THE WEST SHORE.
241
" Perhaps bo-I don't know."
" But you like it, surely?"
" Not half bo well as town."
" Good Leavens! Miss Milward! Can you look at
these lovely hills and valleys why, just look about you
a minute, and hoar the musio of the birds and insects
tuid that dulightf ul little waterfall, and the banks full of
ferns and wild flowers. Now, can you Bay that New
York has anything to compare with it?"
" It is beautiful," she was forced to admit,as she
stopped with him behind the others to take in the scone,
" but it is not that It is difforont with you. You were
born here. Your friends, all you care for, are here. I
know what you are thinking. You look it, if you don't
say it, whenever we meet that I am ungrateful, dissat
isfied." " You seem so unhappy, and I think it is a pity. I
do not allude to that," he said, lowering his voice as his
eyes fell on her mourning, " a great trouble can only lo
softened by time."
" You seem to think that pretty scenery, a roof over
your head, and fine weather, are all that are needed for
complete happiness," said Emily, indignantly. " They
may be enough for soino pooplo, but they aro not for
me. You can't understand the want of some 0110 to
talk to who feels as you fuel; whose ideas in short, I
am out of place. To bo happy, one must have friends;
and people can't care for each other who haven't s sin
gle thought in common."
" You do not give mo credit for much intellect, Miss
Milward; but apart from that, if you will forgive me for
saying so, I think there is more than one here who
would be quite capable of entering into your thoughts
and feelings if you would ouly allow them to try."
Emily said no more, but walked quickly so that they
soon rejoined her father and aunt. There was a flush
on her cheek, and a compression atxuit her mouth that
showed she was offended.
" Why did I talk to him?" she asked horself angrily.
" I might have known what to expect Suppose it was
because he has more sense than most of these oountry
people."
Shortly after, Blnkoly took leave, while tlio others
walkod home almost in silence. The faruinr looked
sideways more than once at his daughter's face; but sa
he received ouly monosyllables in reply to the remarks
he threw out at intervals, he gave np and became moody
and abstracted himself.
The evening being sultry aud oppressive in-doors,
Emily stole out and wandored alone in the dusk in the
large, old-fashioned garden. The air was full of the
scent of stocks, pinks and flowers that bloomed in
friendly companionship with the humbler growths com
mon to the kitchen garden.
There was little dew, so she trod and re-trod the soft
turf paths, her head bent her ears dead to the melody
that stole out of the adjacent woods, where a thrush waa
sending a clear, thrilling song trembling into the still
air.
To and fro she glided, looking, in the light wrap
sho had thrown round her, like some uuquiet ghost,
shadowy and unreal iu the gathering shades. The fra
grance of a cigar made hor look np, to see her father
close at hand, he having come up unheard on the soft
gross.
Flinging away his cigar, lie turned and walked at her
sido.
"Emily," he began, "I have something to say to
you, but I dou't know quite how to say it"
As she did not assist him by a reply, he weut on, af
ter a pauso
" Things have not turned out quite as I expected,
and I can't see how to better them. You havo been here
a mouth now time enough to be quite settled down aud
at homo."
A sigh was tho only answer when he stopped, but it
said as much as words.
" It is hard on you, poor child," he said, ohoeking
the echo of her sigh, ami knitting his brows with a per
plexed look, "very hard. I thought a quiet home
would Ite enough. I forgot that you were accustomed
to other ways of living. In short, my girl, I see you are
not happy here with us. I have transplanted you, and
the soil dou't suit. What's to be dona'"
" It cau not le hol)od," she said, wearily, stopping
to lean on a littlo gate that opened Into a wotxL
" Can't it?" said Milward, stopping, too. " I won t
keep you against your will, I aupiose we have been
separated too many years ever to for you ever to fool
like a daughter."
There was silence letwoon them, but the thrush still
poured fourth his jubilant notes.
" You seo it all oomoa to this," tho farmer continued.
" I have brought you here and it doesn't answer. You
shall go book to your old life."
" How can I?" asked Emily, with a sob.
" Thoro waa more than one of your old friends offered
you a homo. Yon have spoken of a Miss Homclody
who asked you to go abroad with her. do. Write and
toll her that you have changed your mind. Go where
you like You know better than I do what ways there
are. I will provide you with means as I have done be.
fore."
" And you?"
" I ? Never mind me. I would rather do without
you than have you look so spiritless. It's ouly another
of my blunders."
A letter recently received oame into Emily's mind, In
which a friend begged her to join in a trip to Europe
an invitation she had put aside as out of the question.
Her heart leaod with a quick sense of frsedom, ami her
head rose hopefully.
" There would always be this home you could come
back to-if you were tired, if yon wanted rest or change.
Perhaps it would be best for you. Take week or so to
think it over, and then tell me what you'd like best to
da"