"Yes, yes; that is always the way," said the old lady. "But, Roland, you must tell her from me that it is very foolish. She will not think it is ignorance on my part. Her mother, poor dear, was just the same," and here the old lady shook her head softly, with a glitter in her eyes, as if a tear was not far off; but if so, there was sweetness in the tear. She turned, after a time, to Hester, who sat by, with a strange sort of pleasure to which she was unaccustomed, listening, in surprised interest, without wishing to take any part.
"You are surprised to hear me so talkative, Hester? But it is not often I have a grandson to wake me up. You did not know I had one perhaps? Ah! I have been hearing of so many people that I don't often hear of. That does an old body good."
"I like it too," said Hester, the firelight adding colour and animation to her face. "I did not know there were so many people in the world."
"That's very pretty of you to say, my dear," said the old lady. "I was afraid you would think it all gossip; but they are people who belong to me, the most of them. And letters don't tell you like the voice. You must run away when you are tired, for I think I shall go on asking questions till midnight. This young lady—this dear girl—Roland, is the comfort of our lives."
"I thought no less," said the voice of the shadow, with a softness which went to Hester's heart, sending a little thrill of pleasure through her. She had not even seen his face—but she could not be unaware that he was looking at hers—from the protecting darkness on the other side of the fire. This curious pleasurable encounter, as through a veil, of two fresh souls, hitherto unknown to each other—a moment as full of enchantment as can be in this world—was suddenly broken in upon by the old captain, who jumped up, notwithstanding his rheumatism, as quickly as a boy, and, coming between, stood up with his back to the fire, interrupting the light.
"My old woman," he said, "your Elinors and your Emilys are like a book to her. It is like reading a chapter at hazard out of a novel; but there is no end to the story and no beginning, and she is at this moment deep in her own—approaching the end of the third volume."
"I should have said, to see Miss Vernon," said the stranger, who was more a voice than ever, now that the old man interrupted what little light there was, "that she was at the beginning of the first."
Was it the beginning of the first? Hester felt a wave of colour fly over her face, and thought in her heart that the new-comer was right. The initial chapter—surely this was true; not even a beginning, but something that went before any beginning.