The Lost Heir

She then stated the plan that she and her husband had discussed.

"You see," she went on, "you would, in fact, be mistress of the house, and would have the entire management of everything as if it was your own. We are entirely ignorant of the cost of living here, or we might have proposed a fixed monthly payment for the expenses of servants and outgoings, and would still do that if you would prefer it, though we thought that it would be better that you should, at the end of each month, send us a line saying what the disbursements had been. We would wish everything done on a liberal scale. Hilda has little appetite, and it will, for a time, want tempting. However, that matter we could leave to you. We propose to pay a hundred a year to you for your personal services as mistress of the house, and fifty pounds to your niece as Hilda's companion and instructor in German and in the system, until she understands the language well enough to attend Professor Menzel's classes. If the house we take has a stable we should keep a pony and a light carriage, and a big lad or young man to look after it and drive, and to keep the garden in order in his spare time. I do hope, Miss Purcell, that you will oblige us by falling in with our plans. If you like we can give you a day to consider them."

"I do not require a minute," she replied; "my only hesitation is because the terms that you offer are altogether too liberal."

"That is our affair," Mrs. Covington said. "We want a comfortable, happy home for our child, and shall always feel under a deep obligation to you if you will consent."

"I do consent most willingly and gratefully. The arrangement will be a delightful one for me, and I am sure for Netta."

Netta, who had been standing where she could watch the lips of both speakers, clapped her hands joyously. "Oh, auntie, it will be splendid! Fancy having a house, and a garden, and a pony-chaise!"

"You understand all we have been saying then, Netta?"

"I understand it all," the girl replied. "I did not catch every word, but quite enough to know all that you were saying."

"That certainly is a proof of the goodness of the system," Mr. Covington said, speaking for the first time. "How long have you been learning?"

"Eighteen months, sir. We have been here two years, but I was six months learning German before I knew enough to begin, and for the next six months I could not get on very fast, as there were so many words that I did not know, so that really I have only been a year at it. The professor says that in another year I shall be nearly perfect and fit to begin to teach; and he has no doubt that he will be able to find me a situation where I can teach in the daytime and still live with my aunt."

In a week the necessary arrangements were all made. A pretty, furnished house, a quarter of a mile out of town, with a large garden and stables, had been taken, and Netta and Hilda had already become friends, for as the former had learned to talk with her fingers before she came out she was able to keep up her share of the conversation by that means while Hilda talked in reply.

"The fingers are useful as a help at first," Netta said, "but Professor Menzel will not allow any of his pupils to use their fingers, because they come to rely upon them instead of watching the lips."

CHAPTER IV.

THE GYPSY

Mr. and Mrs. Covington remained for a week after Hilda was installed with the Purcells in their new home. To her the house with its garden and pretty pony-carriage and pony were nothing remarkable, but Netta's enjoyment in all these things amused her, and the thought that she, too, would some day be able to talk and enjoy life as her companion did, greatly raised her spirits. Her father and mother were delighted at hearing her merry laugh mingled with that of Netta as they walked together in the garden, and they went home with lighter hearts and more hopeful spirits than they had felt since the child's illness began.

Every three or four months – for a journey to Hanover was a longer and more serious business in 1843 than it is at present – they went over to spend a week there. There could be no doubt from the first that the change was most beneficial to Hilda. Her cheeks regained their color and her limbs their firmness. She lost the dull look and the apathy to whatever was going on around her that had before distressed them. She progressed very rapidly in her study of German, and at the end of six months her conversations with Netta were entirely carried on in that language. She had made some little progress in reading from her companion's lips and had just entered at Herr Menzel's academy. She could now take long walks with Netta, and every afternoon, or, as summer came on, every evening, they drove together in the pony-chaise. With renewed health and strength there had been some slight improvement in her hearing. She could now faintly distinguish any loud sounds, such as those of the band of a regiment marching past her or a sudden peal of bells.

"I think that we shall make an eventual cure," Dr. Hartwig said. "It will be slow, and possibly her hearing may never be absolutely good; but at least we may hope that she may be able to eventually hear as well as nine people out of ten."

In another year she could, indeed, though with difficulty, hear voices, and when she had been at Hanover three years her cure was almost complete, and she now went every morning to school to learn French and music. She herself was quite content to remain there. She was very happy in her life and surroundings, and could now read with the greatest facility from the lips, and indeed preferred watching a speaker's mouth to listening to the voice. It was a source of endless amusement to her that she could, as she and Netta walked through the streets, read scraps of conversation between persons on the other side of the street or passing in carriages.

Another six months and both the doctor and Professor Menzel said that they could do nothing more for her. She was still somewhat hard of hearing; but not enough so to be noticeable; while she could with her eyes follow the most rapid speaker, and the Professor expressed his regret that so excellent an example of the benefit of his system should not be in circumstances that would compel her to make a living by becoming a teacher in it. Netta was now a paid assistant at the institution.

The end of what had been a very happy time to Hilda came abruptly and sadly, for three weeks before the date when her parents were to come over to take her home, Miss Purcell, on opening a letter that came just as they had finished breakfast, said, after sitting silent for a few minutes, "You need not put on your things, Hilda; you cannot go to school this morning; I have some bad news, dear – very bad news."

The tone of voice in which she spoke, even more than the words, sent a chill into the girl's heart.

"What is it, aunt?" she said, for she had from the first used the same term as Netta in addressing her.

"Your father has had a serious illness, my dear – a very, very serious and sudden illness, and your mother wishes you to go home at once."

