sorrowful; but she was paler and thinner than last summer, and though she spoke, smiled, and laughed when she ought, it was without the gay, childish freedom of former times. She was a small, pale, quiet girl now, not a merry, caressing kitten. Mary recollected what she had been in the wood last summer, and was sure it was more than Charles's illness that had altered her; yet still Amy had not Laura's harassed look.
Mary had not much talk with Amy, for it was a large party, with a good many young ladies and children, and Amy had a great deal of work in the way of amusing them. She had a wearied look, and was evidently exerting herself to the utmost.
'You look tired,' said Mary, kindly.
'No, it is only stupidity,' said Amy, smiling rather sadly. 'We can't be entertaining without Charlie.'
'It has been a melancholy winter,' began Mary, but she was surprised, for Amy's face and neck coloured in a moment; then, recovering herself, with some hesitation, she said,--
'Oh! but Charlie is much better, and that is a great comfort. I am glad you are come home, Mary.'
'We are going to have some magic music,' was said at the other end of the room. 'Who will play?'
'Little Amy!' said Mr. Edmonstone. 'Where is she? She always does it to admiration. Amy, come and be a performer.'
Amy rose, and came forward, but the colour had flushed into her cheeks again, and the recollection occurred to Mary, that her fame as a performer, in that way, arose from the very amusing manner in which she and Sir Guy had conducted the game last year. At the same moment her mother met her, and whispered,--
'Had you rather not, my dear?'
'I can do it, mamma, thank you--never mind.'
'I should like to send you up to Charlie--he has been so long alone.'
'Oh! thank you, dear mamma,' with a look of relief.
'Here is Charlotte wild to be a musician,' said Mrs. Edmonstone. 'Perhaps you will see how she can manage; for I think Charles must want a visit from his little nurse.'
Amy moved quietly away, and entered Charles's room, full of warm gratitude for the kindness which was always seeking how to spare her.
Charles was asleep, and throwing a shawl round her, she sat down in the dim light of the lamp, relieved by the stillness, only broken by now and then a louder note of the music down-stairs. It was very comfortable, after all that buzz of talk, and the jokes that seemed so nonsensical and tiresome. There were but two people who could manage to make a party entertaining, and that was the reason it was so different last year. Then Amy wondered if she was the only person who felt sick at heart and dreary; but she only wondered for a moment--she murmured half aloud to herself, 'I said I never would think of him except at my prayers! Here I am doing it again, and on Christmas night. I won't hide my eyes and moan over my broken reed; for Christmas is come, and the circles of song are widening round! Glory! good will, peace on earth! How he sang it last year, the last thing, when the people were gone, before we went up to bed. But I am breaking my resolution again. I must do something.'
She took up a book of sacred poetry, and began to learn a piece which she already nearly knew; but the light was bad, and it was dreamy work; and probably she was half asleep, for her thoughts wandered off to Sintram and the castle on the Mondenfelsen, which seemed to her like what she had pictured the Redclyffe crags, and the castle itself was connected in her imagination with the deep, echoing porch, while Guy's own voice seemed to be chanting--
Who lives forlorn, On God's own word doth rest; His path is bright With heavenly light, His lot among the blest.
'Are you there, Amy?' said Charles, waking. 'What are you staying here for? Don't they want you?'
'Mamma was so kind as to send me up.'
'I am glad you are come, for I have something to tell you. Mr. Ross has been up to see me, you know, and he has a letter from Guy.'
Amy's heart beat fast, and, with eyes fixed on the ground, she listened as Charles continued to give an account of Guy's letter about Coombe Prior. 'Mr. Ross is quite satisfied about him, Amy,' he concluded. 'I wish you could have heard the decided way in which he said, 'He will live it down.''
Amy's answer was to stoop down and kiss her brother's forehead.
Another week brought Guy's renewal of the correspondence.
'Amy, here is something for you to read,' said Charles, holding up the letter as she came into the room.
