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THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. |
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because, to-day, the knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost to breaking! Father, May, Mary ! oh forgive me that it is so, for the sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark life : and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when I call Heaven to witness that I could not wish him married to a wife more worthy of his Goodness !"
While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, and clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love. Sinking lower and lower clown, as she proceeded in her strange confession, she dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of her dress.
" Great Power !" exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the truth, " have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last! "
It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy little Dot—for such she was, whatever faults she had, and however you may learn to hate her, in good time—it was well for all of them, I say, that she was there : or where this would have ended, it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering her self-possession, interposed, before May could reply, or Caleb say another word.
" Come come, dear Bertha! come away with me ! Give her your arm, May. So! How composed she is, you see, already; and how good it is of her to mind us," said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. " Come away, dear Bertha! Come ! and here's her good father will come with her; won't you, Caleb ? To—be—sure ! *
Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must have been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her influence. When she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that they might comfort and console each other, as she knew they only could, she presently came bouncing back,—the saying is, as fresh as any daisy; I say fresher—to mount guard over that" bridling little piece of consequence in the cap and gloves, and prevent the dear old creature from making discoveries.
" So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly," said she, drawing a chair to the fire; " and while I have it in my lap, here's Mrs. Fielding, Tilly, will tell me all about the management of Babies, and put me right in twenty points where I'm as wrong as can be. Won't you, Mrs. Fielding %"
Not even the Welsh Giant, who according to the popular expression, was so "slow" as to perform a fatal surgical operation upon himself, in emulation of a juggling-trick achieved by his archenemy at breakfast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the Snare prepared for him, as the old lady did into this artful Pitfall. |
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