The dark dreamy eyes, the pale olive complexion, the glossy hair—in color the sun-steeped blackness of the south—the full curled lips and grand profile, might have befitted a Vashti; just so might the spotless queen have carried her uncrowned head when she left the gates of Shushan, and have trailed her garments in the dust with a mien as proud and as despairing.
There she sat motionless, looking over the harvest-fields, while Catharine spread a clean coarse cloth on the small oaken table beside her, and served up a frugal meal of brown bread, honey, and milk, and then stood watching her while the stranger eat sparingly and as if only necessity compelled.
“There,” she said at last, looking up at Catharine with a soft pathetic smile that lent new beauty to her face; “I have done justice to your delicious fare; now draw your chair closer, for I am starving for news of Margaret, and ‘like water to a thirsty soul is news from a far country.’ How often I say those words to myself.”
“But not bad news, surely, Miss Crystal; and it is like enough you’ll think mine bad when told. Hark, it only wants the half hour to noon, and they are man and wife now.”
“Man and wife! of whom are you talking, Catharine?”
“Of whom should I be talking, dearie, but of the young master?” but the girl interrupted her with strange vehemence.
“Catharine, you will drive me crazy with that slow soft tongue of yours. How can Hugh Redmond be married while Margaret stands under the elm trees alone?”
“But it is true, Miss Crystal, for all that—as sure as the blue sky is above us—Sir Hugh Redmond weds to-day with a bonny bit child from foreign parts that no one set eyes on, and whom he is bringing home as mistress to the old Hall.”
“I don’t believe you!” exclaimed the girl, stormily; but in spite of her words the olive complexion grew pale. “You are jesting, Catharine; you are imposing on me some village fable—some credulous report. As I love Margaret, I refuse to believe you.”
“The time was when a word from Catharine would have contented you, Miss Crystal,” replied the woman, sorrowfully, and her honest face grew overcast. “Do you think Miss Margaret’s own foster-sister, who was brought up with her, would deceive you now? But it is like enough that sorrow and pride have turned your head, and the mistake of having made the first false step beside.”