HAWTHORNDEAN. CHAPTER XIII.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 176, 11 August 1876, Page 6

HAWTHORNDEAN. CHAPTER XIII.

OLD OCEAN VISITED, AND NEW FRIENDS I OUND. " Don't disti*ess yourself," he replied, " you shall know all I know She !has brain fever of a most dangerous type ; the physician in attendance has given her up j but I think she has a small chance yet, she has such a vigorous constitution, and a strong hold on life; but her ravings are horrible. To tell you the whole truth, this visit to Laura nearly unmanned me, and was the chief cause of my leaving town ; I was worked to death before, but this was the last ounce. If I had not left everything, I believe I should have been down myself." " Poor Laura ! to dip so ! " murmured Eosine, her tears still flowing. " God reigns," replied the Doctoo gravely, " and He has determined that as we sow we shall reap : it is a comfort that Ha is more merciful in his judgments than we are. But I am counteracting my own orders, and keeping you out after nightfall; come," he added, wrapping her shawl carefully about her, " don't fret so about Laura, or I shall wish I had not come to tell you ; cheer up and I will go to-morrow and fulfil, with you and mother for company, a duty too long neglected, and call on your new friend, now we can do so without fear of meeting the Commodore. lam glad for your Bake you have made this friendship, it will do you both good." Eosine's heart was too full for words. Miss Greenwood and all were forgotten in the one thoug-ht of her early friend, her first friend, lying at death's door and she powerless to help her by word or deed. The other letter, which she still held unopened, claimed her attention when she reached the house. " What does grandpapa say ? " said the Doctor, standing over her, a little anxious about the effect of his communication. She had seated herself near the light, her hat still shading her eyes lest the Colonel should see traces of tears ; but they came again as she read aloud in reply to Ned's question : " Willie is feeble, his geaeral health is delicate and his eye-sight much affected ; we wish Dr. Hartland could see him, but he is happy and cheerful as a lark." There was more; a little message from himself, telling dear Rosa, that he was much interested in learning his catechism, and preparing for his first communion, which she did not read. " O, how I wish I could have him here !" she exclaimed, turning to Colonel Hartland, and then shrinking back as she observed Mrs. Hartland's eyes fixed upon her with a penetrating gaze, so like

STed's, and yet so unlike; " I thought perhaps the sea-air might do aim good," she added, timidly. " The sea-air gets a great deal more credit than it deserves," replied Mrs. Hartland, coldly. " Let her have him here," said the Colonel, looking towards his son. " The care of a feeble child I should think," continued Mrs. Hartland, " would not tend to benefit Bosine's health, and I always heard a sea-beach was the worst possible place for difficulties of the eye j it might bring on blindness at once." " I'll tell you what we will do," said the Doctpr, after a few moments' thought ; " when you and the Colonel get tired of each other, you- and I -will run up to Hawthorndean, and I -will leave you "^ there for a few days." . * " Thank you, Ned, that will be very pleasant," she said, almost with a sigh. Laura and her dear Willie mingled in her dreams that night, and the next morning found her looking pale and dispirited. -The Colonel reproached his son for keeping her out late at night, but Ned reproached himself for the true cause of her bad looks, and wished he had held his peace about Laura. He exerted himself to carry out his plan for a call on Miss Greenwood, thinking that the making a new friend was the best way to help Kosine to forget the old one. His father wondered what could have brought his son so suddenly to a point for which he had been striving for years, and Mrs. Hartland assented to the proposition coldly and stiffly, the lady was never a favorite of hers. Miss Greenwood repeived her guest formally, as if it was quite unexpected event, hardly a pleasure, and took her seat by Eosine. Dr. Hartland stood, after the first cold greeting, with his hands behind him, gazing at the pictures which ornamented the walls of this private parlor of the Seagirt House, hazarding a word only now and then, till his eye caught a volume turned down upon the table, as if to be taken up and finished when they had gone ; the title attracted him as he leaned over the table to get a nearer view of a wonderful copy of La Notte, by Carl Maratti. He remembered to have seen it in his early days in Miss Greenwood's own home, and fearing to trust himself to gaze longer on what was so full of memories, he took up the book and exclaimed, " Jane Byre ! I meet it everywhere." "That is an odd volume," said Miss Greenwood, coloring slightly, as she addressed him, and their eyes met. "Harry purchased the book when he was at home last, and he mislaid the other volume. I took this up while grandfather was sleeping, having heard it so often spoken of ; but I have little time for such reading," she added, turning away from the Doctor's fixed gaze. In parting, she begged the Colonel, between whom and herself the ice had rapidly thawed, to allow her as much of Eosine's company as he could spare. " What a pity," said the Colonel, as they entered the carriage; "how I did long to kiss her and call her Dora, as I did in old times." No one replied to this remark, the truth was slowly dawning upon Eosine that there had some time been something quite serious between the Doctor and Miss Gi-eenwood, and she was afraid to speak, lest she might say something that would hurt his feelings. " I have found out your secret, Eosa, during this call," said the Doctor, when he found conversation flagged, and wishing to turn the thoughts of the company in another direction. "It is very funny how things will come about. I could swear, if I ever did such a wicked thing, that that volume of Jane Eyre on Miss Greenwood's table is fellow to the one left on. the flower-table, and that Harry Greenwood is Eosa's 'gentleman.'" " You don't really know ? " inquired Bosine, her interest excited. " I should be glad if he were Miss Greenwood's brother. Is he like her?" " Yes, not unlike Dor — his sister j the same wonderful eyes — and — Harry's a fine fellow and a gentleman, a little stiff like his sister about matters of propriety." There was slight sarcasm creeping into his tone, and the Colonel took it up at once by saying, " Dora's a pattern women ! Look at her devotion to her grandfather, it is something beautiful, and so in contrast with the manners of the present age, when old folks and children are left to the care of servants. I have certainly never seen any one like her." " She intends becoming a Sister of Charity after his death, I hear," said Mrs. Hartland. The Doctor fidgeted, the Colonel did not reply, and the remainder of the ride was a silent one. Mrs. Hartland expressed her doubts that evening to her^n, 'as to how the Commodore would regard a friendship between Ms daughter and Eosine. " You know, Ned/ she said, " Mr. Benton was the cause of his pecuniary losses." " Even the cantankerous old rascal could not find fault with the girls for loving each other," replied the Doctor, " arbitrary and domineering as he is." The call brought Eosine and her new friend nearer j and after the Colonel and she were again alone, each day brought the girls together, and the grandfather becoming accustomed to Eosine's presence in their walks, their intercourse was often prolonged through many hours. Miss Greenwood would seat her parent comfortably in the camp-chair, where he could see the sun shining on the waves, and feel the sea-breeze playing with his long white locks, and above all, watch the girls as they walked up and down the beach, never out of sight or out of reach of his call. The fair had one day been brought incidentally into their conversation, and Eosine had related her adventure at the flower table, with the Doctor's surmise that she was indebted to Miss Greenwood's brother as her protector. " We can soon tell if Harry were the fortunate man," said her companion, pausing in her walk ; and taking a double locket from her bosom, she touched a secret spring and placed the trinket in the young girl's hand. "Is it like that gentleman ? " she said, smiling.

