United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But in the interval, and while these happy days of good wages and schooling for Jean and Sunday clothes still lay in the distance, this invitation to go to the house of Kirklands to be taught on Sunday afternoon was very delightful indeed, Geordie thought, as he trudged home with dust-stained feet, carrying his shoes slung across his shoulders, to pay an evening visit to his granny, eager to tell Jean about the interview with the young lady and of the invitation.
So the darkened rooms had been opened to the sun again, and on the day before our story begins, some of the former inmates had taken possession of them. The three years during which Grace had been absent from Kirklands had proved very eventful to her in many ways. There had been some changes in her outer life. Walter, her only brother and playmate, had left home to go to sea.
Graham who they are, and all about them, nest time he comes," said Miss Hume, after Grace had finished her eager narration, and stood twirling her hat in her hand, hesitating whether she should tell her aunt Geordie's impression of what sort of people the "Kirklands folk" were; but just at that moment tea was brought, and on reflection, Grace resolved that, for the present, it would be wise to keep silent on that point.
He surely must have been a sailor, or he could never have known so well what a storm at sea was like, she thought, as she listened, spell-bound, feeling as if she was looking out on the angry sea, with the helpless wrecking ships tossing upon the waves; but then in another moment he took them into the thick of some ancient battle, where the brave-hearted "nobly conquering lived or conquering died;" or it was to some fair, pastoral scene, and then the preacher seemed to know so well all the delights of heathery hills and pleasant mossy glades, that Grace thought he certainly must have been at Kirklands and wandered among its woods and braes.
On the time-worn steps of the grey mansion there stood a girl, cloaked and bonneted for a walk, notwithstanding the uninviting weather. "It's a fule's errand, I assure ye, Miss Grace, and on such an afternoon, too. I've been askin' at old Adam the gardener, and he says there isna one o' the kind left worth mindin' in all the valley o' Kirklands.
But when tea was over, and the sun had begun to scatter its orange and crimson tints over the Kirklands valley, Grace thought she would like to take a stroll among some familiar places before the darkness came. After lingering on the old terrace for a little, she gathered her boys and girls round her, and said she was going to take them across the park.
She smiled as she remembered the childish eagerness that made her fear that he would not appear at Kirklands, as he had promised, and his rather reproachful reply that he "Aye keepit his trysts."
A few articles of furniture were to be disposed of, a few trifles, heirlooms in the family for several generations, were to be taken with them; and it was with a feeling of relief that Mrs Blair welcomed the honest carrier of Kirklands who was on the morrow to convey them away from the unhealthy town to the free fresh air of their native hills.
But that night, when Grace was going to bed, she told her old nurse that her aunt had promised that when they went back to Kirklands again she might try to find some little boys and girls to teach, and that she would allow her to have one of the old rooms for her class.
Often Elsie used to delight the unvocal brother and sister by singing one of her hymns, which for days afterwards would echo in some "odd corner" of the lonely little herd-boy's brain. Sometimes, too, they discussed what they had been hearing on the previous Sunday at Kirklands; and Elsie always felt more interested in the lesson after hearing Geordie's gentle, reverent talk.
Word Of The Day