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He had been carried away in his speech by the sincerity of what he felt, the more easily because his whole nature was unstrung by grief; and Hilda's mother had seen in him only the hero, ready to sacrifice everything for her he loved, and womanlike, she had felt irresistibly impelled to reward him on the spot by a generous sacrifice of those convictions which his real or fancied eloquence had already destroyed.
Hilda's silver voice rang high in the last cheer, and then the two touched their glasses with their lips, while all the people shouted with joy below and the mayor's earth-shaking roars of delight made the great owls in the tower shrink into their holes and blink with wonder.
Reading the last, Hilda's warnings were forgotten. The picture of Edith the prospect of a power that might at last effect their union, and reward her long devotion rose before him, to the exclusion of wilder fancies and loftier hopes; and his sleep that night was full of youthful and happy dreams. The next day the Witan met.
Whether, owing to Hilda's runes, or to the merely human arts which accompanied them, the Earl's recovery was rapid, though the great loss of blood he had sustained left him awhile weak and exhausted. But, perhaps, he blessed the excuse which detained him still in the house of Hilda, and under the eyes of Edith.
"The figure of a warrior?" said Harold, startled. "Of a warrior, armed as in the ancient days, armed like the warrior that Hilda's maids are working for thy banner. I saw it; and in one hand it held a spear, and in the other a crown." "A crown! Say on, say on."
"I wish this would let up," he said, after a time, pausing in his walk, and looking again at the window. "It's a wonder we're getting things done at all." Hilda's eye, roaming over the folded newspaper, fell on the weather forecast. "Fair tomorrow," she said, "and colder." "That doesn't stand for much. They said the same thing yesterday. It's a worse gamble than wheat."
Alicia looked at Hilda; her glance betrayed an attention caught upon an accidental phrase. She did not repeat it, she turned it over in her mind. "You are thinking," Hilda said accusingly. "What are you thinking about?" "Oh, nothing. I saw Stephen yesterday, I thought him looking rather wretched." A shadow of grave consideration winged itself across Hilda's eyes.
Along with the lamp on Hilda's tower, the sculptor now felt that a light had gone out, or, at least, was ominously obscured, to which he owed whatever cheerfulness had heretofore illuminated his cold, artistic life. The idea of this girl had been like a taper of virgin wax, burning with a pure and steady flame, and chasing away the evil spirits out of the magic circle of its beams.
Greif, upon whom such great hopes were centred, was a distant cousin as well as a neighbour. The relationship was on the side of Hilda's mother, whose grandfather had been a Greifenstein, and who might have been expected to accept some assistance from her rich connexions, especially as she was quite willing that her daughter should marry their only son.
The Archdeacon heard about it " "That Archdeacon again!" I said. "And told father that it wouldn't do at all. Did you ever hear such nonsense? I shouldn't have minded that, but Hilda's mother struck too. It ended in our having to bring poor old Pussy with us as chaperon." "Pussy?" "Yes, The original Cat, Miss Battersby. You can't have forgotten her, surely?
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