Norston's Rest. Ann S. Stephens

over him, for he patted her arm with his rough hand, awkwardly enough, not being given to much display of affection, and told her that she had for once got her own way, and mustn't be frightened out of what sleep was left for them between that and daylight by a smudge of soot in the candle.

      "You can't expect candles to burn after midnight without crumpling up their wicks," he said, philosophically: "so come to bed. The lad is sound asleep by this time, I dare say."

      These kind arguments did not have the desired effect, for the mother's eyes were full of tears, and her hand quivered under the weight of the candlestick, spite of all her efforts to conceal it from the observation of her husband.

      In less than ten minutes the farmer was asleep, but his wife, being of a finer and more sensitive nature, could not rest. Like most countrywomen of her class, she mingled some degree of superstition even with her most religious thoughts. Notwithstanding her terror occasioned by the snarling dog, she might have slept well, for the scene that had threatened to end in rageful assault had subsided in unexpected concession; but the funereal blackness in that candle coming so close upon her fright completely unnerved her. Certain it is no sleep came to those weary eyes. Close them as she would, that unseemly light glared upon them, and to her weird imagination seemed to point out some danger for her son.

      At last the poor woman was seized with a desperate yearning of motherhood, which had often led her to her son's room when the helplessness of infancy or the perils of sickness appealed to her—a yearning that drew her softly from her bed. Folding a shawl over her night dress, she mounted the stairs and entered the chamber where the young man lay in slumber so profound that he was quite unconscious of her presence; for neither conscience nor tenderness ever took growth enough in his nature to disturb an animal want of any kind. But the light of a waning moon lay upon his face, so the woman fell upon her knees, and gazing on those features, which might not have seemed in any degree perfect to another, soothed herself into prayer, and, out of the tranquillity that brings, into the sleep her nature craved so much.

      The morning light found her kneeling thus, with her cheek resting on his hand, which, in her tender unconsciousness, she had stolen and hidden away there.

CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

      CONFESSING HIS LOVE.

      NORSTON'S REST" was now in a state of comparative quiet. The throng of visitors that had made the place so brilliant had departed, and, for the first time in months, Sir Noel could enjoy the company of his son with a feeling of restfulness; for now the discipline of school and college lay behind the young man, and he was ready to begin life in earnest. After travelling a while on the continent he had entered upon the dignity of heir-ship with all the pomp and splendor of a great ovation, into which he had brought so much of kindly memory and generous purpose that his popularity almost rivalled the love and homage with which his father was regarded.

      Sir Noel was a proud man—so proud that the keenest critic must have failed to discover one trace of the arrogant self-assumption that so many persons are ready to display as a proof of superiority. With Sir Noel this feeling was a delicate permeation of his whole being, natural to it as the blue blood that flowed in his veins, and as little thought of. Profound self-respect rendered encroachment on the reserve of another simply impossible. During the stay of his son at "The Rest" one fond hope had possessed the baronet, and that grew out of his intense love of two human beings that were dearest to him on earth—the young heir and Lady Rose Hubert.

      It could not be asserted that ambition led to this wish; though the lady's rank was of the highest, and she was the inheritor of estates that made her a match even for the heir of "Norston's Rest." The baronet in the isolation of his long widowerhood had found in this fair girl all that he could have desired in a daughter of his own. Her delicacy of bloom and beauty appealed to his æsthetic taste. Her gayety and the spirituelle sadness into which it sometimes merged gave his home life a delightful variety. He could not think of her leaving "The Rest" without a pang such as noble-hearted fathers feel when they give away their daughters at the altar. To Sir Noel, Lady Rose was the brightest and most perfect being on earth, and the great desire of his heart was that she should become his daughter in fact, as she already was in his affections.

      Filled with this hope he had watched with some anxiety for the influence this young lady's loveliness might produce upon his son, without in any way intruding his wishes into the investigation; for, with regard to the perfect freedom which every heart should have to choose a companionship of love for itself, this old patrician was peculiarly sensitive. Having in his own early years suffered, as few men ever had, by the uprooting of one great hope, he was peculiarly anxious that no such abiding calamity should fall on the only son and heir of his house, but he was not the less interested in the choice that son might make when the hour of decision came. With all his liberality of sentiment it had never entered the thoughts of the baronet that a man of his race could choose ignobly, or look beneath the rank in which he was born. To him perfect liberty of choice was limited, by education and family traditions, to a selection among the highest and the best in his own proud sphere of life. Thus it became possible that his sentiments, uttered under this unexplained limitation, might be honestly misunderstood.

      Some months had passed since the young heir had taken up his home at "The Rest"—pleasant months to the baronet, who had looked forward to this period with the longing affection which centred everything of love and pride on this one human being that man can feel for man. At first it had been enough of happiness that his son was there, honored, content—with an unclouded and brilliant future before him—but human wishes are limitless, and the strong desire that the young man should anchor his heart where his own wishes lay grew into a pleasant belief. How could it be otherwise, when two beings so richly endowed were brought into the close companionship of a common home?

      One day, when the father and son chanced to be alone in the grand old library, where Sir Noel spent so much of his time, the conversation seemed naturally to turn upon some future arrangements regarding the estate.

      "It has been a pleasant burden to me so far," said the old gentleman, "because every day made the lands a richer inheritance for you and your children; but now I am only waiting for one event to place the heaviest responsibility on your young shoulders."

      "You mean," said the young man, flushing a little, "that you would impose two burdens upon me at once—a vast estate and some lady to preside over the old house."

      The baronet smiled, and answered with a faint motion of the head.

      Then the young man answered, laughingly:

      "There is plenty of time for that. I have everything to learn before so great a trust should be given me. As for the house, no one could preside there better than the Lady Rose."

      The baronet's face brightened.

      "No," he said, "we could hardly expect that. In all England it would be difficult to find a creature so lovely and so well fitted to the position."

      Sir Noel faltered as he concluded this sentence. He had not intended to connect the idea of this lady so broadly with his wishes. To his refined nature it seemed as if her dignity had been sacrificed.

      "She is, indeed, a marvel of beauty and goodness," answered the young man, apparently unmindful of the words that had disturbed his father. "I for one am in no haste to disturb her reign at 'Norston's Rest'."

      Sir Noel was about to say: "But it might be made perpetual," but the sensitive delicacy natural to the man checked the thought before it formed itself into speech.

      "Still it is in youth that the best foundations for domestic happiness are laid. I look upon it as a great misfortune when circumstances forbid a man to follow the first and freshest impulses of his heart—"

      Here the baronet broke off, and a deep unconscious sigh completed the sentence.

      Young Hurst looked at his father with awakened interest. The expression of sadness that came