CHAPTER VI.
MYRTLE HILL; OR, THE NEW HOME.
HEN Arthur Vivyan was looking forward, with such feelings of dread, he did not know that his aunt was hardly less anxiously expecting his arrival; and that, much as he feared what living with her would be, her thoughts had been very troubled ones on the same subject. She had lived alone for so many years now, and as she said, she was so little accustomed to children, she was afraid that her young nephew would find her home deary and sad; that she might not understand him herself, or that she might be foolishly indulgent and blind to the faults, which might make him grow useless and miserable. She had spent many anxious hours thinking of all this, and laying plans about the care she would take of him, and all the ways in which she would try to make him happy and contented.
Arthur and his father had left Ashton by an afternoon train, which did not bring them into the town, near Mrs. Estcourt’s house, until it was quite dark. It was a very cheerless journey to Arthur. Generally he liked travelling by the railway, and when he took his seat by his father’s side, his spirits rose very high as they passed quickly along, and the new scenes and sights, that he watched from the carriage window, occupied his attention pretty fully.
But this time it was quite different. His mother’s sweet, sad farewell was still sounding in his ears; and as the train rushed along on its way, he knew that it was bearing him farther and farther away from her, and from the home where he had lived so long. He could hardly have explained his own feelings; only a very dreary aching was in his heart; and as he thought of the strange new place, where he was going, and then of the miles and miles of land and sea, that would soon lie between himself and his father and mother, he felt very strange and desolate, and you would hardly have recognized the grave, serious-looking face as Arthur Vivyan’s.
Perhaps it was that expression that drew the attention of an old gentleman, who was sitting opposite to him. At any other time, Arthur would have been inclined to be amused at this old gentleman; for he came into the carriage, bringing so many parcels and wraps, that for some little time he was stowing them away, talking all the while to nobody in particular, and finishing every sentence with “Eh?”