Mr. Wortleby stated yesterday in Chanleigh that Mr. Nugent was going back to Australia. I have tried to write to him, but I cannot do it. I want you to ascertain if the report is true from Mr. Nugent himself. Think, Mr. Morland, I have no father, no brother, no one to ask to help me in the wide world.”
“I would do what you wish willingly,” said Tom, in a troubled voice, “if it would be of any earthly use.”
“Perhaps he never had my letters; perhaps he thinks that after leaving so suddenly, without saying one word of farewell, I should cease to look upon him as I had done,” she pleaded. “You told me you once had a sister; you would have stretched out your hand to help her in such a strait; have pity on me!”
There was more of the spirit of chivalry in Tom’s nature than anybody ever suspected. He felt he would rather cut off his right hand than tell her that Nugent had looked at her face, and no longer cared for it. His only alternative was to venture on scarcely loss delicate ground.
“You believe that I would tell you the truth,” he said, “no matter how painful it might be to me? On my honour, then,—I say it to you as I would have said it to her,—he is not worthy of you.”
“Don’t say so! Don’t say so!” she cried. “Think of all that he has done. Think what his life must have been all these years, to bear such fruit in the end. Restitution, kindness, charity, he has failed in none of these. What can you know of him, that you should be his accuser?”
Tom was silent.
“He has been misrepresented to you,” she said, “and you have held back, because some story of his former life has prejudiced you against him. You, of all men, should judge him as he now is.”
“I do,” said Tom, solemnly. “Letitia, I have seen him.”
“You have seen him!” she exclaimed, in astonishment.
“Yes; immediately on his return; but I could not bring myself to tell you. You would not know him as he now is.”
“If he were altered by sickness, by old age even, I should know him,” she said; “anywhere in the world, if I saw his face, I should recognise it again. You have broken your promise to me, Mr. Morland. You have let him go without a word. He does not know I have loved him all these long years.”
Tom was wounded by her words.
“I would have laid down my life to have brought him back,” he said. “I do not wish to speak against him, or to urge his faults as a reason for your ceasing to regret him. Think of him as leniently as you will. Only have patience with yourself, Letitia. You have made too many happy around you to fail to find peace now.”
“If I could have seen him!” she said, weeping bitterly. “It was cruel of you not to let me see him.”
“You have seen him,” he said, scarcely knowing what he was saying in his distress.
She looked breathlessly in his face.
“On the day of the school-feast,” he said, “when you were playing with the children,—Jemmy Bates was knocked down by some one standing by. It was George Nugent.”
She had risen from her seat while he was speaking. As if she had been blind, she held by one piece of furniture after another till she reached the door,—Tom not daring to approach her, or call for assistance. He held his breath as she ascended the staircase, and with uncertain steps reached the room above. A moment afterwards he heard her fall heavily on the floor.
Six years have passed since Tom’s May-day feast, the results of which have tended to make the Beauchamp corner of the world a happier one. Mr. Thorpe has married Jane Wortleby, and she has never ceased from her kindly endeavours to promote the welfare of her sisters. Three of them she has already disposed of in matrimony, and she has strong hopes and cheering prospects for the rest. Tom has lost none of his interest in the parish. By his side runs a bright-eyed boy, with his small hand always locked in that of his father, to whom he is companion and playmate during the greater part of the day. Tom laughs when the school-children even now address his wife as Miss Letitia, for he has called her so himself many times since their marriage; and Letitia has grown a happy, comely-looking matron,—but, certainly the reverse of thin.
(Concluded.)
MY HOME.
The evening hours are here—the hours I prize.
The day’s work over, all my thoughts are turn’d
To the sweet rest which head and hands have earn’d—
To her who is so pleasant in my eyes.
A mile of road, a sinuous shady lane,
A patch of wood, a bridge—there stands my home;
No fairer ever yet in gilded tome
Was pencil’d; through the parlour window frame
I see the picture that adorns its walls,
Graces each room, graces my inner life—
The picture of a happy poor man’s wife:
I hear the welcome from her lip that falls.
Ere yet the sun drops in the little brook,
Into the wood we take an hour’s soft stroll,
Or, seated there, perchance some mighty soul
Communes with ours from his undying book.
For chiefly after all the cares of day,
I love to hear her read those trees among:
I often think the wild birds stay their song,
To listen to a yet more thrilling lay.
Not all alone we wander o’er the sward:
A little merry sprite, half black, half “tan,”
More than a dog, and yet not quite a man,
Is our companion, jester, friend, and guard.
Just half-way up the road a gentle rise
Reveals the lane, and there, with mingled hope
And fear, I search each grassy curve and slope
For her who is so pleasant in my eyes.
