“It is better in every way to take no rash step,” said the Doctor; “if by any accident—which Heaven forbid—the lands should pass to another heir—”
“How could that be?” said Verna, suddenly turning pale to her very lips. It did not occur to her that the fragile lives of her little nephews were the slight threads that bound her to this kingdom, which she had been assuming should be hers for life. A sudden precipice seemed to open at her feet; she stood aghast for the moment, gazing at him with eyes dilating, and pale cheeks. Then she recovered herself, and said hastily, glancing at Matilda: “Ah, I understand! but you should not suggest such a thing before their mother;” and placed her hand upon her beating heart.
“It is a thing that must always be taken into consideration,” said Dr. Murray. “You forget, my dear young lady, that one in a succession is quite different from the possessor of independent property, which, perhaps, he has acquired for himself; he can alienate nothing, and he has no right to destroy anything. The next heir—”
“Oh, please,” cried Verna, with unaffected alarm, raising her hands in an attitude of supplication; “don’t make me unhappy with your next heir! I shall do nothing more—indeed I shan’t—till Mr. Charles comes. It was not my sister; it was I who wanted it. Please, please don’t say any more!”
But even after the visitors were gone, Verna could not shake off this uncomfortable impression. She went about all day with the words echoing through her head, and filling her with a hundred fancies. As it happened, both the children were ailing with some innocent baby-ailment. Verna went to look at them a dozen times in the course of the evening; she felt their foreheads and their pulses, and gave them their medicine with her own hands. Their father and uncle, both vigorous young men, had been cut off within a few weeks of each other; and why should these tiny children escape the dangers to which so many stronger people succumbed? The next heir! What loss, what misery and ruin, was in the suggestion! The poor little babies themselves and their mother seemed to Verna to have but a secondary part in it; but to herself, it would be destruction—an end of all her hopes—at once of the actual and of the ideal. She put the plans in the fire that very night with heroic resolution, and blotted out from her mind those dreams of a great drawing-room, and even of a snug bed-chamber, sheltered from all the winds, in which she had indulged. These were glorious visions, but they were not worth the risking of her power and influence. She said to herself that she knew when to draw back, as well as when to advance, and spoke of them no more.
Meanwhile young Hepburn, much against his will, had felt that decorum bound him to take his departure when the Murrays did; and notwithstanding various signs from Matilda, propriety prevailed. He walked down towards Comlie with the Minister and his wife; and, as usual in such cases, his virtue was very indifferently rewarded.
“I hear you are a great deal at Pitcomlie, Mr. Hepburn,” Mrs. Murray said, looking at him.
She had never addressed him so formally before. That painful attempt to convert Johnnie into John, which we have all of us made when the Johnnies of our acquaintance grew into men, had been her greatest effort hitherto; but now she looked him in the face with a disapproval which there could be no mistake about; and he felt the chill, being highly sympathetic and susceptible to all the risings and fallings of the spiritual thermometer.
“Yes,” he said, uneasily; annoyed to find himself blush, and with a desperate attempt at carelessness. “Sometimes I can do little things for them; they don’t know anybody, nor the ways of the country—”
“That is very well seen,” said Mrs. Murray, with emphasis; “but Mrs. Charles is very pretty,” she added; “a bonnie creature! and that goes further than anything else with some folk. Men are so easily led away,” she went on, reflectively; “even my old Doctor, that is a very wise man in his generation, and should know better—”