Alone In The World
A few days found Florence settled in her new home, and recognized as the instructress of Mrs. Railton’s daughters. It was fortunate for her that Susan Denham had warned her to expect many anxieties and unpleasantries in the duties she had undertaken, otherwise her inexperience and natural sensitiveness to slights and unkindness would have made her throw them up in disgust. As it was, both her patience and fortitude were greatly tried; for Mrs. Railton—a most indulgent mother—had no control over her unruly offspring; and the schoolroom was a scene of noise and contention that had made more than one governess resign in despair. Perhaps Florence’s innate dignity assisted in awing the young rebels with whom she found herself brought into contact; and the determination to persevere, let her difficulties be as great as they might, was ultimately crowned with success.
But ere the hour arrived when she could aver with truth that her pupils were docile and even affectionate, she had passed through a long and fatiguing ordeal. The spring had been followed by summer, and summer, in its turn, was merging into the deep-russet tints of autumn.
Mr. Heriton had never thoroughly recovered strength; but he was able to wander about the fields adjoining Mrs. Bick’s cottage, and plan out the villa residences with which he intended to adorn it as soon as he could find money for the purpose. Those few persons he encountered, and to whom he divulged his intentions, and talked largely of his former grandeur, came to regard him as a harmless lunatic, and either humored his fancies or avoided him. Mrs. Bick, who saw the reluctance with which his daughter left him to attend her pupils, and the alarm she felt if he were missing at her return, good-naturedly endured many a long detail to keep him quietly at home. Mr. Heriton, pleased to have so patient a listener, would fetch out his papers, and sketch, and plan, and lose himself in endless calculations, while Mrs. Bick, knitting in hand, would sit by and nod and doze until the curls dropped over the bridge of her nose and awoke her.
When the glorious harvest moon arose, and nightly flooded the fair earth with her radiance, it seemed too beautiful to stay indoors, and Florence would wander up and down the garden, while her father joined Daniel Bick in the porch. There was a seat on either side, and the two old men would rest there, sometimes chatting sociably, but more frequently silent, for there was little in common between them but their feebleness. Sometimes when Florence drew near she would hear her father talking in the eager, restless way she so disliked, about the fortune he yet intended to amass, and the best manner of accomplishing it. If an answer were demanded, old Daniel generally gave it in some quaint proverb or text from the only book he ever read—his Bible.
“It may be a great thing to be rich, master,” she heard him say one evening in his shrill, quavering voice, “but enough’s as good as a feast; and if the Almighty be with us, what more should we want?”
“True—true. You are a well-meaning man,” Mr. Heriton made answer; “but you have no one’s future to be anxious about as I have. Think of my daughter, the heiress and sole representative of the Heritons! Do you suppose I can be contented until I have restored her to her proper position in society?”
“Heaven bless her!” said Daniel. “I dunno why ye need be troubled about her, master. She’s a good daughter to your old age, and ye know there’s a promise for them as honor their father and mother.”
“True—true. But if I could realize a few thousands and invest them in her name——” Mr. Heriton began, but Daniel’s tremulous accents again checked him.
“Excuse me, master, but don’t ye think ye turn your mind too much to the gold and silver and forget the more precious things that’s laid up for all on us in heaven?”
There was a silence; and Florence stayed her light footstep on the gravel to listen for her father’s reply. It was spoken with unusual earnestness:
“My friend, I’m afraid you are right. I’m terribly afraid that I have not thought half so much of these things as I ought to have done. But I’ll alter, Heaven helping me. I tell you what we’ll do, my good Daniel: every night before we sleep my daughter shall read to us all. It will do me good. I always sleep better when her sweet voice is the last sound in my ears.”
Florence moved noiselessly away, and, lifting her face to the calm sky above, prayed that her father’s resolves might not be futile ones, but that the simple remonstrance of old Daniel might induce him to try and subdue the feverish craving for wealth which blighted their otherwise peaceful existence.
