“That class of people do sometimes produce very fine complexions and tolerably good features.”
That was the lady’s reply, and then she talked of something else, and forgot Heloise entirely. But that night, strangely enough, the colonel dreamed of that window in the cottage round which a honeysuckle was trained, and of a pale, sweet face framed in the net-work of green, and the clear, hazel eyes, which for a moment had looked at him. And, when he woke, he was conscious of a feeling of interest in the young girl, and resolved to make some inquiries concerning her. But the next day he went down to New York to order the monument for Abelard’s grave; and when, after an absence of two weeks, he returned to Hampstead, the cottage was shut up, and he learned that Mrs. Fordham had gone to England and taken her daughter with her.
Remembering what Mrs. Fordham had said to him when he went to make some inquiries concerning Abelard Lyle, he was not as much surprised as the villagers had been when they heard of Mrs. Fordham’s intention to give up her pretty cottage and return to her friends. She laid great stress upon her friends, and hinted broadly that the people of Hampstead were not to her taste. Nobody cared especially, though many wondered at her fickleness in changing her residence so soon. I was sorry, for I liked Heloise and hated to part with her. Remembering what she had said to me of the dreadful thing which might happen to her, and to which my championship was pledged, I felt disappointed not to have a chance of proving myself her friend, and I told her so when I went to say good-by, and found her in the little room where I had seen her on the day of the funeral. Her eyes were almost black, and there was a peculiar expression in them as she regarded me fixedly for a moment without speaking.
“Ettie,” she said at last, “I deceived you the other day. I told you Abelard was not my beau, and that—that was not quite the truth, for though he was not what you meant, he was—, I liked him, oh so much, and he liked me, and—and—oh, Ettie, I am very, very miserable.”
She was sobbing piteously, and I could only smooth her hair by way of comfort as I did not know what to say.
“Ettie,” she began again, when she had dried her eyes, “they say Colonel Schuyler is fixing up the grave and will put a grand monument there. I am thankful to him for that, but after a time he will forget all about it, and grass and weeds will grow where only flowers should be. Ettie, you like me, I think, and will you, for my sake, keep his grave up nice and pretty, and put fresh flowers there in the summer time? Put them in this vase; I give it to you for that; he bought it for me in New York.”
She placed in my hand a small vase of creamy white, with a band of gold around it, and on its side a bunch of blue forget-me-nots, in the centre of which were two hearts transfixed with a golden arrow.
“It will make me happy to know this is on his grave when I am so far away,” she added; “and, Ettie, don’t tell any one, but last night, when everybody was asleep, I went there and planted a little rosebush like that tree in the garden, you know. I am sure it will live, for it had a good root, and I want you to water it and nurse it to life, and when they put up the stone don’t let them trample it down. Will you do this for me?”
I promised that I would, and she went on:
“Some time when I am older and have money I shall come back to see his grave. You’ll have it nice for me, won’t you?”