Volume II Part 25 (1/2)
”Don't you like them?”
”Very much. Why you have got a good many kinds here.”
”That is Hart's Tongue, you know--that is wall spleenwort, and that is the other kind; handsome things are they not?”
”And this?”
”That is the forked spleenwort. You don't know it? I rode away, away up the mountain for it yesterday That is where I got those Woodsia's too--aren't they beautiful? I was gay to find those; they are not common.”
”No. And this is not common, to me.”
”Don't you know it, aunt Caxton? It grows just it the spray of a waterfall--this and this; they are polypodies. That is another--that came from the old round tower.”
”And where did you get these?--these waterfall ferns?”
”I got them at the Bandel of Helig.”
”There? My dear child! how could you, without risk?”
”Without much risk, aunty.”
”How did you ever know the Bandel?”
”I have been there before, aunt Caxton.”
”I think I never shewed it to you?”
”No ma'am;--but Mr. Rhys did.”
His name had scarcely been mentioned before since Eleanor had come to the farm. It was mentioned now with a cognizance of that fact. Mrs.
Caxton was silent a little.
”Why have you put these green things here without a rose or two? they are all alone in their greenness.”
”I like them better so, aunty. They are beautiful enough by themselves; but if you put a rose there, you cannot help looking at it.”
Mrs. Caxton smiled and turned away.
One thing in the midst of all these natural explorations, remained unused; and that a thing most likely, one would have thought, to be applied to for help. The microscope stood on one side apparently forgotten. It always stood there, in the sitting parlour, in full view; but n.o.body seemed to be conscious of its existence. Eleanor never touched it; Mrs. Caxton never spoke of it.
From home meantime, Eleanor heard little that was satisfactory. Julia was the only one that wrote, and her letters gave painful subjects for thought. Her father was very unlike himself, Julia said, and growing more feeble and more ill every day; though by slow degrees. She wished Eleanor would write her letters without any religion in them; for she supposed _that_ was what her mother would not let her read; so she never had the comfort of seeing Eleanor's letters for herself, but Mrs.
Powle read aloud bits from them. ”Very little bits, too,” added Julia, ”I guess your letters have more religion in them than anything else.
But you see it is no use.” Eleanor read this pa.s.sage aloud to Mrs.
Caxton.
”Is that true, Eleanor?”
”No, ma'am. I write to Julia of everything that I do, all day long, and of everything and everybody that interests me. What mamma does not like comes in, of course, with it all; but I do very little preaching, aunt Caxton.”