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CHAPTER
CHAPTER
ROSE, BLANCHE, AND VIOLET.
A few human beings dotted the street, at wide intervals. There was a groom standing at the stable-yard entrance of the Royal George, indolently chewing a blade of grass. The clergyman's wife, hot, dusty, and demure, was shopping. A farmer had just dismounted from a robust white cob, which he left standing at the door of a dismal red-brick house, on the wire blinds of which was painted the word--BANK. Higher up, three ragged urchins were plotting mischief, or arranging some game. A proud young mother was dandling her infant at a shop door, as if desirous that the whole street should be aware of the important fact of her maternity--to be sure, there never was such a beautiful baby before! In the window of that shop--it was a grocer's--a large black cat was luxuriously sleeping on a bed of moist sugar, sunning herself there, too lazy even to disturb the flies which crowded to the spot.
To one who, a stranger to the place, merely cast his eyes down that street, nothing could appear more lifeless--more devoid of all human interest--more unchequered by the vicissitudes of passion. It had the calm of the desert, without the grandeur. In such a place, the current of life would seem monotonously placid; existence itself scarcely better than vegetation. It is not so, however. To those who inhabited the place, it was known that beneath the stillness a stratum of boiling lava was ever ready to burst forth. Every house was really the theatre of some sad comedy, or of some grotesque tragedy. The shop which to an unfamiliar eye was but the depository of retail goods, with John Smith as the retailer, was to an inhabitant the well-known scene of some humble heroism, or ridiculous pretension. John Smith, smirking behind his counter, is not simply an instrument of commerce; he is a husband, a father, and a citizen; he has his follies, his passions, his hopes, and his opinions; he is the object of unreckoned scandals.
To the eye of the stranger who now leisurely paced the street, the town was dull and lifeless, because it had not the incessant noise of a capital, and because he knew nothing of the dramas which were being enacted within its walls. Yet even he was soon to learn that sorrow, "not loud but deep," was weeping ineffectually over a tragedy which touched him nearly.
He was a man of about thirty years of age, with the unmistakeable look of a gentleman, and, to judge from his moustaches and erect bearing, an officer in the army. As he passed her, the proud young mother ceased for a moment to think only of her child, and followed with admiring eyes his retreating form. The echo of his sharp, decisive tread rang through the silent street; and soon he disappeared, turning up towards a large house which fronted the sea.
He knocked at the door, and with an unconscious coquetry smoothed his dark moustache while waiting. The door was opened by a grey-haired butler.
"How d' ye do, Wilson? Are they at home--eh! what's this? you in mourning?"
"Yes, sir. What! don't you know, sir?"
"Yes, sir, yes," replied the butler, shaking his head sorrowfully. "It has been a dreadful blow, sir, to master, and to the young ladies. She was buried Monday week."
The stranger was almost stupefied by this sudden shock.
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