70. CHAPTER LXX.
“OH! JUSTIN! JUSTIN!”
In a few moments, Miss Clementina re-appeared in the hall,
coming out of Mrs. Bland's chamber. She was moving her fan, and
walked rapidly. A treat was before her. Up-stairs, taking off her
“things” with the view of remaining all day, was the friend of her
heart; and with that friend seated opposite her, beside a cheerful
fire, she promised herself a delicious morning, full of gossip, and
chit-chat on every subject, but more particularly on the affairs of
their neighbors.
Let us not listen to this instructive interchange of ideas. It would
not do to embody, in extenso, in printed sentences and paragraphs
those diffusive colloquies. The reader might laugh now and then,
it is true, and have his interest and astonishment excited, perhaps,
by the ingenious want of charity characterizing the several statements
and conclusions; but the full report would prove wearisome,
the historian would yawn while narrating. Even the Miss Fulksons
would make one gape when taken in too large doses. Let us remain
down-stairs.
Half-an-hour after Miss Clementina had rejoined her friend, the
door of Mrs. Bland's chamber again opened, and the Lady of the
Snow came out with an uncertain and faltering step, and went into
the drawing-room.
She had come hither to read her letter from Harley in private,
where no curious eyes could watch the expression of her countenance.
She had taken it from Miss Clementina's hand with a quick
throb of the heart, and a fading color. But fortunately none but Mrs.
Bland and Fanny were in the chamber. With a single glance at it,
she had thanked Miss Clementina, watched her depart, and after
arranging Fanny's pillow and bending over her with deep tenderness,
had come to read the letter all to herself.
She sat down and read the first lines—her eyes blinded by tears.
“Oh! he is too generous and kind!” she exclaimed. “I wronged
him so! And now he forgives me!”
She continued to read:
“Your husband is changed by suffering and by love of your child and
his—your little Fanny, who is restored to you.”
She bent down, weeping.
“Oh! if he is changed! if he is changed!—and loves me again,
as he loves his child!”
“They must have told you that the child is your own.”
“Oh yes!—my heart, I think, revealed that to me before I heard
it, as I leaned against the door of the little room in the hut that
night, and heard, without intending to, what they were saying!”
She read on, and at the sentence announcing that her husband
was the Count de Gontran, started—but this start was followed by
a smile of happiness.
“My dear, dear Fanny!”
It was the first thought of the mother's heart—her child would
be henceforth a delicately-nurtured lady. Then she slowly finished
the letter, folded it up with tears in her eyes, and, leaning her
thin, pale cheek upon her white hand, gazed at the fire.
She was sitting in a large arm-chair, with her back to the door.
A slight wind had arisen, rustling the dry leaves on the trees, and
the fire was crackling. These noises drowned the sound of footsteps
on the passage—the footsteps of a person who, entering the front-door,
blown open by the wind, was coming into the drawing-room
unannounced.
The thoughts of the Lady of the Snow passed from her child to
her husband, and from her husband to Harley. This letter was his
farewell. He was going, he said, to Europe. She would never see
him again—never have an opportunity to say, “Forgive me!”
She bent down, sobbing.
“Oh! if I could see him face to face again, if for a moment only!
If I could only tell him how noble he is, and how I have broken
my heart thinking of my treatment of him!”
A great sob ended the piteous cry. Then she murmured, her
frame trembling, her cheeks flushing.
“Oh! Justin! Justin!”
As the low cry escaped from her lips, she heard a step behind her,
and rose quickly.
It was Harley, who had come to see Judge Bland to execute the
deed transferring Huntsdon to his brother.
