'Does papa know of his letter to me?'
'How should he know? Do you think I would bring myself to speak of what I consider a gross insult to the family? But have done! Here comes Mr. Wallowby. The dinner was to be kept back on account of his absence. Go and bid them have it on the table in three quarters of an hour. But remember, Sophia, I command you in the most solemn manner not to write to that other man. And think no more of it.'
The guest's return cut short further discussion; and probably it was best so. Mrs. Sangster had had the last word, which she would have insisted on having in any case; and Sophia, if slow, was well known in the family to be obstinate--one on whose mind, if an idea could once inscribe itself, it remained for ever, written in ink indelible; and under the new awakening that was at work within her, she was little likely to have been moved by any thing that would have been said. Her mind was made up. Roderick should certainly hear from her, on that she was resolved; but the lifelong habit of obedience in which she had been reared, prevented her direct contravention of her mother's command. She would not write a letter, but she must get at him in some other way.
She would have liked to talk it all over with her father, as being a person of incomparable wisdom, and one better inclined to Mr. Brown, as she had just gathered, than her mother; but her father if very wise, was also very far off--a Merovingian king, in affairs of the household or of his daughter, which he was content to leave under the absolute and undisputed control of his wife--the mayor of the palace. She had been used every day to see him preside at table, and read prayers morning and evening, but she had never had much personal intercourse or conversation with him; and to go to him and say that a young man had asked her to marry him, was beyond her strength. She grew pale at the bare thought of it.
The next day was taken up with other cares--a dinner party at home, and on Wednesday came leave-taking, as her brother and Mr. Wallowby were returning to the South. In the afternoon, however, stillness had fallen upon the house. Her father was away, having accompanied his guests to the county town where they were to catch the mail. All the stir and bustle of the past two weeks was over, and her mother declaring she had a headache, had retired to her room. Sophia sat down to her worsted work, and as with busy fingers she wove the many-hued threads into her web, her own thoughts seemed to disentangle themselves out of the confused wisp in which they had lain, she began to perceive what it really was that she wanted, and to make up her mind what she would do. Roderick's letter somehow kept repeating itself over and over again through her mind, but she made no attempt to stifle it, nor did she grow weary of the phrases so often rehearsed; on the contrary the colour deepened in her cheek, and a light dawned in her eye, clearer, warmer, more human, than those organs with all their gazelle-like beauty--their suggestion of the ox-eyed Heré--had ever revealed before. 'Yes! Roderick should have his answer--in part at least--for, after all she felt herself, as one of God's free creatures, entitled to exercise the resources of her hunter's skill. Before she yielded to his yoke, as Tibbie Tirpie would have said, she meant to have more courting. And Mary--she could see and speak to her without challenge and without reproach--she should be her messenger.
CHAPTER XXIV.
[LUCKIE HOWDEN].
Roderick was certainly growing worse, although the rheumatic symptoms had disappeared. His voice was scarcely audible now, and he spoke with great difficulty. All through Tuesday there was a look of waiting and anxiety on his face. A step in the passage without, or a passing wheel on the road, and he would turn his eyes to the door, as though he expected some one. But no one came, wheels and footsteps alike passed on their way; and he would heave a weary sigh, turning his face to the wall. On Wednesday he was more restless, more depressed and certainly worse. He had not slept the night before, and at early daylight he had begun again to watch for coming steps, and to sigh as each passed on without turning in to him. Mary sat by him, and sat alone. Excepting the Doctor and Eppie Ness, no one came to share her watching, or to enquire how he was--their minister, for whom they had hitherto professed such regard, and to whose bounty so many were indebted for substantial pecuniary aid.
'I think it very unkind of Mrs. Sangster never to have come to ask after him,' she said, 'and it is strange as well, seeing that it was in her service he got so wet; but I am quite confounded at the neglect the rest of the parishioners are showing him.'
'Can you account for it, Eppie?'