GILLIAN.
63
father so pale, and filled that strong man’s eyes with tears.
“It is a beautiful view,” she added, softly, “some day, my cousin, we will go all over it. bear me! who is that?”
The two girls had walked into the hall as Gillian was speaking, and stood in the door of the family sitting-room. Opposite them was a long, old-fashioned mantle-glass, and in it Gillian saw the figure of a little woman shrinking away behind the window drapery, so pale and terrified, that it made her start and open her eyes with wonder.
“Oh! it is only aunt Hetty; you are sure to like aunt Hetty; come in and speak to her!” cried Hannah, cheerfully, “she’s a little backward with company, bat the dearest, nicest—oh! indeed—-”
Hannah broke off with a little start, for that instant aunt Hetty came forward, with a swift, noiseless movement, and stood close to Gillian, gazing in her face, with a scared, earnest look. “Sister! oh, sister I”
The words dropped rapidly from her lips, and she caught bold of Gillian’s dress, with a tender, pleading motion that perplexed the young girl exceedingly.
“Why, aunt, what is the matter? You haven’t get a sister in the wide world that I know of. This is our lady cousin from foreign parts. I told you all about it upstairs,” said Hannah.
“I know—I know!” said aunt Hetty, lifting me little hand to her forehead. “It is Sarah's child, not—not herself: I know that, but cannot realise it. Let me look at myself.”
She went up to the mantle-glass, and peered over the pale face that met her for more than a minute. When she turned away, the most wan smile that Gillian ever saw gleamed on her lips.
“Can you believe it?” she said, mournfully, pointing to Hannah, “I was like her then!”
“Why, aunt, how strangely you talk,” said Hannah, bewildered by this singular address.
“Do I?” murmured the old lady. “Do I? What was it all about?” She seemed tempted to address Gillian again, in the same vague way, but with one of her warm-hearted impulses, the young girl threw her arms around the little woman and kissed her two or three times. “So you were my mother’s sister. I understand it oow—and I look so much like her; of course that must be it. No wonder it disturbs you, aunt Dear! how strange it seems to call any one aunt Won’t you kiss me, dear lady?”
The old lady began to tremble under the caresses which the bright girl lavished on her, and Gillian remembered, after, that she did not return her kiss, but rather struggled in her embrace than responded to it.
“Oh, that’s right,” the farmer called out, entering the hall. “That’s right, Mehitable, welcome the gal with a whole heart; she must not feel strange among us.”
“I could not feel strange here, uncle Daniel,” cried Gillian, smiling brightly while the tears leaped to her eyes. “See how pat I have got all the names! I, who never had a relative before. Uncle, aunt, cousin! isn’t it delightful?”
“That’s kind and hearty,” replied the farmer. “Take our cousin upstairs, Hannah, while this young chap and I bring in the trunks. Aunt Hetty will see about supper while you get acquainted.”
The two girls went upstairs, but directly Hannah came down again to hurry the trunks. John Downs had one on his shoulder, mounting the stairs. Hannah stepped aside to let him pass, and then she observed, with a blush, what remarkably fine eyes the young fellow had. Amid all her excitement this thought would come back to her mind all the evening; for, according to the custom of those times, the driver sat down at the same table with his passengers, and Hannah was placed directly opposite him during supper.
I don’t pretend to know how it happened, but when Hannah Hart went to bed that night she had learned that John Downs owned two-thirds of a sloop on the river, beside the iron-grey horses, the Pennsylvania wagon, and some bank stock in New York. That his father had been one of the first settlers in the river town where he made his home; and altogether she gathered a very satisfactory account of his antecedents, though she certainly hail no sort of business with the information whatever.
That night, when all the family were in bed and the hush of repose lay on everything, Mr. Bentley and Daniel Hart sat together over the brands of a hickory wood fire that had burned low on the sitting-room hearth. There was a strong contrast between the two men, both in character and in person; not the contrast of good and evil qualities, but of intellectual organization. One was delicate, sensitive, and reflective by nature; all these qualities had been sharpened and refined by an education which few Americans could boast. The other was grand in his honesty, brave as a lion in every sense of the word, large-hearted and of vigorous mind, well informed, and yet almost entirely without absolute education. He was progressive in thought, but pronounced his words exactly as
