ON SILVER WINGS.
“ NOT even a piano, Di!” said Jasper Seaton. “How can you manage without one?”
“ I can practise on the one in the nursery.”
“Why didn't you move it up here?”
“ It wasn't mine.”
“And are all these precious belongings yours?” asked Jasper, looking round the room.
“ Every one. Mrs. Seaton gave me every one of them. It’s the rocking-chair that Dolly used to have, and the nursery table. I couldn't do without a chair and table.”
“ But why didn't you ask for the piano as well?”
“ Oh, that would have been too much to ask for—the piano is worth so much more. Besides,” added Diana, drawing up her head, I with a little dignified movement, “a piano is a luxury, and one can well do without luxuries.”
Jasper regarded Diana in amazement. Could she be in earnest?
She was rocking backwards and forwards, with her eyes half closed, as though she were contemplating something afar off. Her black dress made her look slighter even than usual, and there was a more thoughtful expression on her face. She had certainly grown older-looking in the two months that he had been absent. She was beginning to appear quite womanly.
“ I will order the old piano to be brought up,” said Jasper. “You may as well have it, as the rest of the rubbish you have collected.”
“ Oh, thank you, thank you! That will be charming. A piano of my own! How very good of you, Jasper.” And she clapped her hands in childish delight; then, suddenly checking herself, she said, in a half repentant tone, “ But I know it is a luxury. I could really have done without it. I did not ask for it, you know, because it was a superfluity—”
“ No, you did not ask for it. I give it to you as a free gift that is worth nothing—”
“Nothing!” ejaculated Diana; and the host of sound that she had elicited from the ancient keys seemed filling the space around, and overpowering her in a burst of harmony —a great burst of many-voiced music of a thousand modulations, that yet blended into one glorious strain. A sudden light came into her eyes—“Nothing! Oh, Jasper! Music is heaven.”
“ What do you know about heaven, Di?” asked Jasper, in a scornful tone.
“ Not much,” said Diana, with a little sigh. “ I am afraid I am a heathen.”
The words brought back curiously to Jasper's mind the day of Diana's arrival at Broadmead. Could she be thinking of it also? Could she have understood and treasured up his mother’s speech. No—Diana was not thinking of it; though that day had ever stood out prominently in her memory. Her first impression of Mrs. Seaton had never been eradicated; and Jasper shared in the unfavourable judgment, though in a slighter degree. The judgment also became modified as time stole on; for Jasper, despite his uncertain,-wayward temper, endeavoured to minister to the pleasures of his ward, and occasionally had taken her rides on an old brown pony; until one day she fell off, and sprained her wrist and ankle, and then Mrs. Seaton put a stop to the expeditions.
After that, Jasper went away, so that their budding friendship was nipped before it was ripe; and when Madame de Mouline came to stay with her mother, and won Diana's youthful heart by her gentleness and beauty, Mrs. Seaton and her son went down in the child’s estimation in proportion as Anne de Mouline rose.
There seemed a great gulf between them, which Di could not bridge over. Madame de Mouline was so good, so charming—a benevolent fairy—a queen, with all the virtues under the sun—an angel, by whose side Mrs. Seaton and Jasper became ogres and powers of darkness.
Madame de Mouline was recovering from a dangerous illness; and Diana was content to sit for hours watching her, without speaking. If she could only look at the white, spiritual face, with the soft, dove-like eyes, with their loving expression, it was enough for her. It seemed to bring to the child that which its hungry heart longed for unconsciously, the love of a being superior to itself.
The great longing implanted in every human heart, but too often crushed out of it by adverse circumstances, by injudicious training, injustice, mismanagement, and misconception—Adoration, is an inborn impulse of humanity; but the teachers of the world have not found it out—or, at any rate, have not turned it to account.