The youth hesitated—met Mrs. Catherine’s eye—blushed—looked down, and muttered something about troubling her.
“You will be no trouble to me—I have told you that. What is your name?”
Sympelton looked up surprised and bashful.
“Giles Sympelton,” he said.
“Sympelton?” said Mrs. Catherine. “Was the bairn that died in Madeira thirty years ago, a friend to you?”
“My father had a sister,” said young Sympelton; “he was very fond of her—who died very long ago, years before I was born.”
Mrs. Catherine was silent, and seemed much moved.
“Friend!” she said, “I had one brother who was the very light of my eyes, and there was a gentle blue-eyed bairn, in yon far away island, who went down with him to the grave. The name of her was Helen. He died in the morning, and she died at night, and on the same day her brother and I buried our dead. If you are of her blood, you are doubly welcome!”
“My aunt’s name was Helen,” said Giles, “and she was only fifteen when she died. I have heard my father speak of her often.”
Mrs. Catherine was so long silent after that, that the young man began to feel constrained and uneasy, and to think that, after all, he had better try the accommodation of the “Sutherland Arm’s” in Portoran. All the circumstances of Mrs. Catherine’s great grief were brought vividly before her by his name. Helen Sympelton!—how well she remembered the attenuated child-woman, maturing brilliantly under the deadly heat of that consumptive hectic, who had accompanied Sholto to the grave.