"What do I want more than I have?" said Agnes. "I am your child, my own dear aunt, and this place shall be my home; here I was born, and here my mother is buried--I am content."
"So be it," said Patience. "No one shall trouble you; we will dwell in peace together."
Verily they did dwell in peace, buried in this little out-of-the-way spot. If Agnes sometimes thought of her old friends, she silenced her longings, for to find them she must go back to a world which she did not love, to London or to Paris, to courts and court life. In the quiet hours of study her mind grew with such rapidity that even the vicar marvelled.
Jessie was no laggard at learning or at work of any sort, but Agnes outstripped her, with that quiet ease with which she did everything. Her beautiful soul was reflected in her form and face. To see her was to love her. She was a sunbeam going in and out of the cottages, running to and fro, kneeling in church; wherever she passed, brightness followed in her wake.
Excepting at night she and Jessie were never parted. The Holt and the Vicarage were one home for both; so they grew side by side, Jessie a quiet maiden, very wise and good, ordering her father's house, teaching in the little school, visiting the sick all day. In the evenings the two would sit together reading or talking, the vicar and Patience would join them, and the former would bring tidings from the outside world. Two or three times a year he would go into Appleby, and then he would come back with a great store of court news. He told them of the battles which were being fought at sea, of the selling of Dunkirk--a shame to England--of stories of De Ruyter and many other great captains.
"England is losing her prestige," he said, "by sea and by land. The king loves pleasure too well, and his country too little."
Like tall lilies the two girls grew, side by side, with sunshine in their hearts and on their faces. The tender blossoms of spring, the bright summer days with their fruits and flowers, the mellow autumn with its crimson sunsets, the snows of winter, went and came almost unheeded by them, for each season had its joys. There was not a cloud on those young brows; unreasoningly, as if it were a natural thing, they rejoiced in life. Shadows had gone before and might follow after, but for the time they walked in light.
CHAPTER XV
At Court
Men stopped their work, women turned out on to their door-steps, to see a king's messenger riding through the hamlet of St. Mary's. He drew rein at the vicarage gate, threw himself off his horse, and would have knocked at the door had it not been wide open; so he called out: