CHAPTER VIII
Ma. Then you believe not, Arnold, in the stars?
Ar. Yes, in the stars—when on a winter's night
They stand as thick as drops of dew new frozen
On the dark arch of Heaven—or when they lie
Mirrowed upon the heaving sea—or steal
Slowly and faint into the Summer sky—
But for these ignorant interpreters,
They scarce are worth the scorn of disbelief.
ANON.
Aveline declared that she would not be defrauded of her ride when the evening came in all its freshness; but Mr. Haveloc said that he saw she was languid; that the morning was the proper time for exercise, and that Hakon Jarl should be his companion the next day, when he paid his respects to Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
"Ah! you will come to-morrow, that is well," said Aveline, "but do not let me go quite without a ride this evening; let me take a turn just round the garden."
Mr. Haveloc glanced at Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
"Yes, let her," she said in a tone of despondency.
The poney was brought to the window; Aveline was lifted on, and Mr. Haveloc taking the reins led him through the shrubberies, and along the broad terrace.
"I wonder if he could go down the steps upon the sands," said Aveline.
"He could, I have no doubt," said Mr. Haveloc, "but you—"
"I should so enjoy it; riding along the sands by moonlight," said Aveline. "Oh! I am quite strong enough—never fear."
Mr. Haveloc led the poney carefully down the steep steps and over the shingles to the sands, now stretching far and dry, the tide being at its lowest.
"How glad I am that we live by the sea," said Aveline. "It is delightful for a part of the year," said Mr. Haveloc. "I should not care about it in winter."
"But it is in winter," said Aveline, "that the waves are so rough; you should see them running against that headland on a stormy night; when you catch a glimpse of the foam tossed high against the very peak of the rock there, just when the wind has torn the clouds asunder, and let out a glimpse of the moon for an instant. I would not miss the sea in winter time. And then the hoarse sound of the waves on the shingles grows louder when mixed up with the boisterous north wind. And the surge boils and swells, and then the white froth parts and shows the dark angry water beneath. No! trees and fields are barren in winter; but there is always life in the sea!"
"And this creature is all this while slowly and invisibly borne onwards to the grave," he thought, "so full of the best part of life—the intellectual!"
"You are thinking!" said Aveline.
"And so were you; only you thought aloud," he answered.
"Ah! look Mr. Haveloc, they are launching a boat; let us go a few steps farther and see them. Don't you like the rough noise, and the splash, and the voices of the fishermen together. See, just in the moon's path; and now they are in shadow again. When I was a child I used to envy the fishermen as I saw them starting on a bright evening like this, for their merry night's fishing."
"And they envied you, perhaps, that you were going to enjoy a good night's rest, instead of getting wet and weary, and not knowing whether they should catch fish enough to buy their next day's breakfast."
"Perhaps so," said Aveline. "Few people would envy me now."
"Because you are in bad health."
"Yes. Do you not think mamma is very much depressed to-day?"
"She struck me as being so."
"Mr. Lindsay tells her the truth," said Aveline, "it is a comfort to me to be sure of that; as he would tell me the truth if I were to ask him."
"That is a comfort," said Mr. Haveloc, "at least, whatever were to befal me, I would rather know it."
"Did you ever have your fortune told, Mr. Haveloc?"
"No, never. Oh, yes, I forgot! I had my fortune told me once near Rome; in the Campagna."
"By a gipsy?"
"A regular gipsy, with a face like the head of Memnon in the Museum; long eyed, with massive features, and the upper and under lip of equal thickness."
"What did she tell you? Do try and recollect."
"Let me consider," said Mr. Haveloc, leaning against the pony's neck, "first she asked me for a crown."
"Of course you gave it; but such a sum ought to have bought you a very handsome fortune."
"So the Sybil seemed to think, for she told me I was greatly beloved by a young lady with dark eyes."
Aveline trembled.
"You are cold; we will finish the fortune teller in the house."
"No, no—go on here."
"Let me lead him back to the garden, you forget I am responsible to Mrs. Fitzpatrick for your well-being. I will go on; though I did not know you were superstitious."
"Yes, I am, about gipsies."
"Well, I ventured to hint that these pleasing events always told better when there was a strong contrast between the parties; and that I should be obliged to the Sybil to furnish my young lady with blue eyes before she proceeded any farther. But my Zingara was not so accommodating, 'she did not like,' she said, 'to trifle with the stars; the dark eyed lady insisted on being attached to me. But, she would work me an incredible deal of woe.'"
