'Twas no use pursuit;—the ship that I had heard weighing anchor was reached ere then and winging down the river. And from that hour to this we have never set eyes on Helmar.
Well, at midsummer of the next year Angus married me. We were very quiet, and I wore the white slip in which he showed me myself in the glass as a a bride,—for we would not cast aside our crapes so soon, and Mary wears hers to this day. From morn till night my poor mother used only to sit and moan, and all her yellow hair was white as driving snow. I could not leave her, so Angus rented his estates and came and lived with us. 'Tis different now;—Mrs. Strathsay goes about as of old, and sees there be no speck on the buttery-shelves, that the sirup of her lucent plums be clear as the light strained through carbuncles, her honeycombs unbroken, her bread like manna, and no followers about her maids. And Mrs. Strathsay has her wish at length;—there's a son in the house, a son of her own choosing, (for she had ever small regard for the poor little Graeme,)—none knew how she had wished it, save by the warmth with which she hailed it,—and she is bringing him up in the way he should go. She's aye softer than she was, she does not lay her moulding finger on him too heavily;—if she did, I doubt but we should have to win away to our home. Dear body! all her sunshine has come out! He has my father's name, and when sleep's white finger has veiled his bonnie eyes, and she sits by him, grand and stately still, but humming low ditties that I never heard her sing before, I verily believe that she fancies him to be my father's child.
And still in the nights of clear dark we lean from the broad bower-window and watch the river flowing by, the rafts swimming down with breath of wood-scents and wild life, the small boats rocking on the tide, revivifying our childhood with the strength of our richer years, heart so locked in heart that we have no need of words,—Angus and I. And often, as we lean so, over the beautiful silence of lapping ripple and dipping oar there floats a voice rising and falling in slow throbs of tune;—it is Mary Strathsay singing some old sanctified chant, and her soul seems to soar with her voice, and both would be lost in heaven but for the tender human sympathies that draw her back to our side again. For we have grown to be a glad and peaceful family at length; 'tis only on rare seasons that the old wound rankles. We none of us speak of Effie, lest it involve the mention of Helmar; we none of us speak of Helmar, lest, with the word, a shining, desolate, woful phantom flit like the wraith of Effie before us. But I think that Mary Strathsay lives now in the dream of hereafter, in the dream that some day, perchance when all her white beauty is gone and her hair folded in silver, a dark, sad man will come off the seas, worn with the weather and with weight of sorrow and pain, and lay himself down at her feet to die. And shrived by sorrow and pain, and by prayer, he shall be lifted in her arms, shall rest on her bosom, and her soul shall forth with his into the great unknown.
LYRICS OF THE STREET.
IV.
THE FINE LADY.
Her heart is set on folly,
An amber gathering straws;
She courts each poor occurrence,
Heeds not the heavenly laws.
Pity her!
She has a little beauty,
And she flaunts it in the day,
While the selfish wrinkles, spreading,
Steal all its charm away.
Pity her!
She has a little money,
And she flings it everywhere;
'T is a gewgaw on her bosom,
'T is a tinsel in her hair.
Pity her!
She has a little feeling,
She spreads a foolish net
That snares her own weak footsteps,
Not his for whom 't is set.
Pity her!