When Silas Jones, with the light waggon, drove up the carriage drive to Broadlawns, the family were at supper; so Simon, glad of the chance, got the trunks down and into the waggon, without words; but as Silas Jones was thanking him for his a.s.sistance; telling him of Sarah Kane"s escape, and inquiring for Mr. Cole, Mr. Stone, leaving the dining-room, encountered him, when he said,
"I am taking Sarah Kane"s trunks away, Mr. Stone."
"And who has authorized you to do anything in the matter?" he inquired, haughtily.
"My future wife, Sarah Kane."
For once, he was nonplussed; when Miss Stone, pa.s.sing through the hall, said, stiffly:
"I am sorry I cannot congratulate you, Mr. Jones, on winning a Christian woman."
"What can it mean," thought Mrs. Cole; "she is in tight keeping; safe enough." As a feeler, she says,
"You must have the faith of Abraham to trust her still; someone said she is living with a bachelor at London."
"Mrs. Cole, let me tell you there is such a thing as British justice, which we mean to have, when you shall eat your words in a court of law,"
he said, indignantly turning on his heel, and out into the night.
Simon, at his post in the sick room, told the good news of Sarah Kane"s escape.
Turning suddenly, in his eagerness to face Simon, and hear more, the sufferer groaned in rheumatic pain.
"Can you not manage to bring her to see me, when _they_ are _all_ out; the once you did bring Mr. Jones, he said, when he found Sarah, they would go out to New York or Canada; I particularly wish to see them.
Jove! the pain; the liniment, Simon; rub me, please, and close the door; if I could only escape, like Sarah; you will do what you can, I beg of you, to bring them to see me?"
"I will, sir, if I loses my situation by it."
Below stairs the birds of prey held council with closed doors.
"What the devil did that man Jones mean by daring to throw threats in our faces, Margaret?" said Stone, with seeming bravado, though, in reality, in dismay.
"Impudent bl.u.s.ter, perhaps, but I shall put my ears to their proper use," and slipping off her shoes, she crept noiselessly up to the door of the gloomy east chamber, which had been closed so they could talk privately, thus playing into the ear of the enemy.
"Well," said her uncle grimly, as she returned. "Well?" she answered, in the same tones, her eagle nose more prominent, her awful eyes more stony than ever. "She has escaped! and is even now at the bookseller"s."
"The devil!"
"You may well say so. Thomas Lang has sold you. Simon does not know particulars, for our friend Cole was earnest in inquiries."
"Is it too late to go into the city now?" he said nervously.
"Yes, and you are too cowardly to face "ills you know not of" alone. Let me see; the lower cla.s.s are awed by pomp and show. We will drive into Windsor Terrace in the morning in the carriage and pair. If Lang has sold you, you must buy him, by letting him have the house at his own figure. Again, should she have escaped without his connivance, be prepared by selling everything you can. You, as guardian to my sweet step-sister, have unlimited powers until our pet is of age, which interesting event, they don"t seem to know, has taken place. Rake in all the gold you can, uncle, as the United States looks inviting at present; to-morrow will be a busy day, Aunt Elizabeth, so you might tell cook to have breakfast an hour earlier. Good night."
As she left the room, her uncle said:
"She is every inch a Stone, Elizabeth, and not a bit like her chicken-hearted father."
"That"s true, Timothy, but she grows plainer every day, and looks nearly as old as I do."
"Yes, she is no Hebe; but had the blooming G.o.ddess been possessed of her wits, she would have blind-folded Jupiter."
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE ISLET-GEMMED ST. LAWRENCE.
On a morning late in December Mrs. Gower sat alone in her pretty restful library, with its olive-green velvet cushions and hangings, its water-lilies, like the beauties in our bay, with their green stalks and leaves painted on the panelled walls, its English ivy trained up and around the Queen Anne mantel, with graceful palms standing on either side of the floral blossoms on the stand. The occupant looks well in a close-fitting gown of navy blue flannel, embroidered in rose silk; there is a half-smile on the lips, and the dreaminess of some tender thought in the dark eyes, as she idly opens and closes a black lace fan, with a spray of honeysuckle painted thereon. A gentleman"s card lay beside her work-basket on the table.
"So Alexander Blair is his name," she thought; "how very, very long,"
with a sigh, "it has taken to come to me--his name, of course, I mean."
She thought, with a smile, putting the card to her lips, "how foolish of me, but I have always had that way. I remember travelling to Port Elgin, from Toronto, and on my arrival, my trunk, containing my dearest treasures, was not forthcoming. I was wild with grief, when, after enriching the telegraph offices, at the expense of my purse, in three days it was again in my possession; and what did I do, why kissed and fondled both trunk and key. Elaine Gower, you are a foolish, impressionable woman. And so I dropped my fan at the Grand, last night.
