Lilias paused, and looked about her with pride, and tenderness, and a thrill of anticipation. She had thought often that she herself might be that destined lady; but the thought had never moved her as now. It awoke a little tumult in her bosom as she stood there in the subdued evening air full of the recollection of the love-tale that had been told her. Margaret and Jean walked in the Ghost's Walk without any such movements or beatings of the heart. Lilias felt a great awe come over her as she stood and listened. If ever these soft steps that had paced about under the limes for two hundred years should turn aside from their habitual walk, and the air above them shape into a vision, what wonderful events must happen first? She stood silent, almost without breathing for a moment, and then she drew the skirt of her dress over her arm, and fled into the house as if something had been pursuing her. It was not that she was afraid of any ghostly appearance; but she was afraid of the rustling of the wings of the coming years, and of the events that were approaching her through the silence, the things that were to shape her life. What were they?—perhaps patience, perhaps sorrow, such as women so often have to dwell with. Perhaps, who could tell, Love, the unknown, the greatest of all. She fled from them and the thought of them, whatever they might be.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
"Did you ever hear that a turquoise was lucky and an opal an ill stone?"
Lilias was seated beside her sisters in the drawing-room in the soft darkness of the summer night. But that there were two lamps lighted, shining like two dim earth-stars in the large dim room, with its dark wainscot and faded velvet curtains, you would scarcely have known it was night. The windows were not closed, and the pale day had not altogether died. There was still light enough to read by; but Simon brought in the lamps at a certain hour, without much respect to the state of the daylight. They lighted up each the circle of the table on which it stood, but made the rest of the room darker than before. The three ladies were seated about one of these tables. Jean was knitting—a piece of work better adapted for this light than her famous table-cover; Margaret was reading the newspaper. The Times (for they indulged in the luxury of the Times, considered to be rather an extravagance in these parts) arrived at night, which was a wonder they were never tired of expatiating upon. "Published in London this morning, and here in my hands within the twelve hours; it is just a miracle," Miss Margaret was fond of saying. The large broad-sheet caught the glow of the lamp, and made a large white space in the dimness, in the midst of which Margaret's countenance was set. It made a rustling as she turned it over, and from time to time she read out a paragraph. The others were not much given to the newspaper. They heard enough of it from the bits that Miss Margaret read out. Being a person of very decided and consistent political views, she despised and detested the politics of her favourite newspaper, and would sometimes read out a leading article with a string of satirical comments, which, had Miss Jean known a little more about it, or Lilias taken a greater degree of interest, would have been amusing. But in neither case did it tell as it ought. Miss Margaret was used to a want of sympathy in this respect; but it is to be supposed that in the mere utterance aloud of her sentiments there was some pleasure, for she continued to express them without much reference to her audience. Miss Jean threw in a word now and then, mostly in deprecation.
"No, no, Margaret, I can't think that; the man will just be mistaken," she would say, or, "No, no—it's just a matter of opinion."
"Opinion!" Miss Margaret would say. "An idiot might hold the opinion that white is black—but it takes a dishonest person to say white is white one day, and black the next."
"Whisht, whisht, Margaret; how can you tell it is the same person?" Miss Jean would say.
Lilias scarcely took any notice at all. She was at the age when a young creature can carry on two mental processes at once. She was thinking all the time, dreaming her dreams, holding all sorts of dialogues within herself, but at the same time she heard every word and remembered, and could strike in when it pleased her. All her faculties were as vivid as youth and life could make them. She missed nothing and forgot nothing, yet never paid the least attention. To do this is what we all are capable of in our day.
Lilias sat on the other side of the round table with a box before her filled with trinkets. There was nothing of any great value in the little velvet-lined shelves and drawers; they were her mother's girlish ornaments, and the presents that had been made to herself from time to time, and the little nothings that gather in an old house, brooches and bracelets that had belonged to former generations, and which, found from time to time lying in a drawer, had been handed over with a "Would you like to have it?" from Margaret, or a pleased exclamation, "This will just do for Lilias," from Jean. Her mother's diamonds, which, though they were not very rich or rare, were still diamonds, were locked up securely for her against the time when she should be old enough to wear them; but the contents of the box which was now upon the table had given Lilias far more pleasure than she would ever get from diamonds. The cornelians and old-fashioned topazes and amethysts, the twisted chains and necklets and filigree brooches, had been her delight for years. She had put them upon her dolls when she was a child. Afterwards it had been one of her great pleasures to arrange and polish them, and seduce Jean into telling her over and over again the story of this one and the other. That was old Sir Claude's hair set round with a mourning border of black and a row of small lustrous pearls: the topazes? "Oh! I remember them very well; old Aunt Barbara used to wear them. She was grandpapa's aunt, and she lived to be nearly a hundred. I remember how I used to wonder—" and so on, and so on.