The Laird of Mossgray greeted Mrs Fendie and her daughter with his usual old-fashioned, graceful politeness—there was something courtly in the gentle bearing of the recluse old man—and said some kindly words of recognition to all the younger personages present, except Hope, who, to the great amazement of the little Fendies, continued steadily before the bow-window, and did not turn round to receive the salutations of Mossgray. Only a very few ordinary observations had been exchanged, when the old man explained his errand.
“I have been seeking a young friend of mine in Cumberland,” said Mossgray, in a voice whose tone of serene kindness thrilled on the ear of Lilias Maxwell, like some familiar music, stilling her tears; “and I have some idea, Mrs Fendie, that your kindness could assist me in my search. I have just returned—”
Hope Oswald left her place by the window, and as Mossgray’s eye wandered there, he suddenly stopped and started from his seat. Drawing back, shivering and half afraid, Lilias looked at him, with tears trembling on her long eyelash, and her white, transparent hand shading her eyes. She was conscious of the presence of no other but himself for the moment, and the strange contradiction of her look, which seemed half to appeal to him for protection, and half to shrink from his scrutiny, confirmed the old man in the sudden idea that this was his ward. Any resemblance that she had to her mother was merely the indefinite and shadowy one, which throws its strange link of kindred over faces which in form and expression are not alike; but he could recognise the daughter of Lilias Johnstone better in the pale, solitary orphan girl before him, than if she had borne her mother’s blooming face, or seemed as full of elastic youth and life as she did, when he saw her last. They stood looking at each other for a moment, and then Mossgray advanced extending his hands.
“Lilias—Lilias Maxwell—that is your name?—and was it the dead, or was it me, whom you distrusted, when you fled from the guardian your mother committed you to?—This was ill-done, Lilias; but you have had weeping and sorrow enough, my poor child, and now you must come home.”
Come home!—was there still such a word for the orphan?
She could not realize it; she sat down passively on the chair Hope Oswald brought her, and spite of the large tears which fell silently now and then, continued to fix her sorrowful eyes upon her mother’s friend. The strange stupor she was in alarmed them all at last.
“Lilias—Lilias,”—repeated Mossgray, as he gently held her hand; but Lilias did not speak. She had been denied the natural due and right of grief; she had been hurried away from her mother’s grave, almost before her desolate heart had been able to shed tears; and now the outraged nature asserted itself:—the strained strength gave way.
At last the weeping came again in a flood, and Lilias awoke; awoke to hear gentle tongues of women who had only cold words to say to her before; and, gentlest of all, the old man’s voice, like some kind sound which she had heard in dreams, and waking, yearned to hear again. And the burden of its speech was ever home; it came upon her ear again and again indistinct in every accent but that—what preceded and what followed was lost to her bewildered sense, but the one word rang clearly through the mist that enveloped her—she was to come home.
And so she did: Hope Oswald wrapped her humble shawl about her, and Mrs Fendie, with her strangely changed voice, accompanied her to the door, and there supported by Mossgray, she entered the carriage which had been sent for, and was driven from the door, the old man sitting by her side. Lilias could scarcely convince herself, until she had entered the room at Mossgray called her own, that it was not all a dream.
The room had been prepared and ready for many days waiting for its stranger guest. A little fire burned in the grate, and gave the look of welcome, which the familiar living, kindly light does give at all times; and through the small, clear panes of the window, the April sun shone in, in the gentle joy of spring. The panelled walls were painted a sombre quiet colour, but here and there were hung small pictures in deep, rich, old-fashioned frames—pictures of such pure faces, saints and angels, as seem now and then to have looked in upon the dreaming sense of olden artists—not all gentle or serene, or at rest, but speaking the common language of humanity; the constantly varying tongue, in whose very weakness, of change and tremulous expression, lies its might and charm.