"Ah!" cried Aveline raising her voice almost to a shriek, "what did she say. Tell me how—what came next?"
"I'll tell you what, Miss Fitzpatrick," said he leading the pony up the stony staircase, "when I was a great many years younger, I have sat up telling ghost stories at Christmas, until I was afraid to look behind me; but I never heard that this sport was good for an invalid. You are as much afraid of gipsies as I was of ghosts. We will talk of something else."
"No, but finish I entreat you," said Aveline in a gentle tone.
"Why the Sybil told me that I should survive this injury, whatever it was; but she declined being more explicit. She also said that I should be very happy by and bye, perhaps she meant in Heaven. I hope so. But I gave her another crown and wished her good day."
"Ah!" said Aveline, "my gipsy was more explicit."
"Where did you pick up yours?"
"Here, on the sea-shore."
"And what news did she give you for your money?"
"She told me—shall I repeat it?"
"Yes, do; that I may laugh you out of it?"
"She told me I should break the heart of the person I loved best; and that I should die young."
"She was an idiot!" said Mr. Haveloc.
"Ah! my mother. Shall I not break her heart," said Aveline, with a sudden burst of tears.
"Never; you are in ill-health, and attach a meaning to words you would laugh at, if you were stronger. I do believe the worst suffering in illness is the dejection it causes. You should not allow yourself to be so weighed down."
"But if I die—"
"But do not think so. The woman saw you looked delicate, and thought she could turn her warning to a good account. I wish I—" Aveline seized his hand. A gipsy woman was advancing towards them from the other end of the terrace. He was at a loss what to do; he feared to leave Aveline for a single moment, lest she should faint; and still more he feared to let the woman come within speaking distance.
"Have no fears for me. She can say nothing that I do not know," said Aveline.
"Will you have your fortune told, my pretty lady and gentleman," said the woman advancing with the insinuating gestures of her tribe.
"No, there's money for you," said Mr. Haveloc, throwing the woman his purse heavy with gold, "there is more than you could earn. Go now, quickly, the lady is ill."
"Would she like," said the gipsy.
"No, I tell you. Go at once. You have no business here!"
The gipsy made a sign in the air with her hand which filled him with horror; it seemed to him as if she traced the outline of a coffin:—then laughed, turned, and vanished.
"It is the same," said Aveline, trembling.
"It is the gipsy of the Campagna," he said at the same moment.
"What do you think of it?" said Aveline as he helped her to dismount, and supported her to the sofa. "Is it not as if she came to watch the fulfilment of her prediction?"
"On the contrary. She came knowing it was easier to frighten than to beg money out of people," said he taking a chair beside her. "But your man ought to keep better watch."
"It is not his fault. Remember the terrace is open at one end; but the cliff is so rugged that we always consider it safe. Here comes mamma—let us tell her of it."
Aveline seemed more cheerful again. The supper-table was drawn to the sofa. She related the appearance of the gipsy in a laughing manner, and tried to make it appear that Mr. Haveloc had been very much frightened.
"Confess," said Aveline, "that she put you into bodily fear."
"I own it," he replied. "You will never say again of me that I do not know what fear is."
Mrs. Fitzpatrick gave him a grateful smile. She could easily understand on whose account he had been alarmed.
"I am afraid you were by no means quitte pour le peur," said Aveline helping herself to salad. "Only think, mamma, of his throwing the wretch his purse. So extravagant."
"Very wrong, indeed," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
"But when one gets frightened," said he, laughing, "what is to be done? When my servant asks me what has become of my purse, I must say I was stopped by a foot-pad."
"Will your servant call you to account?" asked Aveline, opening wide her large eyes at the idea of any one taking Mr. Haveloc to task.
"I should not wonder. He is a very old servant, and says and does pretty much what he pleases."
"How I should like to hear you go on together," said Aveline with a smile.
"Oh! it seldom amounts to a duet. He generally unburdens his mind at night; and when I am tired of saying yes, and no, I fall asleep, and so escape the end of the lecture."
"I should like to know, if it was not indiscreet, what the lectures were about?"
"Generally financial. If he thinks I have paid more for a horse than it is worth, it is a long time before he gets over it. He was very much shocked when I bought that plague of a yacht; and at Rome he was a perpetual torment. I could hardly look at a picture, or a cameo, without his hinting that I should end my career in the Queen's Bench."
