Mrs Buchanan laid down her work as she spoke, and waited for the proposal which she knew was to follow. She had yet no glimmering of what it was, but she had studied those kindling eyes too long not to know that the sudden flush of some new purpose possessed them.
“Suppose we could go,” said Helen, rapidly; “suppose I could get a situation, mother, with some one like Miss Swinton, with Miss Swinton herself perhaps; should you like it? would you go to Edinburgh?”
Mrs Buchanan paused to think; the glowing moving face before her was not of the kind which takes time to deliberate. Helen clasped her small nervous fingers and looked into the vacant air, with her fixed unconscious eyes, and saw no obstacle in the way; no lingering tenderness to subdue; no sickness of heart to overcome; when they came hereafter she would do battle against them bravely—now, she saw them not.
“Oh, Helen!” exclaimed Hope, breathless with her first surprise and delight; but Hope recollected herself; this would be a death-blow to all her schemes, so she added,—“Helen, the teachers all live with Miss Swinton. Mrs Buchanan, you would not like to be alone?”
Mrs Buchanan still said nothing. It was very true she would not like to be alone, and very true it was also that she shrank from the unknown evils of change, and was better pleased to remain with the quiet cares she knew, than encounter those she did not know; but, unlike Hope, she said nothing. She did not choose to throw down, by any sudden decision, the dreams with which her daughter was already filling the air.
“Do you think I would not do for Miss Swinton, Hope?” asked Helen.
“Helen!” exclaimed Hope, indignantly.
“Well then, why do you say that?”
“Because,” and Hope tried to put wise meanings into her own girlish open face, and to make it as eloquent as Helen’s; “because, Helen, I should not like you to go away from Fendie. Oh! no, no, you must stay always at home.”
And as Helen lifted her flushed face, the elaborate look of Hope and her mother’s anxious glance fell upon her together. They only made the blood rush more warmly about her heart. She started with a rapid nervous impulse: “Mother, if you do not disapprove, let me write to Miss Swinton to-morrow.”