“And you than I, for you have had a father to direct,” was the sad reply. For it was Claud’s task now to comfort the petted child.
The next day the sisters sold the cottage and left for Orton Village vineyard. “I know not how we shall like each other,” Luella said; and as an instance of the dissimilarities in their characters, we have but to look at the way they speak of their mother’s death.
“She is dead, Claud; my own dear mother is dead,” Arabel said, convulsively, stifling her sobs. “O, I can’t be proud now, for she is dead!” And, resting her head on his shoulder, she wept her grief away.
Christabel comes next. She was writing to a friend of hers, a vintner, whose place joined Ortonville. “My mother is not living,” she wrote, calmly, “and, for the future, my home will be just where I chance to stay.”
“Just two short nights ago,” so spoke Luella’s diary, “our only surviving parent went home to the Father who gave her life; her pale hands clasping the silver crucifix to her still heart, and her last faint breath used to speak to her dearest earthly treasures. ‘You must be Arabel’s mother, Luella, and perform your own life-task well,’ was her only counsel to me. To Christa she said still less, doubtless knowing that she had her father’s strong intellect and thorough knowledge of human nature. Arabel was her principal thought, and no wonder, either, she is so young and inexperienced. I wish I could remember half that I have heard her say. I wonder why she said so many times, ‘if you would escape a life of unhappiness, remember what I say, and never, never wed an infidel.’”
But we are making a short story too long. Suffice it to say that the girls soon learned to take each her own place at the vineyard, and direct the laborers at their work with quiet ease.
“It is not often that we meet now, Claud says,” murmured Arabel, “after being six months in the vineyard; but I know he likes his wild home better than this, and surely I do, it is so very pleasant to have no confinement to certain hours of labor. Tonight I am going again to the fortress—joy! joy!” And she went fearlessly as the wild bird to its mountain nest, trustingly as the lamb to the shepherd’s fold.
Claud was walking on the battlements, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. Arabel ascended the steps and commenced the promenade. Four times they met and passed each other; then, trembling with a strange apprehension, she approached and laid her white hand on his arm. He started as though just awakened from a dream.
“Is it you, Bel?” he said, and pressed a kiss on her pallid brow, then led her out from the deep shadow to where they could see the moonlight resting on the waves.
“Claud, I am afraid of you,” Arabel said, soberly. “What makes your hand tremble, and your cheek so pale?” and she looked earnestly into his face.