Father Rasle instructed her thoroughly, particularly in controversy. She must be able not only to defend herself when attacked, but to attack, if necessary. As yet, of either attack or defence she had had no need to think. That there was strife in the world, she almost forgot. The memory of all that had been miserable in her past life became as a dream, or was only real enough to keep fresh her love and gratitude toward her early friends, and to bar all intercourse between her and the village people. She saw them only when they came to her uncle's house.
Her life was simple—books, music, and drawing, a little gardening, and a good deal of riding on horseback. Major Cleaveland had given her a beautiful saddle-horse, and Carl was her teacher and constant companion in these rides. Mrs. Yorke, gentle soul! would have fainted with terror had she seen the reckless manner in which these two flew over the ground when they were out of her sight.
"You have had no exercise till your cheeks grow red," Carl would say; and at that challenge Edith would chirrup to her prancing Thistledown, and they were off on the wings of the wind. Thus cloistered and fostered, she grew up strong, sweet, and happy, and with the glance of her clear eyes kept back yet a while many a shaft that would have been aimed at the church.
One marksman, however, was not dazzled by her. Mr. Conway cried aloud, sparing not. Denunciation was this man's forte, and he improved the occasion. It was about this time that Miss Clara Yorke commented on the astringent qualities of the gentleman's character.
"Why, mamma," Hester Cleaveland said, "he had even the impudence to come to my house, and exhort me, and to say that we were all in danger from the influence of Father Rasle and Edith. I got up at that, and said that, since he had taken the liberty to speak to me in such a manner of my own family, I should not scruple to excuse myself from any further conversation with him then or in future. And I made him one of my most splendid bows, and left him alone; didn't I, you beautiful creature?"
This question was addressed to a lovely, gray-eyed infant that lay in the speaker's lap, and was followed by a long and interesting conversation between the two, the young mother furnishing both questions and answers, and in that delightful intercourse quite forgetting Mr. Conway and his impudence. What were all the crabbed old ministers in the world in comparison to mamma's own baby? Nothing at all! "Come, Melicent, and see how intelligent his expression is when I speak to him. He looks right in my face."
"I do not see how he could well help it, if he looks anywhere, since your face is within an inch of his nose," remarks Melicent dryly.
Hester had at this time been a year married, and was triumphantly, we must own, a little selfishly happy. There was not in her nature a particle of malice, but she lacked that sensitive and delicate regard for the feelings of others less favored than herself, which makes unselfish persons cautious not to display too much their own superior advantages. As her father had predicted, Major Cleaveland was to her the most wonderful man in the world, and as to Major Cleaveland's youngest son, words could not express his perfections. Their house was, in some occult way, finer than any other house whatever, their furniture had a charm of its own, their horses had peculiar qualities which rendered them more valuable than you would think, their very bread and butter had an uncommon flavor which distinguished it from the bread and butter of less fortunate mortals.
The Cleavelands remained in Seaton the first winter after this baby's birth, greatly to the joy of Hester's family. The winters passed rather heavily for them, and it was a pleasant break in their daily life to see Hester's horses turn into the avenue, with a great jingling of sleigh-bells, and Hester's pretty face smiling out from her furs behind them. Even Clara, absorbed as she was in the glorious work of putting the last finishing touches to her first novel—a novel actually accepted by a publisher, and to be brought out in the spring—even this inspired person would start up at that cheery sound, and run down-stairs to chat with her sister, and embrace her nephew, if he were of the party.
But there were times when no one could come to them, and they could not go out, but were as close prisoners as though walls of stone had been built up around them. One might as well have been in the Bastile as in a solitary country-house in one of those old-fashioned, down-east snow-storms. One could see them gather on winter days in a steady purple bank about the horizon, waiting there with leaden patience for a day or two, perhaps, till all their forces should come up, or till the air should moderate enough for a fall. There would be no visible clouds, but a gradual thickening of the air, the blue losing its brilliancy under the gray film, a flake sidling down now and then in so reluctant a manner that it seemed every moment on the point of going up again. Another follows, and another, they coquette with the earth, seem to talk the matter over in the air, finally, with a good deal of hesitation, one after another settles, and presently the storm comes on steadily, and what was a fairy star of whiteness becomes a thin white veil, then an inch-deep of swan's-down, then a pile that clogs the feet of men and beasts, and the wheels or runners of carriages, then an alabaster prison.