"I never heard of his fortune."
"Nor I. Do tell it, Kate."
"Mademoiselle has forbidden all my legends," said she, calmly.
"I"m sure," said Sir Within, "she will recal the injunction for this time."
"It is very short," said Kate; and then with infinite archness, turning to the governess, added, "and it has a moral."
The governess nodded a grave permission, and the other began:
"There was once on a time a great family in the west of Ireland called the O"Moores, who, by years of extravagance, spent everything they had in the world, leaving the last of the name, a young man, so utterly dest.i.tute, that he had scarcely food to eat, and not a servant to wait on him. He lived in a lonely old house, of which the furniture had been sold off, bit by bit, and nothing remained but a library of old books, which the neighbours did not care for."
"Algebras and Ollendorff"s, I suppose," whispered Sir Within; and she smiled and went on:
"In despair at not finding a purchaser, and pinched by the cold of the long winter"s nights, he used to bring an armful of them every night into his room to make his fire. He had not, naturally, much taste for books or learning, but it grieved him sorely to do this; he felt it like a sort of sacrilege, but he felt the piercing cold more, and so he gave in. Well, one night, as he brought in his store, and was turning over the leaves--which he always did before setting fire to them--he came upon a little square volume, with the strangest letters ever he saw; they looked like letters upside down, and gone mad, and some of them were red, and some black, and some golden, and between every page of print there was a sheet of white paper without anything on it. O"Moore examined it well, and at last concluded it must have been some old monkish chronicle, and that the blank pages were left for commentaries on it. At all events, it could have no interest for him, as he couldn"t read it, and so he put it down on the hearth till he wanted it to burn.
"It was close on midnight, and nothing but a few dying embers were on the hearth, and no other light in the dreary room, when he took up the old chronicle, and tearing it in two, threw one half on the fire.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 228]
The moment he did so the flame sprang up bright as silver, lighting up the whole room, so that he could see even the old cobwebs on the ceiling, that had not been seen for yean and years, and at the same time a delicious music filled the air, and the sounds of children"s voices singing beautifully; but, strangest of all, in the very middle of the bright fire that now filled the whole hearth, there sat a little man with a scarlet cloak on him, and a scarlet hat and a white feather in it, and he smiled very graciously at O"Moore, and beckoned him over to him, but O"Moore was so frightened and so overcome he couldn"t stir.
At last, as the flames got lower, the t.i.ttle man"s gestures grew more energetic, and O" Moore crept down on his knees, and said, ""Do you want anything with me, Sir?""
""Yes, Garret," said the little man,: "I want to be your friend, and to save you from ruin like the rest of your family. You were wrong to burn that book."
""But I couldn"t read it," said Garret; "what use was it to me?"
""It was your own life, Garret O"Moore," said the little man, "and take care that you keep the part you have there, and study it carefully. It would have been, better for you if you had kept the whole of it."
"And with that the flame sprang brightly up for a second or two, and then went black out, so that O"Moore had to grope about to find tinder to strike a light. He lit the only bit of candle he had, and began to examine the part of the book that remained, and what did he find but on every blank page there was a line--sometimes two--written as if to explain the substance of the printed page, and all in such a way as to show it was somebody"s life, and adventures--as, for instance: "Takes to the sea--goes to America--joins an expedition to the Far West--on the plantations--marries--wife dies---off to China--marries again." I needn"t go on: everything that was ever to happen to him was written there till he was forty-five years of age, the rest was burned; but it was all fortunate--all, to the very end. He grew to be very rich, and prospered in everything, for whenever he was faint-hearted or depressed, he always said, "It wasn"t by being low and weak of heart that I begun this career of good fortune, and I must be stout and of high courage if I mean to go on with it." And he grew so rich that he bought back all the old acres of the O"Moores, and they have a hand rescuing a book from the flames on their arms till this day."
"And the moral?--where"s the moral?" asked the governess.
"The moral, the moral!" said Kate, dubiously. "Well, I"m not exactly sure where it is, but I suppose it is this; that it"s far better to go to sea as a sailor than to sit down and burn your father"s library."
"I have a notion, my dear Kate, that you yourself would like well to have a peep into destiny--am I wrong?"
"I would, Sir."
"And you, Ada?"
"Why should _she?_" broke in Kate, eagerly; and then, as though shocked at her impetuosity, she went on, in a lower voice: "Ada makes her voyage in a three-decker, _I_ am only clinging to a plank."
"No, no, dearest," said Ada, tenderly; "don"t say that."
"Mademoiselle is looking at her watch," said Sir Within, "and I must accept the signal." And though she protested, elaborately too, that it was a mere habit with her, he arose to ring for his carriage. "I am not going without the sketch you promised me, Ada," said he--"the pencil sketch of the old fountain."
"Oh, Kate"s is infinitely better. I am ashamed to see mine after it."
"Why not let me have both?"
"Yes," said the governess, "that will be best. I"ll go and fetch them."
Ada stood for a moment irresolute, and then muttering, "Mine is really too bad," hastened out of the room after Mademoiselle Heinzle-man.
"You are less merry than usual, Kate," said Sir Within, as he took her hand and looked at her with interest. "What is the reason?"
A faint, scarce perceptible motion of her brow was all she made in answer.
"Have you not been well?"
"Yes, Sir. I am quite well."
"Have you had news that has distressed you?"
"Where from?" asked she, hurriedly.
"From your friends--from home."
"Don"t you know, Sir, that I have neither!"
"I meant, my dear child--I meant to say, that perhaps you had heard or learned something that gave you pain."
"Yes, Sir," broke she in, "that is it. Oh, if I could tell you----"
"Why not write it to me, dear child?"
"My writing is coa.r.s.e and large, and I misspell words; and, besides, it is such a slow way to tell what one"s heart is full of--and then I"d do it so badly," faltered she out with pain.
"Suppose, then, I were to settle some early day for you all to come over to Dalradern; you could surely find a moment to tell me then?"
"Yes, Sir--yes," cried she; and, seizing his hand, she kissed it pa.s.sionately three or four times.
"Here they are," said Ada, merrily--"here they are! And if Kate"s does ample justice to your beautiful fountain, mine has the merit of showing how ugly it might have been. Isn"t this hideous?"
After a few little pleasant common-places, Sir Within turned to Mademoiselle Heinzleman, and said: "I have rather an interesting book at Dalradern; at least, it would certainly have its interest for you, Mademoiselle. It is a copy of "Clavigo," with Herder"s marginal suggestions. Goethe had sent it to him for his opinion, and Herder returned it marked and annotated. You will do me an infinite favour to accept it."
"Ach Gott!" said the governess, perfectly overwhelmed with the thought of such a treasure.
"Well, then, if the weather be fine on Tuesday, Mademoiselle, will you and my young friends here come over and dine with me? We shall say three o"clock for dinner, so that you need not be late on the road. My carriage will be here to fetch you at any hour you appoint."
A joyous burst of delight from Ada, and a glance of intense grat.i.tude from Kate, accompanied the more formal acceptance of the governess; and if Sir Within had but heard one t.i.the of the flattering things that were said of him, as he drove away, even his heart, seared as it was, would have been touched.
Kate, indeed, said least; but when Ada, turning abruptly to her, asked, "Don"t you love him?" a slight colour tinged her cheek, as she said, "I think he"s very kind, and very generous, and very-------"
"Go on, dear--go on," cried Ada, throwing her arm around her--"finish; and very what?"