"And voluntarily you will bear the pain which had almost brought tears into the eyes of the severe and stoical Mrs. Hamilton!" exclaimed Eleanor.
"It was a foolish weakness, my dear Eleanor, for which my husband would have chidden me; but there must be pain to a mother if called upon to exert authority, when inclination so strongly points to indulgence."
"Well, if ever I have any thing to do with children, I certainly shall not be half as particular as you are, Emmeline. I really can not imagine what harm gratifying myself and Percy could possibly have done."
"If ever you have children, my dear Eleanor, may you have strength of mind and self-control sufficient to forget self, and refuse the gratification of the present moment for the welfare of future years!"
Mrs. Hamilton spoke impressively, and something, either in her words or tone, caused the blood to rush into Eleanor's cheeks, and she hastily walked to the window; then, as abruptly returning, she kissed her sister, a very rare token of affection, and declaring she was much too good for her to understand, quitted the room.
The following day, dressed for her visit, and only waiting for the carriage, Eleanor, accompanied by Mrs. Hamilton and her little boys, entered the same apartment. Though not in general fond of nursing, Eleanor had taken Herbert in her arms, and was playing with him with unusual fondness; Percy, who had not seen the tempting plaything since his banishment the preceding day, the moment his eye caught it, to the astonishment of Eleanor, ran up to his mother, and lisping, "Me no touch that – Percy good boy now," held up his little face lovingly to hers, and with a very pardonable feeling of delight, Mrs. Hamilton lifted him up and covered him with kisses. The feelings which thrilled through Eleanor at that moment she might indeed have found it difficult to explain, but she was so conscious of a change of countenance as to hide her face on Herbert's head. It might have been obedience and disobedience brought so suddenly and strangely in contrast – and who were the actors? an infant and herself. For a minute she recovered, stricken with sudden and agonized remorse; but it was too late, she had gone too far, and the announcement of the carriage was a relief from that bitter moment of painful indecision. Placing her baby nephew in his nurse's arms, she said, caressingly, "Will not Percy give Lina some of those kisses as well as mamma?" The child threw one little arm round her neck, and the other round that of his mother, and then burst into a merry laugh at thus seeing himself as it were a link between them. Never had it seemed to Eleanor that she had loved and admired her sister as she did at that moment; all the neglect, unkindness, she had shown her, all the sarcasm and satire, of which, either before or behind her, she had so often made her the victim, combined with an intense, but how painfully vain longing to have resembled her in the remotest degree, rather than be the character which had never before appeared so degraded, so hateful – almost overpowered her – a convulsive sob escaped her as she clasped Emmeline in a close embrace, and almost choked her hurried good-by! Lord Delmont and Mr. Hamilton were in the hall, and the former was surprised and delighted at the warmth with which his usually reckless child returned his kiss and farewell; the carriage drove off leaving unusual hope and cheerfulness behind it. Alas! in one short fortnight every rising hope was blighted, Emmeline's momentary dread fulfilled, and Lord Delmont experiencing, in all its agony,
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is,
To have a thankless child"
CHAPTER V.
A HEART AND HOME IN ENGLAND. – A HEART AND HOME IN INDIA
From the moment Arthur Hamilton returned to Cheltenham with the painful intelligence that he had arrived at Leith only in time to witness the departure of the beautiful vessel which contained Captain Fortescue and the exquisitely lovely bride who had, it seemed, turned the heads of all the usually quiet Scotsmen who had seen her, Lord Delmont gradually sunk. The agony of losing her forever – for so he regarded her departure for, and residence in India for an indeterminate time – conquered every other feeling. Her conduct had caused emotions of anguish far too deep for the relieving sensation of anger. The name of the lady from whose house and by whose connivance she had eloped, he was never heard to breathe; but, if ever casually mentioned before him, every feature would become convulsed, and he would instantly leave the room. Often and often he accused his own harshness as the cause of driving her from him, and then came, with overwhelming bitterness, the thought that if he lately had been harsh, surely the recollection of all the indulgent fondness he had shown demanded some gratitude in return. If she had but written, had but expressed one wish for his continued love, one regret for his present pain! But no letter came, and the contending but all-depressing emotions so completely undermined a constitution never very strong, and already worn by care, that when another and still heavier trial came, he sunk at once beneath it.
Though Eleanor had been his favorite, his feelings of pride and hope had greatly centered in his son, whose career, in five years' active service on board a man-of-war, had been such as to raise him already to a lieutenancy, and excite every gratifying emotion, not only in his immediate family, but in a large circle of admiring friends. Mrs. Hamilton's love for her brother had naturally increased, strong as it always had been, even in childhood – and the visits which Charles had been enabled to make to Oakwood, brief in duration as they were compelled to be, had always been fraught with heartfelt, joyous happiness, not only to herself but to her husband. The pain and anxiety attendant on Eleanor's elopement, and the dread of its effects on Lord Delmont, had for two or three months been the sole subject of thought; but at length, and, like a fearful flash bringing a new sorrow to light, it pressed upon them that it was long after the period that intelligence of Charles ought to have been received. Still hoping against hope, not only the Delmont family, but all who had friends and relatives on board the Leander, imagined that she might have drifted from her course, or been engaged on some secret and distant expedition, but that intelligence concerning her would and must soon come. Alas! after months of agonizing suspense, information was received that several planks and masts, bearing evidence of fire as well as water, and some sea-chests, bearing names, only too soon recognized as those of some of the Leander's crew, had been cast off the coast of Barbary, and there could be no more doubt that death or slavery – that fearful slavery which the bombardment of Algiers had so displayed to European eyes – was the portion of all those beloved ones, for whom so many aching hearts and eyes had watched and wept in vain. It was a trial so terrible that Mrs. Hamilton felt at first as if even submission had departed from her; and she could almost have rebelled in spirit against the inscrutable decree, that had consigned one so free from vice and evil, so full of happiness and worth, to a doom so terrible. Much as she had loved and reverenced her husband before, she seemed never to have felt his worth and tenderness till then. It was his sympathy, his strength, that recalled her to a sense of her duty, and gave her power to endure, by a realization once more of that submissiveness to a Father's will, which had never before failed her. But time, though it softened the first anguish, had no power over the memories of this brother, not even when the increasing cares and joys of maternity so fully engrossed her, that the present and the future of her children appeared to have banished all of her own past.
Lord Delmont did not survive the mournful tidings of the certain wreck of the Leander above two months; but his released spirit did not meet that of his son. Charles was not dead. He toiled as a slave long years in living death, before there was even a partial amelioration of his sufferings. But no tidings of him ever came, a young child of three years old, a distant branch of the Manvers family, became Lord Delmont.
Years rolled on, and Mrs. Hamilton's lot was so full of tranquil happiness, so fraught with the innumerable daily joys of a loving wife and devoted mother, that her prayer was ever rising for guidance, and gratitude, that prosperity might not unfit her for the dark days of trial and adversity, when they should come. That she had cares as well as joys could not be otherwise, when so intensely anxious to bring up her children with more regard to their spiritual and moral welfare, than even the cultivation of their intellect. She was one of those who thought still more of the training of the heart than of the mind, believing that were the first properly awakened, the latter would need little incitement to exertion. Two girls had been the sole addition to her family.
One