for good.'
'Ah! Miss Wortley, that is what I have always wished to live for; I have always said, let me only live to see Sir Gerald come back, and find things in order as he left them, and then I would die contented.'
'No, no, live to keep his house many more years,' said Marian. 'It is four years less now you know, Mrs. White; only eight more before we shall be able to live here. For, I suppose you would like to have me back too.'
'I don't know Miss Marian; you will he married long before that, such a fine young lady as you are grown to be.'
Marian laughed and passed on into the house, sorry that Gerald had taken no part in the conversation. They went into the drawing-room, that room where he had wept so bitterly the day before his departure. Again his observation was, 'I thought this room was twice the size. And so low!'
'You have been looking in at the large end of a telescope lately, Gerald,' said his sister with some sorrow in her tone, as she sat down on one of the brown holland muffled sofas, and looked up at her father's portrait, trying to find a likeness there to the face before her. There was the same high brow, the same dark eyes, the same straight features, the same bright open smile. Gerald was more like it, in some respects, than he had been, but there was a haughty, impetuous expression now and then on eye, brow, and lip, that found no parallel in the gentle countenance which, to Marian's present feelings, seemed to be turned towards him with an air of almost reproachful anxiety.
Perhaps he saw some of the sadness of her expression, and; always affectionate, wished to please her by manifesting a little more of the feelings which really still existed. He came and stood by her, and whispered a few caressing words, which almost compensated for the vexation his carelessness had occasioned. He looked earnestly at the picture for a few moments, then, turning away, suddenly exclaimed, 'I should like to see the old dressing-room.'
This was Lady Arundel's morning room, where many a lesson had been repeated, many a game played, and where, perhaps, more childish recollections centered than in any other part of the house. The brother and sister went thither alone, and much enjoyed looking into every well-known corner, and talking of the little events which had there taken place. This lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour, when they rejoined their companions to make the tour of the garden, &c. All was pleasant here, Gerald recollected every nook, and was delighted to find so much unchanged.
'Let us just look into the stable yard,' said he, as they were coming away. It was locked, but a message to Mrs. White procured the key, and they entered the neat deserted court, without one straw to make it look inhabited, though the hutch where the rabbits had lived was still in its place; and even in one corner the reversed flower-pot, which Gerald well remembered to have brought there to mount upon, in order to make investigations into a blackbird's nest, in the ivy on the wall.
He now used the same flower-pot to enable him to peep in at the hazy window of the stable, and still more lamentable was his exclamation, 'Can this be all! How very small!'
'Nothing but low and little, you discontented boy,' said Agnes.
'Why, really, I could not believe it was on such a small scale,' said Gerald. 'Marian, now is it possible there can be only six stalls here?'
'Why, what would have been the use of more?' said Marian.
'Ah! why to be sure, there was no one to ride much,' said Gerald. 'But yet I can hardly imagine it! What could my father have done in his younger days? Only six stalls! And no loose box. Well, people had contracted notions in those days! And the yard so small! Why, the one at Oakworthy would make four of it.'
'And you had really managed to persuade yourself that this was a grander place than Oakworthy?' said Marian.
Gerald made no answer; but after walking backwards till he had a full view of the stable and surrounding regions, broke out into the exclamation, 'I see what is to be done! Take down that wall--let in a piece of the kitchen garden--get it levelled--and then extend it a little on the right side too. Yes, I see.'
'You are not talking of spoiling this place!' cried Agnes, in dismay.
