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"You are shivering in your thin frock at the window, Miss Strathsay," said the little gray governess. "Come here, Ailie, and hold the candle," said Angus. "Effie has great schemes of terror with this in the dormitories, o' nights. There!" and he whirled the lighted match out of the window.
But I think that Mary Strathsay lives now in the dream of hereafter, in the dream that some day, perchance when all her white beauty is gone and her hair folded in silver, a dark, sad man will come off the seas, worn with the weather and with weight of sorrow and pain, and lay himself down at her feet to die.
Strathsay grit. It's on her white wedding-finger. The scar's there, too. St! Where's your music? You've not played a note these five minutes. Whisht! here comes my mother!" How was Helmar to darken my mother's day, I couldn't but think, as I began to toss off the tune again. And poor Mary, there were more scars than I carried, in the house.
And so she kept on, diverting me, for Margray had some vague idea that my crying would bring my mother; and she'd not have her know of her talk with Angus, for the world; marriage after marriage would not lighten the rod of iron that Mrs. Strathsay held over her girls' lives, I ween.
"Ah, yes, indeed," said he, "she is reading the future in her palm, reading it backward, and finding out what this Angus Ingestre has to do with her fate!" "Nay, but," said I, and then held fast again. "Here's a young woman that's keen to hear of her home, of her sisters, of Queen Mary Strathsay, and of Margray's little Graeme!" "What do I care for Johnny Graeme? the little old man!"
Mrs. Strathsay was my mother. I might have fallen, too, I might have died, it seems to me, with the sudden snap my heart gave, but all in a word I felt Mary Strathsay's soft curls brushing about my face, and she drew it upon her white bosom, and covered the poor thing with, her kisses.
March is no more nor less than cracked, and no wonder he should make bold to visit the house. My mother'd been home but a day and night, 's you may say, when in walks my gentleman, who but he? fine as a noble of the Court, and Mary presents him to Mrs. Strathsay as Mr. Helmar of the Bay. Oh, but Mrs. Strathsay was in a stound. And he began by requesting her daughter's hand.
"Alice will wear white this summer; 'tis most suitable. She has white slips and to spare." "But in the winter?" urged the other. "'Twill be sad for the child, and we all so bright. There's my pearl silk, I'm fairly tired of it, and with a cherry waist-piece" "You lose breath," said my mother, coldly and half vexed. So Mary Strathsay bit her lip and kept the peace.
A moment after, and I was among them. Mrs. Strathsay stood there under the chandelier in the sunshine, with all its showering rainbow-drops, so straight and stately she, so superb and splendid, her arms held out, and I ran forward, and paused, for my veil had blown over my face, to throw it back and away, and, with the breath, her shining blue eyes opened and filled with fire, her proud lips twisted themselves in pain, she struck her two hands together, crying out, "My God! how horrible!" and fainted.
I went home with Margray that night; I couldn't bear to sleep in the little white bed that was mine when a happy child, and with every star that rose I felt a year the older; and on the morrow, when I came home, my mother was still in the same taking, so I went back again and whiled the day off as I could; and it was not so hard, for Mary Strathsay came over, and Effie, and there was so much to tell, and so much to ask, and Effie had all along been so full of some grand company she had met that last year in Edinboro', that the dinner-bells rang ere we thought of lunch; but still a weight lay on me like a crime on conscience.
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