“Gabrielle, you should not stay out so late alone.”

“It isn’t late, sister dear, for a summer’s evening. The church clock struck eight just as I turned into the little path across the field.”

The first speaker, who was the eldest, raised her head from her work, and, looking at Gabrielle, said:

“For you it is too late. You are not well, Gabrielle. You are quite flushed and tired. Where have you been?”

“Nowhere but in the village,” Gabrielle said.

She paused a moment, then added, rather hurriedly:

“I was detained by a poor sick woman I went to see. You don’t know her, Joanna, she has just come here.”

“And who is she?” Joanna asked.

“She is a widow woman, not young, and very poor. She spoke to me in the road the other day, and I have seen her once or twice since. She had heard our name in the village, and to-night I promised her that you or Bertha would go and call on her. She has been very unhappy, poor thing. You will go, sister?”

“Certainly. You should have told me before. Go, now, and take off your bonnet. You have walked too quickly home on this hot night.”

Another lady entered the room just as Gabrielle was leaving it, and addressed her almost as the first had done:

“You are late, Gabrielle. What has kept you out so long?”

“Joanna will tell you,” Gabrielle answered. “I have only been finding some work for you, sister,” and with a smile she went away.

They were two stern, cold women—Joanna and Bertha Vaux. They lived together—they two and Gabrielle—in a dark old-fashioned house, close to a little village, in one of the southern counties of England. It was a pretty picturesque village, as most English villages are, with little clusters of white-washed, rose-twined cottages sprinkled through it, and a little rough-stone country church, covered to the very top of the spire so thickly with ivy, that it looked like a green bower. Here and there were scattered a few pleasant houses of the better sort, standing apart in sunny gardens, and scenting the air around with the smell of their sweet flowers.

But the house in which Joanna and Bertha and Gabrielle lived was always gloomy and dark and cold. It was a square brick house, with damp, unhealthy evergreens planted in front, upon which the sun never shone—summer or winter; the flags which paved the front of the door and the steps of the door, were greened over with cheerless moss; and fungi grew up in the seams of the pavement. The windows, with their thick, black, clumsy frames, almost all faced the north, so that the cold, dark rooms were never lighted up with sunshine; but looked even more dreary in the summer time, with the empty fireless grates, than on winter days. Yet the house seemed to suit well the tastes of the two elder of the Misses Vaux.

It had stood empty for some years before they took it; for its last occupier had committed suicide in one of the rooms—it was just the house for such a thing to have happened in—and the superstitious horror which the event created in neighborhood coupled with the dark and cheerless appearance of the house, were the causes why it remained so long unlet and so much neglected.

About six years ago, the Misses Vaux had come quite strangers to the village; and, in a short time were settled as tenants of the lonely house. They were young women then—not more than three and four-and-twenty; but already grave, severe, and stern. They dressed always in mourning, and rarely was a smile seen on their cold lips; but they spent their time almost entirely in performing acts of charity, in visiting the sick, and in making clothes for the poor. For miles round they were known and looked up to with mingled reverence and awe. But theirs was a strange, soulless charity—more like the performance of heavy penance than of acts of love.

There was a mystery about their antecedents. No one knew whence they came, or who they were; they had neither relations nor friends; they lived alone in their gloomy house, and only at long intervals—sometimes of many months—did they receive even a single letter. They were two sad, weary women, to whom life seemed to bring no pleasure, but to be only a burden, which it was their stern duty to bear uncomplainingly for a certain number of years.

Gabrielle—the beautiful, sunny-natured Gabrielle—was not with them when they first came to the village; but three years ago she had joined them, and the three had lived together since. She was then about fifteen;—a bright, joyous, beautiful creature, without a thought of sadness in her, or the faintest shadow of the gloom that rested on her sisters. Even now, although she had lived for three years in the chilling atmosphere that surrounded them, she was still unchanged, almost even as much a child—as gay, thoughtless, and full of joy, as when she first came. It reminded one of a snowdrop blooming in the winter, forcing itself through the very midst of the surrounding snow, to see how she had grown up with this cold, wintry environment. But the gloomy house looked less gloomy now that Gabrielle lived in it. There was one little room with a window looking to the south (one of three that had a sunny aspect,) which she took to be her own, and there she would sit for many hours, working by the open window, singing joyously, with the sunlight streaming over her, and the breath of the sweet flowers that she had planted in a garden as close under her window as the sun would come, stealing deliciously into the room. It was quite a pleasant little nook, with a view far over green undulating hills and yellow waving corn-fields, which sparkled and glittered like plains of moving gold in the deep bright rays of the setting sun. And Gabrielle, sitting here and gazing on them, or roaming alone amongst them, was quite happy and light-hearted. Even her stern sisters were thawed and softened by her presence; and, I think, felt as much love for her as it was in their nature to feel for any one; for, indeed, it was impossible to resist altogether her cheering influence, which spread itself over every thing around her with the warmth of sunshine.