"I should know it anywhere!" exclaimed Eosine, "I am so glad." '•' So am T," said her friend, drawing her arm within her own as they continued their walk ; " you must know Harry when he comes home ; he's a noble fellow." "Where is he now?" inquired Eosine. "Heis on a cruise to Ihe Mediterranean. There is talk in the Department of a recall of the squadron with .which he sailed, to join the forces the government propose to send against Mexico. I think if it comes to this, it will decide my brother at once to leave the service for which he already has no fondness. Such an unjustifiable war ! I pray Jesus and our Holy Mother to save him from shedding blood, in such a cause." Eosine made no answer, her eyes were riveted on the locket, when, as if by magic, the reverse side of the trinket sprung open. "O, how beautiful ! how lovely ! " she exclaimed, pausing suddenly in her walk and looking to her friend for an explanation. The picture was of a youth apparently about twenty, glowing in the first flush of manly beauty, and with an expression that won the heart at once. Miss Greenwood took the locket in her own hand and murmured, "Yes, dear, lovely, beautiful beyond comparison ; and taken so young, so suddenly, and so — ," her voice died away in a sob. She walked away from her friend, hor eyes cast down, her step rapid. Eosine remained where she had left her, wondering in her own mind if this could be the 'first-born' of whom Ned had once spoken — then came the wonder, why this intimacy between the two families, which must have been very strong, had never been known to her. She tried to recall any allusion to them, but could only remember hearing Aleck once wish Harry Greenwood were at home, and the Colonel had spoken sometimes quite severely of the Commodore, but of Miss Greenwood and the lost brother, she had never heard till she had herself made her acquaintance. Eosine was awakened from her reverie by the return of her friend, all traces of the late deep emotion effaced, and her countenance wearing the calm, placid, somewhat pensive look, that usually rested there. She informed her young companion that she had. met the Colonel on the beach looking for her. Eosine made haste to meet him, he coming towards her holding a letter high above his head, exclaiming, '• From the west ! " Immediately, as she saw her father's handwriting, her heart sunk within her. " I know there is bad news," she said, out of breath with her run, and looking pitifully into his face. " Shall I read it for you ? " he inquired affectionately, and placing the camp-stool for her and bidding her lean against him, he read aloud, not without some hesitancy and choking on his part, the sad story of little Jeannie's release and Marion's wanderings and consequent illness. It was written in the terse, laconic style of a man of business ; but in the end he said, " I thank God, my child, that you are exempt from the hard discipline wo are enduring in this to us foreign land, and are sheltered in the home and heart of one worthy of the love of such a daughter." " But I ought to be with my mother," she said, looking up at Colonel Hartland ; " she needs me now more than ever." " But, my darling child," replied he, " in your present delicate state, lately recovered from a nervous fever, you could be but little assistance." " I could comfort her," she said sadly. " O, here is something from your mother," he exclaimed, as he turned the last page. "Do not be impatient or unreconciled, my beloved Eosa. The dear Lord will watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another, and bring us together again. I miss you hourly, my sweet comforter, now more than ever ; but I would, not have you pine for me ; you have -with me, the sweet company of the saints, ar»d they will bring you comfort with their prayers ; we have now a new advocate in Heaven, and dear Jeannie will never forget to pray for us. The little picture of St. Eose is near me, and I never look at it without a|petition for my sweet Eosita."