Hilda looked at her with frightened, questioning eyes, while every vestige of color left her cheeks. "Is he – is he – " she asked.

"Here is an inclosure for you," Miss Purcell said, as she got up, and taking Hilda's hand in one of hers drew her with the other arm close to her; "your mother wrote to me that I might prepare you a little before giving it to you. A terrible misfortune has happened. Your dear father is dead. He died suddenly of an affection of the heart."

"Oh, no, no; it cannot be!" Hilda cried.

"It is true, my dear. God has taken him. You must be strong and brave, dear, for your mother's sake."

"Oh, my poor mother, my poor mother!" Hilda cried, bursting into a sudden flood of tears, "what will she do!"

It was not until some time afterwards that she was sufficiently composed to read her mother's letter, which caused her tears to flow afresh. After giving the details of her father's death, it went on:

"I have written to your uncle, General Mathieson, who is, I know, appointed one of the trustees, and is joined with me as your guardian. I have asked him to find and send over a courier to fetch you home, and no doubt he will arrive a day or two after you receive this letter. So please get everything ready to start at once, when he comes."

Two days later General Mathieson himself arrived, accompanied by a courier. It was a great comfort to Hilda that her uncle had come for her instead of a stranger.

"It is very kind of you to come yourself, uncle," she said as she threw herself crying into his arms.

"Of course I should come, dear," he said. "Who should fetch you except your uncle? I had to bring a courier with me, for I don't understand any of their languages, and he will take all trouble off my hands. Now let me look at your face." It was a pale, sad little face that was lifted up, but two days of sorrow had not obliterated the signs of health and well-being.

"Whiter than it ought to be," he said, "but clear and healthy, and very different from what it was when I saw you before you came out. You have grown wonderfully, child. Really, I should hardly have known you again."

And so he kept on for two or three minutes, to allow her to recover herself.

"Now, dear, you must take me in and introduce me to your kind friends here."

Hilda led the way into the sitting room.

"I have heard so much of you and your niece, Miss Purcell," he said as he shook hands with her, "that I do do not feel that you are a stranger. You certainly seem to have worked wonders between you for my niece, and I must own that in the first place I thought it a mistake her being here by herself, for I had no belief that either her hearing would be restored or that she would ever be able to follow what people were saying by only staring at their lips."

"Yes, indeed, Hanover has agreed with her, sir, and it is only a small part of the credit that is due to us."

"I must differ from you entirely, madam. If she had not been perfectly happy here with you, she would never have got on as she has done."

"Have you any luggage, sir? Of course you will stay with us to-night."

"No, thank you, Miss Purcell. We have already been to the Kaiserhof, and long before this my courier will have taken rooms and made every preparation for me. You see, I am accustomed to smoke at all times, and could not think of scenting a house, solely inhabited by ladies, with tobacco. Now, if you will excuse me, I will ask Hilda to put on her bonnet and take a stroll with me."

"I shall be very glad for her to do so. It is just getting cool and pleasant for walking, and half an hour in the fresh air will do her good."

It was an hour before they returned. General Mathieson had gently told her all there was to tell of her father's death, and turning from that he spoke of her mother, and how nobly she was bearing her troubles, and erelong her tears, which had burst out anew, flowed more quietly, and she felt comforted. Presently she said suddenly:

"What is going to be done here, uncle? I have been thinking over that ever since it was settled that I was to come home next month, and I am sure that, although she has said nothing about it, Miss Purcell has felt the change that is coming. She said the other day, 'I shall not go back to the apartments where you found us, Hilda. You see, we are a great deal better off than we were before. In the first place I have had nothing whatever to spend, and during the four years the ridiculously liberal sum paid to Netta and myself has been all laid aside and has mounted up to six hundred pounds. My pension of eighty pounds a year has also accumulated, with the exception of a small sum required for our clothes, so that in fact I have nearly a thousand pounds laid by. Netta is earning thirty pounds a year at the Institute; with that and my pension and the interest on money saved we shall get on very comfortably.' I should not like, uncle, to think of them in a little stuffy place in the town. Having a nice garden and everything comfortable has done a great deal for Miss Purcell. Netta told me that she was very delicate before, and that she is quite a different woman since she came out here from the town. You cannot tell how kind she has always been. If I had been her own child, she could not have been more loving. In fact, no one could have told by her manner that she was not my mother and Netta my sister."

"Yes, dear, I ran down to your mother before starting to fetch you to help in the arrangements, and she spoke about Miss Purcell. Under ordinary circumstances, of course, at the end of the four years that you have been here the house would be given up and she would, as you say, go into a much smaller place; but your mother does not consider that these are ordinary circumstances, and thinks that her care and kindness have had quite as much to do with the improvement in your health as has the doctor. Of course we had no time to come to any definite plan, but she has settled that things are to go on here exactly as at present, except that your friend Netta will not be paid for acting as companion to you. I am to tell Miss Purcell that with that exception everything is to go on as before, and that your mother will need a change, and will probably come out here in a month or so for some time."

"Does she really mean that, uncle?"

"Certainly, and the idea is an excellent one. After such a shock as she has had an entire change of scene will be most valuable; and as she knows Miss Purcell well, and you like the place very much, I don't think that any better plan could be hit upon. I dare say she will stay here two or three months, and you can continue your studies. At the end of that time I have no doubt some plan that will give satisfaction to all parties will be hit upon."

Hilda returned to Hanover with her mother a month later. At the end of three months Mrs. Covington bought the house and presented the deeds to Miss Purcell, who had known nothing whatever of her intentions.

"I could not think of accepting it," she exclaimed.