CHAPTER XI.

EVENING AND MORNING.

"How foolish--how weak--how wrong has been my conduct through this day!" murmured Emmie to herself, as, after dismissing her attendant, she sat alone in the small apartment which she had chosen for her own. The room was a contrast to that which had at first been assigned to the young maiden. The cell, as Bruce had called it, did not possess even a fireplace, and might have belonged to some cloistered ascetic. The stained, dusky, peeling-off paper on the narrow walls had its blots and patches made only more visible by the whiteness of three large unframed maps, which the practical Bruce had fastened up for his own convenience. The young man had rather a contempt for the luxuries in which Vibert always indulged if he could; to the idea of Bruce they were only suitable for ladies, or those to whom age or ill-health rendered them needful. Bruce considered it unworthy of a man in the prime of his life to care about the softness of a cushion, or the temperature of an apartment. Thus, in making household arrangements, Bruce had selected his own quarters with very little regard to personal comfort, while he had spared no pains in trying to secure that of his sister.

Emmie now suffered from her brother's unselfishness, as well as from her own nervous fears. Hasty arrangements had indeed been made to improve the appearance of the cell. Some of Emmie's books had been transferred to the bookcase by Susan, nor had footstool or guitar been forgotten; but for her sofa there was no space, and the young lady's toilette-table, draped with white muslin, looked incongruous in so mean an apartment. Perhaps the discomfort of that fireless room on a damp November night was not without its effect on the spirits of Emmie, who was accustomed to the refinements and elegances of civilized life, and who was not indifferent to them; but the melancholy which oppressed the maiden chiefly rose from a deeper source, a profound discontent with herself.

It was Emmie's custom to review, every night ere she went to rest, the events of the preceding day, with self-examination as to the part which she had acted. The review had hitherto been very imperfect, for she had never traced her errors in practice to the source from whence most of them had proceeded. Instead of recognizing _mistrust_ as a besetting sin, it had hardly occurred to Emmie that it was anything meriting blame. The occurrences of that Friday had been a striking comment upon the words of her uncle, which Emmie now recalled to memory.

"Unreasonable fear,--uncontrolled fear,--what has it done for me to-day?" mused Emmie. "It has destroyed my peace, most utterly destroyed it, and cast needless gloom over my arrival in my new home. Fear has made me displease both my brothers, has lowered me in the eyes even of my servants; it has caused an accident which has been painful, and which, but for Heaven's mercy, might have even been fatal. Should I have lost self-command in the storm, had I recognized the presence of Him who grasps the lightning in His hand, and whose voice is heard in the thunder? If my heart were indeed the abode of His Spirit, would that heart fail me at the bare thought of--hark! what was that sound?" Emmie started and turned pale at the cry of an owl outside her window; in her home near London she had never heard the hoot of the bird of night. The cry was repeated, and though the nervous girl now guessed its cause, in her superstitious mind it was still linked with fearful fancies.

Emmie, to compose herself, took up her Bible, and opening it, turned to the Twenty-seventh Psalm. She read the heart-stirring verse: _The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?_

"Why cannot I make this glorious assurance of faith my own?" thought Emmie. "Why am I, a Christian girl in an English home, troubled with fears which would better beseem some poor ignorant African, worshipping his fetich, and knowing nothing of a protecting, loving God! I must struggle against this enemy, mistrust; I must try to bring my very thoughts into subjection,--those thoughts now so full of fears dishonouring to my gracious Master. Where is my reason,--where is my faith? I cannot believe that there is real danger in sleeping next to the bricked-up room, or even my selfishness would hardly have induced me to put dear Bruce in a post of peril. I must have been secretly assured that the danger existed only in fancy. But I am now too weary to be able to reason; I need a night's rest to enable me to distinguish between facts and the creations of an excited brain. I am so tired--my nerves are so weak! I shall scarcely now be able to rouse my mind even for the exercise of prayer, and by prayer alone dare I hope to conquer mistrust."

Emmie's rest was on that night troubled by a confused medley of dreams, the natural consequences of the excitement which she had undergone through the preceding day. Nothing was distinct, but the images of Harper and Jael Jessel mixed themselves up with the phantoms which their weird stories had raised in the imaginative mind of the girl. Emmie, early deprived of the guidance of a sensible mother, had often made an unprofitable use of her leisure; she had read much of the literature which is called sensational; she had pondered over tales of horror; her mind had been fed on unwholesome food. Emmie had let fancy lead her where it list, and it would be no easy task to undo the mischief wrought in idle hours under the name of amusement.

