Nor did the sweet-faced Marguerite, as she chatted in her quiet happy way, for one moment dream that the brawny and muscular hand of Moses Spriggins should be yet held in friendly grasp, and that she would ever cherish this sturdy son of toil in grateful memory.
Standing there on that uneventful morn with the rays of sunshine playing hide and seek through her silken hair, could she have looked beyond the surrounding of the present, and cast her eye along the dim and shadowy perspective, what sorrow might have been averted; what heart-throes might have been quieted! But let us not be carried away by such thoughts. Let us not seek to penetrate beyond the airy nothings of every-day life.
Marguerite Verne went back into the presence of the other members of the family. She chatted, laughed and sang blithe as a bird carolling its earliest matin.
Marguerite's pure and transparent soul finds shelter in the daily acts of goodness emanating from her loving heart, and if she feels a momentary pang she struggles bravely and lives on. She could ill repress her feelings when the peerless Evelyn, radiant in convenient smiles and blushes, went to be congratulated on her engagement to Montague Arnold.
"You never did seem like a sister to me Madge, and you act less like one now. I did not come to tell you that I was going to die."
Evelyn's manner was anything but amiable. She could brook no opposition to her will, and she was piqued to the highest degree that Marguerite did not break forth with the wildest terms of extravagant congratulation. But it matters not. Marguerite is not a hypocrite. She pities from the bottom of her heart the woman who will wed an unprincipled man like Montague Arnold.
How her tender pitying nature went out to the first-born of the family but the girl knew well the stubborn haughty spirit and looked calmly on without reproach.
Mrs. Verne had accomplished much in her own eyes. Her daughter was to revel in the comforts and elegancies of life. And when once the grand event had taken place she would have further opportunity to turn her attention to Marguerite. "I must get rid of Evelyn first," was her comment as she bent over a piece of embroidery designed for a mantle drapery—bunches of delicate ferns and golden rod on garnet plush, and intended for the home of the future Mrs. Montague Arnold.
But there was one who took a different view of the matter. Mr. Verne looked on in grave disquietude. It may be sacrilegious but we cannot refrain from intruding upon his inmost thoughts and with heartfelt sympathy grieve for the indulgent parent who sees his fair first-born sacrificed to the world and mammon. The man of far-seeing penetration knows too well the great mistake and with painful intensity contrasts the sweet girlish wife of his youth with the fashionable woman of the world who presides supreme over his household—he sighs deeply and plunges deeper into the ponderous folios before him.
Presently a smile illuminates the grave face. A graceful form is at his side, and as the maiden holds up a pretty bouquet arranged by her own fair hands, the fond father draws her towards him and tenderly kisses the white, smooth forehead earnestly hoping that his favorite child may have a happier prospect before her—that she may be happy with one she loves.