"A youth! a mere child, when I last saw him," she answered. "I thought you had known all about him."
"Nothing more than his name; how came you in his company?"
"His father, living in India, was half-brother to our old squire, Fitzarthur of Talylynn. His mother dying, his widower father, whose health was broken up before, came over here, this being his native country, in hope of recovering it; but died at Talylynn, leaving one child, that little orphan boy, heir, after his half-uncle's death, to all this property. You have often heard me tell how like two brothers my dear father and our old squire were always—though father was only a steward—how he used to have me at the great house, for a month at a time, where he had me taught by a lady who lived with him, before I went to school; and so I used often to see that little boy in black—very queer and sullen he was thought; but he had no playfellow, except an owl that he kept tame, I remember, and cried when he buried him in the garden,—the only time he was ever known to cry, he was so still and stern. It was I caught him, then acting the sexton by himself, close by the high box hedge, under a great tree. I remember the spot now, and remember how angry I made him by laughing."
"And you did wrong to laugh, if it was so serious to him."
"Oh! but I did not know he was crying when I laughed, and was sorry when I detected it. One thing was, the old gentleman was so jovial, and loved a good laugher, and was rather too fond of wine, and mostly out hunting, so that the poor boy had to find his own amusement. He seemed fond of me, but hated, he said, his uncle, and his hounds, and his ways, and every thing there but his own owl; so that nobody was sorry when he was fetched back to India, to be put in the where he was to make the fortune he has now made, I suppose."
"And your little heart did throb a little, and sink for a day, when this playfellow was shipped off for life, as you thought, and you did remember his funeral tears over his owl, and"—a quaver of voice and betrayed earnestness revealed the jealous pang shooting across the heart of the speaker; but her own was too heavy and deeply anxious to prolong this desultory talk.
She only added—"Heaven knows how little I thought that poor stranger boy would ever grow to be what he is to me now."
"What he is to you? Why, what then is he, Winifred?"
"The horror of my thoughts, my dreams, my"——she answered sobbing. "But why should I say so? Wicked I am to feel him so, if he is indeed to be the saviour of my dear, dear father!" And she turned away to shed relieving tears.
"And this little packet contains my letters—all, does it?" he asked, touching the small parcel she had deposited within a cleft of the hollow river-side tree, by which they stood, the post-office of their happier days, where, concealed by thick moss gathered from the bole, those letters had every one been searched for and found—with what a leap of heart, first felt! how fondly thrust into her bosom, for the leisure delight of opening at home—and all in vain!