She knew the writing. 'Wait one moment, Charlie, dear;' and she ran out of the room, found her mother fortunately alone, and said, averting her face,--'Mamma, dear, do you think I ought to let Charlie show me that letter?'
Mrs. Edmonstone took hold of her hand, and drew her round so as to look into the face through its veiling curls. The hand shook, and the face was in a glow of eagerness. 'Yes, dearest!' said she, for she could not help it; and then, as Amy ran back again, she asked herself whether it was foolish, and bad for her sweet little daughter, then declared to herself that it must--it should--it would come right.
There was not a word of Amy in the letter, but it, or something else, made her more bright and cheerful than she had been for some time past. It seemed as if the lengthening days of January were bringing renewed comfort with them, when Charles, who ever since October had been confined to bed, was able to wear the Chinese dressing-gown, be lifted to a couch, and wheeled into the dressing-room, still prostrate, but much enjoying the change of scene, which he called coming into the world.
These were the events at quiet Hollywell, while Redclyffe was still engrossed with the shipwreck, which seemed to have come on purpose to enliven and occupy this solitary winter. It perplexed the Ashfords about their baronet more than ever. Mr. Ashford said that no one whose conscience was not clear could have confronted danger as he had done; and yet the certainty that he was under a cloud, and the sadness, so inconsistent with his age and temperament still puzzled them. Mrs. Ashford thought she had made a discovery. The second day after the wreck, the whole crew, except the little cabin-boy, were going to set off to the nearest sea-port; and the evening preceding their departure, they were to meet their rescuers, the fishermen, at a supper in the great servants' hall at the park. Edward and Robert were in great glory, bringing in huge branches of evergreens to embellish the clean, cold place; and Mr. and Mrs. Ashford and Grace were to come to see the entertainment, after having some coffee in the library.
Guy prepared it for his company by tumbling his books headlong from the sofa to a more remote ottoman, sticking a bit of holly on the mantel- shelf, putting out his beloved old friend, Strutt's 'Sports and Pastimes,' to amuse Grace, and making up an immense fire; and then, looking round, thought the room was uncommonly comfortable; but the first thing that struck Mrs, Ashford, when, with face beaming welcome, he ushered her in from the great hall, was how forlorn rooms looked that had not a woman to inhabit them.
The supper went off with great eclat. Arnaud at the head of the table carved with foreign courtesies, contrasted with the downright bluff way of the sailors. As soon as Sir Guy brought Mrs. Ashford to look in on them, old James Robinson proposed his health, with hopes he would soon come and live among them for good, and Jonas Ledbury added another wish, that 'Lady Morville' might soon be there too. At these words, an expression of pain came upon Guy's face; his lips were rigidly pressed together; he turned hastily away, and paced up and down before he could command his countenance. All were so busy cheering, that no one heeded his change of demeanour save Mrs. Ashford; and though, when he returned to the place where he had been standing, his complexion was deepened, his lip quivered, and his voice trembled in returning thanks, Mr. Ashford only saw the emotion naturally excited by his people's attachment.
The lady understood it better; and when she talked it over with her husband in the evening, they were convinced the cause of his trouble must be some unfortunate attachment, which he might think it his duty to overcome; and having settled this, they became very fond of him, and anxious to make Redclyffe agreeable to him.
Captain and crew departed; the little boy was better, and his hosts, Charity and Jem Ledbury, only wished to keep him for ever; the sensation at Redclyffe was subsiding, when one morning Markham came, in a state of extreme satisfaction and importance, to exhibit the county paper, with a full account of the gallant conduct of the youthful baronet. Two or three days after, on coming home from a ride to Coombe Prior, Guy found Lord Thorndale's card, and heard from Arnaud that 'my lord had made particular inquiries how long he would be in the country, and had been to the cliff to see where the wreck was.'
Markham likewise attached great importance to this visit, and went off into a long story about his influence,
