CHAPTER XXV.
A NEW VISITOR.
Notwithstanding her dislike to have it supposed that Mr. Pen was her spiritual adviser, Mary did make a hurried visit to the Vicarage to ask his advice. Not that she had much confidence in the good Vicar’s advice; but to act in such a case, where experience fails you altogether, entirely on your own judgment without even the comfort of “talking it over,” is a hard thing to do. “Talking it over” is always an advantage. The for and against of any argument are always clearer when they are put into words and made audible, and thus acquire, as it were, though they may be your own words, a separate existence. Thus Mary became her own adviser when she consulted Mr. Pen, and there was no one else at hand who could fulfil this office. They talked it over anxiously, Mr. Pen being, as she knew he would be, entirely on Randolph’s side. To him it appeared that it would be a great advantage for Nello to be taken to school by his uncle. It would be “the right thing to do”—better than if Mary did it—better than Mr. Pen himself could do it. Mary could not find any arguments to meet this conventional certainty. She restrained her distrust and fear, but she could not say anything against the fact that it was kind of Randolph to propose this, and that it would be injurious and unkind on her part to reject it. She went home dispirited and cast down, but set to work at once with the practical preparations. Saturday was the day on which Randolph had said he must go—and it was already Thursday—and there was not a moment to lose. But it was not till the Friday afternoon, the eve of separation, that Miss Musgrave could screw her courage to the point of informing the children what lay before them. The afternoon was half over, and the sun beginning to send long rays aslant from the west. She came in from the village, where she had gone in mere restlessness, feeling that this communication could be delayed no longer; but she disliked it so much herself that the thought of Nello’s consternation and the tears of Lilias was almost more than their tender guardian could bear.
But when she came in sight of the old hall door, a group encountered her which bewildered Mary. A young man on horseback had drawn up at the side of the ascent, and with his hat off, and the sun shining upon his curling hair and smiling countenance, was looking up and talking to little Lilias, who leaned over the low wall, like a lady of romance looking over her battlements. The sun gleamed full upon Lilias too, lighting up her dark eyes and warmly-tinted cheek and the hair which hung about her shoulders, and making a pretty picture. Her face was full of earnest meaning, grave and eager and tremulous. Nello, at the hall door, above this strange pair, contemplated them with a mixture of jealousy and wonder. Mary had come upon them so suddenly that she could hear the young man answering something to the eager demands of the little girl. “But, you are sure, quite sure? Oh, are you certain, Mr. Geoff?”
“Quite sure,” he was saying. “But you must think of me all the time, Lily; you must think of nothing but me—promise me that, and I shall not be afraid.”
“I promise!” cried Lilias, clasping her hands. Mary stood and listened altogether confounded, and Nello, from above, bewildered and only half satisfied, looked on. Who was the young man? It seemed to Miss Musgrave that she had seen him before. And what was it that had changed Lilias into this little princess, this small heroine? The heroic aspect, however, gave way before Mary could interfere, and the child murmured something softer, something less unlike the little girl with all whose ways Mary was familiar.
“But I always think of you,” she said; “always! since that day.”
“Do you, indeed, my little Lily? That makes me happy. You must always keep up so good a custom.”
And the young man smiled, with eyes full of tenderness, and took the child’s hand and held it in his own. Lilias was too young for any comment or false interpretation, but what did it mean? The spectator behind, besides, was too much astonished to move.
“Good-bye, my Lily; good-bye, Nello,” cried the young man, nodding his head to the children. And then he put on his hat and rode round the corner towards the door.
Lilias stood looking after him, like a little saint in an ecstasy. She clasped her hands again, and looked up to the sky, her lips moving, and tears glittering in her eyes.