"But that shows a great deal of attachment," said Aveline; "one sees too little of that feeling in these days. But we are very fortunate. Mrs. Grant was a treasure."
"Shall I come to-morrow, Mrs. Fitzpatrick?" said Mr. Haveloc rising. "Miss Fitzpatrick meets with nothing but misfortunes when I have the charge of her."
"Oh, come!" said Aveline, "by all means; and leave the pony here. Mark said he could accommodate him, and it will be something for me to pet. I shall feed myself to-morrow."
"There Aveline, you must not sit up any longer," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
"I am all obedience," said Aveline rising. "Good night, Mr. Haveloc, I hope you will not meet our gipsy on your way home."
CHAPTER IX
Our joys are kin to griefs—in time shall cease
The term of soundest health: disease
Dwells in our house, and opes to death a door.
Oft amid favouring gales and summer skies
Destruction's breakers madly rise
And wreck our hopes upon the rocky shore.
AGAMEMNON.
If Mr. Haveloc had not been entirely engrossed by his affection for Margaret, it would have been almost impossible to have been thrown so much in the society of Aveline, and under circumstances of such touching interest, without becoming warmly attached to her.
Her understanding was more matured, her fancy brighter, her acquirements larger than those of Margaret. She had not been to a boarding-school; and she had gained from her mother's thoughtful mind, more education than from all her masters. She was less beautiful than Margaret—less graceful, but more elegant; there was more of style about her appearance, and less of simplicity. Therefore she looked older than she was, and Margaret younger. And in the details of domestic life, she was perhaps more formed than Margaret, to interest the fancy and excite the attention.
She was accustomed to make all those little demands upon the sympathy and assistance of those around her, which you see so constantly in French women, and which are generally attractive to men in this country, perhaps from their contrast to the more quiet and independent habits of English women in general.
If she wished to give little Jane a bonnet and cloak, Mr. Haveloc and her mamma were summoned to the table, and were obliged to look over the patterns the servant had brought from the neighbouring town, and discuss the colour and fashion of the garments. And Mr. Haveloc was desired to walk down to Brand's cottage, and look at the child to see whether red or blue would suit her best; and to inquire after Mrs. Brand's health, and to ask the best of the two Toms, whether he had yet been able to find that specimen of sea-weed that Miss Fitzpatrick wanted to complete her orders of Cryptogamia.
Those persons who spend their lives in wandering from place to place, little know how much of interest they forfeit in not having a settled place of abode. So many little elegant trifles accumulate in a home that can never be packed up and carried from one hired residence to another. Mrs. Fitzpatrick's was just the sort of house where one might lounge away the morning delightfully. Chairs and sofas of all patterns were scattered about the room; drawn to the carved tables, or placed temptingly near the large, open window, from which you could step at once into the garden, where the finest flowers filled the air with their perfume, and seemed to overrun the wire baskets in which they were planted. The tables were strewn with books and prints; with cameos, carvings and choice miniatures. Aveline's painting was generally on a reading stand near the sofa, and a little lava tray of modelling tools stood on a slab at the farthest end of the room, covered by a cambric handkerchief with a foreign border of brilliant colours.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick was generally to be found seated near the sofa, working at a large frame of embroidery, an employment at once picturesque and dignified for persons of middle age, but which in young people seems to be the resource of an indolent mind. Aveline had as yet but few of the habits of an invalid. She was very careful of her costume, which was generally a richly worked muslin made in a foreign fashion; with a large Cachemere lying somewhere about the room, which wrapped her from head to foot when she became chilly. And though it was out of her power to occupy herself for more than a few minutes at a time, yet it was surprising how little of languor pervaded her manner and conversation. She had always a book by her side to glance into when she was at ease, and when her restless fits came over her, she would wander about the room arranging the flowers, or tuning her harp, or turning over the beautiful articles of virtú, with which the room was decorated. And when wrapped in her bright coloured Cachemere she reclined in an easy chair with her silver bonbonniére in her fingers which she handled as an old courtier might have done a snuff-box, a stranger could not easily have been made to believe that but a few weeks of life remained to her.
It was singular that Mr. Haveloc never suspected her affection for him. She who seemed to receive new life from his presence; who was entirely and exclusively occupied with him—who hardly removed her eyes from him when he came, and who spent her time in expecting him when he was away. He treated it all as a sick person's fancy, and submitted far more implicitly to her demands, than if he had been seeking to ingratiate himself in her heart.
