Whats Mines Mine | Page 9

answer.
They were now at the part of the road which crossed the descending
spur as it left the hill-side. Here they stopped again, and looked down

the rocky slope. There was hardly anything green betwixt them and the
old ruin--little but stones on a mass of rock; but immediately beyond
the ruin the green began: there it seemed as if a wave of the meadow
had risen and overflowed the spur, leaving its turf behind it. Catching
sight of Hope and Grace as they ran about the ruin, they went to join
them, the one drawn by a vague interest in the exuviae of vanished life,
the other by mere curiosity to see inside the care-worn, protesting walls.
Through a gap that might once have been a door, they entered the heart
of the sad unhoping thing dropt by the Past on its way to oblivion:
nothing looks so unlike life as a dead body, nothing so unfit for human
dwelling as a long-forsaken house.
Finding in one corner a broken stair, they clambered up to a gap in the
east wall; and as they reached it, heard the sound of a horse's feet.
Looking down .the road, they saw a gig approaching with two men. It
had reached a part not so steep, and was coming at a trot.
"Why!" exclaimed Christina, "there's Val!--and some one with him!"
"I heard the governor say to mamma," returned Mercy, "that Val was
going to bring a college friend with him,--'for a pop at the grouse,' he
said. I wonder what he will be like!"
"He's a good-big-looking fellow," said Christina.
They drew nearer.
"You might have said a big, good-looking fellow!" rejoined Mercy.
"He really is handsome!--Now mind, Mercy, I was the first to discover
it!" said Christina.
"Indeed you were not!--At least I was the first to SAY it!" returned
Mercy. "But you will take him all to yourself anyhow, and I am sure I
don't care!"
Yet the girls were not vulgar--they were only common. They did and
said vulgar things because they had not the sensitive vitality to shrink

from them. They had not been well taught--that is roused to LIVE: in
the family was not a breath of aspiration. There was plenty of ambition,
that is, aspiration turned hell-ward. They thought themselves as far
from vulgar as any lady in any land, being in this vulgar--that they
despised the people they called vulgar, yet thought much of themselves
for not being vulgar. There was little in them the world would call
vulgar; but the world and its ways are vulgar; its breeding will not pass
with the ushers of the high countries. The worst in that of these girls
was a FAST, disagreeable way of talking, which they owed to a certain
governess they had had for a while.
They hastened to the road. The gig came up. Valentine threw the reins
to his companion, jumped out, embraced his sisters, and seemed glad to
see them. Had he met them after a like interval at home, he would have
given them a cooler greeting; but he had travelled so many miles that
they seemed not to have met for quite a long time.
"My friend, Mr. Sercombe," he said, jerking his head toward the gig.
Mr. Sercombe raised his POT-LID--the last fashion in head-gear--and
acquaintance was made.
"We'll drive on, Sercombe," said Valentine, jumping up. "You see,
Chris, we're half dead with hunger! Do you think we shall find
anything to eat?"
"Judging by what we left at breakfast," replied Christina, "I should say
you will find enough for--one of you; but you had better go and see."
CHAPTER IV.
THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE.

Two or three days have passed. The sun had been set for an hour, and
the night is already rather dark notwithstanding the long twilight of
these northern regions, for a blanket of vapour has gathered over the

heaven, and a few stray drops have begun to fall from it. A thin wind
now and then wakes, and gives a feeble puff, but seems immediately to
change its mind and resolve not to blow, but let the rain come down. A
drearier-looking spot for human abode it would be difficult to imagine,
except it were as much of the sandy Sahara, or of the ashy,
sage-covered waste of western America. A muddy road wound through
huts of turf--among them one or two of clay, and one or two of stone,
which were more like cottages. Hardly one had a window two feet
square, and many of their windows had no glass. In almost all of them
the only chimney was little more than a hole in the middle of the thatch.
This rendered the absence of glass in the windows not so objectionable;