Part 12 (1/2)

”I dunnot--mean--to leave.”

Elizabeth threw out the words like pellets, in a choked fas.h.i.+on, and disappeared suddenly from the parlor.

”Who would have thought it!” exclaimed Selina; ”I declare the girl was crying.”

No mistake about that; though when, a few minutes after, Miss Hilary entered the kitchen, Elizabeth tried in a hurried, shamefaced way to hide her tears by being very busy over something. Her mistress took no notice, but began, as usual on was.h.i.+ng days, to a.s.sist in various domestic matters, in the midst of which she said, quietly, ”And so, Elizabeth, you would really like to go to London?”

”No! I shouldn't like it at all; never said I should. But if you go, I shall go too; though Missis is so ready to get shut o' me.”

”It was for your own good, you know.”

”You always said it was for a girl's good to stop in one place; and if you think I'm going to another. I aren't that's all.”

Rude as the form of the speech was--almost the first rude speech that Elizabeth had ever made to Miss Hilary, and which, under other circ.u.mstances she would have felt bound severely to reprove--the mistress pa.s.sed it over. That which lay beneath it, the sharpness of wounded love, touched her heart. She felt that, for all the girl's rough manner, it would have been hard to go into her London kitchen and meet a strange London face, instead of that fond homely one of Elizabeth Hand's.

Still, she thought it right to explain to her that London life might have many difficulties, that; for the present at least, her wages could not be raised, and the family might at first be in even more straitened circ.u.mstances than they were at s...o...b..ry.

”Only at first, though, for I hope to find plenty of pupils, and by-and-by our nephew will get into practice.”

”Is it on account of him you're going, Miss Hilary?”

”Chiefly.”

Elizabeth gave a grunt which said as plainly as words could say, ”I thought so;” and relapsed into what she, no doubt, believed to be virtuous indignation, but which, as it was testified against the wrong parties, was open to the less favorable interpretation of ill humor--a small injustice not uncommon with us all.

I do not pretend to paint this young woman as a perfect character.

She had her fierce dislikes as well as her strong fidelities; her faults within and without, which had to be struggled with, as all of us have to struggle to the very end of our days. Oftentimes not till the battle is high over--sometimes not till it is quite over--does G.o.d give us the victory.

Without more discussion on either side, it was agreed that Elizabeth should accompany her mistresses. Even Mrs. Hand seemed to be pleased thereat, her only doubt being lest her daughter should meet and be led astray by that bad woman, Mrs. Cliffe, Tommy Cliffe's mother, who was reported to have gone to London. But Miss Hilary explained that this meeting was about as probable as the rencontre of two needles in a hay-rick; and besides, Elizabeth was not the sort of girl to be easily ”led astray” by any body.

”No, no; her's a good wench, though I says it,” replied the mother, who was too hard worked to have much sentiment to spare. ”I wish the little 'uns may take pattern by our Elizabeth. You'll send her home, may be, in two or three years' time, to let us have a look at her?”

Miss Hilary promised, and then took her way back through the familiar old town--so soon to be familiar no more--thinking anxiously, in spite of herself, upon those two or three years, and what they might bring.

It happened to be a notable day--that suns.h.i.+ny 28th of June--when the little, round-cheeked damsel, who is a grandmother now, had the crown of three kingdoms first set upon her youthful head; and s...o...b..ry, like every other town in the land, was a perfect bower of green arches, garlands, banners; white covered tables were spread in the open air down almost every street, where poor men dined, or poor women drank tea; and every body was out and abroad, looking at or sharing in the holiday' making, wild with merriment, and br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with pa.s.sionate loyalty to the Maiden Queen.

That day is now twenty-four years ago; but all those who remember it must own there never has been a day like it, when, all over the country, every man's heart throbbed with chivalrous devotion, every woman's with womanly tenderness, toward this one royal girl, who, G.o.d bless her! has lived to retain and deserve it all.

Hilary called for, and protected through the crowd, the little, timid, widow lady who had taken off the Misses Leaf's hands their house and furniture, and whom they had made very happy--as the poor often can make those still poorer than themselves--by refusing to accept any thing for the ”good will” of the school. Then she was fetched by Elizabeth, who had been given a whole afternoon's holiday; and mistress and maid went together home, watching the last of the festivities, the chattering groups that still lingered in the twilight streets, and listening to the merry notes of the ”Triumph”

which came down through the lighted windows of the Town Hall, where the open-air tea drinkers had adjourned to dance country dances, by civic permission, and in perfectly respectable jollity.

”I wonder,” said Hilary--while, despite some natural regret, her spirit stretched itself out eagerly from the narrowness of the place where she was born into the great wide world; the world where so many grand things were thought and written and done; the world Robert Lyon had so long fought with, and was fighting bravely still--”I wonder, Elizabeth, what sort of place London is, and what our life will be in it?”

Elizabeth said nothing. For the moment her face seemed to catch the reflected glow of her mistress's, and then it settled down into that look of mingled resistance and resolution which was habitual to her.

For the life that was to be, which neither knew--oh, if they had known!--she also was prepared.

CHAPTER IX.

The day of the Grand Hegira came.