These had gone on successfully for four or five years before the pleasant April-tide on which Hope Oswald returned home; eventful years to Helen. It is not well to leave the unconscious happiness of girlhood too soon, even to enter upon the enchanted ground of youth. Toil, poverty, and William Oswald; the three together were well nigh too many for the youthful champion who had to struggle, single-handed, against them all.
In the twilight of that April evening she sat in their little parlour alone. The faint firelight gave a wavering flush to the shadowy air of the holy time; and Helen sat in the recess of the window, wandering through the mazes of such a reverie, as belongs especially to her peculiar temperament and mind. For those delicate lines in her face, those continually moving features, those slight starts now and then, and altogether the elastic impulsive energy and life which you could perceive in her figure even in its repose, testified her inheritance of the constitution of her father. With one difference. His nervous, sensitive temperament was akin to weakness; hers, with all its expressive grace, its swift instinctive feelings, its constant life and motion, was strong—strong to endure, although its pain was sorer a thousand times than that of more passive natures—strong to struggle—mighty to enjoy.
She had been out, watching the sun as he shed a golden mist over the dark mass of yonder hill, where it stands out boldly into the Firth, a strong sentinel, keeping watch upon the sea; gleaming in the mid-waters of the estuary, gleaming in the wet sand and shining pools of the deep bay, and throwing out the sunless hillock at the river’s mouth, with its little tower and quiet houses, in bold relief against the far away mountain, and its mantle of streaming gold. The wonderful sky in the west, the broad bed of the Firth, the sunset and its noble scene—there was an enjoyment in these to the delicate soul of Helen, which duller natures have not in the greatest personal blessings of the world.
And now, with her pale cheek resting on her hand, and leaning forward on the window-sill, Helen was lost in a reverie. What was it? only a mist of fair thoughts indefinitely woven together; scenes starting up here and there of the future and of the past, with fairy links of association drawing their strangely-varied band together; old stories, old songs, and breath of music floating through all in gentle caprice—the sweet and pleasant gloaming of the mind.
Mrs Buchanan was out, doing some household business in Fendie, and Helen did not hear the footstep of Hope Oswald as she entered by the garden gate. These quiet houses are innocently insecure; when Hope’s summons remained unanswered, she opened the door herself, and went in.
“Oh, Helen!” exclaimed Hope, as she precipitated herself upon her friend, dispersing in that nervous start all the fair visions of the evening dream. “How glad I am to be home again—how glad I am to see you!—but I scarcely can see you either, because it’s quite dark; and, Helen—you don’t know how I used to weary in Edinburgh just to hear you speak again!”
“Thank you, Hope,” said Helen. “I am very glad to see you; or rather to hear you speak, according to your own sensible distinction. Come, we will get a light and look at each other.”
Mingling with the quick movement of surprise at first, there had been a deep blush and a temporary shrinking from William Oswald’s sister; but another moment restored Hope to her old privileged place of favourite, and Helen rose, her young companion’s eager arms clinging about her waist, to light the one candle on the little table.
The room was small and plainly furnished, though its substantial mahogany chairs and sofa looked respectable in their declining years. On the carpet here and there were various spots of darning artistically done, which rather improved its appearance than otherwise. A large work-basket stood upon the table containing many miscellaneous pieces of sewing; shirts in every stage of progress, narrow strips of muslin, bearing marks of the painful initiation of very little pupils into the mysteries of the thoughtful craft, mingled here and there with scraps of humble “fancy” work, samplers, and the like—all of which the young school-mistress had to arrange and set to rights before the work of to-morrow commenced. A book lay beside the basket—a well-thumbed book from the library. Helen had been idling; for she sometimes did snatch the brief relaxation of a novel, though Maxwell Dickson, the librarian, had no great choice of literature.
“Oh, Helen,” exclaimed Hope again, when the feeble light of the candle revealed to her the pale face of her friend, “I am so very glad to see you again!”