“Flora, you must keep up your spirits,” said her mother, kissing her tenderly; “nor let this parting weigh too heavily upon your heart. We shall all meet again.”
“Yes, and on earth.”
“Oh, no; it is useless to hope for that. No, never again on earth.”
“Always hope for the best, Flora; it is my plan. I have found it true wisdom. Put on your bonnet, and take a ramble through the garden and meadows; it will refresh you after so many harassing thoughts. Your favourite trees are in full leaf, the hawthorn hedges in blossom, and the nightingales sing every evening in the wood-lane. You cannot feel miserable among such sights and sounds of beauty in this lovely month of May, or you are not the same Flora I ever knew you.”
“Ah, just the same faulty, impulsive, enthusiastic creature I ever was, dear mother. No change of circumstances will, I fear, change my nature; and the sight of these dear old haunts will only deepen the regret I feel at bidding them adieu.”
Flora put on her bonnet, and went forth to take a last look of home.
The Hall was an old-fashioned house, large, rambling, picturesque, and cold. It had been built in the first year of good Queen Bess. The back part of the mansion appeared to have belonged to a period still more remote. The building was surrounded by fine gardens, and lawn-like meadows, and stood sheltered within a grove of noble old trees. It was beneath the shade of these trees, and reposing upon the velvet-like sward at their feet, that Flora had first indulged in those delicious reveries—those lovely, ideal visions of beauty and perfection—which cover with a tissue of morning beams all the rugged highways of life. Silent bosom friends were those dear old trees! Every noble sentiment of her soul,—every fault that threw its baneful shadow on the sunlight of her mind,—had been fostered, or grown upon her, in those pastoral solitudes. Those trees had witnessed a thousand bursts of passionate eloquence,—a thousand gushes of bitter, heart-humbling tears. To them had been revealed all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, which she could not confide to the sneering and unsympathising of her own sex. The solemn druidical groves were not more holy to their imaginative and mysterious worshippers, than were those old oaks to the young Flora.
Now the balmy breath of spring, as it gently heaved the tender green masses of brilliant foliage, seemed to utter a voice of thrilling lamentation,—a sad, soul-touching farewell.
“Home of my childhood! must I see you no more?” sobbed Flora. “Are you to become to-morrow a vision of the past? O that the glory of spring was not upon the earth! that I had to leave you amid winter’s chilling gloom, and not in this lovely, blushing month of May! The emerald green of these meadows—the gay flush of these bright blossoms—the joyous song of these glad birds—breaks my heart!”