THE WOMAN BY THE HEARTH.
Mrs. Home went back to the small house in Kentish Town, and Miss Harman
sat on by her comfortable fire. The dainty lunch was brought in and laid
on the table, the young lady did not touch it. The soft-voiced,
soft-footed servant brought in some letters on a silver salver. They
looked tempting letters, thick and bulgy. Charlotte Harman turned her
head to glance at them but she left them unopened by her side. She had
come in very hungry, from her visit to the publishers, and these letters
which now lay so close had been looked forward to with some impatience,
but now she could neither eat nor read. At last a pretty little
timepiece which stood on a shelf over her head struck four, and a clock
from a neighboring church re-echoed the sound. Almost at the same
instant there came a tap at her room door.
"That is John," said Charlotte. She shivered a little. Her face had
changed a good deal, but she rose from her seat and came forward to meet
her lover.
"Ready, Charlotte?" he said, laying his two hands on her shoulders; then
looking into her face he started back in some alarm. "My dear, my
dearest, something has happened; what is the matter?"
This young woman was the very embodiment of truth. She did not dream of
saying, "Nothing is the matter." She looked up bravely into the eyes she
loved best in the world and answered,----
"A good deal is the matter, John. I am very much vexed and--and
troubled."
"You will tell me all about it; you will let me help you?" said the
lover, tenderly.
"Yes, John dear, but not to-night. I want to think to-night. I want to
know more. To-morrow you shall hear; certainly to-morrow. No, I will not
go out with you. Is my father in? Is Uncle Jasper in?"
"Your father is out, and your uncle is going. I left him buttoning on
his great-coat in the hall."
"Oh! I must see Uncle Jasper; forgive me, I must see him for a minute."
She flew downstairs, leaving John Hinton standing alone, a little
puzzled and a little vexed. Breathless she arrived in the hall to find
her uncle descending the steps; she rushed after him and laid her hand
on his shoulder.
"Uncle Jasper, I want you. Where are you going?"
"Hoity-toity," said the old gentleman, turning round in some surprise,
and even dismay when he caught sight of her face. "I am going to the
club, child. What next. I sent Hinton up to you. What more do you want?"
"I want you. I have a story to tell you and a question to ask you. You
must come back."
"Lottie, I said I would have nothing to do with those books of yours,
and I won't. I hate novels, and I hate novelists. Forgive me, child. I
don't hate you; but if your father and John Hinton between them mean to
spoil a fine woman by encouraging her to become that monster of nature,
a blue-stocking, I won't help them, and that's flat. There now. Let me
go."
"It is no fiction I want to ask you, Uncle Jasper. It is a true tale,
one I have just heard. It concerns me and you and my father. It has
pained me very much, but I believe it can be cleared up. I would rather
ask you than my father about it, at least at first; but either of you
can answer what I want to know; so if you will not listen to me I can
speak to my father after dinner."
Uncle Jasper had one of those faces which reveal nothing, and it
revealed nothing now. But the keen eyes looked hard into the open gray
eyes of the girl who stood by his side.
"What thread out of that tangled skein has she got into her head?" he
whispered to himself. Aloud he said, "I will come back to dinner,
Charlotte, and afterwards you shall take me up to your little snuggery.
If you are in trouble, my dear, you had better confide in me than in
your father. He does not--does not look very strong."
Then he walked down the street; but when he reached his club he did not
enter it. He walked on and on. He puzzling, not so much over his niece's
strange words as over something else. Who was that woman who sat by
Charlotte's hearth that day?