The door was opened, and the ladies stepped out. Mrs. Simcoe was pale, but her heart had not quailed. The faith that sustains a woman’s heart in life does not fail when death brushes her with his finger-tips.
“Dear child!” she said to Hope, when they both knew that the crisis was over, and her lips moved in silent prayer and thanksgiving.
Hope herself was trembling and silent. In her inmost heart she hoped it was Abel Newt who had saved them. But in all the throng she did not see his face. She felt a secret disappointment.
“Here is your preserver, ma’am,” said one of the villagers, pushing Gabriel forward. Mrs. Simcoe actually smiled. She put out her hand to him kindly; and Hope, with grave Sweetness, told him how great was their obligation. The boy bowed and looked at her earnestly.
“Are you hurt?”
“Oh! no, not at all,” replied Hope, smiling, and not without some effort, because she fancied that Gabriel looked at her as if she showed some sign of pain—or disappointment—or what?
“We are perfectly well, thanks to you.”
“What started the horses?” asked Gabriel.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Hope.
“Abel Newt started them,” said Mrs. Simcoe.
Hope reddened and looked at her companion. “What do you mean, Aunty?” asked she, haughtily.
Mrs. Simcoe was explaining, when Abel came up out of breath and alarmed. In a moment he saw that there had been no injury. Hope’s eyes met his, and the color slowly died away from her cheeks. He eagerly asked how it happened, and was confounded by hearing that he was the cause.
“How strange it is,” said he, in a low voice, to Hope, as the people busied themselves in looking after the horses and carriage, and Gabriel talked to Mrs. Simcoe, with whom he found conversation so much easier than with Hope—“how strange it is that just as I was wondering when and where and how I should see you again, I should meet you in this way, Miss Wayne!”
Pleased, still weak and trembling, pale and flushed by turns, Hope listened to him.
“Where can I see you?” he continued; “certainly your grandfather was unkind—”
Hope shook her head slowly. Abel watched every movement—every look—every fluctuating change of manner and color, as if he knew its most hidden meaning.
“I can see you nowhere but at home,” she answered.
He did not reply. She stood silent. She wished he would speak. The silence was dreadful. She could not bear it.
“I am very sorry,” said she, in a whisper, her eyes fastened upon the ground, her hands playing with her handkerchief.
“I hope you are,” he said, quietly, with a tone of sadness, not of reproach. There was another painful pause.
“I hope so, because I am going away,” said Abel.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“When?”
“In a few weeks.”
“Where is your home?”
“In New York.”
It was very much to the point. Yet both of them wanted to say so much more; and neither of them dared!
“Miss Hope!” whispered Abel.
Hope heard the musical whisper. She perceived the audacity of the familiarity, but she did not wish it were otherwise. She bent her head a little lower, as if listening more intently.
“May I see you before I go?”
Hope was silent. Dr. Livingstone relates that when the lion had struck him with his paw, upon a certain occasion, he lay in a kind of paralysis, of which he would have been cured in a moment more by being devoured.
“Hope,” said Mrs. Simcoe, “the horses will be brought up. We had better walk home. Here, my dear!”
“I can only see you at home,” Hope said, in a low voice, as she rose.
“Then we part here forever,” he replied. “I am sorry.”
Still there was no reproach; it was only a deep sadness which softened that musical voice.
“Forever!” he repeated slowly, with low, remorseless music.
Hope Wayne trembled, but he did not see it.
“I am sorry, too,” she said, in a hurried whisper, as she moved slowly toward Mrs. Simcoe. Abel Newt was disappointed.
“Good-by forever, Miss Wayne!” he said. He could not see Hope’s paler face as she heard the more formal address, and knew by it that he was offended.
“Good-by!” was all he caught as Hope Wayne took Mrs. Simcoe’s arm and walked away.
CHAPTER XIII. — SOCIETY.
Tradition declares that the family of Newt has been uniformly respectable but honest—so respectable, indeed, that Mr. Boniface Newt, the father of Abel, a celebrated New York merchant and a Tammany Sachem, had a crest. He had even buttons for his coachman’s coat with a stag’s head engraved upon them. The same device was upon his sealring. It appeared upon his carriage door. It figured on the edges of his dinner-service. It was worked into the ground glass of the door that led from his dining-room to the back stairs. He had his paper stamped with it; and a great many of his neighbors, thinking it a neat and becoming ornament, imitated him in its generous use.
Mrs. Newt’s family had a crest also. She was a Magot—another of the fine old families which came to this country at the earliest possible period. The Magots, however, had no buttons upon their coachman’s coat; one reason of which omission was, perhaps, that they had no coachman. But when the ladies of the Magot family went visiting or shopping they hired a carriage, and insisted that the driver should brush his hat and black his boots; so that it was not every body who knew that it was a livery equipage.
Their friends did, of course; but there were a great many people from the country who gazed at it, in passing, with the same emotion with which they would have contemplated a private carriage; which was highly gratifying to the feelings of the Magots.
Their friends knew it, but friends never remark upon such things. There was old Mrs. Beriah Dagon—dowager Mrs. Dagon, she was called—aunt of Mr. Newt, who never said, “I see the Magots have hired a hackney-coach from Jobbers to make calls in. They quarreled with Gudging over his last bill. Medora Magot has turned her last year’s silk, which is a little stained and worn; but then it does just as well.”
By-and-by her nephew Boniface married Medora’s sister, Nancy.
It was Mrs. Dagon who sat with Mrs. Newt in her parlor, and said to her,
“So your son Abel is coming home. I’m glad to hear it. I hope he knows how to waltz, and isn’t awkward. There are some very good matches to be made; and I like to have a young man settle early. It’s better for his morals. Men are bad people, my dear. I think Maria Chubleigh would do very well for Abel. She had a foolish affair with that Colonel Orson, but it’s all over. Why on earth do girls fall in love with