CHAPTER VI.
Leonard opened his door and stole toward that of the room adjoining; for his first natural impulse had been to enter and console. But when his touch was on the handle, he drew back. Child though the mourner was, her sorrows were rendered yet more sacred from intrusion by her sex. Something, he knew not what, in his young ignorance, withheld him from the threshold. To have crossed it then would have seemed to him profanation. So he returned, and for hours yet he occasionally heard the sobs, till they died away, and childhood wept itself to sleep.
But the next morning, when he heard his neighbor astir, he knocked gently at her door;
there was no answer. He entered softly, and saw her seated very listlessly in the centre of the room—as if it had no familiar nook or corner as the rooms of home have—her hands drooping on her lap, and her eyes gazing desolately on the floor. Then he approached and spoke to her.
Helen was very subdued, and very silent. Her tears seemed dried up: and it was long before she gave sign or token that she heeded him. At length, however, he gradually succeeded in rousing her interest; and the first symptom of his success was in the quiver of her lip, and the overflow of the downcast eyes.
By little and little he wormed himself into her confidence; and she told him, in broken whispers, her simple story. But what moved him the most was, that, beyond her sense of loneliness, she did not seem to feel her own unprotected state. She mourned the object she had nursed, and heeded, and cherished; for she had been rather the protectress than the protected to the helpless dead. He could not gain from her any more satisfactory information than the landlady had already imparted, as to her friends and prospects; but she permitted him passively to look among the effects her father had left—save only that if his hand touched something that seemed to her associations especially holy, she waved him back, or drew it quickly away. There were many bills receipted in the name of Captain Digby—old yellow faded music-scores for the flute—extracts of Parts from Prompt Books—gay parts of lively comedies, in which heroes have so noble a contempt for money—fit heroes for a Sheridan and a Farquhar; close by these were several pawnbroker's tickets; and, not arranged smoothly, but crumpled up, as if with an indignant nervous clutch of the old helpless hands, some two or three letters. He asked Helen's permission to glance at these, for they might give a clew to friends. Helen gave the permission by a silent bend of the head. The letters, however, were but short and freezing answers from what appeared to be distant connections or former friends, or persons to whom the deceased had applied for some situation. They were all very disheartening in their tone. Leonard next endeavored to refresh Helen's memory as to the name of the nobleman which had been last on her father's lips; but there he failed wholly. For it may be remembered that Lord L'Estrange, when he pressed his loan on Mr. Digby, and subsequently told that gentleman to address to him at Mr. Egerton's, had, from a natural delicacy, sent the child on, that she might not hear the charity bestowed on the father; and Helen said truly, that Mr. Digby had sunk into a habitual silence on all his affairs latterly. She might have heard her father mention the name, but she had not treasured it up; all she could say was, that she should know the stranger again if she met him, and his dog too. Seeing that the child had grown calm, Leonard was then going to leave the room, in order to confer with the hostess: when she rose
suddenly, though noiselessly, and put her little hand in his, as if to detain him. She did not say a word—the action said all—said "Do not desert me." And Leonardo heart rushed to his lips, and he answered to the action, as he bent down and kissed her cheek, "Orphan, will you go with me? We have one Father yet to both of us, and He will guide us on earth. I am fatherless like you." She raised her eyes to his—looked at him long—and then leant her head confidingly on his strong young shoulder.
CHAPTER VII.
At noon that same day, the young man and the child were on their road to London. The host had at first a little demurred at trusting Helen to so young a companion; but Leonard, in his happy ignorance, had talked so sanguinely of finding out this lord, or some adequate protection for the child; and in so grand a strain, though with all sincerity—had spoken of his own great prospects in the metropolis (he did not say what they were!)—that had it been the craftiest impostor he could not more have taken in the rustic host. And while the landlady still cherished the illusive fancy, that all gentlefolks must know each other in London, as they did in a county, the landlord believed, at least, that a young man so respectably dressed, although but a foot-traveler—who talked in so confident a tone, and who was so willing to undertake what might be rather a burdensome charge, unless he saw how to rid himself of it—would be sure to have friends, older and wiser than himself, who would judge what could best be done for the orphan.
And what was the host to do with her? Better this volunteered escort, at least, than vaguely passing her on from parish to parish, and leaving her friendless at last in the streets of London. Helen, too, smiled for the first time on being asked her wishes, and again put her hand in Leonard's. In short, so it was settled.