day, Eugenia flitted from the parlor to the chamber of death, from the chamber of death to the kitchen, and from the kitchen back again to the parlor, ordering the servants, admitting visitors, and between times scolding Dora for "being so foolish as to cry herself sick for a person who, of course, cared nothing for her, except as a waiter!"
Since the night of her mother's death, Dora's heart had not been half so sore with pain. The girlish Ella had been very dear to her, and the tears she shed were genuine. To no one else would the baby go, and after dinner was over, the dinner at which Eugenia presided, and of which Mr. Hastings could not be induced to partake, she went into the garden with her little charge, seating herself in a pleasant summer-house, which had been Ella's favorite resort. It was a warm, drowsy afternoon, and at last, worn out with weeping, and the fatigue of the last night's watching, she fell asleep, as the baby had done before. Not long had she sat thus, when Mr. Hastings, too, came down the graveled walk, and stood at the arbor door. The constant bustling in and out of Eugenia annoyed him, and wishing to be alone, he had come out into the open air, which he felt would do him good. When his eye fell on Dora, who was too soundly sleeping to be easily aroused, he murmured, "Poor child! she is wearied with so many wakeful nights;" then fearing lest the slender arms should relax their hold and drop the babe, he took it gently from her, and folding it to his bosom, sat down by her side, so that her drooping head could rest upon his shoulder.
For two long hours she slept, and it was not until the baby's waxen fingers gave a vigorous pull to her short thick hair, that she awoke, feeling greatly surprised when she saw Mr. Hastings sitting near.
"I found you asleep," he said, by way of explanation, "and knowing how tired you were, I gave you my arm for a pillow;" then, as the baby wished to go to her, he gave it up, himself going slowly back to the lonesome house, from which Ella was gone forever.