Morning came at last, and brightness and hope with the morning. How different objects appear in sunshine from what they seem to be when only faintly visible at night! Emmie gazed from her window, and greatly admired the prospect before her. Never, perhaps, in a well-wooded country, does Nature display more exquisite beauty than in the early part of November, when the foliage, thinned indeed, but brilliant in tints of crimson and gold, varied with russet and green, is lit up by the glorious sun. The orb of day, just rising, was overhung by rosy clouds; the air was fresh and fragrant after the storm; myriads of dew-drops glittered on the lawn; all was brightness above and below! Emmie thought that she could be very happy even at Myst Court, and anticipated with pleasure looking over the mansion, exploring the grounds, and examining the state of the garden.

When Emmie quitted her little room, the sunlight was streaming through the large east window which lighted the staircase, throwing gorgeous stains of crimson and azure from its coloured panes upon the wide oaken steps. What had been dreary and ghost-like by night, had become picturesque and romantic by day. Emmie tripped lightly down to the breakfast-room, where she found Bruce looking out his place in the book of family prayers.

"Did you sleep well?" was the sister's eager greeting as she approached her brother; for Emmie had reproached herself a little for exposing Bruce to the chance of any nocturnal annoyance by the exchange of the rooms.

"I slept very well,--never better," replied Bruce with a slightly sarcastic smile. "I had no expectation of seeing goblin or ghost, and was certainly troubled by none. I never knew a place more perfectly still; so far as I could judge, not a mouse stirred or a cricket chirrupped in the so-called haunted chamber. But that west room is by far too pretty and luxurious for a student like me. As ladies are allowed to change their minds once, I would strongly advise you, Emmie, to let us resume the first arrangement: do you go back to the west room, and let me study or sulk in my own little cell."

"Not now," replied Emmie Trevor; and, to do her justice, her motive in declining the second change was as much consideration for her brother's comfort as the repugnance, which she had not yet quite overcome, to sleeping next door to the haunted chamber.

"Why has Master Vibert not made his appearance either at prayers or at breakfast?" asked Bruce, when, half an hour afterwards, he was enjoying the cup of hot coffee prepared by his sister.

"Vibert was tired last night, and has probably overslept himself," replied Emmie.

"Not he," said Bruce, "for I saw him from my window this morning, more than an hour ago, loitering about the grounds. Vibert must have heard the gong sound for breakfast. No; the fact is--you must have seen it from his manner last evening--that Vibert is in a huff because I called him a selfish idiot."

"I am so very, _very_ sorry that you called him that," cried Emmie, with a look of distress. "You do not consider, dear Bruce, what real harm your sternness may do to our younger brother. Vibert is so affectionate--"

"He cares for no one on earth but himself," said Bruce. "Look at his conduct yesterday, and think what might have been its result."

"Driving off from the station without waiting for you was but a foolish, boyish prank," pleaded Emmie. "As for the accident that occurred, that cannot be laid to Vibert's charge; it was caused by my catching hold of his arm just when the pony was turning a corner."

"What made you do that?" inquired Bruce.

"I was foolishly frightened at the lightning," replied Emmie meekly.

"Frightened, always frightened, at everything and at nothing!" said Bruce, but rather in sorrow than in anger. He was far more indulgent to the failings of Emmie than he was to those of Vibert.

The gentle girl, who was very anxious to bring about a reconciliation between her two brothers continued her mild expostulation with Bruce.

"I am sure that you do not think Vibert an idiot, though he may, perhaps, be a little selfish. I have heard you say yourself that Vibert has plenty of brain."

"If he were not too lazy and self-indulgent to work it," interrupted the elder brother.

"You do not think--you never have thought poor dear Vibert a selfish idiot," persisted Emmie; "and oh! Bruce, if I could only persuade you to tell him that you are sorry for having spoken that one hasty word, if--"

"Apologize to Vibert! never!" cried Bruce, and he pushed his chair back from the table.

"Surely it is noble, generous, right to own to a brother that in a hasty moment we have done him a wrong!" said Emmie with an earnestness which brought the moisture into her eyes.

Bruce made no reply to his sister, but rose from his seat and left the room; not hurriedly, not passionately, but with that expression on his calm face in which Emmie easily read the unuttered thought, "I need no one's advice to guide me, and I will receive rebuke from no one."

Emmie breathed a heavy sigh. Bruce was in other points so noble, so good,--oh, why did he shut and bar so firmly against the entrance of duty and affection one haunted room of his heart! Emmie was distressed on account of Vibert; she knew that her volatile younger brother needed the support of the stronger sense, the firmer principle of the elder,--that the influence of Bruce might be of inestimable importance to Vibert. And all this influence was to be worse than thrown away, because the professed follower of Him who was meek and lowly would not bend his proud spirit to own that he had committed a fault!