Bessie's Fortune. Mary Jane Holmes
what Hannah said, except that she made light of my fears, and told me that she would keep Rover in her room at night on the floor by her bed, which she did ever after when I was at home. No, there is nothing, but I may as well sound Hannah a little, and will go to her at once."
When Mrs. Wetherby died, her nephew sent a message to his father and sister, announcing her death, and the time of the funeral. He felt it his duty to do so much, but he did not say to them, "Come, I expect you." In fact, away down in his heart, there was a hope that they would not come. His father was well enough in Allington, where he was known; but, what a figure he would cut in Boston, in his old drab surtout and white hat, which he had worn since Burton could remember. Hannah was different, and must have been pretty in her early girlhood. Indeed, she was pretty now, and no one could look into her pale, sad face, and soft dark eyes, or listen to her low, sweet voice, without being attracted to her and knowing instinctively that, in spite of her plain Quakerish dress, she was a lady in the true sense of the word. So, when she came alone to pay the last token of respect to the aunt who had never been very gracious to her, Burton felt relieved, though he wished that her bonnet was a little more fashionable, and suggested her buying a new one, which he would pay for. But Hannah said "no," very quietly and firmly, and that was the end of it. The old style bonnet was worn as well as the old style cloak, and Burton felt keenly the difference between her personal appearance and his own. He, the Boston dandy, with every article of dress as faultless as the best tailor could make it, and she, the plain countrywoman, with no attempt at style or fashion, with nothing but her own sterling worth to commend her, and this was far more priceless than all the wealth of the Indies. Hannah Jerrold had been tried in the fire, and had come out purified and almost Christlike in her sweet gentleness and purity of soul. She knew her brother was ashamed of her—whether designedly or not, he always made her feel it—but she had felt it her duty to attend her aunt's funeral, even though it stirred anew all the bitterness of her joyless life.
And now the funeral was over, and she was going home that very afternoon—to the gloomy house among the rocks, where she had grown old, and her hair gray long before her time—going back to the burden which pressed so heavily upon her, and from which she shrank as she had never done before. Not that she wished to stay in that grand house, where she was so sadly out of place, but she wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, so that she escaped from the one spot so horrible to her. She was thinking of all this and standing with her face to the window, when her brother entered the room and began, abruptly:
"I say, Hannah, I want to ask you something. Just before Aunt Wetherby died, she had a long talk with me on various matters, and among other things she said she believed there was something troubling you and father, some secret you were hiding from me and the world. Is it so? Do you know anything which I do not?"
"Yes, many things."
The voice which gave this reply was not like Hannah's voice, but was hard and sharp, and sounded as if a great ways off, and Burton could see how violently his sister was agitated, even though she stood with her back to him. Suddenly he remembered that his aunt had also said: "If there is a secret, never seek to discover it, lest it should bring disgrace." And here he was, trying to find it out almost before she was cold. A great fear took possession of Burton then, for he was the veriest moral coward in the world, and before Hannah could say another word, he continued:
"Yes, Aunt Wetherby was right. There is something; there has always been something; but don't tell me, please, I'd rather not know."
He spoke very gently for him, for somehow, there had been awakened within him a great pity for his sister, and by some sudden intuition he seemed to understand all her loneliness and pain. If there had been a wrongdoing it was not her fault; and as she still stood with her back to him, and did not speak, he went up to her, and laying his hand upon her shoulder, said to her:
"I regret that I asked a question which has so agitated you, and, believe me, I am sorry for you, for whatever it is, you are innocent."
Then she turned toward him with a face as white as ashes and a look of terror in her large black eyes, before which he quailed. Never in his life, since he was a little child, had he seen her cry, but now, after regarding him fixedly a moment, she broke into such a wild fit of sobbing that he became alarmed, and passing his arm around her, lead her to a seat and made her lean her head upon him, while he smoothed her heavy hair, which was more than half gray, and she was only three years his senior.
At last she grew calm, and rising up, said to him:
"Excuse me, I am not often so upset—I have not cried in years—not since Rover died," here her voice trembled again, but she went on quite steadily. "He was all the companion I had, you know, and he was so faithful, so true. Oh, it almost broke my heart when he died and left me there alone!"
There was a world of pathos in her voice, as she uttered the last two words, "There alone," and it flashed upon Burton that there was more meaning in them than was at first indicated; that to live there alone was something from which his sister recoiled. Standing before her, with his hand still upon her head, he remembered, that she had not always been as she was now, so quiet and impassive, with no smile upon her face, no joy in her dark eyes. As a young girl, in the days when he, too, lived at home, and slept under the rafters in the low-roofed house, she had been full of life and frolic, and played with him all day long. She was very pretty then, and her checks, now so colorless, were red as the damask roses which grew by the kitchen door, while her wavy hair was brown, like the chestnuts they used to gather from the trees, in the rocky pasture land. It was wavy still, and soft and luxurient, but it was iron grey, and she wore it plain, in a knot at the back of her head, and only a few short hairs, which would curl about her forehead in spite of her, softened the severity of her face. Just when the change began in his sister. Burton could not remember, for, on the rare occasions when he visited his home he had not been a close observer, and had only been conscious of a desire to shorten his stay as much as possible, and return to his aunt's house, which was much more to his taste. He should die if he had to live in that lonely spot, he thought, and in his newly awakened pity for his sister, he said to her, impulsively:
"Don't go back there to stay. Live with me. I am all alone, and must have some one to keep my house. Von and I can get on nicely together."
He made no mention of his father, and he did not half mean what he said to his sister, and had she accepted his offer he would have regretted that it had ever been made. But she did not accept it, and she answered him at once:
"No, Burton, so long as father lives I must stay with him, and you will be happier without than with me. We are not at all alike. But I thank you for asking me all the same, and now it is time for me to go, if I take the four o'clock train. Father will be expecting me."
Burton went with her to the train, and saw her into the car, and bought her Harper's Monthly, and bade her good-by, and then, in passing out, met and lifted his hat to the Misses Grey, Lucy and Geraldine, who had been visiting in Boston, and were returning to Allington.
This encounter drove his sister from his mind, and made him think of his aunt's injunction to marry one of the Greys. Lacy was the prettier and gentler of the two, the one whom everybody loved, and who would make him the better wife. Probably, too, she would be more easily won than the haughty Geraldine, who had not many friends. And so, before he reached his house on Beacon street, he had planned a matrimonial campaign and carried it to a successful issue, and made sweet Lucy Grey the mistress of his home.
It is not our purpose to enter into the details of Burton's wooing. Suffice it to say, that it was unsuccessful, for Lucy said "No," very promptly, and then he tried the proud Geraldine, who listened to his suit, and, after a little, accepted him, quite as much to his surprise as to that of her acquaintances, who knew her ambitious nature.
"Anything to get away from stupid Allington," she said to her sister Lucy, who she never suspected had been Burton's first choice. "I hate the country, and I like Boston, and like Mr. Jerrold well enough. He is good-looking, and well-mannered, and has a house and twenty thousand dollars, a good position in the bank, and no bad habits. Of course, I would rather that his father and sister were not such oddities: but I am not marrying them, and shall take good care to keep them in their