LITMIR.BIZ

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mystery in connection with Mr. King was Mrs. King. He was obviously a gentleman, in the conventional sense of the word, but she was, in every sense, the most beautiful and accomplished lady that ever was seen, according to the judgment of those who knew her – the women who had nursed her in her confinements, and washed and scrubbed for her, and the tradesmen of the town to whom she had gone in her little buggy for occasional stores, and the doctor and the parson, and the children whom she had brought up in such a wonderful manner to be copies (though, it was thought, poor ones) of herself. And yet she had borne to live all the best years of her life, at once a captive and an exile, on that desolate sea-shore – and had loved that harsh and melancholy man with the most faithful and entire devotion – and had suffered her solitude and privations, the lack of everything to which she must have been once accustomed, and the fret and trouble of her husband's bitter moods – without a murmur that anybody had ever heard.

      Both of them were gone now from the cottage on the cliff where they had lived so long together. The idolised mother had been dead for several years, and the harsh, and therefore not much loved nor much mourned, father had lain but a few weeks in his grave beside her; and they had left their children, as Elizabeth described it, more utterly without belongings than ever girls were before. It was a curious position altogether. As far as they knew, they had no relations, and they had never had a friend. Not one of them had left their home for a night since Eleanor was born, and not one invited guest had slept there during the whole of that period. They had never been to school, or had any governess but their mother, or any experience of life and the ways of the world save what they gained in their association with her, and from the books that she and their father selected for them. According to all precedent, they ought to have been dull and rustic and stupid (it was supposed that they were, because they dressed themselves so badly), but they were only simple and truthful in an extraordinary degree. They had no idea what was the "correct thing" in costume or manners, and they knew little or nothing of the value of money; but they were well and widely read, and highly accomplished in all the household arts, from playing the piano to making bread and butter, and as full of spiritual and intellectual aspirations as the most advanced amongst us.

      CHAPTER II.

      A LONELY EYRIE

      "Then we will say Melbourne to begin with. Not for a permanence, but until we have gained a little more experience," said Patty, with something of regret and reluctance in her voice. By this time the sun had set and drawn off all the glow and colour from sea and shore. The island rock was an enchanted castle no longer, and the sails of the fishing-boats had ceased to shine. The girls had been discussing their schemes for a couple of hours, and had come to several conclusions.

      "I think so, Patty. It would be unwise to hurry ourselves in making our choice of a home. We will go to Melbourne and look about us. Paul Brion is there. He will see after lodgings for us and put us in the way of things generally. That will be a great advantage. And then the Exhibition will be coming – it would be a pity to miss that. And we shall feel more as if we belonged to the people here than elsewhere, don't you think? They are more likely to be kind to our ignorance and help us."

      "Oh, we don't want anyone to help us."

      "Someone must teach us what we don't know, directly or indirectly – and we are not above being taught."

      "But," insisted Patty, "there is no reason why we should be beholden to anybody. Paul Brion may look for some lodgings for us, if he likes – just a place to sleep in for a night or two – and tell us where we can find a house – that's all we shall want to ask of him or of anybody. We will have a house of our own, won't we? – so as not to be overlooked or interfered with."

      "Oh, of course!" said Eleanor promptly. "A landlady on the premises is not to be thought of for a moment. Whatever we do, we don't want to be interfered with, Elizabeth."

      "No, my dear – you can't desire to be free from interference – unpleasant interference – more than I do. Only I don't think we shall be able to be so independent as Patty thinks. I fancy, too, that we shall not care to be, when we begin to live in the world with other people. It will be so charming to have friends!"

      "Oh – friends!" Patty exclaimed, with a little toss of the head. "It is too soon to think about friends – when we have so much else to think about! We must have some lessons in Melbourne, Elizabeth. We will go to that library every day and read. We will make our stay there a preparation for England and Germany and Italy. Oh, Nell, Nell! think of seeing the great Alps and the Doge's Palace before we die!"

      "Ah!" responded Eleanor, drawing a long breath.

      They all rose from the grass and stood still an instant, side by side, for a last look at the calm ocean which had been the background of their simple lives. Each was sensible that it was a solemn moment, in view of the changes to come, but not a word was spoken to imply regret. Like all the rest of us, they were ungrateful for the good things of the present and the past, and were not likely to understand how much they loved the sea, that, like the nurse of Rorie Mhor, had lulled them to sleep every night since they were born, while the sound of its many waters was still in their ears.

      "Sam Dunn is out late," said Eleanor, pointing to a dark dot far away, that was a glittering sail a little while ago.

      "It is a good night for fishing," said Patty.

      And then they turned their faces landward, and set forth on their road home. Climbing to the top of the cliff on the slope of which they had been sitting, they stood upon a wide and desolate heath covered in all directions with a short, stiff scrub, full of wonderful wild-flowers (even at this barren season of the year), but without a tree of any sort; a picturesque desert, but still a desert, though with fertile country lying all around it – as utterly waste as the irreclaimable Sahara. Through this the girls wended their way by devious tracks amongst the bushes, ankle deep in the loose sand; and then again striking the cliff, reached a high point from which they had a distant view of human habitations – a little township, fringing a little bay; a lighthouse beyond it, with its little star shining steadily through the twilight; a little pier, running like a black thread through the silvery surf; and even a little steamer from Melbourne lying at the pier-head, veiling the rock-island, that now frowned like a fortress behind it, in a thin film of grey smoke from its invisible little funnels. But they did not go anywhere near these haunts of their fellow-men. Hugging the cliff, which was here of a great height, and honeycombed with caves in which the green sea-water rumbled and thundered like a great drum in the calm weather, and like a furious bombardment in a storm, they followed a slender track worn in the scant grass by their own light feet, until they came to a little depression in the line of the coast – a hollow scooped out of the great headland as if some Titanic monster of a prehistoric period had risen up out of the waves and bitten it – where, sheltered and hidden on three sides by grassy banks, sloping gently upward until they overtopped the chimneys, and with all the great plain of the sea outspread beneath the front verandah, stood the house which had been, but was to be no more, their home.

      It was well worth the money that the storekeeper had offered for it. It was a really charming house, though people had not been accustomed to look at it in that light – though it was built of roughest weatherboard that had never known a paint-brush, and heavily roofed with great sheets of bark that were an offence to the provincial eye, accustomed to the chaste elegance of corrugated zinc. A strong, and sturdy, and genuine little house – as, indeed, it had to be to hold its own against the stormy blasts that buffeted it; mellowed and tanned with time and weather, and with all its honest, rugged features softened under a tender drapery of hardy English ivy and climbing plants that patient skill and care had induced to grow, and even to thrive in that unfriendly air. The verandah, supported on squat posts, was a continuation of the roof; and that roof, with green leaves curling upward over it, was so conspicuously solid, and so widely overspread and over-shadowed the low walls, that it was about all that could be seen of the house from the ridges of the high land around it. But lower down, the windows – nearly all set in rude but substantial door frames – opened like shy eyes in the shadow of the deep eaves of the verandah, like eyes that had expression in them; and the retiring walls bore on numerous nails and shelves a miscellaneous but orderly collection of bird-cages, flower boxes, boating and fishing apparatus, and odds and ends of various kinds, that gave a charming

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