The Guinea Stamp | Page 8

a light, and began at once to gather together the few things she must now sacredly cherish as mementoes of her father. First she took up with tender hand the little canvas from the easel, looked at it a moment, and then touched the face with her lips. It was her mother's face, which she remembered not, but had been taught to love by her father, who cherished its memory with a most passionate devotion. She wrapped it in an old silk handkerchief, and then began a trifle dreamily to gather together the old brushes with which John Graham had done so much good, if unappreciated, work. Meanwhile the old man was alone in the chamber of death. He had no nerves, no fine sensibilities, and little natural affection to make the moment trying to him. He entered the room in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner, set the lamp on the washhand-stand, and approached the bed. As he stood there, looking on the face, calm, restful, beautiful in its last sleep, a wave of memory, unbidden and unwelcome, swept over his selfish and hardened heart. The years rolled back, and he saw two boys kneeling together in childish love at their mother's knee, lisping their evening prayer, unconscious of the bitter years to come. Almost the white, still outline of the dead face seemed to reproach him; he could have anticipated the sudden lifting of the folded eyelids. He shivered slightly, took an impatient step back to the table for the lamp, and made haste from the room.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III
THE NEW HOME.
Next day at noon that strangely-assorted pair, the sordid old man and the gentle child, set out in a peasant's waggon, which he had hired for a few pence, to ride across the meadows to Boston. The morning was very fair. In the night the mist had flown, and now the sun shone out warm and cheerful, giving the necessary brightness to the scene. It lay tenderly on the quaint fen village, and the little gilt vane on the church steeple glittered proudly, almost as if it were real gold.
Gladys sat with her back to the old horse, quite silent, never allowing her eyes for a moment to wander from that picture until distance made it dim. She had no tears, though she was leaving behind all that love had hallowed. She wondered vaguely once or twice whether it would be her last farewell, or whether, in other and happier years, she might come again to kneel by that nameless grave. Abel Graham paid small attention to her. He tried to engage in a conversation with the peasant who sat on the front of the waggon, holding the reins loosely in his sunburnt hands; but that individual was stolid, and when he did vouchsafe a remark, Abel did not understand him, not being familiar with fen vernacular. They reached Boston in ample time for the train, even leaving half an hour to spare. This half hour the old man improved by hunting up the dealer in whose hands were two of his brother's pictures, leaving Gladys at the station to watch their meagre luggage. He drove a much better bargain than the artist himself could have done, and returned to the station inwardly elated, with four pounds in his pocket; but he carefully concealed from his niece the success of his transaction--not that it would have greatly concerned her, she was too listless to take interest in anything. At one o'clock the dreary railway journey began, and after many stoppages and changes, late at night Gladys was informed that their destination was reached. She stepped from the carriage in a half-dazed manner, and perceived that they were in a large, brilliantly-lighted, but deserted, city station. All her worldly goods were in one large, shabby portmanteau, which the old man weighed, first in one hand and then in the other.
'I think we can manage it between us. It isn't far, and if I leave it, it will cost tuppence, besides taking Wat Hepburn from his work to-morrow to fetch it.'
'Can't we have a cab?' asked Gladys innocently.
'No, we can't; you ought to know, if you don't, that a cab is double fare after midnight,' said the old man severely. Just look in the carriage to make sure nothing is left.'
Gladys did so, then the melancholy pair trudged off out from the station into the quiet streets. Happily the night was fine, though cold, with a clear, star-begemmed sky, and a winter moon on the wane above the roofs and spires. A great city it seemed to Gladys, with miles and miles of streets; tall, heavy houses set in monotonous rows, but no green thing--nothing to remind her of heaven but the stars. She had the soul of the poet-artist, therefore her destiny