Thus had passed for her a part of life's pageant; and now she came to her own native dwelling, to let the rest march by as it might. At first, as she slowly descended from the carriage, her large, dark, brilliant eyes were fixed upon the ground. She had looked long at the house as she was driving towards it, and it seemed to have cast her into a thoughtful mood. It is hardly possible to enter a house where we have spent many early years, without finding memory suddenly seize upon the heart and possess it totally. What a grave it is! What a long line of buried ancestors may not the present always contemplate there.
Nor are there many received into the tomb worth so much respect as one dead hour. All else shall live again; lost hours have no resurrection.
There were old servants waiting around, to welcome her, new ones attending upon her orders; but for a moment or two she noticed no one, till at length the old housekeeper, who knew her from a babe, spoke out, saying, "Ah, madam! I do not wonder to see you a little sad on first coming to the old place again, after all that has happened."
"Ah, indeed, Arnold," replied the lady, "many sad things have happened since we parted. But how are you, Goody? You look blooming:" and walking into the house, she heard the reply in the hall.
From the hall, the old housekeeper led her lady through the house, and mightily did she chatter and gossip by the way. The lady listened nearly in silence; for Mrs. Arnold was generous in conversation, and spared her companion all expense of words. At length, however, something she said seemed to rouse her mistress, and she exclaimed with a somewhat bitter laugh, "And so the good people declared I was going to be married to Sir Philip Hastings?"
"Mr. Hastings he was then, madam," answered the housekeeper; "to be sure they did. All the country around talked of it, and the tenants listened at church to hear the banns proclaimed."
The lady turned very red, and the old woman went on to say, "Old Sir John seemed quite sure of it; but he reckoned without his host, I fancy."
"He did indeed," said the lady with an uncheerful smile, and there the subject dropped for the time. Not long after, however, the lady herself brought the conversation back to nearly the same point, asked after Sir Philip's health and manner of living, and how he was liked in the neighborhood, adding, "He seemed a strange being at the time I saw him, which was only once or twice—not likely to make a very pleasant husband, I thought."
"Oh dear, yes, madam, he does," answered Mrs. Arnold, "many a worse, I can assure you. He is very fond of his lady indeed, and gives up more to her than one would think. He is a little stern, they say, but very just and upright; and no libertine fellow, like his brother who was drowned—which I am sure was a providence, for if he was so bad when he was young, what would he have been when he was old?"
"Better, perhaps," replied her mistress, with a quiet smile; "but was he so very wicked? I never heard any evil of him."