CHAPTER IX.
FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM.
"She prayed me not to judge their cause from her,
That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than power
In knowledge; something wild within her breast,
A greater than all knowledge, beat her down."
Tennyson's 'Princess.'
The days passed very tranquilly and pleasantly after this for the inhabitants of the cottage.
Queenie had regained her brightness in a great measure. In spite of a certain dim fear that haunted the background of her memory, her life seemed full of a strange, sweet excitement. The buoyancy of youth was strong within her; the knowledge of her secret wealth gave an intoxicating flavor to everything. As she walked to and fro to her daily work, she felt like a disguised princess, like the heroine of some fairy story she had read once, spinning in her woollen garments among the simple peasant folk. "I like being a rich woman after all," she said to herself, "it is so amusing. I feel just like Cinderella before the pumpkin coach arrives; it is a story-book sort of life I am leading. Fancy teaching in a village school when one has five thousand a-year. What shall I do with it all, I wonder; I wish I might give some to Langley and Cathy."
Queenie used to build all sorts of impossible castles in the air when she was by herself or with Emmie.
"What would you say if we were to be rich one day, very, very rich?" she would ask sometimes; but Emmie only shook her fair head.
"Rich, so that we should be obliged to leave this dear cottage! Oh no, Queen, I should not like it at all. I think it is so lovely, we two living all alone together. I never, never, never was so happy in all my life before," finishing with a prolonged hug.
"Thank God for that," murmured her sister, fervently, passing her hands gently over the child's upturned face.
The sharp outlines were filling out and rounding daily; a soft bloom tinged the thin cheeks; but there was still the same solemn, unchildlike look in the large blue eyes. Their expression used to trouble Queenie sometimes. "Would the shadow of past woe never die out of them?"