On this evening on which our tale begins, and for some days previous to it, Gabrielle had been graver and quieter than she often was. She joined her sisters now in the common sitting-room; and, with her work in her hand, sat down beside them near the window, but she answered their few questions about her evening ramble with only feigned gayety, as though she was occupied with other thoughts, or was too weary to talk; and, presently, as the twilight gathered round them, they all sank into silence. The one window looked across the road in which the house stood, to a dark plantation of stunted trees that grew opposite: a very gloomy place, which, even in the hottest summer-day, had always a chill, wintry feeling, and from which even now a damp air was rising; and, entering the open window, was spreading itself through the room.

“How unlike a summer evening it is in this room!” Gabrielle suddenly broke the silence by exclaiming almost impatiently. “I wish I could, even for once, see a ray of sunshine in it. I have often wondered how any one could build a house in this situation.”

“And do you never imagine that there are people who care less for sunshine than you do, Gabrielle?” Bertha asked, rather sadly.

“Yes, certainly, sister; but still it seems to me almost like a sin to shut out the beautiful heaven’s sunlight as it has been shut out in this house. Winter and summer, it is always alike. If it was not for my own bright little room up stairs, I think I never should be gay here at all.”

“Well, Gabrielle, you need not complain of the gloominess of this room just now,” Miss Vaux said. “At nine o’clock on an August evening I suppose all rooms look pretty much alike.”

“Oh, sister, no!” Gabrielle cried. “Have you never noticed the different kinds of twilight? Here, in this house, it is always winter twilight, quite colorless, and cold, and cheerless, but in other places, where the sun has shone, it is warm, and soft, and beautiful; even for an hour, or longer, after the sun has quite set, a faint rosy tinge, like a warm breath, seems to rest upon the air, and to shed such peace and almost holiness over every thing. That was the kind of twilight, I think of it so often, that there used to be at home. I remember, so very, very long ago, how I used to sit on the ground at my mother’s feet in the summer evenings, looking out through the open window at the dear old garden, where every thing was so very still and quiet that it seemed to me the very trees must have fallen asleep, and how she used to tell us fairy stories in the twilight. Sisters, do you remember it?” Gabrielle asked, her voice tremulous, but not altogether, so it seemed, with emotion that the recollection had called up.

“I do,” Miss Vaux said, in a voice clear and cold, and hard as ice. From Bertha there came no answer.

“It is one of the few things I recollect about her,” Gabrielle said again, very softly, “the rest is almost all indistinct, like a half-forgotten dream. I was only four years old, you say, Joanna, when she died?”

“You know it; why do you ask?” Miss Vaux said, harshly and quickly.

There was a pause. It was so dark that none of their faces could be seen, but one might have told, from the quick nervous way in which, unconsciously, Gabrielle was clasping and unclasping her hand, that there was some struggle going on within her. At last, very timidly, her voice trembling, though she tried hard to steady it, she spoke again.

“Sisters, do not be angry with me. Often, lately I have wished so very much to ask you some things about my mother. Oh, let me ask them now. Dear sisters, tell me why it is that you never speak to me, or almost allow me to speak, of her? Is it because it grieves you so much to think of her death, or is there any other cause”—her voice sank so low that it was almost a whisper—“why her name is never mentioned amongst us? I have kept silence about this for so long, for I knew you did not wish to speak of it; but, oh sisters, tell me now! Ought I not to know about my own mother?”

“Hush!” Miss Vaux said, in a voice stern and harsh. “Gabrielle, you do not know what you are asking. Let it be enough for you to learn that any thing I could tell you of your mother could give you nothing but pain to hear—pain which we would gladly spare you yet, knowing, as we so well do, the great bitterness of it. I ask you for all our sakes, yours as much as ours, never again be the first to mention your mother’s name!”

She had risen from her seat, and stood upright before Gabrielle, the outline of her tall, dark figure showing clearly against the window. In her voice there was not one trace of emotion; her whole manner was hard, and cold, and unimpassioned; like that of one who had, long ago, subdued all gentle feelings.

Gabrielle’s tears were falling fast, but she made no answer to Miss Vaux’s words. She stood much in awe of both her sisters, especially of the eldest, and knew well how hopeless all remonstrance with her would be.

After a few moments Bertha laid her hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder, saying, with something of gentleness in her voice:

“You distress yourself too much, my child. Trust more in us, Gabrielle. We would try to keep sorrow from you; do not make it impossible.”

“Yes, yes; I know it is meant kindly toward me,” Gabrielle said, gently, “but you forget that I suffer from being in ignorance. I cannot forget that you are concealing something from me.”

“Which I would to God I could conceal from you forever,” Miss Vaux said. “Gabrielle, foolish child, do not seek for sorrow; it will come quickly enough of itself;” and she turned from her with some muttered words that her sister could not hear.

Gabrielle tried to speak again; but Bertha raised her hand warningly, and they were all silent; Gabrielle with her face bowed down upon her hands in the thick twilight.

“We will close the window and have lights,” Bertha said, after some time had passed; “the night air is getting cold.”

With a deep sigh Gabrielle rose, and drew down the open window, standing there for some minutes alone, and looking out upon the dark evergreen grove.

——