She went out and descended to the sewing-room. All alone, and sitting by the window, her needle flying rapidly, was the pale seamstress.
"Have you finished those bands, Miss Darling? Ah, I see you have and very nicely. I am ready for them, and will take them upstairs. Are these the sleeves you are working on?"
Miss Darling replied in the affirmative, and Grace turned to depart. On the threshold she paused.
"You don't look very well, Miss Darling," she said, kindly; "don't work too late. There is no hurry with the things."
She returned to the parlour, where Captain Danton, who had become very fond of his housekeeper's society of late, still sat. And Agnes Darling, alone in the cosy little sewing-room, worked busily while the light lasted. When it grew too dark for the fine embroidery, she dropped it in her lap, and looked out at the wintry prospect.
The storm that had been threatening all day was rising fast. The wind had increased to a gale, and shook the windows and doors, and worried the trees, and went shrieking off over the bleak marshes, to a wild gulf and rushing river. Great snowflakes fluttered through the leaden air, faster and faster, and faster, until presently all was lost in a dizzy cloud of falling whiteness. A wild and desolate evening, making the pleasant little room, with its rosy fire, and carpet, and pretty furniture, tenfold pleasanter by contrast. A bleak and terrible evening for all wayfarers—bitterly cold, and darkening fast.
The seamstress sat while the dismal daylight faded drearily out, her hands lying idly in her lap, her great, melancholy dark eyes fixed on the fast-falling snow. The tokens of sickness and sorrow lingered more marked than ever in that wasted form and colourless face, and the ruddy glow of the fire-light flickered on her mourning dress. Weary and lonely, she looked as the dying day.
Presently, above the shrieking of the stormy wind, came another sound—the loud jingling of sleigh-bells. Dimly through the fluttering whiteness of the snow-storm she saw the sleighs whirl up to the door, and their occupants, in a tumult of laughter, hurrying rapidly into the house. She could hear those merry laughs, those feminine tones, and the pattering of gaitered feet up the stairs. She could hear the deeper voices of the gentlemen, as they stamped and shook the snow off their hats and great-coats in the hall. She listened and looked out again at the wintry twilight.
"Oh!" she thought, with weary sadness, "what happy people there are in the world! Women who love and are beloved, who have everything their hearts desire—home, and friends, and youth, and hope, and happiness. Women who scarcely know, even by hearsay, of such wretched castaways as I."
She walked from the window to the fire, and, leaning against the mantel, fixed her eyes on the flickering flame.