Part 10 (2/2)
Suddenly a strange, fanciful idea flashed on Edith's mind, and looking into Richard's face she asked, ”How old is Eloise?”
”Seventeen, perhaps. Possibly, though, she's older.”
”And you, Mr. Harrington--how old are you, please? I'll never tell as long as I live, if you don't want me to.”
She knew he was becoming rather sensitive with regard to his age, but she thought he would not mind HER knowing, never dreaming that SHE of all others was the one from whom he would, if possible, conceal the fact that he was thirty-eight. Still he told her unreservedly, asking her the while if she did not consider him almost her grandfather.
”Why, no,” she answered; ”you don't look old a bit. You haven't a single grey hair. _I_ think you are splendid, and so I'm sure did the mother of Eloise; didn't she?” and the roguish black eyes looked up archly into the blind man's face.
Remembering what Grace had said of his love affair in Europe many years since, and adding to that the evident interest he felt in little Eloise Temple, the case was clear to her as daylight. The Swedish maiden was the girl who jilted Richard Harrington, and hence his love for Eloise, for she knew he did love her from his manner when speaking of her and the pains he had taken to find her. He had not answered her last question yet, for he did not understand its drift, and when at last he spoke he said,
”Mrs. Temple esteemed me highly, I believe; and I admired her very much. She had the sweetest voice I ever heard, not even excepting yours, which is something like it.”
Edith nodded to the bright face on the mirror opposite, and the bright face nodded back as much was to say, ”I knew 'twas so.”
”Was she really handsome, this Mrs. Temple?” she asked, anxious to know how Richard Harrington's early love had looked.
Instinctively the hands of the blind man met together round Edith's graceful neck, as he told her how beautiful that Swedish mother was, with her glossy, raven hair, and her large, soft, l.u.s.trous eyes, and as he talked, there crept into Edith's heart a strange, inexplicable affection for that fair young Swede, who Richard said was not as happy with her father-husband as she should have been, and who, emigrating to another land, had died of a homesick, broken heart.
”I am sorry I cursed her to-day,” thought Edith, her tears falling fast to the memory of the lonely, homesick woman, the mother of Eloise.
”Had she married Richard,” she thought, ”he would not now be sitting here in his blindness, for SHE would be with him, and Eloise, too, or some one very much like her. I wish she were here now,” and after a moment she asked why he had not brought the maiden home with him. ”I should love her as much as my sister,”
she said; ”and you'd be happier with two of us, wouldn't you?”
”No,” he answered; ”one young girl is enough for any house. I couldn't endure two.”
”Then _I_ ought to go away,” said Edith promptly, her bosom swelling with a dread lest she should eventually have to go.
”Eloise has certainly the best right here. You loved her mother, yon know, and you'd rather have her than me, wouldn't you?”
She held both his hands now within her own. She bent her face upon them, and he felt her tears trickling through his fingers. Surely he was not to blame if, forgetting himself for the moment, he wound his arms about her and hugging her to his bosom, told her that of all the world SHE was the one he most wanted there at Collingwood, there just where she was now, her head upon his shoulder, her cheek against his own. 0nce she felt slightly startled, his words were so fraught with tender pa.s.sion, but regarding him as her father, or at least her elder brother, she could not believe he intended addressing her save as his sister or his child, and releasing herself from his embrace, she slid back upon her stool and said, ”I'm glad you're willing I should stay.
It would kill me to go from Collingwood now. I've been so happy here, and found in you so kind a FATHER.”
She WOULD say that last word, and she did, never observing that Richard frowned slightly as if it were to him an unwelcome sound.
Presently Edith went on, ”I think, though, this Eloise ought to come, too, no matter how pleasant a home she has. It is her duty to care for you who lost your sight for her. Were I in her place, I should consider no sacrifice too great to atone for the past. I would do everything in the world you asked of me, and then not half repay you.”
”Every thing, Edith? Did you say every thing?” and it would seem that the blind eyes had for once torn away their veil, so lovingly and wistfully they rested upon the bowed head of the young girl, who, without looking up, answered back,
”Yes, every thing. But I'm glad I am not this Eloise.”
”Why, Edith, why?” and the voice which asked the question was mournful in its tone.
”Because,” returned Edith, ”I should not care to be under so great obligations to any one. The burden would be oppressive. I should be all the while wondering what more I could do, while you, too, would be afraid that the little kindnesses which now are prompted in a great measure by love would be rendered from a sense of grat.i.tude and duty. Wouldn't it be so, Mr. Richard?”
”Yes, yes,” he whispered. ”You are right. I should be jealous that what my heart craved as love would be only grat.i.tude. I am glad you suggested this, Edith; very, very, glad, and now let us talk no more of Eloise.”
”Ah, but I must,” cried Edith. ”There are so many things I want to know, and you've really told me nothing. Had she brothers or sisters? Tell me that, please.”
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