Milly Darrell and Other Tales | Page 7

would you like a stepmother, Milly?'
She gave a little cry, and grew suddenly pale.
'Papa has married again!' she said.
Julian Stormont drew a newspaper from his pocket, and laid it before her, pointing to an announcement in one column:
'On May 18th, at the English legation in Paris, William Darrell, Esq., of Thornleigh, Yorkshire, to Augusta, daughter of the late Theodore Chester, Esq., of Regent's Park.'
He read this aloud very slowly, watching Milly's pale face as he read.
'There is no reason why this should distress you, my dear child,' he said. 'It was only to be expected that your father would marry again, sooner or later.'
'I have lost him!' she cried piteously.
'Lost him!'
'Yes; he can never be again the same to me that he has been. His new wife will come between us. No, Julian, I am not jealous. I do not grudge him his happiness, if this marriage can make him happy. I only feel that I have lost him for ever.'
'My dear Milly, that is utterly unreasonable. Your father told me most particularly to assure you of his unaltered affection, when I broke the news of this marriage to you. He was naturally a little nervous about doing it himself.'
'You must never let him know what I have said, Julian. He will never hear any expression of regret from me; and I will try to do my duty to this strange lady. Have you seen her yet?'
'No, they have not come home yet. They were in Switzerland when I heard of them last; but they are expected in a week or two. Come, my dear Milly, don't look so serious. I trust this marriage may turn out for your happiness, as well as for your father's. Rely upon it, you will find no change in his feelings towards you.'
'He will always be kind and good to me, I know,' she answered sadly. 'It is not possible for him to be anything but that; but I can never be his companion again as I have been. There is an end to all that.'
'That was a kind of association which could not be supposed to last all your life, Milly. It is to be hoped that somebody else will have a claim upon your companionship before many years have gone by.'
'I suppose you mean that I shall marry,' she said, looking at him with supreme indifference.
'Something like that, Milly.'
'I have always fancied myself living all my life with papa. I have never thought it possible that I could care for any one but him.'
Julian Stormont's face darkened a little, and he sat silent for some minutes, folding and refolding the newspaper in a nervous way.
'You are not very complimentary to your admirers at Thornleigh,' he said at last, with a short hoarse laugh.
'Who is there at Thornleigh? Have I really any admirers there?'
'I think I could name half-a-dozen.'
'Never mind them just now. I want you to tell me all you know about my stepmother.'
'That amounts to very little. All I can tell you is, that she is the daughter of a gentleman, highly accomplished, without money, and four-and-twenty years of age. She was travelling as companion to an elderly lady when your father met her in a picture-gallery at Florence. He knew the old lady, I believe, and by that means became acquainted with the younger one.'
'Only four-and-twenty! only four years older than I!'
'Rather young, is it not? but when a man of your father's age makes a second marriage, he is apt to marry a young woman. Of course this is quite a love-match.'
'Yes, quite a love-match,' Milly repeated, with a sigh.
I knew she could not help that natural pang of jealousy, as she thought how she and her father had once been all the world to each other. She had told me so often of their happy companionship, the perfect confidence that had existed between them.
Julian Stormont sat talking to her--and a little, a very little, to me--for about half an hour longer, and then departed. He was to sleep at Fendale, and go back to North Shields next morning. He was his uncle's right hand in the business, Milly told me; and from the little I had seen of him I could fancy him a power in any sphere.
'Papa has a very high opinion of him,' she said, when we were talking of him after he had left us.
'And you like him very much, I suppose?'
'O yes, I like him very well. I have known him all my life. We are almost like brother and sister; only Julian is one of those thoughtful reserved persons one does not get on with very fast.'
CHAPTER III.
AT THORNLEIGH.
The midsummer holidays began at last, and Mr. Darrell came in person to fetch his daughter, much to her delight. She was not to return