Hornung Ernest William - A Bride from the Bush стр 23.

You shall come in as often as ever you like, my darling!

The old lady had drawn her daughter-in-laws head backward upon her lap, and was caressing the lovely hair, more and more nervously, and bending over the upturned face. Gladys leant back with half-closed eyes. Suddenly a scalding drop fell upon her cheek. Next moment the girl was upon her feet. The moment after that she had fallen upon her knees and caught Lady Blighs hands in her own.

You are crying! said Gladys, hoarsely. You are crying, and because of me! Oh, Lady Bligh, forgive me! How could I know I should bring you such trouble as this? I never knew I never dreamt it would be like this. Alfred told me that I should get on well with you all. He was blind, poor boy, but I might have known; only we loved each other so! Oh, forgive me forgive me for marrying him! Say that you forgive me! Before God, I never thought it would be like this!

My daughter! I have nothing to forgive! Kiss me, Gladys kiss me!

Yes, I will kiss you; but I have brought misery upon you all; and I will never forgive myself.

Gladys you have not ! Do not think it and dont go, Gladys.

I must go. You have been good and kind to me; but this is hard for me too, though I am not crying. I never cry, though sometimes I feel inclined to, when I think of everything.

But now you will often come beside me, Gladys?

Yes, I will come. And I will try to change; you have helped me already. It will not come all at once; but perhaps I can prevent myself giving you any fresh cause to be downright ashamed of me. Nay, I must. Thats the least I can do. If I fail

She stopped, as though to think well of what she was saying. Her face became pale and stern Lady Bligh never forgot it.

If I fail, she repeated slowly, after this, you will know that I am hopeless!

She went to the door, but turned on the threshold, as though wishful to carry away a distinct impression of the scene the half-lit room, the failing fire still reflected in the burnished brasses, the darkening panes still beaten by the wild rain, and the figure of Lady Bligh, dimly outlined and quivering with

gentle weeping. Then she was gone.

CHAPTER X PLAIN SAILING

That good-hearted fellow, Alfred Bligh, awaking gradually to a sensation of this sort, became very rapidly the happiest of men. The proverb in his case was the one about the dawn and the darkest hour. Alfreds darkest hour had been the day after Ascot, when, after a perfectly amicable conversation with the Judge, he had rushed up to town with ice at his heart and schemes of instant removal in his head. His dawn was the same evening, at dinner, when an indefinable je ne sais quoi in the mutual manner of Gladys and his mother attracted his attention and held him in suspense. And after dinner his sun rose quickly up.

The happiness of the succeeding days to Alfred, to Gladys, and to Lady Bligh was complete and pure. Nothing much happened in those last perfect days of June, when the rain had all fallen, and the wind changed, and summer was come back. There was some rowing on the sunlit river, and a good deal of coaching, in small parties; but on the whole they were quiet days. Yet these were the days that stood out most plainly through the dim distance of after years.

To be closely intimate with Lady Bligh meant an intimacy with a nature that was generous and sweet and womanly; and it included a liberal education for those who would help themselves to it in gentle, unaffected manners. Gladys came under this very desirable influence at a favourable moment, and in precisely the right frame of mind to profit most by it. And profit she did. As she herself had predicted, no miracle was wrought; she did not become everything that she ought to have been in a day; but several small alterations of manner, all of them for the better, did very quickly take place.

The Bride felt her feet at last. Then, becoming thoroughly in touch with Lady Bligh, she waxed bold in a less approachable direction, and with the best results. Not only did she start lively little conversations with Sir James, but she got him to carry them on in the same light strain, and sustained her part in them very creditably indeed, all things considered. But the subject of his judicial functions was now avoided far more sedulously by Gladys than by the old gentleman himself. She even joined the Judge more than once in his early morning prowls; but the stock-whip was always left behind in her room. On these occasions she showed herself to be an admirable assistant-potterer; while she delighted her old companion still further by many pretty and even delicate attentions, to which he was not used, having no daughters of his own. Thus there were mornings when the Judge would come in to breakfast with quite a startling posy in his button-hole, and with a certain scarcely perceptible twitching of the lips and lowering of the eyelids, such as had been observed in him sometimes on the bench when the rest of the court were convulsed with laughter. It invariably transpired that the decoration was the work and gift of the Judges daughter-in-law; and, as the old gentleman had never before been seen by his family to sport any such ornament, the departure was extremely gratifying to most of them.