Serious illness generally weakens the mind; and in the case of Aveline, it some-what dimmed her perceptions. She did not attach the exact meaning to Mr. Haveloc's constant visits, that she could not fail to have done in health. She had mourned his absence, she was contented in his society, and it seemed as if she felt no desire to penetrate the future, or to anticipate a time when they must part.
"He is late, mamma," said Aveline one day. "He is certainly later this morning; something has happened. That yacht—you know it was very windy last night."
"My dear child, I can see the yacht from the window; and I do not think he has been on board of her since we went with him. Besides, we must not be so unreasonable as to look for him always at one hour."
Aveline took up her book again. Presently Mr. Haveloc made his appearance at the drawing-room window with a large flower in his hand; a splendid cup-shaped blossom, with white leaves tinged with pink, that shed a delightful perfume all over the room.
"Look, Miss Fitzpatrick," he said coming up to Aveline, "I have waited for some purpose; my water-lilly has flowered this morning. Did you ever see anything so beautiful?"
"And you have brought it me," said Aveline taking the flower, "how good you are. I will put it in water directly. It shall have the Dresden jar all to itself; that with the holly berries."
Mr. Haveloc brought the jar and rang for water.
"And is this a water-lilly?" said she, still admiring the flower. "Of that species; it came from South America, and is I believe, the only one in England. I had hoped it was a lotus just to put one in mind of Moore's poetry. And how are you to-day?"
"To-day? Charming. I could do all sorts of things. Walk down to the beach, or up to the village; or play a fantasia on the harp." As she spoke, a string flew. "Hark;" she said, "I have lost a harp-string; a small one I think by the sound. Just look and tell me the extent of the damage, Mr. Haveloc."
"One of the very smallest. Look—up at the top here."
"I must get up and mend it," said Aveline. "The harp-strings are in that drawer, Mr. Haveloc; may I trouble you?"
She rose languidly, and moved to the harp; resting her hand on the table as she went: selected one of the strings Mr. Haveloc brought her, and began to undo the broken one. But, in spite of her boast, it was not one of her good days. She wavered, and caught the harp for support.
"Why will you not rest;" he said, drawing a chair close to her. "I can put on your string—give me the key."
Aveline sank into the chair and resigned her task to him.
"But who taught you to put on harp-strings?" said she, with a searching look.
"I learned it years ago of a harp player, who was teaching the sister of a friend of mine. He said I should one day find it a useful accomplishment. Do you not agree with him?"
"Perfectly!" said Aveline, looking up to him with a smile.
"And which does this string rhyme to?" he asked, when he had put it on.
"Ah! you are right," said Aveline, "the octaves are the rhymes of music. Look, this is the octave."
"Now, will you go back to the sofa?" he asked.
Aveline shook her head. "I am comfort able here," she said. "I don't mean to move till I grow restless. Will you have the goodness to bring me that tray? I want to look over my tools."
She threw off the handkerchief, and sat playing with her tools and turning them over like a child.
Mr. Haveloc drew a low chair close to hers and began to examine them also.
"Ah!" said Aveline, looking up, "I was just going to advise you to address yourself to sculpture. It is the finest of all the arts."
"Do you place it above poetry?" he asked.
"Sculpture is poetry," said Aveline eagerly, "only it is a universal language. It is the highest art. It is profaned as every thing in these days is profaned, by the language of ridicule and burlesque. But everything in sculpture that is not addressed to the most ideal feelings, becomes disagreeable. The ideal is the atmosphere of sculpture. It does not admit of caricature. Think of Danton's villanous statuettes," and Aveline looked all disgust.
"Ah!" said Mr. Haveloc, "there is one of Liszt, on the drawing-room mantel-piece in my villa—a wonderful likeness."
"And you have not broken it to pieces?" claimed Aveline.
"That would not be in accordance with the Ideal," said Mr. Haveloc. "Justice is a cardinal virtue, and I presume a subject worthy of the chisel; and M. Litzt does not belong to me."
"Don't laugh," said Aveline.
"I did not know," said Mr. Haveloc, "that you were such an enemy to the comic muse. I am sure you must enjoy wit."
"Yes. But the spirit of wit is the very essence of prose, in direct opposition to poetry, which takes all things in a serious light. And in these days everything is mocked and parodied until people are laughed out of the little love they have left for what is noble and beautiful."
