length Nesta, having risen from her prayers, came and seated herself at my feet. "Does it matter so much, Janet?" she said. "Yes, it does matter, Nesta," I answered. "I should have thought you would have understood how much. If you don't, we won't talk about it.” : "Let me say one thing. Do you remember the sentence that you liked so much in the German book you translated last? Was it not something like this: that we should wish to be to God what a man's hand is to him? Oh, Janet, don't you see, Hilary was God's hand, and He has used him perhaps to save a soul. It does not matter what kind of person it was, God wanted it done. Don't you see how beautiful it is, that Hilary should have done it?" I did see; it was as if a veil fell from before my eyes. Yes, I had been making pictures; Nesta had looked at the reality. I went to bed with a triumphant heart, determined to brave Mr. Armstrong's satire, and not to attempt aiming at Nirvana. CHAPTER V. "A rosebud set with little wilful thorns." TENNYSON. By way of contrast to Hilary's having arrived too soon, the other guest, whose coming I had been dreaming over, made himself waited for. During two long evenings we sat in the drawing-room, with the best tea-things on the table, listening to the sound of the carriages as they passed down the street, and feeling a constant disappointment when each one passed our door. About nine o'clock on the second evening, I grew restless over my book, and stole down to the diningroom to enjoy a brisk walk up and down the room by the firelight. I was rather ashamed of this exercise, and always carefully closed the door after me when I indulged in it. Charlie had peeped in upon me once or twice, and accused me of rushing up and down like a steam-engine. I hope there was some exaggeration in this, but I must confess that I sometimes found myself much out of breath when some sudden interruption brought me to a stand-still. I remember what it was that checked my romanceweaving that night. My sleeve caught and threw down a volume of Uhland's poems, which Charlie had been reading during tea. I stooped and picked it up, and while smoothing out a crumpled leaf, my eye fell on this verse: „Die Sehnsucht und der Träume Webe, Und macht den schönen Traum gewiß." "To long and weave a woof of dreams is sweet unto the feeble soul, but nobler is stout-hearted striving, and makes the dream a reality." "The feeble soul"-"nobler is stout-hearted striving!"—those were words to sit still and ponder upon. My "woof of dreams" floated wide, and I retreated gently to the hearthrug to do penance by learning the verse by heart. While I was thus occupied, I heard, as I thought, my father come home from the lecture and go upstairs to the drawingroom; it must therefore be supper-time, and I knew I ought to follow him, but I could not help lingering to read and repeat my verse once more. While I was saying it for the last time, with my eyes shut, I heard Nesta come into the room to summon me. "In one moment, Nesta," I said. There was no answer, but I heard a quick step, very unlike Nesta's. I opened my eyes and looked up. Nesta was not there. A young girl, whom I had never seen before, hastily approached the fireplace. She had a walkingdress on and a heavy shawl, which, on reaching the hearth-rug, she threw off with an impatient gesture. A quick glance all round the room, which took me in, followed, and then she began vigorously pulling at her gloves. I was so much taken by surprise that I watched in silence. The gloves fitted tightly, and the young lady showed great want of skill in handling them. She tore them off, and, to my utter amazement, rolled them up into a ball, and threw them hastily into the brightest cave of the glowing fire I had been reading by. I had a sort of reverence for gloves, having been all my life subject to grievous penalties for losing them, and could hardly believe my eyes when I saw a pair treated in this sacrilegious fashion. "What did you do that for?" I asked, breathlessly. The gloves had begun to burn by this time, and gave out a flame that showed me a brown and red face, surmounted by a tangle of thick black curls, through which two large black eyes, at once fierce and shy, looked at me. An answer quite as unceremonious as my question came. “Oh, I have been meaning to do it all day. Grandpapa made me put on those this morning, when we left Morfa, and I made up my mind that the first time I saw a fire I would burn them." "It was very wrong," I suggested. The second answer was spoken more hesitatingly than the first; and at the last word, the fierce expression in the eyes, that were looking at me, suddenly went out, and they grew altogether wild and wistful, with a strange unhomelike look in them, such as I imagined the wood-and-water people, of whom I read in my German tales, might wear when they came among mortals. The idea that she was speaking to a stranger seemed suddenly to dawn upon my visitor, now that the excitement of gaining her object had passed. With a shrinking movement she turned from me, and escaped from the room as suddenly as she had entered it. I did not follow her; I sat |