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306 |
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. |
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" Yes! he's greatly changed since then," said Clemency. "He's grey and old, and hasn't the same way with him at all; but I think he's happy now. He has taken on with his sister since then, and goes to see her very often. That did him good directly. At first, he was sadly broken down; and it was enough to make one's heart bleed, to see him wandering about, railing at the world; but a great change for the better came over him after a year or two, and then he began to like to talk about his lost daughter, and to praise her, ay and the world too ! and was never tired of saying, with the tears in his poor eyes, how beautiful and good she was. He had forgiven her then. That was about the same time as Miss Grace's marriage. Britain, you remember ?"
Mr. Britain remembered very well.
" The sister is married then," returned the stranger. He paused for some time before he asked, "To whom?"
Clemency narrowly escaped oversetting the tea-board, in her emotion at this question.
" Did you never hear ?" she said.
" I should like to hear," he replied, as he filled his glass again, and raised it to his lips.
" Ah ! It would be a long story, if it was properly told," said Clemency, resting her chin on the palm of her left hand, and supporting that elbow on her right hand, as she shook her head, and looked back through the intervening years, as if she were looking at a fire. " It would be a long story, I am sure."
" But told as a short one," suggested the stranger.
" Told as a short one," repeated Clemency in the same thoughtful tone, and without any apparent reference to him, or consciousness of having auditors, " what would there be to tell ? That they grieved together, and remembered her together, like a person dead ; that they were so tender of her, never would reproach her, called her back to one another as she used to be, and found excuses for her? Every one knows that. I'm sure I do. No one better," added Clemency, wiping her eyes with her hand.
u And so," suggested the stranger.
" And so," said Clemency, taking him up mechanically, and without any change in her attitude or manner, " they at last were married. They were married on her birthday—it comes round again to-morrow—very quiet, very humble like, but very happy. Mr. Alfred said, one night when they were walking in the orchard, 'Grace, shall our wedding-day be Marion's birthday?' And it was."
" And they have lived happily together ?" said the stranger. |
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