The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-02-17
CHAPTER vi.

Shall you both like it so very
much? Then" said Lady Car, sit
ting straight up with a look Of pale
resolution in her face which did not
seem called for by such a simple de-
termination, then, children, you
shall GO"
"Hurrahi" cried Tom, that's the
jolliest thing I've heard for long;
that's exactly what I want! Il want
to know it," he cried; Il do want to
know it before I go there and settle
down"
Lady Car turned her eyes upon him
with a wonderful inquiring look.
Nothing, indeed, could be more nat
ural. Yet to hear that some one
would go there, not for holidays, but
to settle down, oppressed poor Car
rvs soul. Sac faded into whiteness,
as if she was fainting- 1t seemed to
her that lis father looked over Toms
shoulder-the rather whom the boy
was so like-his living image, as peo-
pie said; not so tall and strong, but
with the features and the eyes and
the aspect, which poor Garry had so
feared.
Beau" cried both the young peo-
pie in one voice, "Oh, I believe it's
his doing, Tom! He must have a
hand in it, Beau, next holidays we
are going to the Towers. Mother
says so. We are going next holidays
to the Towers"
your mother is full of sense"
said Beaufort, who had just come in.
II knew that she would see it to be
the right thing to do"
Poor Carry! She felt as if she
could not bear it, this sacrifice of all
her own feelings and wishes. She
said to herself that she could not do
it; that before the time came she
must die! And perhaps there vas a
forlorn hope that this was what
would happen in her heart as she sat
and saw her husband and her chill
dren rejoicing over the tea table
most naturally, most justly, she
knew; at least it was but natural and
just so far as the children were con
cerned.
She had to give great orders and
opening up of the house. 1t was so
long since it had been shut up. Tom
had been only six, and now he was
seventeen and a half. She wrote to
her sister Edith and to Edith's hus-
band, John Erskine, as well as to
the. pastor on the estate and the SER
wants who were in charge. And
there were a number of things sent
from town Ito make it habitable."
TO make it habitable! She could not
help the feeling that this was what
he. would have liked least of all,
when she remembered the wonder
fully costly catafalques of furniture
of which he had been so proud, and
the decorations that would make poor
Edward miserable. Edward did not
mind the fact that it was his money
which made Easton. so comfortable:
but to put up with his wardrobes and
sideboards-that was a different mat
ter. Even in her humiliation and
in the much greater troubles she had
to occupy her, she could not help a
shudder to think of Edward in the
midst of all those snowy relics of the
past. Eleven years had not dimmed
her own recollection of her own sur-
roundings. She remembered with an
acute recollection which was pain
where everything stood, and sent de-
tailed directions as to how all was
to be altered. Dear Edith, do see
that everything is changed. Don't
let anything look as it used to do. 1t
would kill me il the rooms were left
as they were" she wrote to her Sis
ter. "Do-do see that everything is
changed"
. Perhaps it was by dint of having
thus exhausted all feeling and fore
: stalled all emotion that when she
did find herself at the Towers at last
it was almost without sentiment of
any kind. Edith had carried out her
consigne very well, and she was
standing under the much medieval
doorway to receive her sister when
Lady Car drove up. The sisters had
not net for a long time-not for sew
eral years, and the meeting in itself
did much to break the spell. Garry
awoke with wonder and a little relief
to find herself next morning in her
old house, and to feel that she did not
mind. Torrance did not meet her at
his " hearth; he did not look at her
from the balcony; he did not follow
her about the corridor. She was very
much relieved after all her imaginary
anguish to feel that the reality was
less dreadful than she had feared.
And it was something to see the
children so truly happy. The quiet
little Janet, who said so little, was
quite reused out of herself. She be-
came almost noisy, rushing with Tom
from the top of the tower to the very
cellars, going over everything, Her
voice mingled shrill in the hurrah
with which Tom contemplated the flag
Of which he had dreamed, the sign
of his own domination in this house
of his fathers, which was to the boy
as if it had been the shrine of the
noblest of races. Il see now," he
said, that rag at Easton was all a
sham, but this is the real thing"
This is the real thing" said Janet,
decisively; 1.-The other was only ION
sense" They had not been twenty
four honrS in tho n1oca bofor, 4Lo,.