Darkness and Daylight | Page 2

Slowly as poison
works within the blood, a fearful blight was stealing upon the noble,
uncomplaining Richard, who had sacrificed his early manhood to his
father's fancies, and when at last the blow had fallen and crushed him in
its might, he became as helpless as a little child, looking to others for
the aid he had heretofore been accustomed to render. Then it was that
the weak old man emerged for a time from beneath the cloud which had
enveloped him so long, and winding his arms around his stricken boy,
said, submissively, "What will poor Dick have me do?"
"Go to Collingwood, where I know every walk and winding path, and

where the world will not seem so dreary, for I shall be at home."
The father had not expected this, and his palsied hands shook nervously;
but the terrible misfortune of his son had touched a chord of pity, and
brought to his darkened mind a vague remembrance of the years in
which the unselfish Richard had thought only of his comfort, and so he
answered sadly, "We will go to Collingwood."
One week more, and it was known in Shannondale, that crazy Captain
Harrington and his son, the handsome Squire Richard, were coming
again to the old homestead, which was first to be fitted up in a most
princely style. All through the summer months the extensive
improvements and repairs went on, awakening the liveliest interest in
the villagers, who busied themselves with watching and reporting the
progress of events at Collingwood. Fires were kindled on the marble
hearths, and the flames went roaring up the broad-mouthed chimneys,
frightening from their nests of many years the croaking swallows, and
scaring away the bats, which had so long held holiday in the deserted
rooms. Partitions were removed, folding doors were made, windows
were cut down, and large panes of glass were substituted for those of
more ancient date. The grounds and garden too were reclaimed from
the waste of briers and weeds which had so wantonly rioted there; and
the waters of the fish- pond, relieved of their dark green slime and
decaying leaves, gleamed once more in the summer sunshine like a
sheet of burnished silver, while a fairy boat lay moored upon its bosom
as in the olden time. Softly the hillside brooklet fell, like a miniature
cascade, into the little pond, and the low music it made blended
harmoniously with the fall of the fountain not far away.
It was indeed a beautiful place; and when the furnishing process began,
crowds of eager people daily thronged the spacious rooms, commenting
upon the carpets, the curtains, the chandeliers, the furniture of
rosewood and marble, and marvelling much why Richard Harrington
should care for surroundings so costly and elegant. Could it be that he
intended surprising them with a bride? It was possible--nay, more, it
was highly probable that weary of his foolish sire's continual
mutterings of "Lucy and the darkness," he bad found some fair young

girl to share the care with him, and this was her gilded cage.
Shannondale was like all country towns, and the idea once suggested,
the story rapidly gained ground, until at last it reached the ear of Grace
Atherton, the pretty young widow, whose windows looked directly
across the stretches of meadow and woodland to where Collingwood
lifted its single tower and its walls of dark grey stone. As became the
owner of Brier Hill and the widow of a judge, Grace held herself
somewhat above the rest of the villagers, associating with but few, and
finding her society mostly in the city not many miles away,
When her cross, gouty, phthisicy, fidgety old husband lay sick for three
whole months, she nursed him so patiently that people wondered if it
could be she loved the SURLY DOG, and one woman, bolder than the
others, asked her if she did.
"Love him? No," she answered, "but I shall do my duty."
So when he died she made him a grand funeral, but did not pretend that
she was sorry. She was not, and the night on which she crossed the
threshold of Brier Hill a widow of twenty-one saw her a happier
woman than when she first crossed it as a bride. Such was Grace
Atherton, a proud, independent, but well principled woman, attending
strictly to her own affairs, and expecting others to do the same. In the
gossip concerning Collingwood, she had taken no verbal part, but there
was no one more deeply interested than herself, spite of her studied
indifference.
"You never knew the family," a lady caller said to her one morning,
when at a rather late hour she sat languidly sipping her rich chocolate,
and daintily picking at the snowy rolls and nicely buttered toast, "you
never