"And then there will be a great reaction," said Mr. Haveloc. "We shall all become as sober as judges a few years hence."
"I hope at least," said Aveline "that we shall learn to laugh in the right place, and that will be, not at great, but at little sentiments and actions."
"Do you know, Miss Fitzpatrick, you will think me guilty of treason after your exordium on sculpture. But you talk of the chisel, and your instruments remind me of nothing so much as the apparatus of a dentist."
"Oh, mamma, do scold him!" cried Aveline. "It is atrocious—a dentist too! A race of people of whom I have as much horror as the Egyptians had of their embalmers."
"Well, really," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, looking up from her work. "All those mysterious slender little instruments, Aveline?"
"It is a calumny!" cried Aveline, gathering up her tools. "Do not be angry, Miss Fitzpatrick," said Mr. Haveloc. "I will tell you what I do admire. This handkerchief; the border is superb. You got it abroad. I always know people who have travelled, by their coloured handkerchiefs—they are sure to pick them up at Paris."
"Oh! they are common enough in England, now," said Aveline. "But that is a good border, the pattern is Arabesque. You wear them, don't you? Let me look at yours."
Mr. Haveloc produced his handkerchief with a violet edge.
"How dare you!" said Aveline playfully, "It is much finer than mine. What a coxcomb."
"Change then," said Mr. Haveloc.
Aveline seized his handkerchief with all the eagerness of a child, and threw him hers.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick looked with rather a grave smile at Aveline; but she laughed and squeezed it behind the cushion at the back of her chair, as if to make sure of her new possession.
"You will repent your bargain, but you shall not have it back," said Aveline.
"Not at all," said he. "I have got the handsome border, and for the fineness I know nothing about it."
"It is just dinner time," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "I hope, my dear Aveline, you are ready for it."
"Quite hungry, mamma. Will you run and fetch Hakon Jarl, Mr. Haveloc? I hear Mark coming with his plate of bread."
Mr. Haveloc went off directly, he never hesitated an instant at any of her commands.
As soon as he was gone, she drew out the handkerchief and gazed at it with intense delight.
"Ah!" she said to herself, "I have at last got something of his—I will not again destroy it."
Mrs. Fitzpatrick looked at her with a sigh, but said nothing. "There is no need now, is there, mamma? When I thought I should never see him again, it was unwise to keep anything to put me in mind of him;" said Aveline, folding and unfolding the handkerchief, and quite engrossed by her own thoughts. "But now that we see him every day—"
"Certainly—it is quite different," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, speaking with effort.
"You feel uncertain about my health," said Aveline, not noticing the anguish her words caused her mother, "but you know it may improve."
Mrs. Fitzpatrick, unable to control her voice, rose and hurried out of the room. This was a most unusual instance of emotion with her, and had Aveline been in health, such a circumstance would have agitated her beyond measure.
"Poor mamma," said she, looking after her mother, "I do believe she worries herself sadly about my health, and no wonder; for at times, I almost despair of myself. I am better now, however." Mr. Haveloc led the pony up to the window, and Aveline fed him with one slice of bread after another.
"Do you think he knows me, Mr. Haveloc?" she asked.
"He ought," said Mr. Haveloc, "but take care, Miss Fitzpatrick, he will include your fingers in his bill of fare some fine day."
"I am sure he would not do it on purpose," said Aveline.
"Ah! here is Mr. Lindsay. I am really glad to see you this morning; mamma is very low about me. Go and cheer her—tell her I am better."
"No—but are you?" asked Mr. Lindsay.
"What has that to do with it? I don't want you to blind me, Mr. Lindsay, but mamma. But seriously, I am no worse than when you last saw me."
"So I find; you are much the same," said Mr. Lindsay, removing his fingers from her pulse.
"And it is more important that you should give me a good word," said Aveline, "because I meditate doing something very imprudent to morrow."
"Ay—what is that?" said Mr. Lindsay.
"Going to church, doctor," replied Aveline.
"You could not do better," said the doctor drily. "It will be a glorious hot day; and the little walk up that steep hill will just put you into condition for sitting two hours on an uneasy straight bench;—go by all means."
"I thought you would be perverse, doctor," said Aveline. "I expected it. And let me tell you, in the first place, I am not going to walk. I mean to ride Hakon Jarl. Take him back, Mr. Haveloc, I have no more bread to give him."
"And why, in the name of all that's good, cannot you stop and say your prayers at home?" asked the doctor.
