one of peace, of love, of serenity; of one who, though sorrow-stricken, as it were, before her time, had lived on in meek patience and submission, almost a child in her ways, as devoted to her mother, as little with a will and way of her own, as free from the cares of this work-a-day world. The long luxuriant dark brown hair, which once, as now with Henrietta, had clustered in thick glossy ringlets over her comb and round her face, was in thick braids beneath the delicate lace cap which suited with her plain black silk dress. Her figure was slender, so tall that neither her well-grown son nor daughter had yet reached her height, and, as Frederick said, with something queenlike in its unconscious grace and dignity.
As a girl she had been the merriest of the merry, and even now she had great playfulness of manner, and threw herself into the occupation of the moment with a life and animation that gave an uncommon charm to her manners, so that how completely sorrow had depressed and broken her spirit would scarcely have been guessed by one who had not known her in earlier days.
Frederick’s account of his journey and of his school news was heard and commented on, a work of time extending far into the dinner; the next matter in the regular course of conversation on the day of arrival was to talk over Uncle and Aunt Geoffrey’s proceedings, and the Knight Sutton affairs.
“So, Uncle Geoffrey has been in the North?” said Fred.
“Yes, on a special retainer,” said Mrs. Langford, “and very much he seems to have enjoyed his chance of seeing York Cathedral.”
“He wrote to me in court,” said Fred, “to tell me what books I had better get up for this examination, and on a bit of paper scribbled all over one side with notes of the evidence. He said the Cathedral was beautiful beyond all he ever imagined.”
“Had he never seen it before?” said Henrietta. “Lawyers seem made to travel in their vacations.”
“Uncle Geoffrey could not be spared,” said her mamma; “I do not know what Grandmamma Langford would do if he cheated her of any more of his holidays than he bestows upon us. He is far too valuable to be allowed to take his own pleasure.”
“Besides, his own pleasure is at Knight Sutton,” said Henrietta.
“He goes home just as he used from school,” said Mrs. Langford. “Indeed, except a few grey hairs and crows feet, he is not in the least altered from those days; his work and play come in just the same way.”
“And, as his daughter says, he is just as much the home pet,” added Henrietta, “only rivalled by Busy Bee herself.”
“No,” said Fred, “according to Aunt Geoffrey, there are two suns in one sphere: Queen Bee is grandpapa’s pet, Uncle Geoffrey grandmamma’s. It must be great fun to see them.”
“Happy people!” said Mrs. Langford.
“Henrietta says,” proceeded Fred, “that there is a house to be let at Knight Sutton.”
“The Pleasance; yes, I know it well,” said his mother: “it is not actually in the parish, but close to the borders, and a very pretty place.”
“With a pretty little stream in the garden, Fred, “said Henrietta, “and looking into that beautiful Sussex coom, that there is a drawing of in mamma’s room.”
“What size is it?” added Fred.
“The comparative degree,” said Mrs. Langford, “but my acquaintance with it does not extend beyond the recollection of a pretty-looking drawing-room with French windows, and a lawn where I used to be allowed to run about when I went with Grandmamma Langford to call on the old Miss Drakes. I wonder your Uncle Roger does not take it, for those boys can scarcely, I should think, be wedged into Sutton Leigh when they are all at home.”
“I wish some one else would take it,” said Fred.
“Some one,” added Henrietta, “who would like it of all things, and be quite at home there.”
“A person,” proceeded the boy, “who likes Knight Sutton and its inhabitants better than anything else.”
“Only think,” joined in the young lady, “how delightful it would be. I can just fancy you, mamma, sitting out on this lawn you talk of, on a summer’s day, and nursing your pinks and carnations, and listening to the nightingales, and Grandpapa and Grandmamma Langford, and Uncle and Aunt Roger, and the cousins coming walking in at any time without ringing at the door! And how nice to have Queen Bee and Uncle and Aunt Geoffrey all the vacation!”
“Without feeling as if we were robbing Knight Sutton,” said Mrs. Langford. “Why, we should have you a regular little country maid, Henrietta, riding shaggy ponies, and scrambling over hedges, as your mamma did before you.”
“And being as happy as a queen,” said Henrietta; “and the poor people, you know them all, don’t you, mamma?”
“I know their names, but my generation must have nearly passed away. But I should like you to see old Daniels the carpenter, whom the boys used to work with, and who was so fond of them. And the old schoolmistress in her spectacles. How she must be scandalized by the introduction of a noun and a verb!”
“Who has been so cruel?” asked Fred. “Busy Bee, I suppose.”
“Yes,” said Henrietta, “she teaches away with all her might; but she says she is afraid they will forget it all while she is in London, for there is no one to keep it up. Now, I could do that nicely. How I should like to be Queen Bee’s deputy.”
“But,” said Fred, “how does Beatrice manage to make grandmamma endure such novelties? I should think she would disdain them more than the old mistress herself.”
“Queen Bee’s is not merely a nominal sovereignty,” said Mrs. Langford.
“Besides,” said Henrietta, “the new Clergyman approves of all that sort of thing; he likes her to teach, and puts her in the way of it.”
CHAPTER II.
From this time forward everything tended towards Knight Sutton: castles in the air, persuasions, casual words which showed the turn of thought of the brother and sister, met their mother every hour. Nor was she, as Henrietta truly said, entirely averse to the change; she loved to talk of what she still regarded as her home, but the shrinking dread of the pang it must give to return to the scene of her happiest days, to the burial-place of her husband, to the abode of his parents, had been augmented by the tender over-anxious care of her mother, Mrs. Vivian, who had strenuously endeavoured to prevent her from ever taking such a proposal into consideration, and fairly led her at length to believe it out of the question.
A removal would in fact have been impossible during the latter years of Mrs. Vivian’s life: but she had now been dead about eighteen months, her daughter had recovered from the first grief of her loss, and there was a general impression throughout the family that now was the time for her to come amongst them again. For herself, the possibility was but beginning to dawn upon her; just at first she joined in building castles and imagining scenes at Knight Sutton, without thinking of their being realized, or that it only depended upon her, to find herself at home there; and when Frederick and Henrietta, encouraged by this manner of talking, pressed it upon her, she would reply with some vague intention of a return some time or other, but still thinking of it as something far away, and rather to be dreaded than desired.
It was chiefly by dint of repetition that it fully entered her mind that it was their real and earnest wish that she should engage to take a lease of the Pleasance, and remove almost immediately from her present abode; and from this time it might be perceived that she always shrank from entering on the subject in a manner which gave them little reason to hope.
“Yet, I think,” said Henrietta to her brother one afternoon as they were walking