Left at Home Part 10

"Why, I don't know; some of the others said things about you; and, besides, you know you are."

He would not say that he had noticed Arthur Vivyan's ways, and that he had seen there, what showed him there was a difference between him and the other boys; still less would he tell him just then, that there was an aching wish in his heart that he could say the same for himself.

"Yes," Arthur said, "I am, Edgar; and do you know I wish you were."

"How do you know I am not?"

"Well, I don't _know_," said Arthur; "but I don't much think you are. Are you?"

"No," said Edgar, pulling violently at the leaves that grew on the bushes near.

"Shouldn't you like to be?"

"What is the use of liking?" asked Edgar North. "I shall be if it is G.o.d's will, and I shan't if it is not."

"Oh," said Arthur, "that is a dreadful way to talk. I'm quite sure it is not the right way."

"Well, I know I have thought a great deal about it, especially when I have been ill, and it always makes me miserable, so I try not to think, and I can't think what made me begin it now. Do let us talk about something else."

And suddenly Edgar became very much interested in the subject of the next local examination, in which several of his schoolfellows expected to take part, and was much more lively for the rest of the walk than he had been before.

But he did not seem to avoid Arthur; on the contrary, after that day, he often seemed to try to be near him; and at length he surprised him very much, by asking if he would come out for another walk. Arthur remembered the last one that they had had, and he wondered why! it was not for any pleasure to himself that he agreed, but at any rate this time it was not a cricket-day.

"You did not want to come, did you?" asked Edgar, after some little time, when they had been walking along through the fields, and had now reached a distant one, where the hawthorn hedge was throwing a sheltering shade.

"And I expect you would just as soon sit down, as walk on further. Shall we stop here?"

"What a queer fellow you are, Edgar," said Arthur; "I can't make you out at all."

"How am I queer?" asked Edgar.

"Why, you _are_ queer; you are different from all the others. Perhaps it is because you are not strong."

"No, I know I am not," Edgar said; "the doctor at my grandmother's used to say I should not live."

Arthur looked very earnestly at Edgar's pale, pa.s.sionless face.

"Did he really? Are you sorry?"

"Oh, I dare say he did not know! and if he did, I cannot help it; so what is the use of being sorry or glad? Perhaps you may not, just as likely."

"But," said Arthur, "if I had heard any one say that about me, I should think more about it than you seem to do."

"Why, it would be all right for you, because you are converted, you know."

"But, Edgar," and Arthur looked very earnestly into his dark, sad eyes, "don't you wish you were?"

Edgar's eyes fell before his gaze. He looked away, and seemed to be dreamily watching the glistening sunbeams, darting through the trees; but presently the tears gathered, and he said, with a weary sigh,

"Oh, Arthur, if you only knew how much I wish it! if you only knew what I would give, to know I was converted!"

"Didn't your mother ever talk to you about it?" asked Arthur, remembering the sweet words that had fallen into his own heart; "or your father?"

"I don't remember my mother," said Edgar, "and papa died two years ago; but it was two years before that, when I saw him last."

"Poor Edgar," said Arthur softly; for, though he did not say this had been a bitter grief to him, there was something in his tone so hopelessly sad and sorrowful, that the tears came into Arthur's eyes to hear it.

Edgar saw the tears in Arthur's eyes, and a little faint smile came in his own. "You are very different from the others, Arthur," he said. "I haven't had any one kind to me, since papa went to India."

"Did your father go to India?" Arthur asked brightly. "So did mine. So we are alike, then."

"Ah, but yours will come back some day, and your mother too; but mine will never, never come back any more!"

"Tell me about them," said Arthur.

"Well, you know I told you mamma died ever so long ago, so I don't remember her at all; but papa used to tell me how nice she was, and he used to show me her picture."

"What kind of a face had she?" asked Arthur. "I wonder whether she was like my mother."

"Well, she had very nice eyes, brown ones."

"Mamma's eyes were blue, I think," said Arthur.

"And brown hair; and she looked very kind."

"Oh, then they are alike in one thing!"

"Papa used to keep it in his pocket," Edgar continued, "and he used to show it to me often when grandmamma was not in the room. I don't think she liked it, because I remember once when we were looking at it she came into the room, and papa put it back into his pocket directly."

"Who used you to live with then?"

"Oh, I have always lived at my grandmother's, only now she is dead. That's who I am in mourning for," said Edgar, pointing to his black dress. "But father used often to come and see us. It was his home too when he had leave, other times he was with his regiment. Then, four years ago, they were ordered to India, and he died of cholera, when he had been there two years; and I never saw him since, four years ago."

"Poor Edgar," said Arthur again. He knew enough of loneliness and sorrow himself, to feel what a sad, empty life Edgar North's must be, without anything in heaven or earth to make him glad.

"Did you love your father very much?" asked Arthur presently.

"Oh, Arthur, I did love him so!" said Edgar very sadly. "You see, I had no one else. I remember it was so very nice, when grandmamma had the letter to say he was coming; and he never let me have much lessons, when he was at home."

"Was it in the town you lived, or the country?"

"It was near the town. We lived in rather a small house, that had a garden. I suppose I shall never see it again. Well, I don't much mind."

"Where shall you spend the holidays?"

"At my uncle's in London; he has ever so many children, and I dare say they will not want me."

"I think that is so strange of you, Edgar," said Arthur. "You seem always to think n.o.body wants you, and that makes you disagreeable, and then they do not. Now, I don't see why they should not want you, as well as any one else."

"Well, I can't help thinking what is true," said Edgar.