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Robert Lyon had been away more than three years. But in the monotonous life of the three sisters at Stowbury, nothing was changed. Except, perhaps, Elizabeth, who had grown quite a woman; might have passed almost for thirty; so solidly old fashioned were her figure and her manners.
Common arithmetic soon proved that this £50 a year could not maintain them; in fact they must soon draw on the little sum already dipped into to-day, for Ascott which had been produced by the sale of the Stowbury furniture.
Miss Selina had gone to lie down; she always did of Sundays, and Elizabeth, after making her comfortable, by the little attentions the lady always required, had descended to the dreary wash house, which had been appropriated to herself, under the name of a "private kitchen," in the which, after all the cleanings and improvements she could achieve, sat like Marius among the rains of Carthage, and sighed for the tidy bright house place at Stowbury.
And Elizabeth was so glad to see him glad to have another chance of talking about dear old Stowbury. It could not be wrong; she would not say a word about, the family, not even tell him she lived with the Misses Leaf if she could help it. And Tom did not seem in the least curious. "Now, I call this quite a coincidence. I was stopping at St.
This cough; oh, it shakes me dreadfully; especially of nights." "Have you any doctor?" "The druggist close by, or rather, the druggist's shopman. He's a very kind young fellow, from our county, I fancy, for he asked me once if I wasn't a Stowbury man; and ever since he has doctored me for nothing, and given me a shilling too, now and then, when I've been a'most clemmed to death in the winter."
Such thoughts made her step firmer and her heart lighter; so that she hardly noticed the distance they must have walked till the close London air began to oppress her, and the smooth glaring London pavements made her Stowbury feet ache sorely. "Are you tired, Elizabeth? Well, we'll rest soon. There must be lodgings near here. Only I can't quite make out "
But it did not disturb the mother now. "Poor Selina" was no more. Nothing of her was left to her child except the name of a mother. It may have been better so. Such was the inscription which now, for six months, had met the eyes of the inhabitants of Stowbury, on a large, dazzlingly white marble monument, the first that was placed in the Church-yard of the New Church. What motive induced Mr.
One night they were speculating upon the causes of this, and Hilary was declaring, in a half jocular, half earnest way, that it must be because a prophet is never a prophet in his own country. "The Stowbury people will never believe how clever I am. Only, it is a useless sort of cleverness, I fear.
Greek, Latin, and mathematics are no good to infants under seven, such as Stowbury persists in sending to us." "They think I am only fit to teach little children and perhaps it is true," said Miss Leaf. "I wish you had not to teach at all. I wish I was a daily governess I might be, and earn enough to keep the whole family; only, not here."
Elizabeth told briefly, though not without emotion, all that had happened between herself and Tom, and how he was married to Esther Martin. And then both women went back, in a moralizing way, to the days when they had both been "young" at Stowbury, and how different life was from what they then thought and looked forward to Miss Hilary and her "bower maiden."
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