His card says, "With compliments, dropped at the theatre." He scarcely seemed a stranger seated beside me at "Erminie," and I feel sure he felt likewise. How handsome he is, or rather how essentially manly, with the look of strength in his broad shoulders, and of honesty of purpose in his fearless, blue eyes. He is iron-grey, and slightly bald, I noticed, when he stooped to pick up my handkerchief, but his beard and moustache are brown. He is decidedly dark; I wonder if Highland Scotch; for dark, and true, and tender are the North. His name suits him. I like them both for old a.s.sociation"s sake, one being the maiden name of one whose memory is sacred, the other, the Christian name of my loved dead. I wonder what poor Charlie Cole would think of my having made his acquaintance in this romantic fashion. I remember, he also had had instantaneous photographs, as we laughingly called them, of a young lady who had interested him."
At this moment Miss Crew, entering, in walking costume, said:
"I met the letter-carrier as I came in, Mrs. Gower, and here is your share."
"Thank you. You look better for your walk; but did you walk?"
"Only from the Spadina Avenue car terminus, but I had some little walking in my district, but the College Street Mission is worth fatiguing oneself for. Oh, Mrs. Gower, have you heard how Mayor Howland purposes raising building funds for the cottage in connection with the Industrial Home at Mimico?"
"Yes, I read it in some newspaper, the Globe of yesterday, I think."
"Won"t it be something to be proud of, if the children carry it out."
"Yes, and I believe they will; children are very much in earnest, when the heart is touched; and now for our correspondence; take off your hat and mantle here by the grate, though Gurney"s furnace does keep us very comfortable all over the house."
"Pardon my interrupting you, Mrs. Gower; but I am reading a letter from Mrs. Dale, in which she says, to be sure and remind you to write her some description of your yachting on the St. Lawrence; those English friends of theirs would so much like to get some idea of the life, as they purpose purchasing an island."
"Yes, I must do so; but I fear any poor words of mine, will fail in doing justice to its many delights;" and on finishing reading her letters, seating herself at her _escretoire_, she wrote as follows:
"The Islet-Gemmed St. Lawrence.
"DEAR MR. AND MRS. DALE,--It has never been my lot to read anything descriptive of river-life, on our loveliest of streams, that I have considered did justice to its varied charms; so you may imagine how powerless I feel, in the task you have a.s.signed me; but when I tell you that that martyr to _ennui_, Jack Halton, this summer owned to myself that he had, at last, found something worth living for, you will therefore not be surprised that I, loving nature as I do, should have gone into raptures.
"In the first place, our steam-yacht, the _Ino_, was the trimmest little craft, the daintiest little beauty on the river; and we had the perfection of host and hostess, each in their respective niche, leaving nothing to be desired. I told them they must have had "Aladdin"s lamp" stowed away somewhere; for we had but to clap our hands, and our will was done.
"Day after day, never tiring, ever with renewed zest we boarded the _Ino_, to dream away the hours in the most ravishing bits of scenery my eyes ever beheld. With hampers full of dainties and substantials, we wandered in and about the islands; sometimes meeting other idlers like ourselves, and pic-nicking at some chosen spot; sometimes the guests at one or other of our acquaintances having summer homes in this our Canadian fairyland. Truly, if all the year were June, the world in woods would roam; for our gay little _Ino_ was a spirit of the waters, and though we had no spiritualists on board, still we had table rappings on some good story by our witty host; neither were we so spiritual as to despise the material, which we proved as we sat to dinner; and such dinners, Ambrosia! Yea, and for our G.o.ddesses; though with sunburnt faces we women did not much resemble the latter, our men looking handsomer the browner they grew; but as for dinner, we had from dishes to tickle the palate of our club epicures to--hodge-podge, which we relished.
"Yes, from morn till eve, and often late, late, in the white moonlight, we lived an ideal life on our pet yacht, the _Ino_.
"One will sometimes say, in meteing out great praise to some favored spot, that one would live and die there; but here, who talks of dying? One would fain live forever; for, every moment one lives, one breathes a new life; for on the luxuriously appointed _Ino_, we gazed out from curtained windows, or from under a canopied arch, while we reclined on softest of cushioned seats, and literally drank in the "Elixir of Life."
The air of the pine groves as we pa.s.sed, the air of the grandly dark and dashing river, full of ozone, is the air to inflate one"s lungs with, and carry back with one to our crowded cities, which seemed so far away in that land of beauty.
"Some delightful evenings, we would tread a measure on the green sward, to music of flute and violin; for, had one or more of our group not been innate musicians, the scene was enough to inspire one, and so, in songs, merry laughter or sentiment, our days pa.s.sed as a dream.