But the children stopped short at the door. Lilias, with the wind in her skirts and her ribbons, half-flying, stopped; and Nello stopped, who went by her impulse, not by his own. They paused: they stood for a moment gazing; then they turned back sadly.
“Oh no, no!” said Lilias. “No, Mary! no. It is a little, something like—a very little; it is the walking, and the shape of him. But no, no, it is not papa!”
“Papa!” said Nello, “was that why you looked? I knew better. Papa is all that much more tall. Why are you crying, Lily? There is nothing that makes cry.”
“I am disappointed,” said the little girl, who had seated herself suddenly on the floor and wept. It was a sudden sharp shower, but it was soon over; she sprang up drying her eyes. “But it will be for to-morrow!” she cried.
Mary sat behind and looked on. She did not think again of the chance resemblance Lilias had seen, but only of the children themselves, with whom her heart was tuning itself more and more in sympathy. She had become a mother late and suddenly, without any gradual growth of feeling—leaping into it, as it were; and every response her mind made to the children was a new wonder to her. She looked at them, or rather at Lilias, who was always the leader in her rapid changes of sentiment, with a half-amused adoration. The crying and the smiles went to her heart as nothing else had ever done; and even Nello’s calm, the steadier going of the slower, less developed intelligence, which was so often carried along in the rush without any conscious intention, and which was so ready to take the part of the wise and say, “I knew it,” moved Mary with that mixture of pleased spectatorship and profound personal feeling which makes the enthusiasm of parents. Nello’s slowness might have seemed want of feeling in another child, and Lilias’s impetuosity a giddy haste and heedlessness; but all impartiality was driven from her mind by the sense that the children were her own. And she sat in a pleased abstraction yet lively readiness, following the little current of this swiftly-flowing, softly-babbling childhood which was so fair and pleasant to her eyes. The two set up an argument between themselves as she sat looking on. It was about some minute point in the day’s work which was so novel and unaccustomed; but trivial as it was Mary listened with a soft glow of light in her eyes. The finest drama in the world could not have taken her out of herself like the two little actors, playing their sincerest and most real copy of life before her. They were so much in earnest, and to her it was such exquisite play and delicate delightful fooling! And until the light in the open doorway was suddenly darkened by some one appearing, a figure which made her heart jump, she thought no more of the passer-by on the road who had roused the children. Her heart jumped, and then she followed her heart by rising suddenly to her feet, while the children stopped in their argument, rushed together for mutual support, and stood shyly with their heads together, the arrested talk still hovering about their lips. Seen thus against the light the visitor was undecipherable to Mary. She saw him, nothing but a black shadow, towards which she went quietly and said—
“I beg your pardon, this is a private door,” with a polite defence of her own sanctuary.
“I came to look for—my sister,” said the voice, which was one which woke agitating memories in her. “I am a—stranger. I came—— Ah! it is Mary after all.”
“Randolph!” she cried, with a gasp in her throat.
A thrill of terror, almost superstitious, came over her. What did it all mean? Good Mr. Pennithorne in his innocence had spoken to her of John, and that very day John’s children had arrived; he had spoken of Randolph, and Randolph was here. Was it fate, or some mysterious influence unknown? She was so startled that she forgot to go through the ordinary formulas of seeming welcome, and said nothing but his name.
“Yes; I hope you are well,” he said, holding out his hand; “and that my father is well. I thought I would come and see how you were all getting on.”