"Is it you, Anne?" he said, as he staggered back, "I thought, at least, it was a cannon ball coming."
"It"s only my head," she said, laughing, "I was in such a hurry. I felt I should be too late. I ought to have packed up your things before I went to Amy."
"Ought is a very fine word, but it is generally a late one."
"I am so sorry," said Anne in a repentant voice.
"My next wife shall never say she is sorry," he said smiling.
"What a hardened wretch she will be!"
"Not so," he replied, "she shall be the most gentle, submissive creature in the world; everything shall be in its right place, and there shall be a right time for everything."
"Yes, Tom, I know I do try you dreadfully; but, all the same, you will never get another little wife to love you better than I do."
"True, Anne," he said, "or one that I could ever love as I love you."
"And now, Tom, do put down that horrid carpet-bag, I hate to feel you are going to leave me here even for a few days all by myself; and for the first time too. I can"t think what I shall do without you."
"But it is more than half-past four," he replied.
"But not railway time, only the poor old pony"s, and I am sure he will not mind waiting just to oblige his mistress."
Mr. Hall sat down, and placed her by his side. "And now, Anne," he said, "tell me what success you have had with Mrs. Vavasour? but do not make a long story of it, as I really must be away in another ten minutes."
"I had a hard matter to persuade her, Tom, but I managed it at last, and she is with Frances now. I feel so happy, because I am sure all will be right; poor Amy! how she did cry."
"She cried at last, then?"
"Heartily; and I know it will do her a world of good; she looked far happier when I left her than she has done for days."
"And now, Anne, I really must go and see after the pony, and settle the carpet bag, but I will come back once more, and say good-bye."
Ten minutes, twenty, slipped by, and Anne began to fear her husband had forgotten his promise; she wondered at his delay, and looked round to see if he had forgotten anything. His sermon, blotting book, small ink-bottle, all had gone. She turned to the chest of drawers and was ransacking them hurriedly, when she heard him come back.
"Why, Tom," she said, without turning round, "Here are all your handkerchiefs, every one of them! Don"t talk of my carelessness after this," and she laughingly held them up as a trophy.
But her husband"s face was white, so very white, that Anne"s heart turned sick, and almost stopped beating.
With a faint cry she crept up to him, and with a timid, frightened look, gazed into his face.
"What is it?" she whispered, "are you ill? Oh! tell me! Tell me!"
"No, no. It"s worse, Anne, worse," he murmured hoa.r.s.ely.
"Oh! for G.o.d"s sake tell me, Tom! or I shall die."
"It is Vavasour," he said, as he took her in his arms and held her to his heart. "Forgive me for having frightened you so, Anne. But Vavasour has been shot."
"Thank G.o.d you are well?" said Anne, bursting into tears, "But, oh, Amy!
my poor darling Amy!"
CHAPTER XV.
THE LAST OF LITTLE BERTIE.
"She put him on a snow-white shroud, A chaplet on his head; And gathered only primroses To scatter o"er the dead.
She laid him in his little grave-- "Twas hard to lay him there: When spring was putting forth its flowers, And everything was fair.
And down within the silent grave, He laid his weary head; And soon the early violets Grew o"er his gra.s.sy bed.
The mother went her household ways, Again she knelt in prayer; And only asked of Heaven its aid Her heavy lot to bear."
L. E. L.
On leaving Frances Strickland, Amy went to poor Bertie"s room to lay the fair white cross in his coffin, and was bending down over her lost darling in an agony of tears which old Hannah vainly attempted to check, when the sudden, hasty gallop of a horse away from the stables struck her ear. It was the groom going for Dr. Bernard.
Amy"s mind, already unnerved and unstrung, was easily alarmed.
"Alas! Hannah," said she, drawing near the darkened window "has any accident happened that some-one rides so furiously?"
"My dear Miss Amy," replied Hannah, forgetting in her tender pity Amy"s new tie, and thinking of her only as the wee child she had so lovingly nursed on her knee, "you must not be frightening yourself this way. What should have happened? G.o.d knows you"ve had enough to worry you. There, don"t tremble that way, but let go the blind, and come away from the window."
But Hannah"s persuasions and entreaties were alike useless. Amy, with fluttering anxious heart still looked out through the deepening shadows of the day, now fast drawing into evening.
Her husband was away. Oh! how she wished she could see him or hear his firm, yet for the last few days mournful step. Her heart had taken a strange fear, which she could neither shake off, nor subdue; a trembling nervous dread of some fast-coming evil.
Mr. Linchmore came up the drive, and for a moment a joyous thrill crept through her as she thought it was her husband; but no, he came nearer still, then disappeared up the terrace with Mr. Hall, and only the groom with the pony carriage was left, standing quietly as it had stood ever since she had so eagerly strained her eyes from the window.
Then once again--as it had done long, long ago--that strange, dull tramp from without smote her ear.
Meanwhile, Anne had nerved her heart as well as she could, and gone sorrowfully enough to break the sad news to Amy.
Not finding her either in her own or Miss Strickland"s room, she guessed she was in poor Bertie"s: besides, she missed the white cross.
"Oh! Tom!" she said, going back to her husband, "What can I do? She is with her poor dead child, surely I need not; and indeed I feel I cannot go there and tell her."
"No," replied Mr. Hall, after a moment"s consideration, "perhaps it will be best to try and get Vavasour into his room without her knowledge. I think with caution it might be done. Go and remain near the nursery door, Anne; they will not have to pa.s.s it on their way up, and I will go and enjoin silence and caution."
Anne sped away, and took up the post a.s.signed her, listening eagerly, yet fearfully for the sound of the m.u.f.fled footsteps, and straining her ears in the direction of the stairs, so that Amy stood before her, almost ere she had heard the opening of the door.
Anne saw at once Amy guessed at some disaster, for she gently but firmly resisted Anne"s endeavours to arrest her footsteps, and said, while she trembled excessively,