Harry Joscelyn; vol. 3 of 3Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
General
Harry Joscelyn; vol. 3 of 3
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Families -- England -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
“Oh, I should know him,” cried Lydia. She held her pretty head high. She
was very sure of most things. “After you are grown up you don’t change
so much. He might not know me, but I should know him wherever I saw him.
Ah, how delightful it would be to bring him back to you!” said Lydia,
throwing her arms round her mother. The words and the arms were alike
sweet. Nobody had given Mrs. Joscelyn this food for her heart in the old
days.
“My darling!” she said; “but I see no chance for you to go abroad, far
less--far less----”
“There is no telling what may happen,” said Liddy, “everybody, you know,
goes abroad now.”
But Mrs. Joscelyn shook her head. She saw the practical difficulties
here.
CHAPTER II.
A NEW COUSIN.
Lydia had indeed as little prospect of going abroad as any girl could
have. Her own kindred dreamt of no such indulgences, and she had no
friends likely to suggest them. In these days people stayed still where
their home was, and did not think of the continued changes and absences
which make up our modern life--though the spirit of travel was beginning
to be in the air, and younger spirits, even in the Fell-country, began
to form dreams on the subject. Perhaps there never was a time when the
idea of travelling was not attractive to the young, and when Italy was
not a name to conjure withal. Lydia Joscelyn had read everything that
fell into her hands all her life, even the Book of Beauty, which her
brother-in-law, Philip Selby, presented to her with an inscription on
the flyleaf, at Christmas. Half the stories, and half, almost all, the
poetry there, bore reference to “the sunny South.” She was resolute to
go “abroad” some time or other; to live among the dark-eyed Antonios and
lovely Rosalbas of romance. And there, she had made up her mind, she
would find Harry, and bring him back to her mother. It was her dream.
Whenever she had nothing else to do she thought of it, and represented
to herself how she should find him, how he would try to conceal himself
from her, and by what wonderful ruses and clever expedients she would
discover his secret and prove him to be her brother. It is not to be
supposed that there did not mingle in Lydia’s dreams, visions of some
other figure still more attractive than that of her brother, who having
been five-and-twenty when he disappeared, ten years ago, was according
to her calculation “quite old” by this time. It is not quite certain
that she did not expect him to be grey-haired, and a little decrepit;
but there would be some friend, some protector, some handsome young
count, or even prince, who would have afforded the stranger hospitality,
and in whom Liddy felt the possible hero of her life to be embodied. He
was quite vague, except a pair of beautiful eyes; there was nothing at
all about him else that she was certain of; but those eyes looked out of
the mists upon her, with every kind of tender and delightful look. He
would help her, could any one doubt, to bring Harry home? and
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