He kept up a punctual and copious correspondence with the members of his own family—with his married sisters, and with his only brother, now with his regiment in India—relating to them every important circumstance of his lot, and almost every interesting feeling of his heart. With this variety of resources, life had passed away cheerily, on the whole, with Mr. Hope, for the five years of his residence at Deerbrook; though there were times when he wondered whether it was to be always thus—whether he was to pass to his grave without any higher or deeper human intercourses than he had here. If it had been possible, he might, like other men as wise as himself, have invested some one of the young ladies of Deerbrook with imaginary attributes, and have fallen in love with a creature of his own fancy. But it really was not possible. There was no one of the young ladies of Deerbrook who was not so far inferior to the women of Hope’s own family—to the mother he had lost, and the sisters who were settled far away—as to render this commonest of all delusions impossible to him.
To such a man, so circumstanced, it may be imagined how great an event was the meeting with Hester and Margaret. He could not be in their presence ten minutes without becoming aware of their superiority to every woman he had seen for five years past. The beauty of the one, the sincerity and unconsciousness of the other, and the general elevation of both, struck him forcibly the first evening. His earliest thought the next morning was of some great event having taken place; and when he left Mr. Grey’s door after dinner, it was with an unwillingness which made him spur himself and his horse on to their business, that he might the sooner return to his new-found pleasure. His thoughts already darted forward to the time when the Miss Ibbotsons would be leaving Deerbrook. It was already a heavy thought how dull Deerbrook would be without them. He was already unconsciously looking at every object in and around the familiar place with the eyes of the strangers, speculating on how the whole would appear to them. In short, his mind was full of them. There are, perhaps, none who do not know what this kind of impression is. All have felt it, at some time or other—many have felt it often—about strangers whom they have been predisposed to like, or with whom they have been struck at meeting. Nine times out of ten, perhaps, the impression is fleeting; and when it is gone, there is an unwillingness to return to it, from a sense of absurdity in having been so much interested about one who so soon became indifferent: but the fact is not the less real and general for this. When it happens between two young people who are previously fancy-free, and circumstances favour the impression till it sinks deeper than the fancy, it takes the name of love at first sight. Otherwise it passes away without a name, without a record:—for the hour it is a secret: in an after time it is forgotten.
Possessed unconsciously with this secret, Hope threw himself from his horse at the entrance of the meadow where the cowslip-gatherers were busy, fastened his steed to the gate, and joined the party. The children ran to him with the gleanings of intelligence which they had acquired since he saw them last, half an hour before:—that it was well they did not put off their gathering any longer, for some of the flowers were beginning to dry up already: that cousins had never tasted cowslip-tea;—(was not this very odd?)—that cousin Hester would not help to pick the flowers for drying—she thought it such a pity to pull the blossom out of the calyx: that Sophia would not help either, because it was warm: that cousin Margaret had gathered a great many, but she had been ever so long watching a spider’s nest—a nasty large spider’s nest that Matilda was just going to break into, when cousin Margaret asked her not to spoil it?
Margaret was indeed on her knees, prying into the spider’s nest. When duly laughed at, she owned to having seen cobwebs before, but maintained that cobwebs in a closet were a very different affair from a spider’s nest in a field.
“I rather think, however,” said she, “the word ‘nest’ itself has something to do with my liking for what I have been looking at. Some of your commonest country words have a charm to the ear and imagination of townspeople that you could not understand.”
“But,” said Mr. Hope, “I thought nests were very common in Birmingham. Have you not nests of boxes, and nests of work-tables?”
“Yes, and so we have stacks of chimneys; but yet we do not think of hay-making when we see the smoke of the town.—I rather think country words are only captivating as relating to the country; but then you cannot think how bewitching they are to people who live in streets.”
“The children might have found you a prettier sort of nest to indulge your fancy with, I should think. There must be plenty of creatures besides spiders in this wide meadow.”
Mr. Hope called out to the little girls, that whoever should find any sort of a nest in the meadow, for Miss Margaret Ibbotson, should have a ride on his horse. Away flew the children; and Hester and Sophia came from the water-side to know what all the bustle was about. Fanny returned to inquire whether the nests must be in the meadow; whether just outside would not do. She knew there was an ants’ nest in the bank, just on the other side of the hedge. The decision was that the ants’ nest would do only in case of her not being able to find any other within bounds. Sophia looked on languidly, probably thinking all this very silly. It put her in mind of an old schoolfellow of hers who had been called very clever before she came to school at nine years old. Till she saw her, Sophia had believed that town children were always clever: but no later than the very first day, this little girl had got into disgrace with the governess. Her task was to learn by heart Goldsmith’s Country Clergyman, in the ‘Deserted Village.’ She said it quite perfectly, but, when questioned about the meaning, stopped short at the first line—“Near yonder copse where once a garden smiled.” She persisted that she did not know what a copse was: the governess said she was obstinate, and shut her up in the play hours between morning and afternoon school. Sophia never could make out whether the girl was foolish or obstinate in persisting that she did not know what a copse was: but her cousin Margaret now put her in mind of this girl, with all her town feelings, and her fuss about spiders’ nests.
“How is old Mr. Smithson to-day?” Sophia inquired of Mr. Hope, by way of introducing something more rational.
“Not better: it is scarcely possible that he should be,” was the reply.
“Papa thought last night he must be dying.”
“He is dying.”
“Have you just come from a patient who is dying?” asked Hester, with a look of anxiety, with which was mixed some surprise.
“Yes: from one who cannot live many days.”
Sophia observed that Mr. James had been sent for early this morning—no doubt to put the finish to the will: but nobody seemed to know whether the old gentleman would leave his money to his nephew or his step-son, or whether he would divide it between them. Hester and Margaret showed no anxiety on this point, but seemed so ready to be interested about some others as to make Mr. Hope think that they were only restrained by delicacy from asking all that he could tell about his patient’s state. They knew enough of the profession, however, to be aware that this kind of inquiry is the last which should be addressed to a medical man.
“You are surprised,” said he, “that I am come from a dying patient to play with the children in the fields. Come, acknowledge that this is in your minds.”
“If it is, it is an unreasonable thought,” said Margaret. “You must see so many dying people, it would be hard that in every case you should be put out of the reach of pleasure.”
“Never mind the hardship, if it be fitting,” said Hope. “Hard or not hard, is it natural—is it possible?”
“I suppose witnessing death so often does lessen the feelings about it,”