mistake—if it was him that made it—he never had a thing whispered again him before or since. He left the place after that to settle in London, and he have got on, they say, like a house a-fire. I know this: he’d give his right hand to find oat the rights about it”
“Is he a young man—an unmarried man?”
“Be you and me young and unmarried?” retorted Mrs. Pepperfly, for the want of sense in the question (as it sounded to her in her superior knowledge) excited her ire. “Him? He have been married this five-and-twenty year, and he’s a'most as old as we be. There! There’s the very churchyard where she’s lying.”
Mrs. Pepperfly pointed to the opposite side of the street which the omnibus was now approaching. And the stranger, in her eagerness to look at the churchyard, found her face brought violently in contact with the side of the omnibus, as it was whirled round the corner by the driver, to draw up at the door of the Red Lion.
FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT.
"What is the reason you object to live in the old family house, Alfred? The man who drove me from the station told me it was haunted; but you, surely, do not believe in such nonsense?”
“Certainly not You must have a bad memory, however, if you cannot understand the reason why no earthly inducement would bring me to occupy it.”
“Well, my memory is bad enough, I allow; but when I left England, seventeen years ago, your father and mother occupied it: and I never heard either you or your sister find any fault with it”
“Ah! I had forgotten. You have not heard of the dreadful affair which cut us up root and branch; for I am the only survivor of the family left, except my poor sister, and I shall never marry.”
“Crossed in love, eh? If you had come out to me in South America when it happened, you would have forgotten it long ago, and have come home as fully determined to marry and settle down as I am. But tell me all about it my dear old boy. Let me see, when I left England you had just entered on your first term at Oxford.”
“Just so. Our parting was the first sorrow of my life. How well I remember my sister, my cousin Fanny, and myself walking with you to the station! Fanny was not much to look at then; but if you had seen her when she was two years older you would have thought her, as I did, one of the most beautiful girls the sun ever shone upon.”
“I understand—cousin Fanny was the rock on which the happiness of your life was wrecked, as novelists say.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Tom, do not speak another word in that jeering tone. I will tell you what has happened since, on condition that you do not speak of it again. I had but a few months longer to remain at college when I was I sent for, in consequence of the serious illness of my mother. On reaching home I found that Fanny was staying there, and during this time we were necessarily a great deal together. My sister was occupied in attendance on our mother, and could not often accompany us in our walks. Under other circumstances I might have seen so many different faces, have had so many visits to make, and have found so much amusement in field sports and in talking with my father respecting alterations and improvements about the estate, that I should have had comparatively few opportunities of associating with my cousin. As it was, we were in each other’s society for hours daily. The result of this constant association was, that I became passionately attached to her; and when my mother had recovered so far as to be out of danger, and I was about to return to Oxford, I obtained from her the acknowledgment that my love was returned, and I left her with the understanding that when I had taken my degree the day of our marriage should be fixed. If ever there was a man in the world who looked forward with undoubting confidence to a life of happiness I was that man. My father and mother were both favourable to our marriage, and there was no conceivable obstacle to oppose our wishes. The only person whom Fanny had to consult was her aunt, and there was nothing to fear from any objections on her part.
“I do not suppose you remember, even if you ever heard, that this aunt of hers was very rich. She had adopted Fanny and her brother when they were mere children, their father and mother having been drowned in the ——— when that vessel went down in the Bay of Biscay. Fanny’s brother I had never seen. His conduct was so bad at Eton that he was expelled from that school, and so disgusted his aunt that she refused to allow him to live with her, and he was sent to St. Omer to finish his education there. He left St. Omer without giving any reason, and went to Italy, living on the allowance that his aunt made him. In his letters he spoke only of the occupations and amusements of the various courts and cities he visited, and the frequency with which he wrote to his aunt mollified her feelings towards him
