After the first few days, however, Althea was left more alone. The women of Windsor mostly did their own household labor, and the busy season of the year compelled them to remain at home. Althea could fix her mind only upon her lost darling. She collected his playthings, soiled, broken, and all. She gathered flowers to fling above the brown earth that hid him from her view. She wrote heart-broken verses in his memory, and many more she poured forth in unwritten music to the winds.
There was a certain comfort in thus being able to abandon herself to grief and lamentation. But how would it be when her husband returned home? What would he say to the death of his son? As was usual, would he blame her also for this catastrophe? Or, would this affliction soften his heart, rendering him more kind in his intercourse with herself? Althea was revolving this in her mind, in a measure temporarily diverted from her grief. She was sitting upon the verandah, amongst her flowers, herself the sweetest of them all. A quick step upon the path startled her. She arose hastily, and glanced through the vines.
A stranger that moment caught sight of her, and came around to where she stood.
For an instant, he remained regarding her; then he clasped her right hand in both of his, and pressed it softly to his lips.
Althea, taken by surprise, was about to resent such a liberty, when the stranger said:
"I am your cousin, Althea, you must have heard of Hubert Lisle?"
It was indeed, Hubert, just over from a six years' residence abroad. Had he been Althea's own brother, she would not have welcomed him with more profuse demonstrations of delight.
"I learned at the hotel of your great affliction, which must be doubly painful, your husband being absent." Hubert glanced searchingly at his cousin's face. He had vivid remembrances of Thornton Rush, and held the conviction, that however much he might have changed for the better, he could be still anything but an agreeable life-companion. He discovered nothing by his searching glance, for Althea was thinking of her child, not of her husband; and this reference replunged her into grief.
Hubert's sympathy was aroused, and he attempted words of consolation. When he saw how worse than vain these were, he endeavored to withdraw her mind, by giving vivid descriptions of and experiences in foreign lands.
Althea made an effort—an effort for the lack of which died Dickens' Fanny, little Paul's mother—and listened through politeness and courtesy. Gradually, her mind awakened to a lively interest; and before the day was spent, she regarded her cousin as the most interesting gentleman of her acquaintance.