"Because I don't choose it, doctor. I like to go to church."
"Ah! a good many people think there is something mysterious in the air of a church," said Mr. Lindsay. "However take your own course; there is something truly pious in a bad cold caught in a damp pew—it sends people now and then to Heaven before their time, I grant you."
"Ah, doctor, if people did not know you, they would not think you so good as you are. Now mind what you are about to mamma."
Mrs. Fitzpatrick was now quite composed, even cheerful. She shook hands with Mr. Lindsay; "begged him to take some luncheon at their early dinner," and summoned Mr. Haveloc from the garden.
"Aveline is your charge you know," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "I do not even venture to carve for her."
"What shall it be, Miss Fitzpatrick?" said Mr. Haveloc, drawing his chair to the table.
"Sweetbread, I think," said Aveline, looking round, "and mushrooms." "No mushrooms;" said Mr. Lindsay.
"I will!" said Aveline.
Mr. Haveloc put them on her plate.
"What do you always shake your head for, doctor, when you look at him?" asked Aveline, laughing; "has he so much the appearance of a bad subject?"
"I shook my head at the mushrooms," said Mr. Lindsay.
"You see, doctor, her spirits are very good," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, in a low voice.
"I see," he replied, with a nod. But it was evident he saw no comfort in it.
Every one knows the stillness that seems to settle over town and country on the Sunday in England. Even in the most retired spot, everything is more silent and quiet than before. No sound of waggons in the neighbouring lanes; no rural noise of labourers going forth to their daily toil. And when the scenery chances to be beautiful, the day warm and fine, and this delicious quiet diffused around, only broken by the distant and uncertain sound of the church bells; there are few persons who would be tempted to exchange this refreshing pause from labour; this purifying rest to the mind, for the gaudy revelry of a continental Sabbath day.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick pointed out this stillness to Mr. Haveloc, when he met her in front of her cottage the next morning.
"It always brings to my mind those words of the Psalmist," she said, "'Be still, and know that I am God!' As if this complete and solemn repose were necessary to the mind, before contemplating the majesty of the Divine nature."
"Does Miss Fitzpatrick still hold to her intention?" he asked.
"She does; unless you can persuade her out of it."
"I feel very uneasy at the idea of her going. I saw plainly that Mr. Lindsay did not like it."
"Good morning, Mr. Haveloc," said Aveline. She was standing at the open window, ready for church. Her white dress and splendid shawl, fastened by two large gold pins, gave something of amplitude to her figure; but her face looked more wasted in her bonnet, and the bright colour on her cheeks seemed to assort but ill with their shrunken outline. She seemed more than usually grave and quiet; not exactly in low spirits, but a kind of settled melancholy; she sat down, and gave her hand to Mr. Haveloc; then occupied herself quietly in putting on her gloves. They were a new pair of her usual size, but now much too large. She fastened them, and looked at them for a minute without speaking.
"Are you sure you are quite equal to going, my dearest?" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, struck and chilled by Aveline's manner.
"Quite, mamma," said she, steadily.
"You will not be prudent, and let me read prayers to you at home?" said Mr. Haveloc, who was leaning over her chair. "Not to day; but if I live, Mr. Haveloc, I shall call upon you another Sunday in that capacity," returned Aveline, in a low voice.
"The poney is ready," he said, taking up her prayer-book.
"You think me very wilful, I am afraid," said she, as he arranged her cloak, around her.
"Sick people have a right, you know, to be wilful," he replied.
Aveline sighed; and spoke no more during the ride. Mr. Haveloc led the poney, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick walked by her daughter's side.
At the gate of the church-yard she dismounted, and Mark, who had followed at a distance, led the poney away to the Vicarage till the service was over.
Aveline bore the fatigue remarkably well. She remained seated and abstracted, repeating solemnly the responses with the people. Sometimes she seemed to shiver, as if something awful occurred to her mind. But at the Belief, she rose up suddenly, and remained standing with her face turned to the altar, repeating the words after the clergyman in a distinct voice. And it seemed to be quite involuntary on her part, for she sat down again with the same abstracted air, and remained during the service apparently unconscious, or forgetful of the presence of any one.
"I thought I got through it very well," said Aveline, as she was going home.
"Much better, my love, than I expected," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
"Don't hurry the pony, Mr. Haveloc; this road is so beautiful. I am not at all impatient to get home," said Aveline.