Part 17 (2/2)

”Miss Davenport would not be pleased, I suppose--oh, yes, of course he has gone to meet her. What a pity your mother is not here, Miss Trafford; she would have kept him in order?”

”Crystal will be so angry,” replied Fern, anxiously, and dropping her voice so that Fluff should not overhear her; but the child, disappointed that her request had been refused, had betaken herself to the furthest corner of the room with her kitten, to whom she was whispering her displeasure. ”She never likes Percy to meet her or show her any attention; I have told him so over and over again, but he will not listen to me.”

”I am afraid he is rather smitten with your friend, Miss Davenport--she is wonderfully handsome, certainly. Yes, one can not be surprised at Percy's infatuation--you are the gainer in one way, Miss Trafford, for Percy never came half so often until Miss Davenport lived with you.”

”That makes it all the more wrong,” returned Fern, firmly; ”it was Percy's duty to come and see mother, and yet he stayed away for months at a time. Crystal has never encouraged him--she never will. I know in her heart she does not like Percy, and yet he will persist in hara.s.sing her.”

”Faint heart ne'er won fair lady,” returned Erle, lightly; and then, as he saw the tears in Fern's eyes, his manner changed. ”You must not trouble yourself about it,” he said, kindly; ”it will be Percy's own fault if he gets badly bitten: even I, a complete stranger to Miss Davenport--for I believe I have not seen her more than three times--can quite indorse what you say; her manner is most repelling to Percy. He must be bewitched, I think.”

”I wish he were different,” she replied, with a sigh; ”I know he makes mother often very unhappy, though she never says so. He seems to find fault with us for our poverty, and says hard things to mother because she will work for us all.”

”Yes, I know, and yet Percy is not a bad-hearted fellow,” replied Erle, in a sympathizing tone; ”he is terribly sore, I know, because your mother refuses his help; he has told me over and over again that with his handsome allowance he could keep her in comfort, and that he knows that his grandfather would not object. It makes him bitter--it does indeed, Miss Trafford, to have his gifts refused.”

”How can we help it?” returned Fern, in a choking voice. ”Percy ought to know that we can not use any of Mr. Huntingdon's money: neither my mother nor I would ever touch a penny of it. Don't you know,”

struggling with her tears, ”that my poor father died broken-hearted, and he might have saved him?”

”Yes, I know,” replied Erle, looking kindly at the weeping girl, ”and I for one can not say you are wrong. My uncle has dealt very harshly and I fear cruelly by his own flesh and blood--my poor mother often cried as she told me so; but she always said that it was not for us to blame him who lived under his roof and profited by his generosity. He was a benefactor to us in our trouble--for we were poor, too.” But here Erle checked himself abruptly, for he did not care to tell Fern that his father had been a gambler, and had squandered all his wife's property; but he remembered almost as vividly as though it were yesterday, when he was playing in their miserable lodgings at Naples, after his father's death--how a grave, stern-faced man came into the room and sat down beside his mother; and one speech had reached his ears.

”Never mind all that, Beatrice, you are happier as his widow than his wife. Forget the past, and come home with me, and your boy shall be mine.”

Erle certainly loved his uncle, and it always pained him to remember his wrong-doing. In his boyish generosity he had once ventured to intercede for the disinherited daughter, and had even gone so far as to implore that his uncle would never put him in Percy's place; but the burst of anger with which his words were received cowed him effectually.

”A Trafford shall never inherit my property,” Mr. Huntingdon had said, with a frown so black that the boy positively quailed under it; ”I would leave it all to a hospital first--never presume to speak to me of this again. Percy does not require any pity; when he leaves Oxford he will read for the Bar. We have arranged all that; he will have a handsome allowance; and with his capacity--for his tutor tells me he is a clever fellow--he will soon carve his way to fortune;” and after this, Erle certainly held his peace.

CHAPTER XIV.

CRYSTAL.

I do remember it. 'Twas such a face As Guido would have loved to look upon.

CORNWALL.

She was as tender As infancy and grace.

SHAKESPEARE.

Fern looked a little surprised at Erle's speech. ”I did not know you had been poor, too,” she returned, drying her eyes, and taking up her work again.

”Yes, but I was very young, and knew little about it; my poor mother was the one to suffer. Well, she wanted for nothing when my uncle took us to Belgrave House; he was very good to her until she died; and,”

with a slight hesitation in his voice, ”he is good to me.”

”Yes, and you are right to be fond of him,” returned Fern, frankly.

”Sometimes I think it is not quite kind of me to speak to you of Percy and our troubles, because it seems to cast a reflection on one you love and”--but Erle interrupted her.

”I hope you will never withhold your confidence, Miss Trafford; I should not feel that you treated me as a friend if you did not allow me to share some of your troubles. Percy and I are like brothers, and Percy's mother and sister--” but here he paused and a flush crossed his face. How could he tell this girl that she should be as a sister to him, when he knew that even to be alone with her for a few minutes made his heart beat with strange thrills of happiness? His sister, never!

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