Along with Mr. Christopher, Hester invited Miss Dasomma to come and spend a few days to help her celebrate her birthday.

—Forty-Nine —

A Birthday Gift

Hester’s birthday was the sweetest of summer days, and Hester looked a perfect summer-born woman. After breakfast all except the mother went out for a walk. Hester was little inclined to talk, and the major was in a thoughtful, brooding mood. Miss Dasomma and Mr. Raymount alone conversed. Mr. Raymount had taken them to a certain spot for the sake of the view, but Hester had fallen a little behind, and Christopher went back to meet her.

“You are thinking of your brother,” he said in a tone that made her feel grateful.

“Yes,” she answered.

“I knew by your eyes,” he returned. “Why don’t you tell me something about him?”

As they walked and talked, he drew her from her sadness with gentle words about children and death, and the look and reality of things. And so they wandered about the moor for a little while before joining the others.

Mr. Raymount was much pleased with Christopher, and even Corney found himself drawn to his side, feeling, though he did not know it, a strength in him that offered protection.

The day went on in the simplest, pleasantest fashion. After lunch, Hester opened her piano, and asked Miss Dasomma to sit down and play. A rosy conscious silence pervaded the summer afternoon and the ancient drawing-room, in which the listeners were one here and one there—except Corney and “Mrs. Corney,” as for love of Mark she liked to be called, on a sofa side by side, Saffy on the floor playing with a white kitten. Mr. Raymount sat in a great soft chair with a book in his hand, listening more than reading. His wife lay on a couch, and soon passed into dreams of pleasant sounds. The major stood erect by Miss Dasomma, a little behind her, with his arms folded across his chest, Hester sat on a stool beside her mother and held her sleeping hand, and Christopher sat on a low window-seat where the balmiest of perfumed airs freely entered. He could neither play nor sing—at least anything more than a common psalm-tune to lead the groans of his poor—and understood little of music. But there was in him a whole sea of musical delight.

Following an early dinner, the major stood, raised his glass, and proposed the health of his cousin Hester, and then made a little speech in her honour. But his praise did not make Hester feel awkward, for praise which is the odour of love is genuine and true and therefore does not sicken its hearers.

“And now, cousin Hester,” concluded the major, “you know that I love you like a child of my own. But it is a good thing you are not, for if you were, then you would not be half so good or so beautiful or so wise or so accomplished as you are! Will you honour me by accepting this little gift, which I hope will serve to make this blessed day yet a trifle more pleasant to look back on when I am gone and when Mark has got his old majie back. I hope you will fill this gift with many good deeds of the sort which only you know how to perform.”