University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
THE HOUSE OF MOURNING.

Ella Hastings was dead. The deep-toned bell proclaimed
it to the people of Dunwood, who, counting the
nineteen strokes, sighed that one so young should die. The
telegraphic wires carried it to her childhood's home, in the
far-off city; and while her tears were dropping fast for the
first dead of her children, the fashionable mother did not
forget to have her mourning in the most expensive and becoming
style. The servants in the kitchen whispered it one
to the other, treading softly and speaking low, as if aught
could disturb the slumber of her who lay so motionless and
still, unmindful of the balmy summer air which kissed her
marble cheek. The grief-stricken husband repeated it again
and again as he sat by her side in the darkened room; and
only they who have felt it, can know with what a crushing
weight they fell upon his heart, the three words—“She is
dead!”

Yes, Ella was dead, and Eugenia Deane, with hypocritical
tears upon her cheek, gathered fresh, white rose-buds,
and twining them in the golden curls which shaded the face
of the beautiful dead, dared even there to think that Howard
Hastings was free; and as she saw the silent grief of
the stricken man, who, with his head upon the table, sat
hour after hour, unmindful of the many who came to look on

what had been his wife, her lip curled with scorn, and she
marvelled that one so frivolous as Ella should be so deeply
mourned. Once she ventured to speak, asking him some
trivial thing concerning the arrangement of affairs, and without
looking up, he answered, “Do as you like, until her mother
comes. She will be here to-morrow.”

So, for the remainder of the day, Eugenia flitted from the
parlor to the chamber of death, from the chamber of death
to the kitchen, and from the kitchen back again to the parlor,
ordering the servants, admitting visitors, and between
times scolding Dora for “being so foolish as to cry herself
sick for a person who, of course, cared nothing for her, except
as a waiter!”

Since the night of her mother's death, Dora's heart had
not been half so sore with pain. The girlish Ella had been
very dear to her, and the tears she shed were genuine. To
no one else would the baby go, and after dinner was over,
the dinner at which Eugenia presided, and of which Mr.
Hastings could not be induced to partake, she went into
the garden with her little charge, seating herself in a pleasant
summer-house, which had been Ella's favorite resort. It
was a warm, drowsy afternoon, and at last, worn out with
weeping, and the fatigue of the last night's watching, she
fell asleep, as the baby had done before. Not long had
she sat thus, when Mr. Hastings, too, came down the
gravelled walk, and stood at the arbor door. The constant
bustling in and out of Eugenia annoyed him, and wishing to
be alone, he had come out into the open air, which he felt
would do him good. When his eye fell on Dora, who was
too soundly sleeping to be easily aroused, he murmured,
“Poor child! she is wearied with so many wakeful nights;”
then, fearing lest the slender arms should relax their hold
and drop the babe, he took it gently from her, and folding

it to his bosom, sat down by her side, so that her drooping
head could rest upon his shoulder.

For two long hours she slept, and it was not until the
baby's waxen fingers gave a vigorous pull to her short, thick
hair, that she awoke, feeling greatly surprised when she
saw Mr. Hastings sitting near.

“I found you asleep,” he said, by way of explanation,
“and knowing how tired you were, I gave you my arm for
a pillow;” then, as the baby wished to go to her, he gave it
up, himself going slowly back to the lonesome house, from
which Ella was gone forever.

The next morning, the mother and her three youngest
daughters, all draped in deepest black, arrived at Rose
Hill, prepared to find fault with everything which savored
at all of the “horrid country.” Even Eugenia sank into
nonenity in the presence of the cold, city-bred woman, who
ignored her existence entirely, notwithstanding that she
loudly and repeatedly expressed so much affection for the
deceased.

“Perhaps your daughter wrote to you of me (Miss Deane);
we were great friends,” she said, when they stood together
in the presence of the dead, and Mrs. Grey's emotions had
somewhat subsided.

“Possibly; but I never remember names,” returned the
haughty lady, without raising her eyes.

“There are so few people here with whom she could be
intimate,” continued Eugenia, “that I saw a great deal of
her.”

But to this Mrs. Grey made no reply, except to ask,
“Whose idea was it dressing Ella in this plain muslin wrapper,
when she has so many handsome dresses? But it don't
matter,” she continued, as Eugenia was about to disclaim
all participation in that affair. “It don't matter, for no

one here appreciates anything better, I dare say. Where's
the baby? I haven't seen that yet,” she asked, as they
were descending the stairs.

“She's with Dora, I presume,” answered Eugenia; and
Mrs. Grey continued—

“Oh, the nurse girl, whom Ella wrote so much about.
Send her in.”

But Eugenia was not one to obey orders so peremptorily
given, and, for a long time, Madam Grey and her three
daughters waited the appearance of the nurse girl, who, not
knowing that they were in the parlor, entered it at last, of
her own accord, and stood before them with such a quiet,
self-possessed dignity, that even Mrs. Grey treated her with
far more respect than she had the assuming Eugenia, whose
rule, for the time being, was at an end. Everything had
been done wrong; and when Mr. Hastings spoke of having
Ella buried at the foot of the spacious garden, in a quiet,
grassy spot, where trees of evergreen were growing, she
held up her hands in amazement at the idea that her daughter
should rest elsewhere than in the fashionable precincts
of Greenwood. So Mr. Hastings yielded, and on the morning
of the third day, Dora watched with blinding tears the
long procession winding slowly down the avenue, and out
into the highway towards the village depot, where the
shrieking of the engine, and the rattling of the car bell
would be the only requiem tolled for Ella Hastings, as she
was borne rapidly away from a spot which had been her
home for one brief year.

The little Ella was in Dora's arms, and as she, too, saw
the handsome steeds and moving carriages, she laughed
aloud, and patted the window-pane with her tiny baby
hands. Dear little one! she did not know—would never
know, how much she was bereaved; but Dora knew, and

her tears fell all the faster when she thought that she, too,
must leave her, for her aunt had said to Mr. Hastings, that
after the funeral Dora must go home, adding, that Mrs.
Leah would take care of Ella until his return. So, when
the hum of voices and the tread of feet had ceased, when
the shutters were closed and the curtains dropped, Eugenia
came for her to go, while Mrs. Leah came to take the child,
who refused to leave Dora, clinging so obstinately to her
neck, and crying so pitifully, that even Eugenia was touched,
and bade her cousin remain until Mr. Hastings came home.
So Dora staid, and the timid servants, as they sat together
in the shadowy twilight, felt not half so lonely when they
heard her gentle voice singing the motherless babe to sleep.