Shirley

Our refuge, haven, home!’”

Mrs. Pryor at once complied.

No wonder Caroline liked to hear her sing. Her voice, even in speaking, was sweet and silver clear; in song it was almost divine. Neither flute nor dulcimer has tones so pure. But the tone was secondary, compared to the expression which trembled through – a tender vibration from a feeling heart.

The servants in the kitchen, hearing the strain, stole to the stair-foot to listen. Even old Helstone, as he walked in the garden, pondering over the unaccountable and feeble nature of women, stood still amongst his borders to catch the mournful melody more distinctly. Why it reminded him of his forgotten dead wife, he could not tell; nor why it made him more concerned than he had hitherto been for Caroline’s fading girlhood. He was glad to recollect that he had promised to pay Wynne, the magistrate, a visit that evening. Low spirits and gloomy thoughts were very much his aversion. When they attacked him he usually found means to make them march in double-quick time. The hymn followed him faintly as he crossed the fields. He hastened his customary sharp pace, that he might get beyond its reach.

“Thy word commands our flesh to dust, —
‘Return, ye sons of men’;
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.

“A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone—
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

“Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

“Like flowery fields, the nations stand,
Fresh in the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering ere ’tis night.

“Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last—
O Father, be our home!”

“Now sing a song – a Scottish song,” suggested Caroline, when the hymn was over—“‘Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon.’”

Again Mrs. Pryor obeyed, or essayed to obey. At the close of the first stanza she stopped. She could get no further. Her full heart flowed over.

“You are weeping at the pathos of the air. Come here, and I will comfort you,” said Caroline, in a pitying accent. Mrs. Pryor came. She sat down on the edge of her patient’s bed, and allowed the wasted arms to encircle her.

“You often soothe me; let me soothe you,” murmured the young girl, kissing her cheek. “I hope,” she added, “it is not for me you weep?”

No answer followed.

“Do you think I shall not get better? I do not feel very ill – only weak.”

“But your mind, Caroline – your mind is crushed. Your heart is almost broken; you have been so neglected, so repulsed, left so desolate.”

“I believe grief is, and always has been, my worst ailment. I sometimes think if an abundant gush of happiness came on me I could revive yet.”

“Do you wish to live?”

“I have no object in life.”

“You love me, Caroline?”

“Very much – very truly – inexpressibly sometimes. Just now I feel as if I could almost grow to your heart.”

“I will return directly, dear,” remarked Mrs. Pryor, as she laid Caroline down.

Quitting her, she glided to the door, softly turned the key in the lock, ascertained that it was fast, and came back. She bent over her. She threw back the curtain to admit the moonlight more freely. She gazed intently on her face.

“Then, if you love me,” said she, speaking quickly, with an altered voice; “if you feel as if, to use your own words, you could ‘grow to my heart,’ it will be neither shock nor pain for you to know that that heart is the source whence yours was filled; that from my veins issued the tide which flows in yours; that you are mine – my daughter – my own child.”

“Mrs. Pryor”

“My own child!”

“That is – that means – you have adopted me?”

“It means that, if I have given you nothing else, I at least gave you life; that I bore you, nursed you; that I am your true mother. No other woman can claim the title; it is mine.”

“But Mrs. James Helstone – but my father’s wife, whom I do not remember ever to have seen, she is my mother?”

“She is your mother. James Helstone was my husband. I say you are mine. I have proved it. I thought perhaps you were all his, which would have been a cruel dispensation for me. I find it is not so. God permitted me to be the parent of my child’s mind. It belongs to me; it is my property – my right. These features are James’s own. He had a fine face when he was young, and not altered by error. Papa, my darling, gave you your blue eyes and soft brown hair; he gave you the oval of your face and the regularity of your lineaments – the outside he conferred; but the heart and the brain are mine. The germs are from me, and they are improved, they are developed to excellence. I esteem and approve my child as highly as I do most fondly love her.”

“Is what I hear true? Is it no dream?”

“I wish it were as true that the substance and colour of health were restored to your cheek.”

“My own mother! is she one I can be so fond of as I can of you? People generally did not like her – so I have been given to understand.”

“They told you that? Well, your mother now tells you that, not having the gift to please people generally, for their approbation she does not care. Her thoughts are centred in her child. Does that child welcome or reject her?”

“But if you are my mother, the world is all changed to me. Surely I can live. I should like to recover.”

“You must recover. You drew life and strength from my breast when you were a tiny, fair infant, over whose blue eyes I used to weep, fearing I beheld in your very beauty the sign of qualities that had entered my heart like iron, and pierced through my soul like a sword. Daughter! we have been long parted; I return now to cherish you again.”

She held her to her bosom; she cradled her in her arms; she rocked her softly, as if lulling a young child to sleep.

“My mother – my own mother!”

The offspring nestled to the parent; that parent, feeling the endearment and hearing the appeal, gathered her closer still. She covered her with noiseless kisses; she murmured love over her, like a cushat fostering its young.

There was silence in the room for a long while.

“Does my uncle know?”

“Your uncle knows. I told him when I first came to stay with you here.”