Heartsease | Page 3

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Scanned and proofed for Project Gutenberg by Sandra Laythorpe,
[email protected]. A web page for Miss Charlotte M Yonge is
published at www.menorot.com/cmyonge.htm

Heartsease or Brother's Wife
by Charlotte M. Yonge


PART I

And Maidens call them Love in Idleness.
Midsummer Night's Dream
CHAPTER 1

There are none of England's daughters that bear a prouder presence.
***** And a kingly blood sends glances up, her princely eye to trouble,
And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
The sun shone slanting over a spacious park, the undulating ground
here turning a broad lawn towards the beams that silvered every blade
of grass; there, curving away in banks of velvet green; shadowed by the
trees; gnarled old thorns in the holiday suit whence they take their
name, giant's nosegays of horse-chestnuts, mighty elms and stalwart
oaks, singly or in groups, the aristocracy of the place; while in the
background rose wooded coverts, where every tint of early green
blended in rich masses of varied foliage.
An avenue, nearly half a mile in length, consisted of a quadruple range
of splendid lime trees of uniform growth, the side arcades vaulted over
by the meeting branches, and the central road, where the same lights
and shadows were again and again repeated, conducting the eye in
diminishing perspective to a mansion on a broad base of stone steps.
Herds of cattle, horses, and deer, gave animation to the scene, and near
the avenue were a party of village children running about gathering
cowslips, or seated on the grass, devouring substantial plum buns.
Under a lordly elm sat a maiden of about nineteen years; at her feet a
Skye terrier, like a walking door-mat, with a fierce and droll
countenance, and by her side a girl and boy, the one sickly and poorly
clad, the other with bright inquiring eyes, striving to compensate for the
want of other faculties. She was teaching them to form that delight of
childhood, a cowslip ball, the other children supplying her with
handfuls of the gold-coated flowers, and returning a pull of the forelock
or a bobbed curtsey to her smiling thanks.
Her dress was of a plain brown-holland looking material, the bonnet
she had thrown off was of the coarsest straw, but her whole air declared
her the daughter of that lordly house; and had gold and rubies been laid
before her instead of cowslips with fairy favours, they would well have
become her princely port,